In my opinion, I’m probably wrong

I’ve previously written about the value I’ve found in writing. I want to tell people the things I’m thinking. I want to share myself with others. Part of that feeling, that impulse, is a confidence, spiced with a dash of hubris, that I have something valuable to say.

Do you, though?

Hmm, good question, me.

Thanks

I think that I do have a valuable perspective. I don’t think it’s unique, by any means, but there are elements of the way I look at the world which I think are really useful. I wish that other people thought more like me in those ways.

Sounds like you believe your way of thinking is better

Well, no, not really. I don’t think that I have the One True Insight into human nature, or that my opinions are always well founded and correct. I’m sure that parts of my current worldview are not quite right, and that some things I’m just plain wrong about. I’m never going to be right about everything. What’s more, I don’t even know which things I’m wrong about!

In fact, that’s a really important piece of my outlook on the world: I don’t know what I don’t know. Socrates said about—

Oh, now you’re comparing yourself to the father of Western philosophy?

Huh?

You’re about to say that Socrates thought the same way you do, right?

Well, there are elements in common, but—

Talk about hubris, huh?

That’s hardly—

Can you believe this guy?

Oh my god, I don’t think I’m Socrates. Can’t I cite someone famous without you saying that I think I’m basically them?

Well—

And don’t you think you’re just a tad overcommitted to the “inner dialogue” bit?

… Fine. Go ahead

Thank you. Now.

Socrates said about a conversation he had with someone:

I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.

Credit Wikipedia

Socrates isn’t saying that he’s fundamentally better than his conversation partner, though clearly he believes that his approach is better. Indeed, he appears reluctant to make any value judgments at all, or to claim that he knows anything valuable.

Now, Socrates was very much a philosopher, and so getting in the weeds about how and whether he knows what he knows (epistemology) is very much his thing. For myself, I think that stuff is really important, sure, but I don’t know too much about it. Not enough to discuss it expertly.

What I do know is that I often hear people present their opinions with a certainty that seems, well, unrealistic. If I might be wrong, where do I get off saying “No, this is definitely fact”?

.

.

Oh, right, I stopped using the inner dialogue conceit. You can talk now.

So I’m at your beck and call, am I?

Look, can you just ask the question I’m thinking of?

Fine, but we’re having words later. Ahem. “What, so people should never share their opinions?” Happy?

Uh, sure, thanks.

No, I don’t think that. People should be free, welcome, even encouraged to express their opinions. What bothers me is when someone is so sure that they’re right, that they think anyone who disagrees must have an ulterior motive. “Ploni must be dishonest,” thinks Almoni, “at least with themselves; otherwise, how could Ploni not arrive at the same conclusion as me?”

That doesn’t seem fair. Different people think differently, right? Disagreement doesn’t imply dishonesty

Yeah, that’s what I think. We all have different experiences informing who we are today. I’m a different Yossi today than I would be if I had gone to a different high school, or studied something else in college, or hadn’t moved to Seattle. I don’t know how those Yossis would differ from me, but I know that they would. They would be different people than I am.

I’m also a different person now than I was two years ago. Not all that different, but that Yossi hadn’t yet fallen in love, or had his heart broken, or gone through this absolute nightmare of a pandemic. He thought about the world somewhat differently than I do. That Yossi and I might disagree on a number of things. Without all of the things I’ve gone through, all the things I’ve seen and done, all the people I’ve met, the shape of who I am would be different.

Are you so good at changing your mind, then?

I try. I try really hard. And it’s not easy! There’s a great deal of comfort in knowing, believing, that the world is a certain way, and that you understand it. When things change, whether because your opinions change, or you learn new things, or the world around you changes, it’s disconcerting. It’s uncomfortable. It’s not a feeling I enjoy.

But it’s important. I don’t like being wrong, but I know that sometimes, I will be. So I need to be willing to ask, am I wrong about this? I need to be willing to change what I think, because I change, information changes, and sometimes, even reality changes. Look at the changing guidance around covid. Public health messaging about the pandemic has been really messy. Part—not all, certainly, but part—of the issue is that people aren’t used to authority saying “ignore what I told you yesterday, listen to me today.” And authority can be, has been, bad at telling people, “here’s what I know now, but this may change.”

I think that we would all benefit from a little less certainty. Many people who disagree with us would seem less malicious, less purposely obtuse. Disagreement feels less threatening when your worldview can accommodate changes. It’s okay to be wrong. It’s okay to change your mind.

Also try not to be a dick about it. That’s the real core of my worldview. And that’s hard, too.

Masking my anger

As I write this, I'm on a plane home to see my family. Because of covid, I haven't seen any of them in almost two years, since my grandmother died shortly before the pandemic. This is the longest I've ever gone without seeing my parents. I can't wait to give them and my sisters unreasonably tight hugs, to spend time with them, and hopefully to explore improving our relationships (a topic for another blog post; or, perhaps, something I should keep private, not to be shouting my family's particular dysfunctions from the rooftops).

Family is really important to me. It's why I've put myself in this situation which utterly terrifies me. This is my first flight since the end of 2019. I know that folks have been traveling for a while now, and airplane transmission isn't that high. I'm vaccinated, and I'm wearing my mask carefully. But I find myself looking daggers at other passengers who sit unmasked for minutes on end, not just to eat or drink, but to talk to each other, or when heading to the bathroom.

I don't want to care what these other people are doing. I hate the urge I feel to police them. Most people don't like being told what to do; I know I don't. They could respond badly, or at a minimum, think ill of me, which I always have trouble not caring about.

But seeing them unmasked feels very scary. I feel like they're being cavalier with their safety, my safety, and the safety of everyone around us, and everyone we'll see in the next two to fourteen days. I want to yell at them, "put your fucking mask on, asshole!" I want to plead with them, "please wear the mask, it would make me feel a whole lot better." I've considered calling a flight attendant and asking her to ask them to mask up. But I haven't.

I don't think their behavior indicates that they're necessarily awful people, who don't care about the safety of others; nor that they're necessarily idiots, who don't know anything about this disease, and haven't been paying attention to information about it; nor that they're necessarily scofflaws who think the rules ought not apply to them. My knowledge of who they are and why they do what they do is basically nonexistent. I have a small, very grainy picture of who they are, far from enough to judge them.

We tend to look at the actions of others and assume that they're the sort of people who would do the things we see them doing. We often fail to consider them as whole people, with changing moods and fluctuating capacity to think through their actions. On the other hand, when we analyze our own actions, or the actions of someone we know well, we tend to allow a lot more leeway. We have a much more nuanced understanding of why they might be doing something we disapprove of, and we're more likely to be patient and forgiving with them.

I don't know these people. I desperately wish that they, and all the other people on the plane and in the airports, were wearing their masks more like I do. But they're not me. They don't have my experiences, they haven't thought my thoughts. I do the things I do not just based on my situation, but also who I am, and what's happened to me. I can't expect other people to behave the same as me. Having confronted this, I feel robbed of my anger. My fellow passengers are no longer demons, but simply people I don't understand, and don't know how to get through to.

I remain, however, scared and deeply frustrated.

Doing what feels write

“I am a writer”. An article I read about writing points out that it’s pretty hard to become a writer without having said or written this sentence at some point, and encourages new writers to start by writing it and building from there. (In fact, that’s how I started this post.)

But why am I a writer? What is it that motivates me to record my thoughts, and publish them? I think it’s my desire to share myself with others. While I enjoy being on my own at times, I don’t like being lonely. If I can tell other people what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling, then I don’t feel unseen. I feel like I’m cared for. And I feel safer, because it’s less likely that others will misunderstand my actions and words as insensitive or unkind.

Sharing myself with others is something I’m driven to do. I’m quite talkative, and I’m entirely capable of talking your ear off. I’ve gotten better about it; I can be rather perceptive, and I try to check often with my listeners to make sure I’m not taking more than my share of time. And I think people usually enjoy talking with me. But still the opportunities to share are dwarfed by what I have to share.

Blogging feels different. I don’t feel like I’m keeping you captive because you’re afraid to insult me by walking away mid-conversation. You are welcome here, but I don’t want to trap you here. I don’t want to draw you in with

I really don’t. But I do yearn to be heard.

It’s more likely that I’ll stay small, I think. There are so many people out there competing for attention, there’s so much content to consume. I certainly can’t assume that many people will be drawn to my ideas, or that they’ll stick around. And I do want them to. Despite my belief that fame, success, and wealth are probably bad for you, I still seem to want these things.

So I’ll write

If you are reading this, thank you! I appreciate you. It’s an amorphous, uncertain appreciation. I don’t know who’s going to read this, or when. Perhaps I’ll get traction somewhere, somewhen, somehow, and people will flock to this and other posts. If it happens, perhaps by then I will no longer be quite the same person I am now, the one writing this.

For you who are reading this (hi Mom! for one) what does that feel like, for you and for me? What is it like, to have an audience spread out across time? What is it like, to be a part of that audience? We are connected through this medium by tenuous strands, you with me, you with each other. If you pluck the strands of my web, will I feel it? If you fell a tree in the forest of my imagination, will I hear it? And if I don’t, is that tree even a part of my reality?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Soldering on

Electronics work often involves connecting different components together to form an electrical connection, and there are a number of ways to do that. We’re all familiar with a very simple connection: wall plugs. A device that needs electricity in order to run needs an active electrical current, and if it doesn’t have its own power supply (like a battery or a car engine), it needs to connect to an external source. When you plug your vacuum cleaner into the wall, you temporarily connect the electrical innards of your vacuum with an electrical circuit that runs through the walls of your house.

The vacuum is a pretty simple case, because the only thing it needs from the electrical connection is power. Data can also be transferred through these connections. The cable that runs from the back of a desktop PC to the monitor uses the electricity to send data that the monitor can understand as instructions to display a certain pattern on the screen. Some cables can only send power, some can only send data, and some can do both. USB is an example of this last category.

The connections I’ve mentioned so far are all designed to be easily reversible. You push the plug into the socket, and it stays there until you pull it out. Maybe you use built-in screws to make it more secure. But the idea is that you want to be able to move a plug from one socket to another without too much bother. There are other connections that are more permanent, and that’s what I’m learning about right now. A central component of these connections is called solder.

Solder (pronounced “sodder” in the US) is a metal alloy that you can use to form secure electrical connections between pieces that start out separate. Solder conducts electricity, so if you have two wires and solder connects them, current can flow from one wire, through the solder, and into the second wire. Solder also has a relatively low melting point, only a few hundred degrees Celcius. It can be melted with hand tools, and applied to your components. This forms a solid connection, essentially making your wires into one connected piece.

Behold my very first soldering connection!

It is not great. It is exposed, and therefore not really safe. But it will conduct electricity from one wire into the other. Probably.

Solder itself is not entirely safe. It often contains lead, which is poisonous to humans when ingested. I’ve been using a Tin/Lead solder, so I’ve had to be careful to wash my hands before touching food or my face holes. But it’s hard! I’m touching my phone as I work on electronics, so I’m probably getting lead on it, and then I use my phone throughout the day. Is this safe? I’m not sure! 😬

Soldering: Day 2: Hup to, Solder!

On this day, I learned that soldering is hard, sometimes painful, and potentially expensive. I also learned that making mistakes can be fun!

I’m building a quadcopter drone first, before I even get started on the rocketdrone. There’s a lot that I don’t know about what goes into a drone, so it’s really hard to make informed design decisions about the rocket drone at this point. Like I discussed last time, you can split a problem up into separate components, and figure out how to solve problems more locally. I don’t want to be figuring out how drones work for the first time when I’m building the rocketdrone; that way leads to overwhelmedness and frustration.

The first not-just-practice things I tried to solder were two wires and an XT60 connector. This will help me connect the battery to the rest of the drone, which will let me power on components as I add them. This means that I can test the components right away, so I can see if I’m connecting things correctly.

The XT60 is a standard electrical connector often used in drones and other remote control products. I’m using it to plug the battery into the rest of the device.

And soldering it was hard. I was trying to get the wire to fit into a copper receptacle that wasn’t much bigger than the wire itself.

In order to make a connection, you usually want to apply solder to the two surfaces you’re trying to join (this is called “tinning” them), heat them both up so the solder melts, and then join them. The solder cools very quickly, so in seconds, you have a solid connection. To melt the solder I’d applied to the plug, I was sticking the soldering iron—a heated, pointed metal stick—into the wire receptacle. The video I watched made it look pretty easy. Unfortunately, it seems that copper conducts heat very well, and once of the things that was heating up was the plastic of the plug.

So the plastic kinda melted a bit, and the metal pin kinda moved a bit.

And this little Yossi went wee wee wee all the way to the hobby store to get new connectors. Which really wasn’t that bad!

Taking chances, making mistakes, getting messy

I had a conversation with my therapist the morning of the day I ended up trying to solder for the first time. He said that, if you’re trying to invent something, which I guess I am, there are going to be failures. You are going to break things. You’re often going to learn something when you break something, but it will be broken and you will need another one.

I’ve realized recently that, for all that I identify as a scientist (someone who doesn’t have any absolute, unshakable beliefs, someone who is willing to change their mind when they’re wrong, someone who treats mistakes as opportunities to learn something new), I hate making mistakes. I feel like I’m going to be found out to be a fraud, or it feels like I’ve proven that I’m not good at things and I’ll always fail. Growing up, I think I often felt like I was disappointing someone. And that reinforced to the point that I’m reluctant to try new things, because I might not do them well. I might mess up. The perfect becomes the enemy of the good, or the good enough, or even the better than before, and I just don’t try.

And yeah, I totally did make mistakes soldering. I ruined some of my hardware, and had to buy more. I burned myself a little, on the heated pins, on the soldering iron, and on tiny balls of melted solder. And you know what? It felt amazing. Trying something new, screwing up, knowing that I’ve just hit a little bump but damn it I’m going to overcome it, and then actually overcoming it, felt so good. I have been missing so much by playing it safe. From now on, I’m going to try things, and mess up, and keep trying. I’m going to learn, and improve, and it’s gonna be great.

So the next thing I did was give up and go home 🙃.

Getting by with a little help from my friends

I’m not always going to know how to make progress. In this case, I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with soldering the wires to the XT60 connector. So I arranged to meet up with a friend who’d offered to help me learn various shop tools.

Having that help was a big asset. Sure, I was stalled for a couple days until we would meet up, but I wasn’t stalled due to uncertainty. I knew what the next step was, and waiting and being patient was actually part of the process.

It turns out that I hadn’t been tinning (pre-applying solder to) the soldering iron. When the heated, liquid solder on the soldering iron contacts the heated, but still solid, solder on the wire, the solid almost magically becomes liquid. This makes things so much easier.

After my friend’s help, I made much better progress. Take a look at this chip!

This is the power distribution board (PDB) for the drone. It takes power from the battery and supplies it to all of the components in the drone: the flight controller, the motors, and the cameras if present. You can see that I’ve successfully attached the wires to the yellow XT60 connector by now. Further, I’ve soldered the connector wires to the PDB. Note how I’ve tinned the pads of the board. See how the solder is only on those copper pads, and not on the black material surrounding the pads? I don’t know what this black material is, but it seems to repel the solder, which means that you don’t have to be as careful when applying the solder. What you want to avoid is the solder from one pad and wire coming into contact with another wire, or “bridging”. This can cause an electrical short. The solder-repelling material is a big help.

My next step is to connect one of the motors to the PDB and figure out how to activate it. I’ll have more on that soon!