reggieband

Central Europe Travel

This map shows the path I am planning to take through central Europe starting next week. I fly into Budapest April 25.

So laughable it's not funny

Considering my last post was on June. 18 and the topic was discipline I am pretty ashamed. That was four months ago. Seventeen weeks. One hundered and twenty-six days.

Looks like I have spent a great deal of time thinking about discipline, persistence and consitency but very little time actually integrating these into my daily life.

I have used up quite a bit of time and I don't really have anything new to show for it except for ideas. Ideas are valuable only insomuch that they can be transformed into actions.

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley

The whole getting up early experiment has proven to be an utter failure at this point. I have resumed regularily sleeping-in and have neglected this blog completely. The trip to Dublin was the first smash against my half-hearted attempt at self improvement but to be fair I have just kind of let it die.

I had a whole list of things I wanted to improve within myself and getting up early each day was a basis upon which to build. As my foundation has proven unstable I have been unable to make progress creating a better life for myself.

I am being a little harsh against myself here but I feel it is well warranted.

It is really easy to set a goal. I get this optimistic outlook when I think of interesting projects: how easy it will be! It turns out that most things in life that are worth doing are very hard. Quelle surprise.

There are projects brewing in my head that could be a real value - both to myself monetarily and to others as productivity boosters. The thing that holds me back is not a lack of technical ability but some basic fundamental soft skills:

• Discipline. I mean this in the sense of self-control. When we allow the whims of our selfish mind to control us we waste our time. I am lucky enough to have a list of things I want to do but I lack the discipline to carry them through. Discipline is related to fortitude - a strength of mind that allows one to say: 'I will work on this project even though it is hard instead of surfing reddit every five minutes.' Discipline implies the training towards and the act of such fortitude.
• Persistence. I mean this in the sense that something continues after the cause is gone. How many projects have I started and not finished? How many times have I had a great idea and not followed through? Most great things take years to achieve - one must persist through long periods to acheive great ends. Persistence follows from discipline. Discipline allows one to continue doing something when the motivation is gone.
• Consistency. I mean this both in the sense of reliable and steady and in the sense of internally compatible. How often do I say one thing and do another? How many actions in my life work against one another - work against my goals? How reliably do I work towards a goal? Consistency follows from persistence. Persistence means a goal is reliably and constantly being worked towards; nothing gets in the way of achieving it (not even ourselves.)

There are many self-help books that try to help people clarify their life goals. They suggest that the path to happiness can be found if only we know what we want. What I need is training in discipline, persistence and consistency.

I'll give it some thought.

Design and Usability

I have trouble staying up with new designs. It is especially difficult to stay current with graphic design. Thankfully there are different kinds of design; I prefer usable interfaces.

These are sites that cater to the usable interface:

• A List Apart: I have read this site since I started web designing. I have seen it go through many redesigns. Occasionally it becomes stale, stagnant and behind the times only to resurrect to current, valid and useful.
• Use It: Jakob Nielsen often sounds like a lunatic and his site looks like sick; however, you cannot argue with the man's logic. Check out the Alert box sometime. NielsenNorman do scientific studies on design and usability. Donald Norman wrote The design of Every Day Things a classic in usability literature. These men know usable design and Jakob preaches it to the unbelieving masses. It is worth listening to.
• Boxes and Arrows: Information Architecture has been on the downslide for a few years. Nowadays designers feel encroached upon by a new title 'architect' and feel that whatever architects purport to do should be the natural domain of the Interface/Experience/Interaction Designer. Information Architecture is not dead and there are still valid articles being written on the subject. It is worth keeping abrest as to what is going on in the field. Jesse James Garrett is a grandaddy in this field and he recommends the The Information Architecture Institute,

I haven't touched on the several companies that specialize in usable designs. 37 Signals was active in usable design information until they become focused on web application development. Adaptive Path carries the tourch now.

Usable design is a goal worth striving for. The web is still new and interactive media is finally making its way to the masses. It is worth the effort to ensure your ideas and services reach as many potential users as possible.

Some pics from Gran's house in Dublin

My friends have asked me to give more pictures and less words when describing how I am doing. Here are some pictures from my gran's place in Dublin.

This is the outside of the house Gran lived in. 335 North Circular Road, Dublin:

This is my gran's dog snoopy:

A sad long weekend

I had been trying to get in touch with my Aunt to find out about my cousins wedding. The ceremony is going to be in Nice, France and I want to go visit the South of France: this is a perfect opportunity. When I finally got my Aunt on the phone Sunday night I got news that my grandmother (on my Mothers side) passed away.

I booked tickets to Dublin, Ireland where my grandmother had lived. I was there for the viewing of the corpse and the cremation ceremony. I read one of the prayers for intercession at the Catholic mass. I wish I had been there before she died to see her alive one last time.

My grandmother was a lively, lovely lady. I remember her always looking with smiling eyes. Her movements around my childhood house could best be described as puttering. She was a big fan of Chuck Norris as Walker, Texas Ranger. She loved our little cat and our little cat loved her; often you would find the cat sleeping content on top of gran's chest.

The time outside of funeral services turned into an excuse to meet my family in Ireland. Gran had several children and each has several children. This means that she had thirty or more grandchildren; I have thirty or more cousins. Many of these cousins I met for the first time at the funeral services. It was difficult remembering each of their names but I am glad to have such a good family. I cannot wait until I have the chance to meet them all again at the wedding of my cousin in Nice, France.

There really is too much more to say. I feel a little more connected with a huge part of my family that I did not know before. I learned quite a bit about where my Mother came from and about the family she grew up with. It is the kind of information that would take a large essay to attempt to communicate.

Saturday link list

• Give yourself a reality check before starting a start-up. I myself often dream of the millions I could make if I created a Web 2.0 application and it was bought by Google; however it makes more sense to create a business that is profitable than a project that gets bought: it is difficult to turn an unprofitable project into a business but it is easy to sell a profitable business.
• You don't need a business degree to have a business education. The real benefit to a MBA program is the people you are surrounded by; it is not the information you are given. You can find lists of reccommended business readling all over the web.
• Read literature by people who have previously and are currently starting start-ups. There is a ton of information available for people looking to start their own companies. Only through reading as much as you possibly can will you be able to make informed decisions.
• There is more than one way to be an entrepreneur. People have been starting business for centuries. You may not necessarily need to start a Web 2.0 application to be successful. Have a look at traditional businesses and see what you can learn.

5 am experiment - Day 14

It has been two weeks since I started the experiment and three days since I switched to a 6:00am wake-up time. For some reason 6:00am seems to be a more difficult time to get up each morning when compare to my experience getting up at 5:00am; I do not wake before the alarm sounds and I feel groggy. The drowsy feeling tends to stay for a longer amount of time as well.

I find that weather has a large effect on my mood. Gloomy overcast days usually leave me feeling lethargic and grumpy. If I have not slept enough then poor weather can be a real energy killer.

My sleep schedule is beginning to affect my social life as well. If I haven't gotten a lot of sleep in recent days then I am more likely to decline offers to socialize after work; instead I favour going home early in the hopes of getting to bed at a reasonable time. I feel that if I keep a high ratio of success compared to failure then I am more likely to continue the experiment.

I treat spending habits in a completely different manner than sleeping. With money I save a certain amount immediately and then I allow myself to spend what is left; I only decline social invitations when my spending money does not appear that it will stretch until the next payday.

5 am experiment - Day 13

One of the main inspirations for my 5 am experiment is Steve Pavlina. He has a recent blog entry on how to get up right away when your alarm goes off. The general gist is that willpower is not enough to get you up each and every morning. The most effective way to ensure success is to practice getting up immediately after you alarm goes off at all times of the day. In the dark early evening, for example, go through all of your routine for going to bed and set your alarm for five to ten minutes in the future. Lie down like you are going to bed and when your alarm goes off immediately get out of bed. The idea is that you will eventualy train yourself (like Pavlov trained his dog) to naturally get out of bed as soon as your alarm goes off.

I do not feel the need to resort to such training as of yet. Steve makes a point that I can fully relate to though: you cannot trust your 5:00am self. Even if you have good intentions at 10:00pm there is a good chance your 5:00am self will sabotage your plan. His solution is to boot-camp style training in order to form the habit quickly while I would prefer the habit to arise naturally.

Steve does have some credibility in my book. In November of last year he started an experiment in positive intentioning: he wants to earn one million dollars. This idea sounds a little new agey and is based on the old pagan and wiccan beliefs (even if Steve does not acknowledge it) that if you focus clearly on a goal (by repeating a mantra each day) it will naturally arise. Historically this is known as magic; however Steve takes a more pragmatic approach suggesting that one becomes more open to opportunities that may present themselves to help one fulfill their stated goal.

In a slightly more heavy, yet still related, vein: Douglas Adams talks about our belief in an artificial God. Douglas makes a case that our long held belief systems may have value beyond what science currently has to offer. Science has conquered many aspects of the physical world, especially those aspects that are easily measurable. Yet there still exist phenomenon (like life) that remain outside the boundaries of scientific explanation (beyond sweeping generalities). The initial question is "How do we measure life?" and this leads on a round about trip through many interesting subjects. I bring this up in relation to Steve Pavlina because even though there is no immediate scientific basis for Steve's positive intentioning experiment, it is based on long held beliefs. There may be good reason to believe that these beliefs are based on a type of human knowledge that hasn't been quantified by science as of yet.

5 am experiment - Day 12

Now that I have switched the time I get up to 6:00am I'm not sure if I should change the title of the post to: "6 am experiment - Day 1". Although there is a case to reseting the clock, consitency compels me to continue with the current title names. Hindsight suggests that it would have been wise to choose a title that was ambiguous about the time: "Early morning experiement"

A benefit of my current job is that my employer is serious about training employees. Yesterday I attended a course on Peer Mentoring that I found to be incredibly useful in many ways. The purpose is to mentor a person new to the company or new to a particular role with the goal to transfer knowledge to this person. During the first break in this course, at around 10:30am, the course attendees were invited to the coffee bar for refreshments. Many of my colleagues decided to have a hot chocolate and I chose to have a coffee. The bar only served espresso based drinks and so this turned into an Americano style coffee. Part of the 5 am experiment has included avoiding caffeine; this was the first time in over two weeks I had any caffeine.

Drinking coffee severely alters sleeping schedules. Not only does it make me alert, jittery and talkative it also makes it very difficult to sleep. I can feel drowsy or down-right sleepy but I cannot sleep. I had the coffee crash that follows the coffee high late in the afternoon. I decided to sleep it off with a one hour nap. Not only was I completely unsuccessful in napping, my mind racing instead of relaxing, it took me much longer than usual to get to sleep. I had to force myself to bed at 11:45pm and I concentrated on my breathing to try and calm my frantic mind. Needless to say caffeine is a modern scourge on the human nervous system and will be banned from my daily diet.

5 am experiment - Day 11

I was invited to a movie last night: a Korean horror movie named Bunshinsaba. This Japanese style horror flick is in the tradition of Ringu; however it did not have the same frightful impact as some other films in the genre. The idea for these Japanese style horrors is that you should avoid tormenting people in this life; if your actions lead to the violent death of another person their spirit will exact revenge on you in the most horrible fashion. I was still watching the movie at 10:30pm when I felt drowsy and thought to myself that it was 'passed my bedtime'. I didn't get home until after 11:30pm.

I bring this up only to avoid immediately admitting I slept in today. Although my eyes once again popped open about five minutes before my alarm went off, I knew that I had not gotten enough sleep. I decided to stay in bed for an extra hour and that managed to drag on until 6:30am. I feel more tired than usual for the morning and I am not sure if it is the late night or the sleep in that is the cause.

I have made the decision to change to a 6 am experiment. If my schedule was 10:30pm-5:00am then I admit it would be more convenient to have a schedule of 11:30pm-6:00am. It is obvious that my body was getting used to (perhaps even fond of) waking up at 5:00am so I am inviting a new readjustment period. I am definitely pleased with my progress so far and I am surprised that I have made it eight days out of eleven: over seventy percent. I believe that 6:00am is a time that will better suit my schedule.

5 am experiment - Day 10

I am back on track today. I had to resist the temptation this morning to extend my sleep time one hour and get up at 6:00am, although this is something I may seriously consider for the future.

In my dreams I start to speculate when I will wake up. At first I think that the alarm will go off any second and then I worry a little that I have overslept. It feels pretty natural to be talking in the dream about waking up shortly; at that point I hardly feel asleep and I remember being aware of the sound of birds chirping outdoors.

The hardest part of waking up are the five minutes immediately after the alarm sounds. This is my make or break time. If I can make it past those five minutes than I am fine.

5 am experiment - Day 9

How embarassing that I have to admit I slept in today again. How easily I revert to staying up past midnight only to remain in bed until past 10:00am. My weakness is shameful and I must use that to spur me on to getting up early again.

I'm not sure if I have been clear as to why I am doing this. I eluded to early mornings as a first step towards bigger changes in my life; what are these changes? It would be nice to do the things I want to do instead of the things that currently make me money. So that means two things: first I must have enough initial capital to pursue my interests without fear of bankruptcy and second I must be confident I can monetize my interests.

I am pragmatic to a fault. I rarely take risks unless I have investigated them to be sure the odds are at least marginally in my favour. This can lead to a procastination based paralysis: I won't move on an idea until I have satisfied my rational mind that it has a good chance to succeed.

One major risk to monetizing my interests is sleep. I might honestly sleep all day if I did not have a day job. If I had enough initial capital to pursue my interests I might have no motivation to get up in the morning until I ran out of capital and was forced to find a job.

Teaching myself to get up early every morning of the week as a habit reduces the risk that I might waste away my days. Since I was awake I would tend to do something with my time. The next step in removing risk is to organize myself so that I make the best use of that time.

Music taste prediction software

I am on the constant lookout for new music. I have an insatiable appetite for new artists and styles. There is beauty in so much music out there; there is so much music I haven't had the chance to hear yet.

In the search for music I cannot recommend highly enough last.fm as a means to track the music one listens to. With that information tracked they can do some very interesting things like find other people who have similar tastes in order to link you in a social network with those people (neighbours as they call them); they then use these association to build artist recommendations and radio stations playing these artists.

I used to use amazon.com as a way to find artists that I liked as well. The trifecta of Customers who like A also like B, List Mania and So You'd Like to... provide solid basis for music exploration.

Traditional media is still a decent way to find new music. You will see a fair selection of new artists on MTV or VH1. Publications like Spin, Rolling Stones and NME also have a role in todays music scene but they pale in my opinion to online options like pitchfork media or the huge list of mp3 blogs available.

Today I realized that pandora has made itself free (ad supported but no money leaves my hands so it is free enough to call free). The above solutions really are depth vs. breadth ways to approach music discovery. You are narrowed by 'artist' connotation and not by what you actually like the 'sound' of. Pandora examines music song-by-song and analyzes each ones 'signature'. What this means is each song you say you like is compared for characteristics (tempo, dynamics, style) with other songs and it is the characteristics that are matched for new selections. You listen to their radio and vote up and down songs and they tailor content to your actual tastes. I loved the results I got from the program but when I first saw it one had to pay for the full service; not so any longer, hurray for ad support!

Now someone has gone and combined pandora and last.fm at pandora real-ity. This site allows you to listen to pandora for new music and it gets submitted to your last.fm account.

Saturday link list

During the week I come across so much interesting information that it makes sense to share some of the links I use to find it.

• Google personal page is my current start page and default portal. Rival microsoft does have live personal service but for now I am supporting google. Many of the sites below are aggregated on this page for easy access to updates.
• Reddit. A website aggregator that has replaced metafilter for my daily read. Sure I still check out boingboing and I like digg (digg especially for tech related news) but reddit seems to serve my needs for daily news of interest.
• 37 Signals - Signal vs. Noise. This blog is written by the crew of 37 Signals. They have made several web applications and a pdf book based on a philosophy of minimal feature sets and quick deployment. Something draws me to their site daily; perhaps it is their combination of well designed technology and entrepreneurial wisom.
• Joel on Software. Joel Spolsky is a former Miscrosoft employee turned entrepreneur. He writes on interface design, entrepreneurial advice, management practices and software philosophy in a different manner than the 37 Signals crew. He has an air of wisdom similar to Paul Graham but with a slightly more refined writing style.
• Google news provides me with my daily world news update. I used to read Salon quite often but their ad policy is quite annoying: why should I watch a 30 second ad before reading content. The Onion started this as well and I read it much less frequently since their re-design.

Those represent daily reading for me (or whenever they are updated). There are many other sites I go to occasionally but these are ones I use consistently and constantly. Most of my knowledge of what is current on the web comes from starting with one of these places as my root source.