I heard an amazing story from AI guru Gerry Sussman this afternoon, which I quote here from memory:
One summer, sometime in the 1970s, I
decided to set a completely random pattern of waking and sleeping. I
took the old CCRC handbook’s table of random numbers and used it to
pick an hour to go to sleep each day and an hour to wake up. At the end
of the summer, my internal clock was broken. I could sleep 3 hours or
16 hours, and it made no difference. I don’t have to sleep at night
now–I don’t sleep very much anyhow–and I never get jet lag.
decided to set a completely random pattern of waking and sleeping. I
took the old CCRC handbook’s table of random numbers and used it to
pick an hour to go to sleep each day and an hour to wake up. At the end
of the summer, my internal clock was broken. I could sleep 3 hours or
16 hours, and it made no difference. I don’t have to sleep at night
now–I don’t sleep very much anyhow–and I never get jet lag.
Clearly, his clock re-setting didn’t impair Sussman’s energy or creativity–check out this fragment of a recent biography:
Sussman…is also a bonded locksmith, a life member of the
American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute (AWI), a member of the
Massachusetts Watchmakers-Clockmakers Association, a member of the
Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston (ATMOB), and a member of the
American Radio Relay League (ARRL).
American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute (AWI), a member of the
Massachusetts Watchmakers-Clockmakers Association, a member of the
Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston (ATMOB), and a member of the
American Radio Relay League (ARRL).
This experiment might be worth trying–and, as Sussman pointed out,
computers have made it much easier to generate random numbers mod 24.
Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for
machines to execute.”
– Abelson & Sussman, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
BTW, many congrats to geek crusader and blog-lebrity Keith J Winstein (at whose party this chat took place) on his graduation from MIT.