Intermittent Pellets and Dumb Things

Yeah, so the other day I thought I had done something really dumb, but it turned out I hadn't. Except, I had, because all indications pointed to it being a dumb thing. Not a Dumb Thing, disaster-like, eg putting your Winnebago on cruise control and going to the back to getyourself a sandwich because, hey, it's controlled. Just a minor headachey "Why do I do this to myself?" kind of dumb thing. It turned out OK, though. Which in fact is not too good, because Intermittent Rewards is the best way to train a dumb person or animal to do something. Eg: you show a mouse that when it pushes down a lever, it gets a food pellet. If it gets a food pellet every time, as soon as the pellet is withheld the mouse will quickly cease to perform. If you only reward it every 2-6 times, it will keep performing for long, loooong time, hoping for the pellet. So, in this case, I agreed to do something that's supposed to be nice but almost never turns out nice. And it turned out nice. Setting me up to agree to said thing again, even though I know the odds are I will not get my pellet.

That... didn't clear up anything at all, did it?

Anyway. It wasn't a big deal, trust me. Just a minorly dumb thing.