Closing Comments
One thing about the Wordpress blog is that it attracts more comment spam. (Not sure why, it just does.) So I'm closing out comments on a few older entries. For instance in this entry I referenced "Mr. Bipolar Guy" and about once a day now somebody tries to put some spam comment about bipolarity on that entry. (And I suppose maybe now this one, although I think it's probably a matter of whether the post gets any GoogleJuice(tm).)
Anyway, nobody real is commenting on a one year old post, so I closed it, along with a couple of others that were spam magnets. If you want to comment on an old entry let me know, I can always reopen one.
One thing about the Wordpress blog is that it attracts more comment spam. (Not sure why, it just does.) So I'm closing out comments on a few older entries. For instance in this entry I referenced "Mr. Bipolar Guy" and about once a day now somebody tries to put some spam comment about bipolarity on that entry. (And I suppose maybe now this one, although I think it's probably a matter of whether the post gets any GoogleJuice(tm).)
Anyway, nobody real is commenting on a one year old post, so I closed it, along with a couple of others that were spam magnets. If you want to comment on an old entry let me know, I can always reopen one.
Anyway, nobody real is commenting on a one year old post, so I closed it, along with a couple of others that were spam magnets. If you want to comment on an old entry let me know, I can always reopen one.
iPod/Podcast Tip
Did I mention that I got an iPod classic for Christmas, so now I watch video podcasts on my iPod? Well I did. It's fantastic, and it also plays Phase by Harmonix. :-)
Anyway the fact that podcasts are listed in reverse chronological order is very annoying. I finally got annoyed enough to look up a work-around. Here's the trick:
When you pick Podcasts from the menu you get a list of podcast feeds, showing how many episodes you have of each feed. Select a feed and press Play, not Select. If you do this it plays the episodes in chronological order. As a bonus, it will seamlessly segue to the next track in the list when it finishes. That sounds sort of obvious, but it's NOT the way it works when you play individual podcasts from the reverse chronological list.
I don't know how extensive the support for this is. It works on my iPod classic.
Edit 2/15/08 I forgot to mention that this only works if you have shuffle turned off. Sorry for any confusion!
Did I mention that I got an iPod classic for Christmas, so now I watch video podcasts on my iPod? Well I did. It's fantastic, and it also plays Phase by Harmonix. :-)
Anyway the fact that podcasts are listed in reverse chronological order is very annoying. I finally got annoyed enough to look up a work-around. Here's the trick:
When you pick Podcasts from the menu you get a list of podcast feeds, showing how many episodes you have of each feed. Select a feed and press Play, not Select. If you do this it plays the episodes in chronological order. As a bonus, it will seamlessly segue to the next track in the list when it finishes. That sounds sort of obvious, but it's NOT the way it works when you play individual podcasts from the reverse chronological list.
I don't know how extensive the support for this is. It works on my iPod classic.
Edit 2/15/08 I forgot to mention that this only works if you have shuffle turned off. Sorry for any confusion!
Anyway the fact that podcasts are listed in reverse chronological order is very annoying. I finally got annoyed enough to look up a work-around. Here's the trick:
When you pick Podcasts from the menu you get a list of podcast feeds, showing how many episodes you have of each feed. Select a feed and press Play, not Select. If you do this it plays the episodes in chronological order. As a bonus, it will seamlessly segue to the next track in the list when it finishes. That sounds sort of obvious, but it's NOT the way it works when you play individual podcasts from the reverse chronological list.
I don't know how extensive the support for this is. It works on my iPod classic.
Edit 2/15/08 I forgot to mention that this only works if you have shuffle turned off. Sorry for any confusion!
The Most of P.G. Wodehouse
I've piled up some books to review. Let's dive in shall we?
Today's book is The Most of P.G. Wodehouse by well, P.G. Wodehouse (duh!). Some of you may not recognize the name but will know him as the author of the Jeeves and Wooster stories. I picked this up last summer after my quasi-regular Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy binges. (A series that JP should totally read some day!) Often when I do these I only read the first four books, and then add on the pair of Dirk Gently books depending on mood. But this last time I read Mostly Harmless and The Salmon of Doubt. Douglas Adams called Wodehouse one of the greatest writers in the English language, that's good enough for me to check him out. This was not the first time I had considered reading Wodehouse, but this was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Having made the decision to read such a prolific author the next choice is where to begin? This book was positioned as a "best of" sort of title in the Amazon reviews, so it seemed a good place to start. To be honest, I'm not sure it's the best introduction to his work. It contains selections from several of his "themes" - stories from the Drones Club setting, ones about Golf and so forth. Jeeves is the last section of the book and after a few short stories the book contains the complete text of the novel Quick Service
I enjoyed this book overall, but I don't think it really is a "best of". Jeeves is by far the best material and it doesn't start until page 459. Even there, I think the characters get more room to act in the novel, so the best part is saved for last. The Drones Club section that opens the book was decent, but it was my second least favorite section (Golf being the worst). It's a good survey of the breadth of Wodehouse, but that means you're sampling from a variety of plates. I think on balance I would have rather focused on Blandings or Jeeves and skipped some of the other settings.
I'll read some more Wodehouse in the future. I didn't really get the "best wordsmith of the English language" vibe from most of this, but I did quite like several bits.
I've piled up some books to review. Let's dive in shall we?
Today's book is The Most of P.G. Wodehouse by well, P.G. Wodehouse (duh!). Some of you may not recognize the name but will know him as the author of the Jeeves and Wooster stories. I picked this up last summer after my quasi-regular Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy binges. (A series that JP should totally read some day!) Often when I do these I only read the first four books, and then add on the pair of Dirk Gently books depending on mood. But this last time I read Mostly Harmless and The Salmon of Doubt. Douglas Adams called Wodehouse one of the greatest writers in the English language, that's good enough for me to check him out. This was not the first time I had considered reading Wodehouse, but this was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Having made the decision to read such a prolific author the next choice is where to begin? This book was positioned as a "best of" sort of title in the Amazon reviews, so it seemed a good place to start. To be honest, I'm not sure it's the best introduction to his work. It contains selections from several of his "themes" - stories from the Drones Club setting, ones about Golf and so forth. Jeeves is the last section of the book and after a few short stories the book contains the complete text of the novel Quick Service
I enjoyed this book overall, but I don't think it really is a "best of". Jeeves is by far the best material and it doesn't start until page 459. Even there, I think the characters get more room to act in the novel, so the best part is saved for last. The Drones Club section that opens the book was decent, but it was my second least favorite section (Golf being the worst). It's a good survey of the breadth of Wodehouse, but that means you're sampling from a variety of plates. I think on balance I would have rather focused on Blandings or Jeeves and skipped some of the other settings.
I'll read some more Wodehouse in the future. I didn't really get the "best wordsmith of the English language" vibe from most of this, but I did quite like several bits.
Today's book is The Most of P.G. Wodehouse by well, P.G. Wodehouse (duh!). Some of you may not recognize the name but will know him as the author of the Jeeves and Wooster stories. I picked this up last summer after my quasi-regular Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy binges. (A series that JP should totally read some day!) Often when I do these I only read the first four books, and then add on the pair of Dirk Gently books depending on mood. But this last time I read Mostly Harmless and The Salmon of Doubt. Douglas Adams called Wodehouse one of the greatest writers in the English language, that's good enough for me to check him out. This was not the first time I had considered reading Wodehouse, but this was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Having made the decision to read such a prolific author the next choice is where to begin? This book was positioned as a "best of" sort of title in the Amazon reviews, so it seemed a good place to start. To be honest, I'm not sure it's the best introduction to his work. It contains selections from several of his "themes" - stories from the Drones Club setting, ones about Golf and so forth. Jeeves is the last section of the book and after a few short stories the book contains the complete text of the novel Quick Service
I enjoyed this book overall, but I don't think it really is a "best of". Jeeves is by far the best material and it doesn't start until page 459. Even there, I think the characters get more room to act in the novel, so the best part is saved for last. The Drones Club section that opens the book was decent, but it was my second least favorite section (Golf being the worst). It's a good survey of the breadth of Wodehouse, but that means you're sampling from a variety of plates. I think on balance I would have rather focused on Blandings or Jeeves and skipped some of the other settings.
I'll read some more Wodehouse in the future. I didn't really get the "best wordsmith of the English language" vibe from most of this, but I did quite like several bits.
Update to the Update of Fictional Thing A Week
Clearly this whole "Thing A Week" thing isn't working right. One of the side-effects of converting from MovableType to WordPress has been that I've been reading through old posts as Google or Yahoo or whoever crawls the old links. I'd like to direct your attention to my analysis of posting the original Captain Arcolier story. Specifically there I talk about how the weekly deadline didn't improve the serial format. All of that is still true, but I'd add that in Shore Leave there are pieces that needed to be in earlier section, but because I was publishing as I went I couldn't fix that.
My original Thing a Week idea was very simple, post a whole story every week. The problem became almost immediately clear: I don't always write an entire story in a week. I modified the plan for Welcome to Gameworld and I think it worked OK there, but the trap was that I had backslid into the serial model.
What I'm dancing around is this: I don't actually write a complete story every week. Don't have the time, don't have the energy. While I like the serial posting for some things, my original assessment was correct: I need to write the entire story before posting any part of it.
So my goal, moving forward is going to be a story a month. If the story is short I'll post it in one chunk, and there will be three weeks with no story. If it naturally falls into four chunks then I'll post one chunk a week. If it falls in more chunks … I'm not sure. Maybe it will take more than a month to post and I'll build up a backlog. Maybe I'll post more frequently. We'll see.
This starts now, so my goal is to have a story ready for the beginning of March. Wish me luck!
Clearly this whole "Thing A Week" thing isn't working right. One of the side-effects of converting from MovableType to WordPress has been that I've been reading through old posts as Google or Yahoo or whoever crawls the old links. I'd like to direct your attention to my analysis of posting the original Captain Arcolier story. Specifically there I talk about how the weekly deadline didn't improve the serial format. All of that is still true, but I'd add that in Shore Leave there are pieces that needed to be in earlier section, but because I was publishing as I went I couldn't fix that.
My original Thing a Week idea was very simple, post a whole story every week. The problem became almost immediately clear: I don't always write an entire story in a week. I modified the plan for Welcome to Gameworld and I think it worked OK there, but the trap was that I had backslid into the serial model.
What I'm dancing around is this: I don't actually write a complete story every week. Don't have the time, don't have the energy. While I like the serial posting for some things, my original assessment was correct: I need to write the entire story before posting any part of it.
So my goal, moving forward is going to be a story a month. If the story is short I'll post it in one chunk, and there will be three weeks with no story. If it naturally falls into four chunks then I'll post one chunk a week. If it falls in more chunks … I'm not sure. Maybe it will take more than a month to post and I'll build up a backlog. Maybe I'll post more frequently. We'll see.
This starts now, so my goal is to have a story ready for the beginning of March. Wish me luck!
My original Thing a Week idea was very simple, post a whole story every week. The problem became almost immediately clear: I don't always write an entire story in a week. I modified the plan for Welcome to Gameworld and I think it worked OK there, but the trap was that I had backslid into the serial model.
What I'm dancing around is this: I don't actually write a complete story every week. Don't have the time, don't have the energy. While I like the serial posting for some things, my original assessment was correct: I need to write the entire story before posting any part of it.
So my goal, moving forward is going to be a story a month. If the story is short I'll post it in one chunk, and there will be three weeks with no story. If it naturally falls into four chunks then I'll post one chunk a week. If it falls in more chunks … I'm not sure. Maybe it will take more than a month to post and I'll build up a backlog. Maybe I'll post more frequently. We'll see.
This starts now, so my goal is to have a story ready for the beginning of March. Wish me luck!
Exercise Revisited
It's been almost exactly a year since I started doing the exercise program from The Hacker's Diet, so I thought it might be worth reviewing. I have to say, it's been a bad six weeks or so for exercise, so I was more than a little worried about the results today. See, I exercised only very spottily over the holidays and going into January I was up a couple of pounds from December. January wasn't any better and just as I started to lose weight again I got The Sickness(tm) and didn't exercise at all the last half of the month. Today is the first day I hit the scale since 1/15 and I was pretty worried. Turns out The Sickness(tm) must have hit my appetite more than I realized because I'm actually right about my December levels today.
To review, I haven't been dieting. I've been exercising mainly for health, not for weight loss. I just decided to track any weight loss to see what was happening. So what are the results? Today I weigh 12.2 pounds less than I did at the beginning of February 2007. Now, I've noticed that I have little cycles inside the overall trend and I'm pretty convinced that I luckily hit a low point in today's measurement. In January my trend line had gone up 1.9 pounds before I got sick, which would reduce that figure to 9.1 pounds. Still, 9.1 pounds in a year without any particular dieting action is something I can accept quite happily.
Focusing on my real goals (fitness) is still instructive. I still do my entire routine (Tai Chi, the whole Hacker's Diet exercise regimen) without any special equipment, and I can do it anywhere I can grab enough floor space. It takes between half-an-hour and forty-five minutes, mainly based on how fast I do the Tai Chi portion. I've gotten up to level 20 of the progression and I'm pretty confident I would have hit 21 by now if not for The Sickness. What does level 20 mean? It means I'm doing: 14 sit-ups, 13 push-ups, 405 jogging-in-place steps, 50 jumping jacks and a couple of other exercises. I'll break a sweat doing this, but it's not stress on the system. I don't feel worn out at the end of the set, just a touch winded and invigorated. (I could easily be at level 21 or probably even 22 for everything except the push-ups.) The starting level has 2 "introductory" push-ups, and 3 "introductory" sit-ups. And those were a challenge a year ago.
So a year in I heartily recommend the Hacker's Diet exercise program. I'm still sure that if I went to a gym, got a trainer, blah, blah, blah I might have an even better fitness regiment in place. But it wouldn't take less than 45 minutes a day, and it wouldn't be something I can do in a hotel room, or in the comfort of my own home. This is something I can actually do and it doesn't cost any money. That shouldn't be underestimated.
It's been almost exactly a year since I started doing the exercise program from The Hacker's Diet, so I thought it might be worth reviewing. I have to say, it's been a bad six weeks or so for exercise, so I was more than a little worried about the results today. See, I exercised only very spottily over the holidays and going into January I was up a couple of pounds from December. January wasn't any better and just as I started to lose weight again I got The Sickness(tm) and didn't exercise at all the last half of the month. Today is the first day I hit the scale since 1/15 and I was pretty worried. Turns out The Sickness(tm) must have hit my appetite more than I realized because I'm actually right about my December levels today.
To review, I haven't been dieting. I've been exercising mainly for health, not for weight loss. I just decided to track any weight loss to see what was happening. So what are the results? Today I weigh 12.2 pounds less than I did at the beginning of February 2007. Now, I've noticed that I have little cycles inside the overall trend and I'm pretty convinced that I luckily hit a low point in today's measurement. In January my trend line had gone up 1.9 pounds before I got sick, which would reduce that figure to 9.1 pounds. Still, 9.1 pounds in a year without any particular dieting action is something I can accept quite happily.
Focusing on my real goals (fitness) is still instructive. I still do my entire routine (Tai Chi, the whole Hacker's Diet exercise regimen) without any special equipment, and I can do it anywhere I can grab enough floor space. It takes between half-an-hour and forty-five minutes, mainly based on how fast I do the Tai Chi portion. I've gotten up to level 20 of the progression and I'm pretty confident I would have hit 21 by now if not for The Sickness. What does level 20 mean? It means I'm doing: 14 sit-ups, 13 push-ups, 405 jogging-in-place steps, 50 jumping jacks and a couple of other exercises. I'll break a sweat doing this, but it's not stress on the system. I don't feel worn out at the end of the set, just a touch winded and invigorated. (I could easily be at level 21 or probably even 22 for everything except the push-ups.) The starting level has 2 "introductory" push-ups, and 3 "introductory" sit-ups. And those were a challenge a year ago.
So a year in I heartily recommend the Hacker's Diet exercise program. I'm still sure that if I went to a gym, got a trainer, blah, blah, blah I might have an even better fitness regiment in place. But it wouldn't take less than 45 minutes a day, and it wouldn't be something I can do in a hotel room, or in the comfort of my own home. This is something I can actually do and it doesn't cost any money. That shouldn't be underestimated.
To review, I haven't been dieting. I've been exercising mainly for health, not for weight loss. I just decided to track any weight loss to see what was happening. So what are the results? Today I weigh 12.2 pounds less than I did at the beginning of February 2007. Now, I've noticed that I have little cycles inside the overall trend and I'm pretty convinced that I luckily hit a low point in today's measurement. In January my trend line had gone up 1.9 pounds before I got sick, which would reduce that figure to 9.1 pounds. Still, 9.1 pounds in a year without any particular dieting action is something I can accept quite happily.
Focusing on my real goals (fitness) is still instructive. I still do my entire routine (Tai Chi, the whole Hacker's Diet exercise regimen) without any special equipment, and I can do it anywhere I can grab enough floor space. It takes between half-an-hour and forty-five minutes, mainly based on how fast I do the Tai Chi portion. I've gotten up to level 20 of the progression and I'm pretty confident I would have hit 21 by now if not for The Sickness. What does level 20 mean? It means I'm doing: 14 sit-ups, 13 push-ups, 405 jogging-in-place steps, 50 jumping jacks and a couple of other exercises. I'll break a sweat doing this, but it's not stress on the system. I don't feel worn out at the end of the set, just a touch winded and invigorated. (I could easily be at level 21 or probably even 22 for everything except the push-ups.) The starting level has 2 "introductory" push-ups, and 3 "introductory" sit-ups. And those were a challenge a year ago.
So a year in I heartily recommend the Hacker's Diet exercise program. I'm still sure that if I went to a gym, got a trainer, blah, blah, blah I might have an even better fitness regiment in place. But it wouldn't take less than 45 minutes a day, and it wouldn't be something I can do in a hotel room, or in the comfort of my own home. This is something I can actually do and it doesn't cost any money. That shouldn't be underestimated.