Start of autumn + Psychohistory

Pinch and a punch for the first day of the month no returns. No one has done that to me at all today, I'm frankly surprised. It's the technically the beginning of autumn and so we should be saying goodbye to sweltering weather. Though to be truthful, excepting the really really hot week or so in the middle of February, it really wasn't that bad this summer. There was a period of about two weeks where it seemed like autumn came early.

That was the most comfortable weather and temperature for me. Cool, cloudy, occasionally sunny with no rain. Not so hot that sweat pours off me and not so cold I freeze in the pitiful school uniform that girls have to wear. I'll probably be making do with tights under my stockings this winter again, and the Sydney Girls blazer doesn't look warm (I'm told flat out that "it's not" when I asked). It's not thick and it's not a warm material like Hurlstone's.

After some thought, I will declare now that autumn is my favourite season with respect to temperature, it's changing from too hot to too cold, and there will be a nice period where the temperature is (as Goldilocks say) just right. I also handle the cold a little better than I do the heat.

I'm reading the Foundation series by Isaac Asimav. The idea of psychohistory in that series interests me a lot. Basically it's about predicting how a huge population of people will act and react by mathematical calculations. The analogy used is that a human is like one atom, scientists will have trouble predicting what it will do. But when there's a whole lot of atoms all together, their pattern of movement and actions can be predicted. It's almost like being able to predict the future.

The way in which it's used is also very logical, when you read the explanation it seems obvious that of course history will turn out that way, there is no other alternative because it's human nature to do what the people did, and psychohistory can predict that.

If a science like this existed in real life I would probably want to study it. Psychohistory in real life is the study of the psychological motivations of historical events, according to Wikipedia. It also has something about six psychogenic modes that's resulted or associated with a particular childbearing style, from infanticidal (!!) to helping.