When we disagree, it's easy to argue about the details incessantly, and sometimes that distracts from the emotions that really need to be heard and understood. Here's a guide to taking the time to slow down and focus on the emotions in what we're saying rather than the content, so that afterwards, any content can be discussed from a firm foundation of connection.

Instructions

There are four stages, described briefly here. Each step gets more thorough explanation below.

1. Someone is speaking to what's on their heart. Listener listens with the intention of repeating back, until they ask the speaker, "Can you pause so I can repeat what I've heard so far?"
2. Listener repeats back what they heard: "I heard you say..." and ends with, "Is there anything you want to clarify or elaborate?"
3. Speaker clarifies or elaborates.
4. Listener offers gifts: "Are you open to gifts?"
   — "I felt you the most when..."
   — "While listening to you, I felt..."
   — "What I wish for you is..."

1) Getting Started

This process starts when someone is speaking about something they care about, with a lot of emotion, and the listener notices: "Oh, they're speaking to what's on their heart. Let me listen and empathize."

Common ways this start gets blocked:

• Symmetric Need to Speak. "I can't wait for them to stop talking long enough for me to say what I need to say."
• Contrasting Experience. "Everything they say is wrong, I'll just ignore them until I get my turn to tell them how wrong they are."
• Self-Deprecation. "My opinion clearly doesn't matter, so I'll just shut up now."

In any of these cases, it's common to think, somewhat sarcastically, "Why are they still talking?" Use that. Notice the question, open up your curiosity around it, and genuinely ask and answer it: "Why are they still talking? Oh, they're speaking to what's on their heart. Let me listen and empathize." Connect, then content.

If you're in the "symmetric need to speak" category above, note that if you model what you want, then when you ask to swap roles afterwards, you have a much better chance to be heard. Also note, since this situation is one where you both want the same thing at the same time, the only way to resolve it is by taking turns.

If you're in the "self-deprecation" category, note that closing off your expression is only going to have you both feel more disconnected. What they probably want most is to hear your side, but they have to feel heard before they can listen.

The Listener's Responsibility

Using this organic flow has a major pitfall: the listener must respect their own needs. That is, in stages (1) and (3), the listener must be willing to ask the speaker to pause, even if it means interrupting, before they can't hold any more of the speaker's words. If you struggle with that, consider setting timers:

1. 3 mins
2. 1 min, 30 secs (half of stage 1)
3. 1 min, 30 secs (same as stage 2)
4. 3 mins (1 min per gift)

This timing adds up to 10 mins per person, or 20 mins total if you swap roles, once you include all the transition time.

When using the organic flow, to tell when to interrupt as the listener, I like to ask myself, "Am I about to forget what they said at the start?" Then, to motivate interrupting, I tell myself, "They would want to know if I'm about to forget what they've said." The speaker cannot know they're exceeding your capacity unless you tell them.

This also leads to how I handle when I ask, "Can you pause so I can repeat what I've heard so far?" and receive a "No." I then either clarify, "I feel like I can't listen to more without forgetting what you said at the start, are you fine with that?" or negotiate, "I feel like I need a pause in any case. Let me take a few breaths before you continue." Realize that, at some point, if the speaker isn't willing to accomodate for you as the listener, then you certainly have no responsibility to keep listening.

2) Repeating Back

Common mistakes here are to give your own perspective or to strive to get everything right and end with, "Did that sound like everything?"

This is not a test. This is not your chance to speak your peace. This is an opportunity for the speaker to hear what you heard. It's okay, it's good for that to not be everything, because whatever you repeat is what you thought was most important, and if it's not what the speaker thought was most important, then they need to know that!

If you're in the "contrasting experience" category above, then this stage can be difficult – it can be hard to say things you don't believe. Lean into the "I heard you say..." terminology; repeat it for every sentence if you have to. Remember that this is something the speaker feels strongly about, and it will mean a lot to them for you to acknowledge it. Usually, it will mean even more to them once they know you completely disagree with the content. But the focus for now is the emotion, not the content. Connect, then content.

3) Clarify or Elaborate

The above is why the listener asks for "anything to clarify or elaborate" – it's open, reduces focus on the content of what was just said (and the judgment that comes with that) to instead focus on what still feels unfulfilled for the speaker.

So, in this stage, try to own your own experience as the speaker:

• Instead of blaming ("You didn't say...") either simply restate the details without "you", or state your values or emotions that motivate the focus. ("It's really important to me that you know..." "I'll feel closer to you if remember that...")
• Consider the possibility that you may have expressed your views poorly. Instead of "You got it wrong. I didn't say..." consider, "What I meant to say was..."
• Take some time to reflect on what you see now after hearing it all said back to you. Do you have any new insight or changed opinions? The word "now" is powerful here. ("The most important thing to me now is...")
• If you notice wanting to question the listener, ("Did you hear...?" "Do you feel...?") notice that as something unresolved in you and acknowledge it rather than putting that burden on the listener: "I feel afraid and frustrated that you might have missed some things." Connect, then content.

As the listener, you may have a choice to make in this stage. If the speaker starts delving into new content for longer than your reflection, then you can either ask them, "Can you pause so I can give you gifts?" or, if you feel like you have time and emotional space for more, revert to stage (1) and offer to repeat what you heard when you're nearly full again. However, if you notice the speaker repeating themselves in a thought loop, then they probably need closure, and it's better to move on to gifts anyway.

4) Gifts

When the Speaker says "No."

If the listener asks, "Are you open to gifts?" and the speaker says, "No," then as the listener, I follow with, "What would serve/support you best right now?" and negotiate from there. It is ultimately up to the speaker to identify what it is that they want and request it explicitly, but as the listener, you can offer suggestions:

• "Do you want me to repeat back what I've heard just now?" or
  "I don't have time to repeat back what you've said, do you want to write some of  it down to tell me again some other time?"
• "Do you want to take a few breaths?"
• "Do you need food/water/tea?"
• "What's coming up for you right now?"

Note that no stage of this process is required, and if the speaker doesn't want gifts but you have a strong desire to give them, then it is on you to write them down or do whatever it takes to feel resolved while not doing those steps. Similarly, if the speaker has a strong desire to keep repeating stages (1) and (2) but you don't have the time or emotional space for that, then it is on them to write it down or do whatever it takes to feel resolved while not repeating those steps.

Gift: I felt you the most when...

This means: "The time I empathized with you the most...", which requires the listener to think of times the speaker's emotions were most clear and familiar to them.

Since this gift serves to acknowledge the speaker's emotions, it is likely to be the moment they really feel heard, empathized with, and possibly even closure. Which means the speaker is likely to be ready to consider the listener's experience in the next gift.

Gift: While listening to you, I felt...

When filling in this second gift, be sure to stick to describing your emotions, not concepts. If you say, "I felt like..." it's a big red flag that you're probably about to describe a concept, not an emotion.

If emotion words don't come to mind, open up an emotion wheel in a small window so you can only see the center, and start there. Scroll wherever the words land with you the best, and speak to whatever makes sense. It's okay if the words aren't quite right, just speak to that. "I'm not exactly frustrated," or "I feel something between hopeful and inspired," are perfectly fine ways to describe how you're feeling.

An alternative for this gift is, "What came up for me..." which allows a more conceptual response. However, connect before content; it's recommended the listener verify the connection by asking for consent: "Are you open to hearing what came up for me?" If what came up is particularly large and loud, also consider asking to swap to the speaker role after gifts.

Gift: What I wish for you is...

If you struggle with the word 'wish', then "What I want/hope for you..." are good substitutions. This one not only is really good for closure, but also helps cultivate positive regard, the assumption that the person you're talking to doesn't bear ill will towards you.

I'm feeling a sadness.

I will try to explain.

When I was a child,
all the time, there was play.

The outside was play.
The inside was play.
Work was play.

You couldn't stop me from playing because
everything was an adventure, an exploration.

I still have that, to a strong extent.
Make me do the same thing long enough
and I'll be doing it differently
finding a way to improve myself by doing it
finding a way to improve it by doing it
my way.
But still...

When I was outside just now, I remembered.
I remembered the play, the adventure
the way I could be camping out there right now
the way that being even ten feet away could feel new,
a whole world I've not yet experienced,
every day, every night, every moment.

And I feel loss in that. Loss in what
I've already missed. Loss in what
I feel I cannot do. Loss in how that feeling
of "cannot do" is gone. Because

I can just go.

I don't have to feel stuck.
I don't have to do the same thing every day.
I don't have to try to beat my head against
something every single moment trying to find
a way to do something I just can't
seem to make happen but I haven't
even started what's my problem I
don't get it.

I can run away,
into the woods,
and disappear from it all
for weeks.

What am I waiting for?

Context

I've recently moved to St. Louis, MO to get closer to nature, picking an apartment right next to forest, and spending some time outside every day to recenter myself. This was what hit me while meditating outside for a bit.

I consider this an acknowledgement that I have some attachment to perceiving myself as stuck, that there is grief to process in order to become unstuck. Because that was surprising to me, to feel joy and hope and play, and simultaneously, grief.

I've had a lot of trouble understanding the mechanics that aren't explicitly explained in the tutorial or a couple games of practice play, so I decided to collect all the content updates Project Winter ever had with a list of the lasting content additions so that it can be easily skimmed.

Before going through any of this, I recommend having already gone through the in-game tutorial. Then the Beginner's Guide and Navigation on the wiki.

All Links

Here's the collection of wiki links that end up getting referenced in the Content Updates, so reading all of these should give the current state of the game, more or less.

• Survivors, Traitors, Additional Roles, Ghosts
• Objectives, Bonus Objectives
• Buildings: Laboratory
• Items: Energy Drink
• Weapons: Poison
• Global Events, Traitor Airdrop
• Cooking

Content Updates

#1 - The server browser lives!!

• lobby system

#2 - New ways to betray!

• stat boost Items (Energy Drink)

(it looks like every other change didn't persist... requires testing)

#3 - The Truth is out there!

• Power Station, still the first Objective
• Truth Serum, in the Laboratory
• Survivor Airdrop
• first Ghost abilities added (see #6)

#4 - Master of Disguise

• swapping clothes (now only usable by the Identity Thief, mentioned in Bonus Objectives, see #11)
• new Global Event: [unspecified, probably Mass Hysteria]

#5 - Poisonous Update!

• Poisoning Food (now done while Cooking)

#6 - Ghostly Abilities

• Poison on interactive surfaces
• more Ghost abilities added (see #3)
• new Traitor Abilities in the Traitor Airdrop

#7 - 1.0 Launch

• Armoury, one of the Buildings
• new Weapons: Crossbow and Tranquilizer gun

[#8] - Social Rating Update!

• social rating system
• new Objective:  Animal Wave
• new Item: Trap Disarming Kit
• rematch system
• quick match system

[#9] - Let's Role Play

• first Additional Roles: Medic, Defector, {Stitcher}, {Saboteur}
  (now Stitcher replaced by Medic (Traitor) and Saboteur is removed)
• new Global Event: Airdrops
• new crafting ability: additional inventory slot

[#10] - New Roles and Booby Traps!

• new Additional Roles: Innocent, Soldier, Hacker (Traitor)
• ability to booby trap more objects with Landmines and Poison
• aiming system improvements

[#11] - Role-ing With It

• new Additional Roles: {Mad} Scientist, Hacker (Survivor)
• changes to Medic and Soldier Additional Roles

[#11] - Identity Crisis

• new Additional Role: Identity Thief (neutral)
• new Objective: Cipher Station

[#12] - Can You Dig It?

• new Objective: Power Station (Dig)
• new Global Events: Solar Flares, Spreading Madness, Seed of Insanity

Update. There's also Mathcha and Mathquill if you'd prefer to not edit LaTeX directly.

Who

If you're someone who wants a fast way to type pretty math:

• to take short notes
• to discuss via a screen share
• to test sections of LaTeX code (for practice or debugging)

What

I've long used a MathJax previewer while tutoring to type LaTeX and have it live-generate pretty math for my student to view over a screen share. I've had to alternate between using these two sites:

• Technische Universität Hamburg
• University of Adelaide

because occasionally one would go down and I'd swap to the other.

(Aside: Unending thanks to those being up and searchable on Google so that I could use them for the past six years.)

However, I'm now done with that. I've copied the minimally necessary html and js from the Official Page to my own webpage. It works faster than the others (I imagine because it uses the cdn rather than hosting MathJax on the university servers) and displays useful error messages (thanks to the official page).

I modified the preview to be at a "larger" font size, relative to the LaTeX input. That's because, with that larger font size and minimum window width, I tend to like the way the resulting output looks. (That centered math doesn't look lost in the html <p> text around it.) But I still want to be able to read a lot of input code all at once.

If you need it to fill a wider window, just use ctrl-+ to increase the font size. If you dislike the relative larger font, use a greasemonkey script or download and host your own version of the html and js. (I like the minimal window width since I use OBS to share multiple windows at once, such as Desmos and Sketchpad, as well as to apply a filter that crops out the part of the window where my LaTeX is. So screen space is valuable real estate.)

Next Steps

I want to be able to pop out the output into a separate window, so I won't need OBS to be able to screen share just the output. (Would be particularly useful on my Chromebook. Also for using ctrl-alt-PrtSc to screenshot just the output.)

While "tidying up" the apartment, I've needed a clear procedure for myself, and now, to teach my apartment mates how to do it. Here's how I have explained it.

Note

If you've not read/listened to any of Marie Kondo's work or watched any of Tidying Up on Netflix, I recommend consuming a bit of that first and foremost. If you're walking into cleaning with trauma, misconceptions, or just plain pessimism, you're probably not going to take to precise instructions well. Those works are designed to help you reframe tidying as a positive activity, even when you have trouble doing so; this article is building off of that.

The Ideal

An area is tidy by my standards when it is visually indexed, (or simply "indexed") by which I mean:

• Every storage area is clearly, simply labeled, so there is always something visible to direct you when locating an item.

• Every item in storage is visible at the same time, so nothing else needs to be disturbed when locating an item.

• If any item is to be retrieved, it is most natural to do so without disturbing any other items.

• When returning an item, it is most natural to put it back where it was.

Ideal Procedure

One of the simplest yet most effective ways to attain the above is to take a large category of items with similar usage, sort the items by size, and make well-sized open containers to fit them as single complete layer. That way,

• by being similar in usage, the area may be clearly, simply labeled;

• by being a single layer, everything is visible;

• by being similar in size, grabbing one item doesn't disturb the others and

• there is an obvious, perfectly-sized gap when returning an item.

Concessions

However, this isn't actually fully achievable in most cases. When concessions need to be made, consider:

1. Is there anything that we don't need to keep? (Does the item spark joy? See below.)

2. Is there anything that we don't need to keep out front? (Are there duplicates or rarely-used items that can go in a less accessible storage area? Make sure they won't get lost.)

3. Can items be placed in a tray/drawer/etc. such that they take up less space but can, in one easy motion, become visible in one layer?

4. Can a smaller concession be made? For example, allowing slight disturbance to keep visibility, or allowing slight obscurity to still be easy to return the item.

These are ordered concessions: Start at the top, and work your way down. Don't waste effort minimizing concessions when you can just include a tray, or remove an item completely.

What do you mean, "spark joy"?

And how does that work when living in a group?

As mentioned at the top, expose yourself to Marie Kondo's work enough to at least get an impression of what this phrase can mean. In my process, I ask myself:

When you hold the item, see it, sense it, do you feel dramatically better than when you had not?

If so, then it sparks joy of some kind for me. When living with others, there are more considerations:

• If an item sparks joy for any one resident, then it is worth keeping. If you would be keeping it for just one resident and space is a concern, then perhaps it could be stored in their private space?

• If trying to imagine what sparks joy for others is weighing on you, continue the task by making a box of all the things that you would toss. Then either schedule a gathering for everyone else to go through it, or leave a note with checkboxes so that after each resident goes through it on their own time, they can check off that they are done.

Diabetes runs strong in my family. When I had a bad response to a weekend of cake, I felt the need to test my sugar response and make a plan.

A bad response to cake

It's Friday morning. I bake the "Family Favorite Chocolate Cake," because it's delicious and I haven't baked it in years.

I then eat half of it over the next three days. Because it's delicious.

That third day? Yeah, I didn't really eat anything else, not even my habitual bacon-and-eggs breakfast. "Cake makes a better breakfast," I thought. After my cake dinner and almost an hour of relaxing, I exercised a bit, and suddenly crashed hard: feeling exhausted, difficult to move limbs, difficult to think clearly. My girlfriend Jeannie was with me at the time, and to her, I simply appeared to "zone out" for a bit. She was unaware of how severe my exhaustion felt.

Jeannie and I were planning to head to Authentic Relating Games in separate cars. I told her to go on, that I was fine. Fifteen minutes later, right before I walked out the door, I felt unable to stay standing, so I went to bed and napped.

Some time later, my phone ringing in my pocket wakes me up. I fumble with my pants for a while, but can't get the phone out, so I give up and go back to sleep.

About an hour and a half after I started sleeping, she's back next to me, waking me up, trying to figure out why I never made it to games, why I'm just lying there, looking at her but not speaking. I was trying to speak, but the muscles just weren't doing it. I was trying to reach out to her, but couldn't lift my arm. After 15-20 minutes, I manage to start moving enough to grab my Chromebook and start typing messages into it, (accidentally texting a different friend instead of her,) and so I manage to tell her how I'm feeling. Eventually, she asks, "Do you need real food? All you've had today is cake."

That's when it all started to make sense.

Recovery

So I asked Jeannie to call my mom, who walked us through dealing with a diabetic low, which was what I thought was happening. (My grandfather typically had highs that crashed into lows, so that was my reasoning. In retrospect, these symptoms could have been highs or lows, hyperglycemic or hypoglycemic.)

We started with a small lick of honey for quick carbs, then swapped to apple slices for carbs with fiber, peanut butter for protein, pecans for everything: protein with fiber and fat. I'd take a small bite of whichever sounded like it would taste the best, then drink water because I was really thirsty, then wait to see what my body needed next. I also made sure to start getting up and moving around a bit once it felt good to, to wake up my muscles and metabolism without exhausting myself.

In total before I started really feeling close to normal, I had probably (least to greatest) 1/4 tsp honey, 1 1/2 slices of apple, 1/3 cup peanut butter, 2/3 cup pecans, and 3-5 cups of water. Time-wise, that was over about another hour and a half.

The next day, I drive from Houston to Corpus Christi, to visit my parents as already planned. They have a spare glucometer waiting for me when I get there, and we decide to start monitoring my sugar, and to do a few tests of my tolerance to it.

Two tests

Mostly technical from here on out. This is basically a lab write-up.

Note on the A1C

and why I didn't get one done

If you go to the doctor asking to be tested for diabetes, they'll typically have you take a blood test (that you can take without fasting) called the A1C test. It returns something corresponding to the average blood sugar you've had over the past 3 months. There were a few reasons we decided to not do that test for me, the most important of which were:

• I only started changing my diet for the worse recently, for at most the past month, and mostly this one weekend. If I'm more diabetic now because of diet, then a 3-month average wouldn't be very useful.

• If I'm having highs crash into lows like my grandfather, then the average wouldn't be as abnormal as a diabetic's typically would.

First test (informal)

After I arrived in Corpus, I spent the rest of the day eating my dad's diabetic diet and monitoring my sugar. That normally means testing right when you wake up, right before eating, and 2 hrs after eating. (The wake up reading checks for how you were in the night, and you wait 2 hrs after eating because everyone has blood sugar go higher within 1 hr, but a diabetic's sugar level stays high or goes down very slowly.)

My readings seemed pretty normal, (morning and before eating in the 70-100 mg/dL range, after eating only 20 mg/dL higher,) and I was feeling much better, so the next morning we did a first (very informal) glucose tolerance test.

Very informal in that we just fed me as many pancakes with syrup as I could eat, without counting carbs, really. Trying to re-create the cake incident, you see.

I felt the same kind of really bad as I had after the cake within an hour, and my reading had gone from 87 to 154, which is high, but within normal. (I took it early since I was feeling so bad.) Taking a reading every hour, the next four readings were all within 5 mg/dL of 120 mg/dL, which is within typical error of the measurements (given by the device manual) of the same value, so I interpreted that as "not going down". (I also still felt really bad.)

Finally, I rode on a stationary bike for 10 mins, drinking a lot of water. I soon felt better and had a reading of 96 mg/dL, and it stabilized after that. (The next meal didn't cause a huge spike.)

Conclusions

First, the readings aren't that unusually high, so I'm probably not diabetic.

However, I felt as bad as I had before exactly when my blood sugar was high, and it was unusual that my body wasn't able to metabolize the last bit of sugar without me deliberately exercising. Particularly concerning is that had I not taken a reading to know I was high, I would have just gone to sleep from feeling exhausted, same as before, and just stayed high instead of getting better.

Also, I felt the same as before when I'm pretty sure I had a low (given that every bit of food brought me closer to feeling normal). So it seems like either the cake case was a low that feels exactly like a high and I need a glucometer to tell highs and lows apart, or it was a high that I dealt with well enough by being a little active and eating so slowly that it wasn't a problem.

So it definitely seems like I'll need to have a glucometer on hand and keep my diet low-carb regardless. And I don't want to do any more tests of my glucose tolerance if I can avoid it. Feels baaaaad.

Second test (formal)

My dad (Darwin) looked up specifications for a standard glucose tolerance test and we decided to both do it to be able to compare our results formally.

The first main standard here that wasn't in the first test is regulating what you ingest. This time, I drank a Fanta, which has exactly the 75 g of sugar that would be used in a lab. (Dad drank a 7up that had 64 g of sugar, which is close enough.)

The second main standard is that there's documented "normal" values to go by when ingesting 75 g of sugar: Starting normal is 60-100 mg/dL, one hr after can be anything under 200 mg/dL, and two hrs after should be under 140 mg/dL, where 140-200 mg/dL is "prediabetic" (meaning not diabetic, but susceptible to becoming diabetic).

Dad napped throughout his test (setting phone alarms to take the readings), while I was awake but felt exhausted and terrible again. Our numerical results, plotted alongside normal and prediabetic ranges, were:

Conclusions

My numbers were within normal range, though my 2 hr reading was borderline prediabetic. Given that proximity and how bad I still feel during these tests, keeping my blood sugar under control with a low-carb diet still seems to be important for me.

For context, my dad (Darwin) has been diagnosed diabetic in the past, but is now controlling his symptoms with diet and exercise. So his numbers being normal is not surprising. In fact, I take this to mean that if I stick to his diet, I should be able to get closer to his curve the next time I take this test (which will be at least six months from now).

Later...

Having maintained a low-carb diet so far with Soylent, my usual bacon/sausage and eggs breakfast, nuts for snacking, and whatever vegetables-and-meat dish I feel like for dinner, I've been feeling way better in general than I have been the weeks prior. I don't even feel the need to check my sugar level most days! (And if I do have a heavy carb meal, like Christmas dinner, then soon after eating the bad feelings settle in again, and immediate exercise helps dramatically.) Looks so far like I have a good plan.

I need to text every student from this semester with when I'm planning on going home, and I decided to search my tutoring calendar for the names using python to get a complete list.

First Steps

Things necessary to get started, that you may do slightly differently if you're not using Google Calendar or wanting to use the python icalendar package instead.

I used Google Calendar's Settings → Import & export feature to export all my calendars, then extract from the .zip file the particular .ics file for my tutoring calendar. I renamed the file to something easier to type, tutoring.ics.

I'm using python 3.0, which mainly means you'll see print("hello") in my code instead of print "hello" when I want to run that command. I installed the python ics package to parse the file with.

Exploration

The trial-and-error before I had solid code. Skip if you just want the answer below!

I started by checking the ics page to see if it had any good documentation. It focused on creating calendars from scratch and downloading directly from the internet, neither of which I cared about, so I gave up on that.

Then I opened a python interpreter and ran:

import ics

then typed ics. and hit the tab key twice. For me, that listed off the functions in the ics package. (I could have just as easily run help(ics) or dir(ics) to have similar but different effects.) The function ics.events_in_year looked like what I wanted, so then I ran:

help(ics.events_in_year)

and saw that it wanted two arguments, a filename and a year, which I assumed were supposed to be a string and an int. So then I ran:

ics.events_in_year("tutoring.ics", 2017)

which spat out an awful mess of data, so I captured that with:

data = _

which stored that last output as data. The awful mess looked like a list because it ended with ], so I checked what the first element looked like with:

data[0]

That looked like a dictionary since it ended with }, and had two notable entries I could spot at a glance: 'DTSTART': '20170125T210000Z\n' which
looked like the start date-time, and 'Summary': which had the name of a student of mine. So then I started making a for loop to return names with:

for datum in data:
    print(datum["SUMMARY"])

which returned a mess of names, with a bunch of extra space because of the final '\n' newline character in each SUMMARY. I also noticed (as expected) so many duplicate names, which isn't helpful. To fix those things:

names = set() # like a list without order and no duplicates
for datum in data:
    name = datum["SUMMARY"][:-1] # the last part gets rid of the last character, the \n newline
    names.add(name) # add this name to the set of names

for name in names: print(name)

That looked pretty good, but some names were old, from the spring or summer, when I only wanted the fall semester, so I started trying to select the names after August. First I ran data[0]["DTSTART"] to see what the date looked like again, then tested the slice data[0]["DTSTART"][4:4+2] to get the month (4 to skip the 4 digits of year, 2 to include the next two digits). Then I tried to run:

names = set()
for datum in data:
    month = int(datum["DTSTART"][3:3+2]) # casting to int just in case
    if month <= 8: continue # skip anything August or earlier
    name = datum["SUMMARY"][:-1]
    names.add(name)

for name in names: print(name)

but an error came up! KeyError: DTSTART. Apparently some of the events don't have a start date? That didn't seem right. So I ran:

for datum in data:
    if "DTSTART" not in datum: break

datum

to find the first event without DTSTART and look at it. Turns out, some of the events have a DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago entry instead, to show the time zone the date is in. That's cool; now I just have to first find a key that begins with DTSTART before I get the start date:

names = set()
for datum in data:
    for key in datum:
        # stop at the first key starting with DTSTART
        if key.startswith("DTSTART"): break
    month = int(datum[key][3:3+2]) # use that key, whatever it is
    if month <= 8: continue
    name = datum["SUMMARY"][:-1]
    names.add(name)

for name in names: print(name)

Code

What works.

From within the directory with the tutoring.ics file, either open a python interpreter and run the following code, or copy-paste it in a .py file and run it. If those words make no sense, look over this tutorial.

import ics
data = ics.events_in_year("tutoring.ics", 2017)

names = set()
for datum in data:
    for key in datum:
        if key.startswith("DTSTART"): break
    month = int(datum[key][4:4+2])
    if month <= 8: continue
    name = datum["SUMMARY"][:-1]
    names.add(name)

for name in sorted(names): print(name)

Future Work

Then next time I need this script, I'd like to modify it so that it truncates everything after the second word of a name, so that the ones where I added some notation in the SUMMARY after the name don't count as separate names.

Also, instead of simply including every name that was in September or later, I'm thinking I'd like it to make a dictionary of name: month where month is the latest month where name shows up. Then I can see where it seems like the prior semester ended, and select from those the names for this semester.

So much I've seen from The School of Life has been great, and this video my father shared with me is no exception:

The one thing it doesn't have is a list of topics, which is really unfortunate since it crams so much into 20 minutes that Alain never slows down enough to tell you what he's going to tell you.

That's what this document is: a list of his topics, with time stamps to follow along with. Be sure to notice the handy table of contents (perhaps by clicking the "show" button at right) that goes along with this page.

Introduction/Context.

• (0:03)
  He wrote an essay for The New York Times
  under this self-described "dramatic" title.

• (0:19)
  He takes a poll and about 30 respond as having married the wrong person.

Thesis.

• (0:40)
  The objective of this talk is to take the anger
  people privately direct towards their love lives
  and turn it into sadness.

• (1:12)
  Optimism/hope is necessary for anger.

• (1:58)
  "Vast industries" build up our hope;
  in contrast, this talk will gently let you down.

Why the title is true.

• (2:33)
  Aside:
  "It's not that bad" because you're likely to marry a "good enough" person.

A) We are unaware of our strangeness.

• (3:00)
  We are all strange and hard to live with,
  and we don't know much about ourselves in that way.

• (3:47)
  There is a wall of silence around this strangeness,
  as others know much about your flaws.

• (4:53)
  Many of us are addicts in order to avoid spending time with ourselves.

• (5:53)
  "Until you know yourself, you can't properly relate to another person."

B) Love is a skill we lack experience with.

• (5:59)
  Love requires us to express dependence and vulnerability,
  which we don't want to do.

• (6:19)
  Psychologists describe two patterns of behavior
  when there is a risk of being vulnerable, exposed.

  1. (6:29)
     Anxious

  2. (6:59)
     Avoidant

• (7:34)
  This is too humbling to say:
  "Even though I am a grown person,
  I need you like a small child needs a parent."

• (7:57)
  "In short, we don't know how to love."
  Love is a difficult skill we need to learn.

What is Love?

• (8:24)
  There is a distinction between loving and being loved,
  which we have much experience with.

• (8:54)
  The core of love is to have the willingness to interpret another's behavior
  and find benevolent reasons.

Love requires a tolerance for weakness and recognition of ambivalence.

• (9:34)
  "Anyone that we can love is going to be a perplexing mixture of
  the good and the bad."

• (9:42)
  Melanie Klein argued that infants don't recognize
  the good and bad things as coming from the same parent,
  until they are about 4 years old and are able to be ambivalent.

• (10:52)
  "Everyone who we love is going to disappoint us. [...]
  Maturity is the ability to see that there are no heroes or sinners,
  really, among human beings, but all of us are this wonderfully
  perplexing mixture of the good and the bad."

C) Our instinct is to seek suffering.

• (11:33)
  We're told to follow our instinct, heart, feelings,
  to stop reasoning, analyzing.

• (11:58)
  "You can't think too much,
  you can only ever think badly."

• (12:16)
  The way we love is built upon childhood experiences,
  where love is bound with suffering.

• (12:58)
  When we start to choose love partners,
  "We are on a quest to suffer in ways that feel familiar."

• (13:18)
  This is why we can date someone who seems really great in every way
  while we reject them because they don't excite us.

Advice

This is when Alain assumes you've chosen a good enough partner and provides advice on how to help that relationship grow.

Become a good teacher to love better.

• (14:09)
  We believe that we won't have to explain who we are
  or how we feel to the right person.

• (14:48)
  This leads to sulking:
  refusing to express what's wrong with someone
  we think has decided to not understand us.

• (15:47)
  "The root to a good marriage and a good love
  is the ability to become a good teacher."

• (16:15)
  Rather than being tired, frightened, and as a result humiliating,
  be relaxed and prepared for a lack of understanding.

• (16:45)
  "You need a culture within a couple
  that two people are going to need to teach each other
  and therefore also learn from one another."

Love allows criticism instead of encouraging acceptance.

• (16:53)
  Many people respond to criticism as an attack, but it's not.

• (17:08)
  We tend to believe that love accepts instead of criticises,
  which is appalling.

• (17:39)
  "Criticism is merely [...] to try and make us better versions of ourselves."

There is hope.

• (17:53)
  The phrase "good enough" was taken from
  psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott
  when helping parents.

• (18:21)
  "You cannot have perfection and company."

• (18:38)
  Compatibilty is the achievement of love,
  never present initially.

• (19:03)
  Learn to respond better to your "types," who you tend to love.

• (20:11)
  Recognize the nobility of compromise.

• (20:56)
  Concluding quote by philosopher Søren Kierkegaard
  saying that in any case you will have regret,
  so don't beat yourself up about mistakes.

Even those skilled at problem solving can lose their solution mindset, as I call it, and so it's important to recognize what it is and is not. Soon I will post on how to encourage a solution mindset in yourself and others.

What is a solution mindset?

Having a solution mindset means describing problems in a way that asks for how to solve them, moving towards a solution, rather than presenting them as irresolvable fact. Since it's pretty obvious that having a solution mindset is necessary for problem solving, the focus here is those weird yet common cases where people don't do it, which I'll call solution avoidance.

When someone is described as a complainer, anxious, argumentative, or has a habit of blaming others, they are likely avoiding solutions. It's not wrong to point out problems, or make criticisms. What feels bad is when the problems are described as absolutes, or part of someone's identity, with no effort made to move towards a solution. When effort to approach a solution is made, it is usually appreciated, and it changes the whole tone and eventual outcome to become more positive.

An anecdote.

For instance, when I recently was locked out of my apartment, my head was full of (panicked comments,)(panic-bullets) statements of problems without searching for a solution.

(start panic-bullets)

• I don't have my phone!
• I can't contact my roommate!
• I don't know anyone around here!
• Why did my roommate lock the door?!

(stop panic-bullets)

As these thoughts seeped in, I recognized the solution avoidance, paused, took a few deep breaths, and told myself to have a solution mindset. Then instead of irrefutable statements, (I asked myself questions, and had a conversation.)(solution-bullets)

(start solution-bullets)

• How can I contact someone without my phone?

  I could borrow someone else's...

• How can I contact my roommate?

  I may have someone else's phone number memorized who knows him...

• Does anyone around here know my roommate?

  We did visit some neighbors once who know his phone number, and he knows someone who works at the Panera down the street...

• (as I was walking towards a solution) How can I prevent this in the future?

  I could memorize my roommate's phone number, and give it to people whose phone number I already have memorized...

(stop solution-bullets)

Eventually, I walked over to Panera, had someone who worked there contact the person we knew (who wasn't working that day), who then met me there and helped me get in touch with my roommate. Later, I made sure my family had my roommate's phone number so I could contact them as well if I ever forgot it.

What are common avoidance situations?

There are many typical situations where a solution mindset would help. Here's a few solid examples:

• (Anxiety.)(anxiety)

  (start anxiety)

  Colloquial anxiety, or commmon "worrying about problems" can become solution avoiding if it's pure worry. Consider The School of Life's response.

  The clinical concept of anxiety features patients who "dislike uncertainty and unpredictability," feeling unable to search for resolution. Consider the ADAA's description.

  (stop anxiety)

• (Road Rage.)(road-rage)

  (start road-rage)

  It's easy to feel anger while driving at the other drivers or just rush hour traffic in general. Feeding that anger is solution avoidance, when you don't ask what you can do to improve your experience.

  Consider how to share the road with raging drivers from two very different perspectives, a defensive driving expert and a motorcyclist.

  (stop road-rage)

• (Regret.)(regret)

  (start regret)

  Regret is both what motivates one to become better, or what cripples one to focus on a problem that can have no solution: the past. Consider Vsauce's take.

  (stop regret)

• (Game Toxicity.)(game-toxicity)

  (start game-toxicity)

  In general, there is an atmosphere for many video game communities where players find themselves unable to work together, often culminating in rage quitting. Consider Extra Credit's take.

  For specific games, the issue becomes more focused by certain subcommunities or game designs, and advice can become more specific. Consider Heroes Academy discussing Heroes of the Storm.

  (stop game-toxicity)

• ("Don't talk about Politics and Religion.")(politics-religion)

  (start politics-religion)

  These two topics so often devolve into argumentation that perpetuates itself, each side repeating the stance of "You should just agree with me because..." This often arises from false dichotomies.

  For politics, consider the middle ground between "Liberal vs Conservative," and for religion, consider the middle ground between "Science vs God."

  Note that deciding to avoid the topics in social situations is a solution to the problem "We're not enjoying our time together." but is solution avoidance when the problem is, "We can't seem to find common ground."

  (stop politics-religion)

Aren't there unsolvable problems?

Is a solution mindset bad in some cases?

Unfortunately, there are times when the problem at hand simply is unsolvable. This, however, is not a time to dispose of your solution mindset. Instead, you have identified that your perception of the problem is too vast or specific, too demanding, and it is once again time to take a step back and reevaluate. It may be time to dispose of your main goal, or simply set it aside and make subgoals.

For instance, when I ask myself "Why can't I work on anything today?" I typically take a step back and ask instead, "What am I considering work today?" or "How can I encourage myself?" For another case, when people say they "want to solve world hunger" they typically have set a direction to head towards, with the majority of their efforts solving smaller problems that support that potentially unachievable goal.

Holding a dish with one hand
and scrubbing with the other
reminds me of the necessity of stability
and action.

The initial addition of water
reminds me of the necessity
of preparation.

The addition of soap reminds me
of the necessity of an agent.

The final addition of water
reminds me of the often-forgotten
need for conclusion.

The placement on a rack for drying
reminds me of the need
for patience.

Finally...

All of this...

all these steps together,
as one procedure,
automatic, methodical,
reminds me of the potential
efficiency and capability
of true restoration

So that I, in this process,
am somewhat restored and reformed into a new
familiar vessel.

Context

Halfway through today, I felt the need to check in with myself.
That is, I was starting to feel like what I was doing was no longer
rewarding, and that when I tried to choose something to do next,
I felt lost in too many options that had too much need to be done.

So I began a self-reflection, declaring that I would respect myself,
lean into my edge, check my assumptions, and truly be present,
so that I could really delve in and decide what I wanted out of today.
And when I started asking myself, what am I doing, and why,
I found myself washing a single dish while reflecting, without having deliberately chosen to do so, and conversed:

What are you doing? Washing a dish.

Why? Because it reminds me of the possibility and power of restoration.

Why? — to which I wrote a poem.

I teach three interchangeable definitions of the absolute value function, encouraging students to choose a favorite and be able to swap between them freely.

In each definition, the absolute value function is a [real function][(\(\mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R},\) meaning that for every real input there is exactly one real output)] that I denote with \(\DeclareMathOperator{\absop}{abs}
\newcommand\abs[1]{\absop\left({#1}\right)}\abs{x}.\)

Distance

This is the geometric definition, the intuition and the purpose.

\(\abs{x}\) represents the distance between \(x\) and the origin. This is equivalent to the definition that \(\abs{x-y}\) represents the distance between \(x\) and \(y\). (Why?)(why-equiv-distance)

(start why-equiv-distance)

We will show equivalence by first assuming the distance definition for \(\abs{x}\) and deriving that of \(\abs{x-y}\) from it, and second by assuming the definition for \(\abs{x-y}\) and deriving \(\abs{x}\) from it.

Going from \(\abs{x}\) as the distance between \(x\) and the origin \(0\) to \(\abs{x-y}\) is a matter of shifting<!TODO> to the right by \(y.\) This means that \(\abs{x-y}\) as a function of \(x\) feels like \(\abs{x}\) if the origin were at \(y\) instead of \(0,\) and thus we have \(\abs{x-y}\) as the distance between \(x\) and \(y\) instead of \(0.\)

Going the other direction is easy: Simply let \(y=0,\) and then the distance \(\abs{x-y}\) between \(x\) and \(y=0\) becomes \(\abs{x},\) and so \(\abs{x}\) must be the distance between \(x\) and the origin.

(stop why-equiv-distance)

Piecewise

This is the definition most courses use, the most direct for computation.

When computing the value of \(\abs{x},\) if \(x\) isn't negative, leave it alone; if it is, swap it to positive. In precise notation, that means:

\[
\abs{x} = \begin{cases}
x & \text{if $x\ge 0$} \\
-x & \text{if $x< 0$}
\end{cases}
\]

Square Root

This is a convenient trick.

For calculators that don't have an absolute value, you can use \(\abs{x}=\sqrt{x^2}\) to compute it. This is also surprisingly useful for proving a few properties, especially for understanding why the solution to \(x^2=4\) is \(x=\pm 2.\) (Why?)(why-square-root-solution)

(start why-square-root-solution)

After taking the square root of both sides of \(x^2=4,\) we get \(\sqrt{x^2}=2.\) Many students try to simplify \(\sqrt{x^2}\) to \(x,\) but as mentioned above and proven below, \(\sqrt{x^2}=\abs{x}\) instead. So we have \(\abs{x}=2,\) which is easy to solve using one of the other definitions to get \(x=\pm2.\)

(stop why-square-root-solution)

Equivalence

How do we know these definitions are interchangeable?

The first two definitions are equivalent somewhat by fiat: we define the distance of a nonnegative number from the origin to be the number itself. It then makes sense that the distance for a negative number be the opposite of itself, since you've gone that far in the negative direction.

This square root definition works because the square root function is actually the principal square root function. (That is...)(that-is-principal-square-root)

(start that-is-principal-square-root)

When looking for a square root of \(y,\) you want to find an \(x\) for which \(x^2=y,\) and when there is a solution, there's usually two, since \((-x)^2=(-1)^2x^2=x^2.\) When there's a positive and a negative choice for square roots, the principal square root function \(\sqrt{y}\) is conveniently defined to return the positive choice.

(stop that-is-principal-square-root)

So that means \(\abs{x}=\sqrt{x^2}\) is the same as saying \(\abs{x}^2=x^2\) together with \(\abs{x}\ge 0.\) When \(x\) is also not negative, this is the same as \(\abs{x}=x,\) and when \(x\) is negative, it is \(\abs{x}=-x,\) so this definition is equivalent to the piecewise definition.

Here's the story of this spring semester, and how I made some courses for myself. This catches the reader up to my four-week checkup on progress.

Background and Design

After finishing my undergrad studies three years ago, I took a break from schoolwork to teach at a private school, tutor on the side, and pursue my other interests like playing violin. That went well, but lately I've been getting antsy, wanting to return to higher math in full force. I know I'm a little rusty, and I also know that there's some textbooks that I've always been meaning to get around to that will likely fall by the wayside if I were to attend school again now. So over winter break, I decided it'd be a perfect time to really go all in on self-teaching this spring semester, and design some full courses to manage myself.

Algebra. The first course would use the Algebra text by Dummit and Foote, designed to shake off my rust, since Algebra is probably what will be my specialization, and the first two parts of the text should be a problem-driven review. So this course would be focused on working problems, only occasionally skimming the main text.

Knot Theory. The second course would use The Knot Book by Colin Adams, a text which I'd been wanting to go through ever since my first course in knot theory five years ago, when we had used Knot Theory by Charles Livingston and I was thoroughly disappointed by how it covered the material. After doing searching for other texts at the time, I felt that Adams's would be a much better style for me, and I bought it immediately. I used it to teach the first two chapters of material to a high school student, but otherwise, it's simply remained on a bookshelf unread. This course would be focused on reading through the second half of the book, working the problems that interest me most.

\(p\)-Adic Numbers. The third course would be focused on understanding \(p\)-adic numbers, which I've long found interesting, but never gotten around to actually making sense of. When I tried to understand them three years ago, I was reading through Fernando Q. Gouvêa's book at Fondren Library. I recently visited Fondren again, found the book, and another by Alain M. Robert that seemed closer to what I needed. With two good texts, this course would focus on reading through the material, typically making up my own problems to try to make my confusions precise and resolve them.

Topics. The fourth course would be centered around all my extra math work. See, I get a lot of random ideas and problems to solve all the time, and I am very disorganized at dealing with them in any reasonable way. I typically work on whichever one happens to be on my mind, writing notes on random pieces of paper that get lost, if I write anything down at all. That... sucks. I also want to try to start staying in touch with new math papers as they're published, incorporating that material in with these other problems I'm working on. So resolving these two issues would be the focus of this course.
(Anecdote...)(anecdote-weathers)

(start anecdote-weathers)

I remember about a decade ago, I asked a physics professor (Dr. Weathers) a question that reminded him of previous work, and he opened a file cabinet and quickly located a file containing a napkin with perfectly relevant notes on it. That moment always stuck with me as the kind of thing I'd like to be able to do some day, though I've never been one to deal well with physical organization. The trick for me would certainly be to require my notes to become electronic immediately as they are written, but I still don't have a good system of organization for the content even once it's saved.

(stop anecdote-weathers)

Getting Started

I've tried to deal with all of these sorts of things in the past, and failure seemed swift with every attempt. I decided this time to really make it feel like school again, and in the first week, wrote up syllabi for each course, set assignment structures, test dates, everything. I also set weekly "class time" events when homeworks would be due and so on. This has worked really well at helping me form the habit of class for a few reasons:

• I've often failed on previous attempts because I'd miss my own deadlines in the first week or two, and then have no good way to scale up to what I wanted. Having a syllabus week started [the habit][(remembering when the deadlines are)] while having necessary yet achievable, low-pressure tasks to complete.

• Having a week of accomplishing something at each deadline gave me a better feeling for how much to include in homework assignments.

• Putting my plans down in writing made it feel truly real and forced me to know if I was sticking to them. Previous attempts of just vaguely saying "I'll do stuff every week" made me able to wiggle around what I initially had in mind, and ease up on myself unnecessarily.

The other largest hurdles in course design in the past have been motivating homework and creating exams. I'm always motivated to work problems conceptually, but actually going through the effort of writing the answer down or trying to work a quantity of problems rather than my favorites have both been difficult. For exams, it always feels like I have to invest so much time in coming up with a good selection of problems, and it always pans out that I've chosen too many problems for the exam, so much of my effort was in a sense a waste.

This time, I realized that I could solve my homework and exam woes simultaneously with the same solution. When I choose my homework problems from the text, all those that I don't work on go into a test pool. When test day arrives, I run a python script that randomly selects problems from the pool and writes the exam for me, which I must try to complete in a limited time. Thus, my time spent choosing homework and exam problems is efficiently merged, and I'm strongly motivated to work the harder problems for homework, as I wouldn't want them for the exam. Finally, any problem may be chosen for the exam, so even the ones I find tedious to write out may have to be written out.

Fourth Week Checkup

I knew that however I wrote up my syllabi to begin with, they would probably have to be changed mid-semester. Some of them even explicitly stated which parts should be considered first for modification. To aid in my analysis, I made sure to time journal, recording in Google Calendar the time I spent working on each subject.

After four solid weeks of work, I found myself burnt out. (Acquiring a knee injury and having an almost-sick weekend certainly didn't help.) So, it was clear that my fifth week plans would be replaced with "take a break and make modifications".

The most stunning result of my analysis has been that I was spending about as much time per week on algebra as I was on knot theory. (They were 11 and 10 hours per week, respectively.) This is stunning to me because I knew I was spending way too much time on algebra, but felt that my time spent on knot theory was much less and more appropriate. (Why?)(why-time-lost)

(start why-time-lost)

My best guess for why the disparity between my expectation and reality exists is that my algebra work has been mostly about concepts I'm already rather familiar with, so most of my time is spent writing the proofs. On the other hand, my work in knot theory has been in less familiar territory, so most of my time is spent devising the proofs. Apparently, my ability to estimate time spent pondering is completely bunk.

(stop why-time-lost)

So, I have decided to change to a maximum time limit rather than a minimum work limit. That is, I will strive for similar goals on homework each week, but after 5 hours of work in a week on a particular subject, I am not to work any more. This should work well with my current homework/exam system, since any problems I don't get to finish as homework problems are then put in the test pool, so I have the same incentive to work as before.

In order for this change to work, I'll have to change how I manage my time a bit. My plan is to set alarms to check on my progress as I'm working. One plan is to set an alarm for half the time I intend to work in a given session. That way, at the halfway point, I can evaluate how I've spent my time so far, and possibly change my efficiency for the final half. Alternatively, if I have many tasks to do in a session, I may set many smaller alarms, each for the amount of time I want to spend on each task. We'll see.

I condensed the rules to the card game Netrunner down from its 36 pages, mostly to lower the barrier to entry for new players. Ideally, this text and the starter Shaper and Jinteki decks, with the neutral cards shuffled in, should be all it takes to get started, allowing players to learn most of the rules while playing their first game.

Overview

Netrunner is a two-player asymmetric card game modeled in deck design after trading card games, modeled in theme and flavor after William Gibson's universe, such as Neuromancer, and unique in its gameplay.

One player is a Corporation, while the other player is a Runner. The Corp is trying to complete 7 points worth of agendas, by advancing them, while the Runner is trying to steal 7 points worth of agendas, by accessing each in a run on the Corp.

The Corp can also lose by drawing when the Corp deck has no cards, and similarly, the Runner can lose by discarding when the Runner hand has no cards.

Layout

To set up the game, each player gains five credits, shuffles their deck, draws a (maximum-size) hand of five cards, and has exactly one chance to mulligan for a reshuffled hand of five cards. The Runner begins with 4 MU, which is not denoted in any way.

Corporation Layout

The Corporation has multiple lanes or columns of vulnerabilities for the Runner to run. The Corp defends these lanes by placing ice in them, which the Runner will have to encounter before reaching and ultimately accessing the vulnerability. The Corp has three permanent vulnerabilities called central servers, each with their own lane:

• HQ (the hand, denoted by the identity card)
• R&D (the deck)
• Archives (the discard pile)

These lanes are already occupied by a vulnerability, and thus can only have ice or upgrades installed on them. The other lanes are remote servers, each of which can have at most one agenda or asset card installed, in addition to any ice or upgrades. There are no other limits on servers. (For example...)(no-server-limits)

(start no-server-limits)

Any number of ice or upgrade cards may be installed on each server, even remote servers with no agenda or asset installed. Any number of remote servers may exist.

(stop no-server-limits)

Face-Down Cards

The Corporation installs cards on servers face-down. The Corp may look at the face-down cards that are not in [R&D][(the deck)] at any time during the game, while the Runner may not. Both players may look at any face-up cards at any time. Cards not in the [archives][(the discard pile)] are face-up only when rezzed; cards in the archives are face-up only when the Runner has looked at them before, either because they were face-up when [trashed][(put in archives)] or because they have been accessed.

Face-down cards in the archives are turned [sideways][(landscape/horizontal)] to ensure the Runner knows they are there. Installed ice is turned sideways and separated to ensure the Runner knows how many pieces of ice defend each line and in what order, even while some may still be unrezzed. All other face-down cards are deliberately placed [normally][(portrait/vertical)] so the Runner cannot tell what kind of non-ice cards they may be.

Runner Layout

The Runner also has special names for the basic regions:

• grip (the hand)
• stack (the deck)
• heap (the discard pile)

The Runner has the ability to play cards into the rig (in play), representing what he has available to run with. There are three rows in the rig:

1. programs, which require MU to install and can contain icebreakers
2. hardware, which are the basic rig cards
3. resources, which can be [trashed][(put in the heap, the discard pile)] by the Corp if the Runner is tagged

Unlike Corp cards, all the cards in the Runner's [rig][(in play)] and [heap][(the discard pile)] stay face-up, available for both players to view at any time.

Card Information

The only kind of card not mentioned so far are those that are [trashed][(put in the discard pile, either archives or heap)] when played. For the Corp, these are called operations, and they go directly to the archives. For the Runner, these are called events, and they go directly to the heap.

When viewed in the hand, all cards are designed to be read [normally,][(portrait/vertically)] so all of the positions described below assume this normal orientation.

Activation Cost

The cost in credits to activate a card is on the top-left of the card. For operations and events, this is the cost to play and trash it. For the Runner's programs, hardware, and resources, this is the cost to install the card on the [rig.][(in play)] For the Corp's ice, upgrades, and assets, this is the cost to rez a card that is already installed on a [server.][(in play)]

Ice Interaction

The strength of ice or programs is on the bottom-left of the card. A program's icebreaker cannot be used on a piece of ice unless the strength of the program meets or exceeds the ice. Any boosts to a program's strength only apply while encountering one piece of ice, after which it resets to the strength on the program's card for the next step of the run.

Icebreakers typically only cancel one ice subroutine at a time. Each ice subroutine starts with "↳" symbol.

Icebreakers typically can only cancel one subtype of ice. The subtype(s) of the ice is on the left of the card. There are four subtypes of ice: sentry, barrier, code gate, and trap.

Server Contents

Agendas have their agenda points on the middle-left of the card. These are the victory points for the game: for the Corporation if the card is advanced to completion, or for the Runner if the agenda is stolen. The number of advancement tokens required for scoring an agenda for the Corp is on the top-right of the card. Agendas are only activated when scored.

Upgrades and assets are also vulnerable to Runner access. When accessed, the Runner may choose to trash (put in archives) the card by spending credits equal to its trash cost, which is on the bottom-right of the card text.

Player Actions

Each player starts their turn by performing actions, and ends their turn by discarding ((not trashing!Discard.)(actions-not-trashing)) down to their maximum hand size (five cards at the start).

(start actions-not-trashing)

It has the same effect as a [trash,][(put the card in the discard pile)] but it has a different name so it cannot be prevented by card abilities which prevent trashing. The same is true when the Runner takes damage.

(stop actions-not-trashing)

Corporation Actions

Each player typically performs four actions in a turn. The Corp's first action must be to draw a card; this is shown by the Corp only receiving three clicks to spend on other actions. The options are:

• Draw a card.
• Play a card.
• Gain a credit.
• Spend a credit to add an advancement token to a card.
• Spend two credits to trash a resource if the Runner is tagged.
• Spend two additional clicks to remove all virus counters from all cards.

Cards are drawn from [R&D][(deck)] into [HQ][(hand)] and played from HQ onto [servers][(in play)] (installing) or [archives.][(discard pile)] (for operations)

Agendas and any asset that says it can be advanced are the only cards that can be advanced. After advancing an agenda, check if it met its advancement requirement and can be scored.

Installing on Servers

Corp cards are always played on [servers][(in play)] face-down and inactive. Non-ice cards are simply stacked face-down in the server, while ice is played in the landscape or horizontal orientation in front of any ice or server
contents.

There is typically no install cost, except when playing ice on a server that already has ice on it, in which case the Corp must spend one credit per piece of ice already installed on the server. To avoid this cost, the Corp may choose to [trash][(put in archives)] any ice as he installs new ice on the same server.

Similarly, the Corp may choose to trash an agenda or asset when installing a new agenda or asset on the same server, since only one can be on a server at a time. These are the only times such trashes can be made.

To make an agenda active, it must be scored by advancing it to completion. To make any other card active, it must be rezzed.

Runner Actions

The Runner receives four clicks to spend on actions each turn. The options are:

• Draw a card.
• Play a card.
• Gain a credit.
• Make a run.
• Spend two credits to remove a tag.

Cards are drawn from the [stack][(deck)] into the [grip][(hand)] and played from the grip onto the [rig][(in play)] (installing) or [heap.][(discard pile)] (for events)

Installing on the Rig

Runner cards are always played on the [rig][(in play)] face-up and active, requiring the activation cost to be paid in credits immediately.

After installing a program, the Runner must [trash][(put in the heap)] programs until there are enough MU (memory units) for all of the programs on the rig. The Runner starts with a base 4 MU, which can be altered by cards in the rig. The MU required for each program is on the top-left of the card, just to the right of the activation cost.

Making a Run

When the Runner initiates a run, he chooses which server to run and approaches the outermost ice. On any approach, the Corp may then rez the approached ice (and any non-ice cards), and if so, the Runner encounters the ice, using icebreakers and applying ice subroutines (↳) that are not broken in order. After encountering the ice, or passing it if it remained unrezzed, the Runner decides whether to approach [the next thing in line][(either ice or server contents)] or jack out and end the run unsuccessfully. After approaching all ice in order, the Runner may choose to approach the server contents, making the run successful and accesssing the server. As with approaching ice, the Corp may rez any non-ice cards after this approach, before the resulting access.

When a remote server is accessed, all its [contents][(upgrades and at most one asset or agenda card)] are revealed to the Runner, who may then steal (score) any agenda and choose to pay the trash cost of
any upgrades or asset. Each of these cards is accessed one at a time, in whatever order the Runner chooses.

Each central server has a unique effect when accessed:

• HQ: The Runner accesses a card chosen at random from the hand.
• R&D: The Runner accesses the top card from the deck.
• Archives: The Runner accesses all cards from the discard pile.

When R&D is accessed, the Corp does not get to look at the accessed card unless it gets stolen or trashed. When Archives is accessed, all cards are turned face-up, and no cards may be trashed. Each card is still accessed one at a time in all cases.

Odds and Ends

Card text always takes precedence over game rules when there is a conflict.

A card being active means its text/abilities take effect; inactive means the opposite. To make a card active is to activate it.

A Corp card is rezzed when it is face-up and active. Becoming rezzed requires a cost in credits, and can only occur after installing. Non-ice can be rezzed immediately before almost any game step completes; ice can only be rezzed when approached by the Runner.

When a card ability says to expose a card, reveal it to all players and return it to its previous state. This does not count as an access.

Some cards become hosted by other cards. Such cards are [trashed][(put in the discard pile)] when the host card is trashed.

When a card ability has a number of credits with an arrow (↶) over the credit symbol, it means the card comes into play with those credits on it, then replenishes those credits every round, at the start of the card owner's turn. The card will typically restrict how those credits can be used.

(Note: If the Runner plans to play with the Noise deck...)(noise-note)

(start noise-note)

Only one copy of Wyldside may be in play at a time. This is denoted by the diamond before the title. (Other core set cards have this diamond, but Wyldside is the only one with more than one copy.)

(stop noise-note)

Counters

Credits are the currency of the game, which come in 1's and 5's. The backside of the 1-credit is the advancement token, gained as a Corp action to try to complete agendas and win the game.

The red brain counters denote brain damage.

The blue/green rectangular counters are for tagging and bad publicity.

The blue/red circular counters are versatile. For instance, they may be blue Corp agenda counters, red Runner virus counters, or miscellaneous power counters for either player.

Damage

When the Runner takes meat damage or net damage, discard (not trash) a card randomly from the [grip.][(Runner hand)] (These damages have different names so that card effects can prevent only one or the other.) This can trigger a Corp win immediately if the grip was already empty.

When the Runner takes brain damage, discard (not trash) a card randomly from the grip, and reduce the Runner's maximum hand size by one, taking a brain damage counter to denote this. This can trigger a Corp win immediately if the grip was already empty, or at the end of the Runner's turn if the maximum hand size was already zero.

Tagging and Bad Publicity

The blue side of the rectangular counter is used for tags, the green side for bad publicity.

Any time a card has an effect for the Runner to gain a tag, an additional tag is given to the Runner. This allows the Corp to perform extra actions, such as the default "spend a click and two credits to trash a resource" or the neutral agenda Private Security Force ability "spend a click to deal one meat damage".

Any time a card has an effect for the Corp to gain bad publicity, an additional bad publicity counter is given to the Corp. The Runner gains one credit for every bad publicity counter at the start of each run, but these credits are returned when the run ends if they are not spent.

Trace and Links

Some Corp cards have a "Trace\(^n\)" ability, which begins a trace. In a trace, the Corp begins with strength \(n,\) while the Runner begins with strength equal to links, (◰) found on the identity card and sometimes on cards in the [rig.][(in play)] Then the Corp openly spends some number of credits, increasing strength by that amount. Then the Runner does the same. The trace is successful if the Corp has greater strength, unsuccessful if the Runner has equal or greater strength.