When we switched Internet providers in our house, I had to relocate the Internet router and reconnect the network cables.
I first tried to connect my own PC (via a labeled patchfield), but could not get a connection to the router despite attempts with three (longer) network cables. I found the experience incredibly perplexing—I knew three three cables could not all be broken, and I knew I was missing something, but not what. But I eventually realized my error:
In a seemingly unrelated fact, I had traded rooms with a roommate some months prior. Because the patchfield was labeled with person names, not rooms, it no longer reflected reality from that point on. (I even figured at some point that it needed to be relabelled, but then forgot.) Whenever all network cables were connected to the router, this basically did not matter (except for LAN port numbering). But when only one network cable was connected, it made all the difference.
When I want to set a recurring reminder for something, I use Google Calendar’s email notifications. I wanted to set a reminder for monthly reviews at the end of the month, and so created a calendar event set to repeat “Monthly on day 31”.
Soon after, I discovered something that incredibly surprised me. Can you guess what it was?
The calendar didn’t generate events & reminders for any month with <31 days. This was not the desired outcome for an ostensibly monthly reminder!
I consider my memory to be terrible and make do with tools like such reminders. If I hadn’t noticed this problem right then, I might not have noticed it for a long time.
Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality.
Here are some instances where I learned something I found so surprising as to e.g. audibly shout “what?!”:
When we switched Internet providers in our house, I had to relocate the Internet router and reconnect the network cables.
I first tried to connect my own PC (via a labeled patchfield), but could not get a connection to the router despite attempts with three (longer) network cables. I found the experience incredibly perplexing—I knew three three cables could not all be broken, and I knew I was missing something, but not what. But I eventually realized my error:
In a seemingly unrelated fact, I had traded rooms with a roommate some months prior. Because the patchfield was labeled with person names, not rooms, it no longer reflected reality from that point on. (I even figured at some point that it needed to be relabelled, but then forgot.) Whenever all network cables were connected to the router, this basically did not matter (except for LAN port numbering). But when only one network cable was connected, it made all the difference.
When I want to set a recurring reminder for something, I use Google Calendar’s email notifications. I wanted to set a reminder for monthly reviews at the end of the month, and so created a calendar event set to repeat “Monthly on day 31”.
Soon after, I discovered something that incredibly surprised me. Can you guess what it was?
The calendar didn’t generate events & reminders for any month with <31 days. This was not the desired outcome for an ostensibly monthly reminder!
I consider my memory to be terrible and make do with tools like such reminders. If I hadn’t noticed this problem right then, I might not have noticed it for a long time.