The 20-second napOctober 19, 2010
Something that I've discovered this year is that you can achieve an impressive state of rest by "concentrating". What I mean by that is focusing on making your body as relaxed as possible. The second part of this is thoughts -- often if I close my eyes to relax, my mind starts processing all of the things of life -- things I have to do, etc, etc. But by counting in your head, those thoughts seem to be averted, leading to better rest.
So it goes like this: Closing your eyes, getting into a comfortable position, and slowly counting backwards from a number like 20 or 40, making your body as limp as possible. Sometimes I'm so relaxed doing this that I stop breathing for 10 seconds simply because my mind is telling all of my muscles to "stop".
I like this for a few reasons:
  | There are many times in a day where you have a moment that you have to wait for something. |
| I find it intriguing that one can "concentrate" on being restful. That seems like an oxymoron to me. |
| Unlike longer "naps", I don't find this makes you any less alert/awake. |
OdometersSeptember 19, 2010
So far this year:
Biked: 848 km (approx. 42.4 hours)
Ran: 135 km (approx. 15.7 hours)
Walked: 107 km (approx. 19.5 hours)
Total: 1090 km (approx. 77.6 hours)
Approx time/day: 17.77 minutes/day
Wolfram Alpha Volunteer CommunitySeptember 12, 2010
A year and a half or so after Wolfram Alpha has launched it's nice to see that an official community has been created volunteer data curation. I tried the curation process out last week and was impressed with how straightforward it was: I downloaded an Excel spreadsheet with 10 video games and then used the web to lookup release dates, supported platforms, etc. There is even a point system and the ability to display your badge on a website, etc. Very nice! I think that volunteer curators will find this process enjoyable and be thrilled once their contributions are live on the site.
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