Caffeine Has No Usual Effect on Learning and Memory

From a review of the literature, researchers found caffeine has no usual effect on learning and memory, only occasional facilitatory or inhibitory effects.

It facilitates passive learning but has no effect on intentional learning.

It improves tasks with working memory, to a limited degree. It inhibits tasks using heavy working memory. It improves tasks using memory in suboptimal alertness conditions. It improves reaction time. It has no effect on long-term memory.

In low doses, it improves hedonic tone and reduces anxiety. In high doses, it increases tense arousal, including anxiety, nervousness, and jitteriness. Because of its improvement in fatigued subjects, it is considered a mild stimulant.

Some studies showed that caffeine prevented cognitive decline with no age-related differences. Other studies showed prevention in cognitive decline only worked in one sex, and only in older populations. Because the studies were heterogeneous, caffeine is not considered a pure cognitive enhancer. Where increases in arousal, mood, or concentration occur, it is considered cognitive enhancing.

[Nehlig, 2010]

Moderate Caffeine Use

This is a study that reviewed 15 years worth of double-blind, placebo-controlled trials, resulting in 41 studies reviewed. Moderate caffeine consumption has a reputation of improving physical endurance and cognitive function regarding alertness and vigilance, mood, and perception of fatigue. Concerns with excessive intake increases risks of dehydration, anxiety, headache, and sleep disturbances. Low to moderate caffeine consumption is considered at 37.5 to 450 mg a day, or 1 to 8 cups of tea per day, or 0.3 to 4 cups of brewed coffee per day. Moderate caffeine consumption did not produce dehydration, even with exercise training.

(My note: Mountain Dew contains 4.5 mg per fluid ounce, meaning 8.3 to 100 ounces of Mountain Dew would be considered moderate. One liter contains 33.814 ounces.)

[Ruxton, 2008]

A Poet’s Journey

Poetry came to Billy Collins slowly. As a teenager, he discovered Poetry Magazine, with live poets who spoke to the reader, who used words that didn’t quite go together that sparked in his imagination—even without understanding the whole poem, he found this interesting. He thought maybe he could write a few poems secretly, or maybe get a few poems published in magazines. The most Collins dared expect was to publish a chap book and sell a thousand copies.

Patrick Kavanagh said he started fooling around with words, and at some point it became his life. A poet can be a middle-aged prodigy, slowly getting into poetry. Good work flows to the top, Wallace Stevens reminds us. Things can be rejected for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with our value as a poet or a person. But publishing poems feels like joining a club, making a contribution to something that’s been created over a lot of time. Therefore, read voraciously that we know what’s been said, and how, so we can develop a distinctive style.

Write out others’ poems longhand, with an actual pen. Say them out loud. This connects us to the act of creating poetry. At some point, the poetry moves into the center of our lives. For all we do, don’t forget the reader.

[Collins, 2019]

Storyform

The storyform is a model of the mind, with concepts of me the main character, you the audience, we the influencing character, and they the villain. In this form, we create a premise of the story, a question that involves choice and point of view. The me, we, you, and they of the story all participate in the narrative to determine whether or not the story keeps its promises, whether or not it is whole. This wholeness is what transcends a mere hero’s journey from Joseph Campbell, or Save the Cat! from Blake Snyder, or the Hegelian Dialectic from Hegel that focuses on thesis and anti-thesis, a battle of ideas rather than character choices. With all four characters in a storyform story, they all make choices. It’s an inside-out perspective on what to write, rather than whether some theory might describe a piece after it’s complete.

[Hull, 2019]

Skyfall

The storyform can show us why Skyfall felt incomplete, because the whole story was about the old ways and the new ways and the Hegelian resolution just split the difference–a little of both, and we’ll all be partially satisfied. Everything James Bond was fighting for, everything that he sacrificed in the battles at his childhood home, and it comes down to a compromise. It doesn’t answer the question: will the old ways work? Can they survive? Instead, it provides a new M who is a mix of the old and the new. So, once more, James Bond becomes a compromise of ideas.

[Hull, 2019]

Metarealism

Metarealism, a name poets didn’t choose, is a strain of contemporary Russian poetry that has a different poetic impulse than what we typically recognize. It has different permissions and prohibitions, or goals and achievements. Metaphor is intertwined with rhyme—metaphor being inadequate if it is only a vivid description of the real and visible.

A Metarealist brings something over that is whole, that is invisible until the poet makes it swell into perceptability, becoming convex as if palpable to the imagination rather than by physical touch.

It is like Dante launching an image into the air that can create on its own, out of reach of the poet’s will. Image isn’t detail to be vivid, but a discovery.

Imagine an airplane that creates another machine mid flight, which can not only fly, but create its own flying machine, and that the creation of these machines is the primary purpose of them.

In the Metarealism tradition, one word draws out the next word by phonetic repetition, creating an image. Mahmoud Darwish wrote, “Mountain goats leap out of mountain goats onto the temples.” Angela Jackson wrote, “As if the house / built the house / and lived in it”

In this way, poems have their own meaning without using any ideas from the Romantics, without making their own lives the subject of the poem, the only subject worthy of their poem. The poet has no unusual powers, no extra sympathy or feeling. Rather, the figure can temporarily transform the poet and the language to describe it.

It takes epic sight. Rather than being nervous, my nerves are nervous. See with words. This can be the inner function of a tree, the microscopic wars of bacteria.

Rather than talking about the conflict of self and society, Metarealists talk of otherness and imagined possibility. Rather than imagining other worlds, they bring worlds to life in specificity.

One word invites the next by sound, attracts it by phonetic magnetism, a love attraction, without needing the poet. The first rhyme invites the second, and the third is brought to the poem if it won’t come of its own will–but the rhyme’s will is part of the creation of the poem too. These rhymes are needed. Speech needs them. In this way, rhyme is not just a marker of the end of a verse or line. The purpose of rhyme in the Metarealist tradition is to create a new meaning, a new sound, and a new image.

[Gibbons, 2015]

Meta Thinking

Meta thinking works like lights on a car, seeing by itself. Visual metaphor isn’t enough to be meta on its own. This only justifies what we already know, but we never noticed. It’s not what is possible, it’s what is created in the imagination. Visual metaphor reveals what we know, but meta thinking does its own thinking, and we only find it in our imagination.

[Gibbons, 2015]

Contemporary Devices

Poetic craft may seem easy to acquire because many contemporary poets use fewer devices than earlier poets. Many leave their rhythms lose rather than use meter. They don’t weave sounds. When using allusion, they reference popular culture rather than traditional narratives: heroes, gods, or canonical poetry. Before, a technical language was developed. Now, language is used to make the sale: of the poem and poet.

“Advertising is the poetry of the American masses.” –Karl Shapiro, 1960

[Gibbons, 2015]

Engineering Management

Engineering management has its own set of challenges. Typically, people who have hands on expertise have the credibility required to lead technical people. In order to make decisions and lead effectively, disfunction needs to be recognized and addressed at all levels of an organization, including in management.

[Fournier, 2017]

Management Philosophy

What is my management philosophy? What has worked for me? In technology companies, sometimes benign neglect is the best form of management anyone has seen. It is better than neglectful bosses who ignore their people when they need assistance and only have bad news when they work together. Micromanagers question everything and multiply technologists’ efforts. Really bad management is actively abusive.

Better to create an active support for the team by teaching, navigating issues with them, assisting them in focusing on critical issues, and preparing them for career advancement.

[Fournier, 2017]

Praise and Criticism

Praise should be given publicly, if the employee is comfortable with that. Criticism should be candid and private so that people can improve. Stretch projects can be used to challenge employees to work through their current challenges and practice better habits.

[Fournier, 2017]

A Good CTO

A good CTO has developed skills in communication, project management, and technical delivery. They have developed a sense of product. This typically takes a few years to develop. It can often be done by creating a strong network of peers that have addressed some of the same issues.

[Fournier, 2017]

Sense of Ownership

People who develop a sense of ownership of their work and authority in their sphere of influence make more meaningful contributions. Most people experience career uncertainty, but engaging directly in things we can influence supports us in our development. In order to advance in our careers, we should develop a strong working relationship with our boss to collaboratively develop a path for improvement. Typically a manager cannot guarantee advancement, but working together can still be effective.

[Fournier, 2017]

Resentment

As an employee, if resentment is coming up, move on. If it comes up often, take a look at yourself, maybe you’re going after the wrong kinds of positions for you. A strong manager will be able to support you in your career. A strong manager has a strong network that they can share with you after you stop working with them. A strong engineer might not make a strong manager, but could be a good mentor or technical lead. If it’s been a while since you’ve received useful feedback from your manager, ask for it, set goals with them.

[Fournier, 2017]

Mentoring

Mentoring is often an important part of strong engineering organizations. It can be done with more senior people, but even with people with only a year or so experience. It’s a way to take care of both people, and should be used as an opportunity, rather than a challenge.

[Fournier, 2017]

References:

Collins, B. (2019). A Poet’s Journey. Retrieved September 11, 2019, from https://www.masterclass.com/classes/billy-collins-teaches-reading-and-writing-poetry/chapters/a-poet-s-journey?action=preview&controller=chapters&course_id=billy-collins-teaches-reading-and-writing-poetry&id=a-poet-s-journey&logged_in=true

Fournier, C. (2017). The manager’s path: A guide for tech leaders navigating growth and change. Retrieved from http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=4822919

Hull, J. (2019, September 3). Theme Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry. Retrieved September 10, 2019, from Narrative First website: https://narrativefirst.com/articles/theme-means-never-having-to-say-youre-sorry

Gibbons, R. (2015). How Poems Think. Retrieved from https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo20698016.html

Nehlig, A. (2010). Is caffeine a cognitive enhancer? Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease: JAD, 20 Suppl 1, S85-94. https://doi.org/10.3233/JAD-2010-091315

Ruxton, C. H. S. (2008). The impact of caffeine on mood, cognitive function, performance and hydration: A review of benefits and risks. Nutrition Bulletin, 33(1), 15–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-3010.2007.00665.x