This section lists all blog posts, regardless of topic.
List your aspirationsApril 12, 2006
I was checking out
Matt Langeman's weblog today and came across an interesting post --
Doing Things. It reminded me of the first reading we had assigned for homework in grade 9 English class that told the story of a man who, when he was a child, tip toed down the stairs one night to overhear a guest describing to his parents many of the unbelievable things he had done. The boy decided to make a daring list of 99 (?) things he wanted to do/accomplish in his life. The article went on to describe some of his amazing successes, and that he accomplished everything but a few items on the list. (Didn't make it to the moon) Inspiring. I remembered that story earlier this year and I've been meaning to start on my own list. See also:
43things.com, and
my 99 things.
Idea: Site to rapidly learn programming languageApril 11, 2006
A common strategy for learning a new programming language is to buy a book. While this is a good starting point, it often leaves you with many unanswered questions. The moment you start coding, you're going to run into frustrating problems/questions that the book doesn't answer. That's where Google comes in, right? While Google is tremendously useful, it can still be time consuming to find what you're looking for. Google solves the problem decently, but not well.
Read the rest of this articleCounting: A motivational techniqueApril 11, 2006
Rememeber when you were a kid and your mom or dad said
"Jimmy, you have three seconds to stop doing that or you're in big trouble! 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...". More than the threat, the sense of urgency that this gave you might have helped you to stop doing whatever it was that you were doing. But this thinking doesn't only work on kids, I have found, it is also a good trick to motivate ones self. For example, say you're in the shower and you can't bring yourself to turn the water off... it's easy for five or ten minutes to go by and yet still, it's oh so hard. Try counting down from ten or fifteen. It's pretty easy to start the counting process because there is no immediate consequence, but once you get down to about four, you've been sufficiently prepared to endure the water being turned off.
Sometimes I take this further by giving myself a countdown from 10 to wash my hair, from 15 to wash my body, and then from 20 to bask in the warmth before the water goes bye-bye. Now that's an efficient shower!
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