HOLES

The topic of holes has come up a lot recently. M brought it up to me first, in saying that a good thesis should have a certain amount of holes, in that someone had been exploring their interest and in the process discovering a series of questions, they left holes(questions) that have yet to be answered. I’d like to think about more about this sentiment. It’s like cleaning a carpet, the more you clean it the more shit you reveal. I guess a thesis can be described as a process in which one tries to balance of the amount of holes in something yet give it enough support that it still feels substantial.

In attending so many talks recently, I have taken interest in the QnA section that occurs after the lecture. There is a certain art to the QnA.. the first is to get the obvious questions out of the way, the general clarifications and making sure the basic “holes” are plugged. That is really what establishes the framework for the following conversation. I feel like the best versions of this is when the answerer is able to weave the questions into a cohesive conversation that supports the argument that they were making from the beginning.

I was learning about how Burial makes his beats today, and how he uses a rather old school program where he can see the waveform separately? I’m not sure of the exact mechanics that make it different but it seems more old-school regardless. Which makes me think a lot about tools. Specifically the extremely expensive vertical mouse that I bought recently. I bought it partly to force myself to use it more, which is a terrible reason to make any purchase because really I am weakening my willpower. There is something about really basic tools that are more valuable than the object alone, and that its basic-ness affords a kind of value in itself. Maybe it is in their simplicity and “incompleteness” that the user has more freedom to make decisions. And that it is harder to become sensitive to the decision-making process if in the design of the tool it had already made the decision for you..

Regardless, the incompleteness should be the result of a rigorous process of testing, not from the lack of decision-making.

/shiftposter