megane-kun

I tend not to think too much about my handwriting, but that’s not what you’re asking. However, let me just address that “I tend not to think too much…” bit.

Many people, including myself, don’t think about their handwriting past a certain point (having their own style, being happy about how it looked, or have stopped caring about how it looked), or when it doesn’t really matter (making a quick note, for example). The focus is more about what is being communicated, and how legible it needs to be to serve the purpose.

Now, to answer your questions. I am assuming something closer to calligraphy, as this is the mode that I think is closest to what you’re asking about.

1. How are you focused mentally?

   When I think it matters, I focus on the act itself. Writing in this mode takes a certain amount focus, and lack of focus can manifest in uneven strokes or movements that result in, when writing in cursive, strokes that don’t belong. However, too much focus can result in the same, uneven strokes or worse, characters that look uneven. Keeping a good balance between focus and confidence and spontaneity yields the best results.

2. Do you think about other things at the same time?

   No, my focus on this mode is total.

3. Are you focused on the lines, the imaginary half line, the staring points, the previous letter alignment, spacing, what comes next, what will fit on the line, the artistic expression of style, or simply the pure minimal effort required to communicate written thought?

   On this mode, the focus is on the composition not just of the letter, but also the line, and also the entire snippet or piece of writing. How the letter would look in relation with the others, how the word looks in relation to the line, how the line would look in relation to the entire thing.

4. Do you often find yourself bored and evolving or changing your style of writing as an outlet of secondary creativity along with whatever task is at hand?

   I used to change my handwriting style, but now it has coalesced into a few: cursive and print. And for print, one is “all caps” and the other has lowercase. My default is now “all caps” print, but sometimes I switch to cursive. The print with lowercase is the rarest, and takes the most focus for me.

6. Are you concerned with the impact your writing style has upon others, or are you only concerned with the expansion of your own short/long term memory and usefulness?

   For cursive, I don’t tend to worry about legibility, as it’s mostly used for notes for my own consumption. For cursive, the only concern is if it’s legible for myself. When I use print, I tend to believe it’s generally legible enough (coming from my training in technical drafting), so it’s not really a concern.

7. Are you aware of the loose correlation between intellect and handwriting? What does that mean to you personally.

   No, I am not aware of that connection. I believe anyone can learn how to write legibly, given enough training and practice. Maybe the capacity for practice is the connection to intellect, but I think it’s more connected to the capacity for discipline than anything else.

8. Are the ergonomics a point of conscious focus?

   Ergonomics is a consideration before the act, not during, so no. Keeping the proper posture is a consideration during the act, but at this point, I consider it a given. Once I made sure the writing surface is stable enough, and I can maintain a good posture throughout the act, I just try to maintain it throughout the act.

Thanks for the recommendation!

It’s infinite, though it’d also be intriguing to imagine them being limited to a number of slots (3, 15, etc).

The ability to reset my life from and resume from any “save point”.

For the purposes of this power there are two kinds of “save points”:

• autosave points (yearly, on one’s birthday)
• regular save points (done at-will as part of the power)

Why? Who hasn’t indulged in the what-ifs of life? What if I can revisit certain points in my life and relive those what-ifs myself?

If it’s a civilization that hasn’t yet had a writing system, a writing system.

However, I will teach them a (semi-)featural alphabet, kinda like if the Hangeul jamo were its own alphabet. It’d be fun how long the orthography will diverge from the spoken sounds, and how fossilized the orthography can be–and more interestingly, how they might evolve the writing system.

If it’s a civilization that already is using a writing system, emojis that they can use alongside their writing system. It’d be interesting to see if they’d eventually turn into ideograms for human feelings and thoughts.

I was actually thinking that the first isn’t necessary given that the second already limits breathing. No one can ever hold their breath for long, and an assumption I made (which I should have made explicit) is that you can’t use the power unconsciously. So if you lose consciousness (like from holding your breath for long), time resumes.

So I guess the second bullet point is all that it needs, it limits the power from being abused. If one can “power through” all the stopped air particles and whatnot (another superpower–super strength) and have quite an amount of air in one’s lungs, one can actually do some stuff with it. It’d be weird though, as dropped things will just float midair (no time to start falling).

I can imagine someone stopping time for a bit, move all the way to the other end of the room, and make it seem like one “teleported” from one end of the room to another.

But yeah, might be limiting, but in conjunction with a few other superpowers (like super strength) it can be quite useful.

The way I imagined it, the first stipulation is the “price” of the power. It also discourages someone from just stopping time for “long periods of time”. The third stipulation is a result of the second–if time is stopped except for your own body, your body will continue to age. But this will only be relevant or noticeable if the user is making too much use of their time stop power, that they spend years in time stop.

But yes, I think in terms of limiting the power’s OP’ness, only the second stipulation is relevant.

Time stop limited to oneself.

Stipulations:

• “half-life” of half your life expectancy (exact figure, as the genie would know how long you’d live). this means that every second you spend in time stop, there’s a chance of some particle/cell/molecule in your body just disappearing.
• complete time stop outside your body, no movement (other than expected due to quantum fluctuations). this means you cannot move, nor breathe, nor do anything. but you can think, formulate a plan, whatever so long as no part of your body moves.
• you age according to your own body’s reference frame. if you spent a cumulative of two years in time stop, you age two more years more than your birth date would indicate.

I think these stipulations make the power useless outside of a handful of situations.

I tend not to, but only because I don’t post a lot.

But I’ll echo some of the answers here and say that if I would delete my post it’d be because:

• it was a duplicate
• it was posted on the wrong community
• it was not the “right kind of post” for the community
• it offers nothing of value

And fears that my post will be one of those listed above keeps me from posting.

As for comments, I also tend not to delete, but might if:

• it was a duplicate
• it was posted on the wrong thread
• it was not the “right kind of comment” for the post
• it offers nothing of value (but I tend to let this be anyways)

And again, fears that my comment will be one of those listed keeps me from commenting.

If my kids are weebs with poor eyesight, it can serve as their nickname, I guess. Otherwise, they can pretend it’s just an uncommon surname.

No one said sloth yet? Alright.

It’d be a very boring show, with me just lazing around, or speaking really slowly, the kids would be bored to tears.

Yeah, I alluded to that in an earlier response here (people who grew up with analog clocks do not really think of multiplication when reading off the clock), but I definitely didn’t explicitly say that. Also, the connection between multiplication and reading off the minute hand was briefly mentioned when we were taught multiplication (specifically, the times table for five) presumably as a means to reinforce multiplication (by connecting them with what we supposedly previously learned).

I suppose my point is if I am to teach how to read an analog clock to an adult who didn’t grow up with them, I’ll mention multiplication as a means to explain what’s happening. Even with analog clocks with no marks at all, there’s an assumption that we’re supposed to remember where the marks are—but since we’ve made an association between the shapes and the time, we can safely skip that step.

We’re just talking past each other.

If that’s your idea of a good time, then have at it.

I haven’t seen a “37” in an analog clock.

There’s a 7, there’s 8, and there are four spaces (which may or may not be marked) in between them.

Now, to the main topic:

But out of curiosity, do you really go “long pointer at 8, 8x5=40” internally when reading the clock?

No. But that’s because due to experience and exposure to analog clocks all my life—which, again, is not something that should be assumed nowadays. When I was taught how to read analog clocks (preschool or very early in primary school, IIRC—so, yes, before I was taught multiplication), I was told to “count by fives”. Hence: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 and 00.

Now, when we were taught the multiplication table for 5 (maybe it’s just my teacher) we revisited how to read off minutes from the clock (digital displays are still rare back then).

Reading off the minutes from where the minute hand is pointed. If the minute hand is pointed at 8, you’d have to multiply 8 by 5 to get 40.

Sorry, I added it in the edit.

Actually, even in that case, reading off the minutes hand off an analog clock doesn’t involve the times table for 12, so your original claim holds.

I think a lot of the backlash against rote memorization is the rote part. Without understanding what you’re memorizing—treating the times table as a list of sequences (times table for 2, and then 4, and then 5, etc), the mental load memorizing it becomes unbearably high.

In my case, I was lucky enough to have been made to understand what’s going on (4 groups of 8 items = 40) before being asked to memorize the times table. The visualization also helped me memorize, as well as some tricks (what’s 6×7? 6×6 = 36, right? add 6 to arrive at 42) that as I memorize more and more of the table, become less and less necessary.

Analog clocks.

If the hour hand is pointing just past 1, and the minutes hand is very near 8, what time is the clock showing?

Now, ofc, it’s becoming somewhat of a lost art, with the increasing prevalence of digital clock displays, so, yeah. Personally, I just developed an intuition for it, having grown up in a time when digital clock displays are rare, and analog clocks are commonplace.

EDIT/PS:

Actually, even in that case, reading off the minutes hand off an analog clock doesn’t involve the times table for 12, so your original claim holds.

Yeah, even if’d think of it as a flat 20% tax on top (as an estimate), it’d still be a bit too much for my mental maths.

Let’s see… If I’ve got 30 USD running total, then I estimate a 20% total tax… No, let’s do it as 25%. That’d be around 37.50 USD with the tax estimate. Doing it as 20%, it should be around 36 USD.

Doing the calculation with 17.5% via a calculator, it is 35.25USD. Doing it with 20% seems to be close enough, 25% a bit too much. But that depends on what’s the total tax percentage–or if it even works that way. It’s something I’m too unamerican to understand.

Oh, I grew up during the time where calculators were actually forbidden even in Trigonometry exams (we were provided the necessary values along with the exam questions, or a table of sines/cosines/tangents). So yeah, it reinforced my knowledge of arithmetic (by basically forcing me to use it again and again).

And indeed, as I’ve mentioned in a top-level response to the thread, I’ve basically have my times tables (up to 10–because that’s what I was taught) memorized. I can recall it within a couple of seconds.

However, mental arithmetic usually just gets used when I estimate stuff. Mostly with groceries, but sometimes for estimating travel times. For example, if I left at 14:00, reached the midway point at around 15:15, I’d estimate I’d arrive at around 16:30, add a bit of leeway and say I’d arrive around 17:00.

You have six minutes to make 9 moves, how many seconds per move? And don’t take too long because the calculation eats into your time.

360 seconds in 6 minutes. Make 9 moves → 40 seconds per move. I actually took a few seconds realizing that 6 minutes = 360 seconds tho (went with 5 minutes = 300 seconds, 6 minutes = 300 seconds + 60 seconds).