logancg

I'm wondering how you manage thinking about many different not-well-formed ideas in your research process.

I find the academic research lifestyle highly variable: at times too dense with ideas and things to do, at other times less so. During the dense times I sometimes have trouble lingering on the few high-value ideas with increasing returns to time-spent-thinking-about-them.

I'm looking for climate science fiction books -- especially ones that combine realistic hard science/technology with a dystopian, climate-changed future.

My goal is to emotionally convince myself of the need to act urgently on climate change. I am only intellectually committed.

I would love your recommendations!

Every day, my colleague Jonny and I give each other N handshakes, where N is defined by:

N = 2 * (closest lower prime to today's date) % today's date

This has worked well (today, for example, is the 15th, so we shook hands (13 * 2) % 15 = 11 times today.

But we want to increase the complexity of it for fun, so we're looking to add some random process. But how do two humans generate a random number just by talking to each other? (We don't want to use a computer.)

So the idea is, we need to generate the most amount of entropy and output some pseudo-random number... but it has to be done through a human process (like talking.)

Any ideas? Thought this crowd may enjoy the question.

This is not a homework question... we actually do do this and are genuinely seeking your help.