How I Work

Should you switch over to e-books?

2012-01-09T21:27:00.001-08:00

You already know the big reasons to get an E-Book - which I can
summarize by saying I'm reading the brand new 900 page Stephen King book
on something that weighs less than a paperback, and it cost less than
the paperback will when it's released months from now - but maybe you're
still not sure about buying one, or at least not sure about making it
your primary way of reading books. I'm very much considering making a
nearly-complete transition, as a result of the trauma of my last move. I
still haven't been reunited with the couple-dozen wine cases full of
books I painfully packed up and moved to my friend's basement, and the
idea of accumulating more of that weight of *stuff* is awful to me. Like
my laptop carries every album I've bought in the last 2 years, my Kindle
Touch currently holds 50 novel-length books, and could hold hundreds and
hundreds more.
It feels good to be travelling light, but if reading is as important to
you as it is to me it's a huge step, and you don't want to make it
lightly. I want to lay out some very real cons that you may not have
thought of, but then also provide pros you might not have thought of to
counteract them.
But first I want to deal with an invalid con: "I just love the
look/feel/smell of books" Do you really? Or do you love them because
they are *associated* with the texts you love? If you had never heard of
Catch-22 and there was an empty notebook with the cover art and cover
text, would you buy it and revere it? We're fond of books as objects
because of the words they contain. But once there's an alternative it's
easy to see lots of things you don't like about them: much of the sf I
like to read gets covers that are terrible paintings of spacey stuff
that has nothing to do with the contents. Paperbacks are kind of damaged
by reading them even once, especially big ones; they get dirty and can't
be cleaned. They often have garish promotional material all over the
covers, and university library books often have writing inside. And for
people with asthma, being in a room full of books is the worst thing.
Basically most modern mass produced books are not that beautiful as
objects, and there's nothing stopping you from buying the ones that are
to keep around as ornaments, like turn of the century cigarette cases.
If you love reading you'll embrace whatever is the most direct route to
wonderful books.
My Kindle Touch is not particularly beautiful, but it does what it needs
to do which is stay out of your way and not feel like a computer. With
the e-ink display the e-book is just about as pleasant as reading a
paper book (though the contrast isn't as high, so it's somewhat like
reading on light grey paper) It doesn't hum or pop things up, and it
lasts for at least a month on a single charge.
Ok now for the real ones, focusing on the Kindle Touch since it's what I
know.
CON: You don't own the book in the same way.
Amazon.com sells books encumbered by digital rights management, meaning
it can't be used on non-amazon devices, can't be copied freely, and will
probably not be readable in 10 years. That sucks, and hopefully will go
away some day like the DRM on the iTunes store, but I can understand why
they do it at least initially, since books are insanely easy to pirate.
The lower price helps a bit, and you should also know it's possible to
lend books out to friends with Kindles, and unlike lending real books,
you don't have to be in the same place - and it comes back to you
automatically. It's also the case that if a book you bought is
accidentally deleted, or your Kindle is stolen, you can get it from
Amazon again.
PRO: Public domain books are free and instantly available.
Do you like Edgar Allen Poe, Somerset Maugham, PG Wodehouse, Arthur
Conan Doyle, Jane Austen, HP Lovecraft, L Frank Baum, Lewis Caroll,
Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau,
Voltaire, Shakespeare, H.G. Wells, or any other author who wrote before
1920? Well now you can can carry around *all* of them with you for free.
Amazing when I think about the hundreds of dollars I spent buying books
by these authors. There are also tons of free modern books, by sf writer
Cory Doctorow and many many people you've never heard of, plus lots of
great sales. One more point is that many public libraries now have
e-book collections. My library in a medium big town has thousands of
books, including very new ones, basically equivalent to a large airport
bookstore. Holds on popular books take longer to become available than
the corresponding paper copies, and the terms of borrowing are not quite
as good, but there's no picking them up, and no remembering to return
them - it's literally impossible to get an overdue fine, they just
disappear from your device.
CON: Whenever you connect to the wireless network, your books could be
taken away by amazon.com, or even invisibly altered.
In a feature that people didn't even know existed, Amazon has the power
to pull a book that you bought right back out of your Kindle, as it did
oh so ironically with 1984 and Animal Farm in the summer of 2009:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/25/kindle_conundrum/
It hasn't happened again since, and it may be a good thing that it
happened relatively early and there was such a big shitstorm about it,
since that provides some protection. They've promised they won't do it
again. But since it's a corporation, that promise is worthless, and
they're unlikely to do the only thing that would make it better: make it
technologically impossible for them to take books back. Even more
frightening, if this capability exists it means it is very possible for
them to reach into your E-Book and alter the text of books after the
fact, much like Bush's Whitehouse invisibly altered transcripts on their
web page. It's already apparently common practice for authors to tinker
with the text of their book as sold on Amazon, such that people who buy
it subsequently will get a slightly different version.
PRO: The wireless connectivity means that it can act as an emergency web
device, and on my Kindle Touch the keyboard works quite well, if I
needed to send an emergency email or look up an address. Of course with
the e-ink it is incredibly clumsy to use the web, which I actually like:
it discourages the rampant multitasking I tend to do when I have a web
browser in front of me. It very much replicates the quiet, focused
feeling of sitting down with a good book.
CON: Your reading habits are being logged.
This is troubling. There is a file on your Kindle which logs the time of every page turn, and even your geographic location if yours has 3G, and this file could potentially be uploaded to Amazon:
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/15/132058735/is-your-e-book-reading-up-on-you
According to the hackers on the MobileRead forums, there is no evidence so far that the file is ever transmitted to Amazon. But that could change as easily as a tiny update to their code. I really hate the idea that my privacy in this most intimate activity could be invaded.
However there's hope on the horizon,
since someone's already found a way to jailbreak the Kindle Touch. I'm
putting it out of my mind for now, but crossing my fingers that it will
only be a matter of months before I can take control of my device and
make sure it's not acting as a spy sending whispers back to the corporation.
PRO: Books are searchable, quotable, and enlargable.
It's very cool to not only be able to carry around all your books with
you, but to quickly find exact passages. I foresee a new era of annoying
people by reading them my favourite bits. When you select a passage, not
only does it stay highlighted, but it copies the text onto a file that
is easily copied off the Kindle when connected. Bookmarks work great,
and this is going to be very helpful in the years to come, you can
instantly change the text size by pinching with two fingers, as well as
other text attributes. You can blow the text up huge!
CON: You can't read it during takeoff and landing.
I had a lot of trouble with this one, since it makes no sense. Even if
cellphones were a threat to airplanes, a Kindle with the wireless turned
off couldn't possibly pose a threat. When you're not turning pages, it's
practically a dead hunk of plastic. But I look at it two ways. First,
it's the airline's rules so they can do what they want. We are a guest.
Second, even if the flight attendants and pilot know what an e-book is,
do you think every person around you who is dying to use their iPhone
will too? Some idiot would definitely cause trouble. I just look at it
as a proving to myself that I can survive without entertainment for 20
minutes, and in fact so far it's always turned into a chance to meet my
seatmate, which has been nice.
PRO: You can read with one hand.
This is huge. This is something I've wanted my whole life. No matter how
big the book is, you can easily read it with only one hand free. In fact
I only have to graze a fingertip, knuckle, or nose across my screen and
it turns the page. I can read while eating barbecue chicken wings. I can
read while brushing my teeth. I can read while holding onto a subway
pole in a crowded car. If I'm a bit careful, I can read in a bath. And
this one really hit me: I could potentially read while running on a
treadmill. I don't plan on running on a treadmill, but that's cool.
If those cons are things that are important to you, I can completely
understand if you would not want to put all your eggs in the e-book
basket. But now that they cost less than an ipod nano, I think it should
be well worth considering along the lines of a Netflix subscription:
it's a bit creepy, sometimes frustratingly limited, but a great service
if you're into the content. But if you choose not to get one, please be
aware that it is much too late to take a philosophical stance against
e-books, in hopes that people will take you for a mysterious, supercool
free thinker.

A Solution for if Google is Creeping You Out (And if it Isn't, Why it Should Be)

2011-11-03T19:47:00.001-07:00

My homepage and default search engine is now Duck Duck Go. Unlike Google, it makes it a selling point that it doesn't track your searches, or "bubble" you - and if you aren't concerned with those things then you should click on the "track" and "bubble" links on the main page for a very clear explanation (it's even worse than the concerns I express in my old entry on web privacy)

https://duckduckgo.com/

I've been using it for about a week now, and for pure search the results are at least 80% as good as Google's - it almost always gives me what I'm looking for in the first few results. It doesn't have as slickly dovetailed features as Google, especially the integration of Google image, news, etc, but there's a search syntax that makes it easy to conduct the same search on Google. And it has a couple of nifty touches of its own.

I feel more at ease knowing that my searches during this period are not contributing to the giant database of intimate knowledge Google has assembled about me. Of course I have no independent confirmation of the claims that Duck Duck Go makes for its privacy measures, but I find the slight homemade quality of the site and the earnestness of their privacy essays encouraging on that front. And at least we now have a way as consumers to say to Google, "being creepy will cost you hits."

Freedom from Internet Self-Distraction

2011-11-03T19:32:00.001-07:00

If you have a mac, and struggle with internet self-distraction like I do
("I just don't think I can write another word until I find out what
Phoebe Cates has been up to lately") there's a beautifully simple
application that might help you called Freedom. It blocks your
computer's internet connectivity until a predetermined number of minutes
has passed, or you restart - which is nice as a barrier high enough to
stop me cheating, but low enough enough that I'm not terribly
inconvenienced in an emergency.
http://macfreedom.com/
For some reason the idea of becoming too dependent on it makes me uneasy
(shouldn't I learn some self-control eventually?) but used like
caffeine, as some extra mojo to power through something once in a while,
it's awesome.

What To Do About Bed Bugs

2011-08-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

So you think you might have bed bugs. I'm terribly sorry. I had them, and they are a major pain. The good part of it is that through my experience and my very motivated reading, I can offer some advice to get you started. I'm putting forth a program I call EPL, for Education, Pest Control Operative, and Laundry. I'll expand on each of those, but first some immediate Don'ts:

DON'Ts
- Don't throw away all your furniture, in particular your bed. It almost certainly won't solve the problem (bedbugs can be in places other than the bed), it's not necessary, and it risks dropping them on the way or having them come back in. Beds can be treated with enclosures, and upholstery can be treated by steaming.
- Don't stop sleeping in the bed, if you can possibly stand it. Bedbugs will eventually travel to other rooms if they don't have anything to feed on. But the good news is that they like to live together in one location as close to the food source as possible. If you can make them think they've found a wonderful home, it will be much easier to wipe the majority of them out at once.
- Don't go by word-of-mouth treatment ideas until you've researched them. My dad said the thing for the job, he'd heard somewhere, was diatomaceous earth, and that it was entirely safe and effective. I learned from the sources I list below that both of those claims have been strongly questioned.
- Don't, *under any circumstances*, try to fight them with store-bought pesticides (especially not "bug bombs"). They are known to be entirely ineffective at killing bedbugs, they can be harmful to your health, and worst of all, they can make the bugs scatter around the room and the rest of the house. The very next day after I sprayed a thick layer of something nasty my landlord gave me called Black Jack the tenants in the apartment directly above started getting massively bitten. That was probably the worst mistake of all the mistakes I made.
- Don't remove anything from the room. Especially fabric and wood might be current hiding places, and you could spread them. Even worse is sealing them off somewhere away from the treatment, whatever it is, meaning that they will be released some day and reinfest.
- Don't worry about who's to blame, and don't panic. They are not a health hazard whatsoever, just an annoyance. And with education and some forbearance, you will get rid of them.

EDUCATION
Before you do anything else, include reading the rest of this post, you should watch this video series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHux9IHDaVQ
and read this:
http://bedbugger.com/faqs/

The Bedbugger.com forums will be your friend throughout this time. I'm a little uncomfortable about the presence of paid sponsors for particular products, but it is a genuine grassroots community website, on which many pest control operatives and even academics post. You can find answers to pretty much any question you might have by searching the forum, and if you don't find it you can post and people are very nice about answering. There are some scary worst-case-scenario stories on here that you might want to stay away from for now, but there are also plenty of stories from people who successfully beat their infestations.

One of the things you will learn from these sources is that it's impossible to diagnose bed bugs from bites alone. Any rules people tell you for what are and aren't bites are probably not very useful, given the different life stages and the differences in individual reactions. They can be confused with a number of other causes, such as:

mosquitoes
fleas
mites
scabies
carpet beetles
chiggers
zits and ingrown hairs
other kinds of allergens

There's also recent evidence that bed bugs might be nowhere near as easy to transmit as publicity would suggest, particularly from public places.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2011/10/bedbugs_how_contagious_are_they_really_.single.html

So it's a good idea to get some kind of confirmation, by looking for physical evidence, before going into full-on warfare mode. (I was lucky enough to spot one crawling away from my bed on the very first day) On the other hand, if you are noticing new big red welts every morning, especially if they occur in lines of 2 or 3 close together, that could be a good reason to call someone in for an inspection at least. There are also trained dogs that can locate bed bugs, which could help with this stage, but be sure to check the bedbugger FAQ on this before calling.

PCO
If you have a non-trivial problem, there is no substitute for calling in a pest control operative. If you are renting, in most parts of north america it is the landlord's responsibility to pay for it. This might mean that you don't get to choose who it is, but try to have a say in it if you can. *Insist* on a professional exterminator, not the landlord's uncle or buddy. This is non-negotiable. If you have trouble getting the landlord to act, there is a government agency you can go to. Where I am now it's the Department of Health; here's some information for Ontario:
http://bedbugsinfo.ca/tools/bed-bugs-tenants-download

I put education before this step, because having some knowledge will help you to hire the right company. Since the bedbug reemergence is relatively new, some PCOs that advertise bed bugs as one of their services are not really experienced or knowledgeable. If you're lucky, there are recommendations for PCOs in your city on bedbugger.com. If not, here are some things you might look for:
- They should conduct an inspection first, not just spray everywhere automatically. A good PCO will look everywhere very, very carefully, and tailor their solution to the specific situation.
- As another facet of that, they should probably advertise an Integrated Pest Management approach, which basically means the same thing as the previous point.
- The plan will include multiple treatments, spaced at least a week apart.
- A guarantee is nice (though it will always come with a time limit), although not offering one shouldn't rule out a company.
- They insist on spraying adjacent rooms as well.

A very important criteria is that they seem willing communicate with you and tell you about the plan. This discussion would be a good time to try to suss out their knowledge of bed bug life cycles and other facts, and see if it matches up to your reading.

If they decide to go ahead with treatment, my experience was that the PCO asked us to buy enclosures for our mattresses and launder and bag all our clothes (more about those later), as well as to move furniture away from the walls. All the rooms in the house were sprayed with a residual pesticide, and we had to be out of the house for several hours but we were able to come back the same day. You have a right to know the names of the chemicals they are spraying, so make sure to write those down. At the same time, you should follow every one of the instructions they give you, even if you believe it to be useless based on your reading - it could void the guarantee if you don't. You shouldn't put all your hopes in one company either. It's awful to contemplate, but you might have to go to a second company before you find one that will solve your problem permanently.

LAUNDRY
Laundering clothes in hot water, and then drying it on hot, is known to be one of the few extremely effective ways a non-PCO can kill bedbugs and their eggs (squishing might be the only other one). See:

http://www.pctonline.com/Article.aspx?article_id=38047

Since bedbugs like to live in bedding and folds in fabric, if you launder it all carefully you should be able to kill at least some of them. It got to the point where whenever a new bite appeared I would wash my sheets again, just in case I could get one of the fuckers clinging onto my fitted sheet. It felt good to have some action I could take. I would very gently untuck all four corners and collect it into a ball in the middle of the bed the bed, and transfer it into a clear plastic bag I got at U-Haul, after first making sure the bag was airtight. I sealed it with this kind of clip:

http://www.amazon.com/Ikea-Bevara-Sealing-Clip-Set/dp/B004HHATDU

Then I carefully emptied the bag into the washing machine, and checked the bottom of it through the clear plastic. That's how I did all my laundry to prevent them jumping off on the way. Even better might be dissolvable laundry bags. There's a lesser, but still large non-zero chance that they might be in clothes somewhere in the vicinity of the bed, so again, it's worthwhile to do combat laundry (as I started thinking of it) on a regular basis. Things that can't be washed might be able to be dried, like slippers and duffelbags. The report says 30 minutes in the hot dryer will kill all the bedbugs.

Since bedbugs can travel on clothes, e.g. to your workplace or other people's houses, it might be a good idea to save your washed clothing in sealed plastic bags, only to take out when you're getting dressed. But this is stressful to keep up after awhile, especially if you're a tidy person (or like non-wrinkled clothes), so my intuition is that clothes stored in a dresser far from the bed are probably relatively low risk. But I don't know for sure.

NON-LAUNDRY THINGS TO DO WHILE WAITING FOR YOUR PCO
Here are some ideas for things to try to fight the bedbugs at home, while waiting for your PCO - or for evidence to convince your landlord to get a PCO - that *probably* won't make things worse (of course don't do any of these things if they would interfere with your PCOs treatment plan)

* BB Alert passive monitor
This is an interesting, relatively new idea, which is designing something that seems like the perfect home to bed bugs so that they will move into it. Once they do, their feedings will be marked by black spots on the edge of the thing, and you might even be able to kill a bunch by grabbing their home while they are hiding in it.
http://www.usbedbugs.com/BB-Alert-Passive-Bed-Bug-Monitor_p_45.html
I'm a little skeptical of whether these would really be effective, particularly as an all-clear sign - for one thing it just looks like a piece of corrugated cardboard. But it is not a big investment, and, importantly, it seems almost impossible to get false positives. Here are some experiments showing the monitors' effectiveness (though these are reported by the PCO who developed them):
http://www.bed-bugs.co.uk/passivemonitorresults.html

* Climbup Insect Interceptors
These are plastic dishes that the legs of your bed fit into. As the bed bugs come after you, they fall into a little moat and are unable to climb out because of slippery walls. Note that this is a better idea for treating the legs of your bed than say placing them on a circle of sticky tape, because even if the bugs are dumb enough to permanently stick themselves, apparently when they get stuck they send out an alarm pheromone which warns others away. I read that the climbups don't have the same problem. Again, I can't comment personally on how well they work, but they are fairly inexpensive ($3-4 each). Here's a thread with some different opinions:
http://bedbugger.com/forum/topic/climb-up-success

* Mattress enclosures
It's important to understand that enclosures play only a limited, if perhaps important, role in fighting an infestation. Their purpose is to seal in any bugs living inside or on the surface of the mattress, and to create a surface that is inhospitable for them to hide in. However bed bugs living elsewhere in the room or the bed frame can still easily walk across it to get to you, and in some cases may be able to live in folds of the enclosure. Of course if the PCO tells you to get them you definitely should. Be sure to buy the pricier one that specifically mention bed bugs and feel like fabric: we bought the $15 vinyl ones, and they tore almost immediately.

* Your own inspection.
This one is a little higher risk, since if you disturb their hiding places they might spread out and find better hiding places. So if you decide to try this you should at least be armed with something that can kill them on contact, if you discover a whole hive and they run for it. I put some 90% rubbing alcohol into a squirt bottle. You will also need a flashlight, and ideally a magnifying glass. Here's a video of how to go about inspecting a hotel room, which you can also apply to your own room:
http://vimeo.com/15551763
and here are some more images to help you to know what to look for (warning, grossness):
http://www.bed-bugs.co.uk/gallery.html

If you have a very minor infestation, laundry plus some combination of these maybe, possibly, conceivably, might be able to wipe them all out. But I definitely wouldn't count on it. Get those PCO wheels in motion.

It can be a long process getting every last one of them, and it is stressful when you are getting munched on regularly. But take heart and know that it won't ever be as bad as the pre-bedbug post-bedbug transition, and that you will emerge from this a seasoned warrior who will be able to help others. I'm going to finish up with two quotes I found on the forum that helped me put it into perspective:

"bb's don't really hate you they depend upon you for thier own survival). So I try to keep in mind that they are more like fairly mindless 'bug-germs' rather than beasts out to drain you of all of your blood."

"The bedbug has nothing against you. It's a simple creature that needs to eat, and does so relatively quietly and conservatively. It takes only what it needs, when it needs it, then goes home. Perhaps one day, humankind might even find that bedbugs hold the secret to some medical or other benefit."

and if they're *really* giving you a hard time, try this thread that begins, "I have a live bed bug in a jar. How can I best torture it without killing it?"
http://bedbugger.com/forum/topic/i-have-a-live-bed-bug-in-a-jar
You might even end up feeling some sympathy!

Steps for Canadians to enter the U.S. under a J-1 Visa

2011-03-07T14:47:00.001-08:00

I've just lost some time and money figuring this out, and so I'm putting this up in hopes that googlers in my situation will find it and benefit. This applies to a J-1 visa specifically, but should also generalize to many other types. This information is current as of the date on this post.

My main source of information is this webpage from the U.S. consulate in Canada:
http://www.consular.canada.usembassy.gov/usa_visa.asp
The most important point is that if you are a canadian citizen, you don't need to schedule a visa interview in person. "Most Canadian citizens can travel to the United States with a valid passport and without a visa", and that includes working and studying (though there are some exceptions). However you do need to have documentation with you at the point of entry (e.g. the airport or the border). Here's what I need for entry under a J-1 (selected from the list on the same webpage above). Later I'll talk about what you need to do to get these things.

Valid Passport (for at least the next 6 months after the arrival time).
Older passports containing previous visas.
DS-2019
Proof of sufficient funds to cover all expenses while in the U.S.
SEVIS fee receipt
DS-160.

The DS-2019 form will be sent by your sponsoring institution, and contains information you need to follow the other steps. I believe it should cover the "proof of sufficient funds" too, since mine lists my salary.

You'll need your passport to follow all of the subsequent steps.

HOW TO PAY YOUR SEVIS FEE (and thus get a receipt)
Go to https://www.fmjfee.com/i901fee/ and fill out the form. You need your SEVIS # (starts with an N), your Exchange Visitor Program Number, and your Exchange Visitor Category, all of which are on your DS-2019. You must have the physical receipt that is mailed to you (3 weeks) or couriered to you (1 week) if you pay an extra $35. Besides that I had to pay $180. If time is tight and you're waiting for your DS-2019 to arrive in the mail, all you need from it is the information I listed above, so you might be able to get that directly from your hosting institution.

HOW TO FILL OUT A DS-160
This is your application to enter the country, a Nonimmigrant Visa Application, and it is found here: https://ceac.state.gov/GENNIV/
It is a long (and nosy) form, plus a buggy web application, so I suggest clicking the save button frequently and also using the option to save the form data in a file on your own computer, so you can save your progress if you find there's something you're missing. Besides everything described for the previous steps, here are a few of the things you might need to gather before you start:

A digital photo of yourself following very rigid passport photo requirements. I uploaded a scan of my actual passport photo, and that seemed to work.
The date and duration of your last 5 US trips
The address and phone number of your US contact
The address and phone number of two people in canada who can vouch for you
The " Passport Book Number", which according to several online sources is the number that appears on a canadian passport above the barcode on page 3. I have not been able to verify this from an authoritative source, but I decided to go ahead and use it. Hh

You will need to print the DS-160 out and have it with you, as well as the SEVIS fee receipt. Good luck, and add a comment if there's anything I missed here!

Essential Software for a Scientist

2011-02-19T16:45:00.001-08:00

I was thinking about the tools I use every day and which ones I would insist my students learn when they arrived in the lab. Here's the list I came up with:

- Microsoft Excel (or OpenOffice) and PivotTables (called something else in openoffice). So, so helpful for analyzing data in tabular format. I would even call them magical. With this and a few other Excel tricks and formulas you can avoid SPSS for pretty much all undergraduate-level statistics - and go from raw experiment output to final inferential statistics in under 30 seconds.
- Inkscape. Terrific free vector graphics editor. So useful for preparing figures and diagrams, especially with programs that let you export to its format from Matlab (search for svg and matlab)
- Version control software (if there is going to be code involved anyway)
- Software-based calendar program, not paper based. That way it can be backed up, and you can do things like schedule repeating blocks of time for classes etc. Then you can feel confident that it really represents your committed time and you won't double book.
- Citation-management software, that integrates reasonably with a word processor. I've talked about EndNote here, but if you're just starting out I'd suggest the free, browser integrated Zotero instead.
- Dropbox
- Automated backups to an external hard drive (I might handle this as part of the lab infrastructure, but if *any* data is to be stored on lab members home computers then they need to have this). For the mac, Carbon Copy Cloner has worked well for me.

30 Minute Writing

2011-02-19T16:24:00.001-08:00

I'm very excited about this approach to writing right now:

http://jimdavies.blogspot.com/2010/12/write-in-how-can-i-get-more-writing.html

Essentially, you write every single day, and for 30 minutes of concentration without switching away from your word processor. I've been doing it for about 3 weeks now, and it's helping me just crush through difficult bits of writing, with almost no angst. (I do more than one 30 minute block per day, but widely spaced apart) Awesome stuff. I hope to keep it up for the rest of my professional career, no matter what stage my research is at.

I think the 30 minute unitasking approach could help in other areas of life too. This week I've been doing 1/2 an hour of housework a day, and that has had amazing results too. Hard focus is the magic sauce that makes tasks easy and even pleasant. More and more I realize how precious it is.

Science-based Advice on the Strategies that Work to Achieve Your Goals

2011-02-19T16:12:00.001-08:00

http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/02/reaching-life-goals-which-strategies-work.php

Make a step-by-step plan: break your goal down into concrete, measurable and time-based sub-goals.
Tell other people about your goal: making a public declaration increases motivation.
Think about the good things that will happen if you achieve your goal (but avoid fantasizing - see this article).
Reward yourself for making progress in your goal: small rewards help push us on to major successes.
Record your progress: keep a journal, graph or drawing that plots your progress.

I like this first because it's based on putting these ideas to the test, and because it generally coheres with other things I've learned (and occasionally posted about) I'm not sure about the advice about avoiding fantasizing. I'm quite interested in the idea of positive imaging, that you should visualize what you want in as much detail as possible, and my intuition is that it could help. Of course that intuition could easily be wrong.

The Best of How I Work

2011-01-13T19:30:00.000-08:00

This blog now has over a hundred entries, and there won't be too many more. It's basically served the purpose I hoped it would, which is to capture the working processes I was customizing for myself, mostly derived from David Allen's Getting Things Done but also a few other sources (and also to serve as a kind of release valve so I didn't bore people with this stuff in conversation) The problems in my life that this level of tactic can solve are pretty much solved. Which I'm delighted about; it's a happy reason to be wrapping this up! So right here is the place to put links to the good stuff for anyone who might stumble upon this blog. I've broken them into two categories:

The essentials of my personal system, things I've figured out that I make use of almost every single day:

PROJECTS AND TO-DO

The Project List: How to Be Like the Memento Guy

Making a Super-effective To Do list

The Weekly Review

The Zillion Folder Filing System

5 Things To Do When Starting a New Project

"I Have Decided"

The Ropebridge Method for writing projects

CITATION MANAGEMENT

My Citation Management System: The Basics

My Citation Management System: Read

My Citation Management System: To Read Someday/Maybe

Mastering Your Email

Mastering My Email REVISED

EVERY OTHER PART OF LIFE

The Minimum You Need to Know about Negotiation

My Photo System: Archive and Souvenirs

Another (Probably Better) Approach to Backup

Souvenir Folders, Pouches of the Past

Saturdays Are Off

The Joy of Outboxes

How Much Money Do I Have? The Concept of Discretionary Income

Breaking Bad Web Habits with Privoxy

Anti-procrastination: "(10+2)*5"

Dropbox: The Solution to Home-Work Sync?
Memorizing with Smart Flashcards: the Freakish Power of Anki

And then some posts I'm proud of and think are useful (or at least interesting):

Achieving Your Goals the Lee Marvin Way

How To Run A Brainstormer

Computer Dollars: Why to always Upgrade instead of Buying New

How to Sell Yourself in a Letter

Never Wait

How to Ask for, and Listen to, Feedback

How to Conduct a Super-search

Magpieing: How my collectors work

Can you call on doozer power?

Fiery Inspiration from Teddy Roosevelt

I Heart My Draft

Much Better Error Bars for Within-Subjects Studies

2011-01-13T11:12:00.000-08:00

For any scientists reading this blog, and of those, the ones who use within-subjects designs, this will be a revelation. Everyone else should skip. There's a problem that came up in our last set of reviewer comments, that if you have a within-subjects factorial design, standard error bars or 95% confidence intervals on your bars representing means do not portray the results of the repeated-measures ANOVA. Basically they're way too big, because they don't incorporate the benefit of comparing people to themselves; they include the between-subjects variance. So the basic trick for comparing two means by eye to determine significance, as described here

http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/07/most_researchers_dont_understa_1.php

(in a nutshell, if they represent standard error the error intervals have to be separated by about 1/2 interval before the difference between the means is signicant at alpha = .05) doesn't work. You lose the very desirable property of being able to tell the story of your results purely in your figures.

To the rescue comes Cousineau (2005)'s within-subject confidence intervals.
http://www.tqmp.org/Content/vol01-1/p042/p042.pdf
The idea is so straightforward and easy to implement: if your data is organized with participants as rows and conditions as columns, simply take the mean of each row and subtracted it from the items in that row, making a new table. Then add the overall mean of the original table to all the entries of the new table. Each column will have the same mean as in the original data, but the row means will all be identical to each other and to the overall mean. Now construct your standard error bars or 95% confidence interval bars in the usual manner. Then the error bars will represent only the difference due to condition differences, and visually comparing any two error bars in the manner described above is the equivalent of doing a paired-samples t-test between the means (I haven't doublechecked that) When we did this to our latest paper, the difference was like night and day: all of a sudden nearly all of our significance findings were clear and easy to read off the bar graph.

There's a risk here, that your readers may not know what the heck you're doing, or even be suspicious that you are trying to make your results look better than they are. But the visual pairwise comparisons will be very close (not necessarily exactly the same) as the pattern of results from the corresponding ANOVA (and at least one reviewer out there is certainly applying that kind of visual test even when inappropriate, that is, for a within-subjects design), and there is a paper to cite for the idea. It has now been cited 67 times so it appears the idea is catching on.

Read the Cousineau paper first, but as a late breaking correction to it there's this paper, Morey 2008:
http://www.tqmp.org/Content/vol04-2/p061/p061.pdf
It appears that the error bars are slightly too small when done the Cousineau way, but can be fixed by an easy numerical correction.

Basic Privacy Precautions on the Web

2010-09-13T18:59:00.001-07:00

We've all absorbed the idea by now hopefully that everything we do on
the web is in public - that email is roughly equivalent to a postcard,
that anything your name is attached to will come up in routine vetting
by employers and dates, and that facebook and other sites you might use
regularly will turn over all your activities and interactions over to
the authorities with the slightest encouragement. "Privacy policies" are
not binding, and subject to quietly change without notice. If you want a
truly private conversation, you and the other person must take
responsibility for encrypting it (fortunately this is not too hard these
days - for instance this email client, Thunderbird, has it built in)
But even if you've accepted the fact that your web activities occur in
public, as in a public square, if you keep imagining it, it gets more
concerning - that this public square has thousands of cameras trained on
it; those cameras are operated by giant corporations; the cameras are
capable of recording your every movement, word and gesture; and storing
them in a database forever, tied with your identity, suitable for
various sophisticated crossanalysis to extract nuances of your life and
behaviour patterns.

The point where I started to get the creepy crawlies was when half the
websites I visited added Facebook "Like" buttons, and all of a sudden
they were greeting me by name - and telling me whether my friends had
"Liked" that site or not. I'm used to the feeling that when I'm browsing
the web I'm just observing, as in a library. Instead I was not just
observed, but recognized, by an entity . I also recently learned that
clearing cookies is not enough - two new types of cookies have been
discovered by internet sleuths, flash cookies and HTML5 cookies, that
advertisers were sneakily using to track people who even specifically
did not want to be tracked. Clearly we need a little protection.

So I did a little research and found a few steps that can significantly
increase your web privacy with less than 20 minutes of effort all in
all. The criteria is that they shouldn't interfere with the web
experience - though as the links will show, a few changes in habit are
necessary - and that they be open source, so that we can make sure
they're the good guys. Finally, they're free, which is important both
because I'm cheap and because I'd prefer my tools to come from people
motivated by an even greater paranoia than me, rather than by profit
(for example, if you have Ad Aware installed, ironically it will pop up
its own ads from time to time)

Note that some of these can cause websites not to work, so that you
might have to fiddle around with the settings, but that's the tradeoff.
1. Switch to Firefox. It's open source, and since it's popular it's
under great scrutiny by privacy freaks. It also is necessary for many of
the easy steps below. I think the above-average awareness of security
and privacy issues by its user and developer base will keep it close to
the forefront of incorporating these kind of protections into its user
interface.
2. Read this webpage (I got a lot of this stuff from this and other
pages by the Electronic Frontier Foundation):
http://www.eff.org/wp/six-tips-protect-your-search-privacy If you think
about it, what you search for is one of the most intensely personal
things you might want to protect. As I read somewhere, "People are never
more honest than in the search box"
3. Get your cookies under control. Otherwise you are easy to track
across the web. EFFs recommended settings for Firefox:
1. From the "Edit" menu, select "Preferences"
2. Click on "Privacy"
3. Select the "Cookies" tab
4. Set "Keep Cookies" to "until I close Firefox" 12
5. Click on "Exceptions," type in the domains of all of your search
sites, and choose "Block" for all of them
I think it is also a good idea to uncheck "Accept 3rd party cookies",
which sounds like it would help protect against advertising companies.
4. Install the firefox add-onBetter Privacy. This appears to be the best
protection against the flash cookies I mentioned earlier, which are
*not* affected by the previous tip or by clearing cookies. It also seems
to provide protection against a few other things that can help to track
you. It's here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/ I
can't find out whether it's open source actually, so that might be a
reason for concern. But the people behind it seem motivated by their
hatred of what they call "super cookies", so that's a good sign.
5. Take a lot of care with your facebook privacy settings. If I was a
couple degrees more paranoid, I wouldn't touch facebook - remember that
you are telling a giant, for profit company much of the detail of your
life and social network - but I do get a lot out of it. But I would
estimate that a large majority of people who use it are making public
things that they wouldn't want to be public (at least after a little
reflection). It's also constantly shifting, in a way that almost seems
designed to trick you into being more public than you intend, but
googling should point to recent guides on steps to take. Like this one:
http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-privacy-2009-02
This used to be a good tool to automatically check your settings, but as
of writing is not up to date and so not functional.
http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/
Two more little fb tips to be aware of:
- Make sure that *all* of your photo albums are set to "Friends only" -
in particular your Profile album, which seems to be public by default.
That means that anyone on the internet could click your picture and see
your who past history of profile pictures.
- Be aware that your "Likes" are completely public - anyone googling
your name can see them. That was probably the most pissed I've been so
far at fb, when I realized that fb had suddenly, without my permission,
published my favourite movies, music, and tv shows across the web,
rather than to just my friends. After that I tried to be a lot more
careful about what I told it.
6. Consider taking steps to not be tracked by your IP address. If you
browse from home, your internet connection has a unique identifier that
could easily be used to cross reference you. It also pinpoints your
location within a hundred kms or so. Apparently unplugging and plugging
in your modem after a wait will give you a new ip address, so that might
be good to do from time to time. If you are a little bit technical, and
being recognized by your ip address bothers you, look into Tor, a
sophisticated system for anonymizing your point of connection with the
internet. I don't know enough to comment on it, but these people look
really freaking serious.
(UPDATE: Through learning a bit more, I now believe this one is not that big of a deal. When you browse from a university network or a workplace, you usually show up as having the same IP address as everyone else on the network. So even though your home broadband internet IP usually does uniquely identify your computer, it is not a reliable way to track peoples' identity in general, so big companies probably put their efforts into other means of tracking. It could be used if you were being personally targetted, but as I say below if you're active on the internet there are a ton of privacy vulnerabilities you would need an expert to close properly, not these basic precautions.)

So it's an ongoing war: corporations are going to keep coming up with
sneaky ways to spy on us on the internet, and we're going to have to
keep alert and be mindful of tradeoffs we're making. (though I'm more
bothered by this stuff than the average, like with fb and amazon.com I'm
willing to "pay" in privacy for services I really want - I just want to
understand the deal) Perfect privacy isn't possible if you're a net
addict like me, in fact there are many little things I do that would be
easy to piece together into a way more complete picture of me than I'm
comfortable with (and writing this blog is one of the riskiest things,
privacy-wise, I do). But taking these steps should at least put some
speed bumps in front of the spies and help with the in-your-face
personalization.

Valuable tips on graduate school

2010-09-08T09:32:00.001-07:00

I can say now as I approach the end of my PhD that from my experience
and trial and error these sound about right (and I should be following
these more):

http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/03/12/some-thoughts-on-grad-school/

Thought #1: Research Trumps All
Thought #1.5: Don't Let Courses and Quals Distract You From Thought #1
Thought #2: Don't Be a Firefighter
Thought #3: Stick to a Fixed Work Day
Thought #4: Three Projects is Optimal…
Thought #5: …But Don't Work on More than One Per Day
Thought #6: Listen to the Married Graduate Students and Ignore the
Unmarried Students Who Live in the Dorms
Thought #7: Promise People Deadlines Then Follow Through
Thought #8: Challenge Yourself Once a Month
Thought #9: Don't Mistake Experience for Smarts
Thought #10: Take Days Off

Memorizing with Smart Flashcards: the Freakish Power of Anki

2010-07-21T17:24:00.001-07:00

Memorizing is my achilles heel. I think avoiding memorization even
shaped the course of my life, away from things requiring that kind of
factual knowledge and towards things that mostly require understanding
systems. I shuddered when I heard the stories from my friends in medical
school about being examined on the names of hundreds of bones - I felt
like I just couldn't do it. But now I have a tool that I think could
achieve that for my brain, called Anki. It's technically a spaced
memorization program, derived from the original called Supermemo. But
Anki is free and has a *much* less complicated interface, while still
having tons of great features, including the ability to sync over the
internet (it is also open source and has good import & export
capabilities so that you're not locked in).

The best intro is probably via the youtube videos on the website where you can also download it:

http://ichi2.net/anki/
But I will try to describe it here. Anki is essentially smart flash
cards. It's good for learning any kind of knowledge that can be
summarized as a short answer or fill-in-the-blank. You input the front
and back of a lot of these "cards" (can be imported from a simple
spreadsheet), and then Anki gives them to you at exponential intervals:
say every day for a couple of days, and then 3 days later, 7 days later,
21 days later, 2 months later etc, to infinity and beyond. The interval
is modified by whether you got it right (and how hard it was) or wrong:
it presents you with the front of the card, you try to think the answer
to yourself, then press the spacebar to reveal the back, and click or
press a key to say whether you got it. If you get it wrong, you get it
again after the day's normal review, and then probably tomorrow too. The
theory is that if you get reminded just before the point when you would
naturally forget it, then you can retain knowledge indefinitely. And
pretty much an unlimited amount.

That's assuming you actually Anki every day, and I was wondering if I'd
be able to keep it up. Turns out I didn't need to worry: it's something
I look *forward* to, even procrastinate on things with. For the number
of cards I have it only takes 6-10 minutes to do, and it's very
satisfying to see how quickly progress comes at mastering these facts. I
started 40 days ago by adding a few different sets of facts just to try
it out and because I wanted to have them in my brain (plus most of these
were already in a format that was easy to enter): metric conversions,
the International Phonetic Alphabet, constellation names, the greek
alphabet, some numbers to do with vision science and facts about 19th
century vision scientists, and some constants and timelines that I
wanted to use as reference markers. In total 450 cards, which are added
to my study schedule 10 per day, so that I've almost seen all of them now.

How are the results? Well the wealth of stats and graphs that Anki
provides to warm my nerdy soul give some hard evidence: when I first see
cards I get them 57% correct (remember that I already read these facts,
in order to enter them). However my average success rate for non
first-time cards - most of which I've seen a bunch of times now - is
87%. That's a more than 50% improvement! And it's still relatively early
for these facts. I feel like I can easily get to point of answering them
95% correctly, and with every one occasionally turning up months and
years from now, keep that rate. What about subjectively? Knowing these
facts with so little effort feels a little freaky. Like Neo getting kung
fu uploaded into his brain, or the subliminal training in Brave New
World. Without checking: The sun is 150 million km from the earth. One
teaspoon is about 5 ml. The big bang was 14 billion years ago. The peak
response for the short, medium and long wavelength cones are 430, 540
and 570. Despite what people assume, except when it comes to movie
character actors and 1950s science fiction I've never been a fact and
trivia guy. It's a new feeling to get enjoyment just running through my
command of these numbers in my mind.

Some things are proving tricky to shove into my brain even using this
method, and I'm finding it useful to go back to this great document from
the somewhat crankish creator of supermemo:
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm
Essentially the important points are to understand before you memorize,
try to break things into the simplest possible chunks, and avoid
learning lists. How I wish I'd had this in school! So many classes could
have been a piece of cake, because their knowledge was susceptible to
being formulated as fill-in-the-blanks. And I might have actually
retained the knowledge (ever heard someone say, "I'm just going to
forget all this right after the exam"?). Further advice for those tough
cards (and the beautiful part is that they identify themselves, since
they keep coming up while the easy ones are cast far into the future) is
that spaced memorization works *great* with mnemonics. For example the
star Mirphak was giving me a lot of trouble, and coming up every day,
until I made up the mnemonic that Perseus (the constellation it's in)
used a MIRror to PHAK up medusa. Bam, now I'm acing that card. I also
put a reminder of the mnemonic on the back of the card, easy to do even
in the middle of reviewing.

You might be questioning at this point how far memorization can take
you. Is it the same as real knowledge? It's definitely not the whole
story, but I've come to believe that it goes hand in hand with
understanding. Even with my somewhat silly starting set I'm already
seeing how having facts at my fingertips can help me make connections
and inferences. For instance when I was on the plane and saw how far
we'd flown on the way to amsterdam, I automatically compared it to the
circumference of the earth (40,000 km). When a book referenced
creationists denying that dinosaurs existed 65 million years ago, I
realized that that's around the time when they went extinct. And more
substantially, remembering the active periods of a few different vision
scientists made me make all kinds of comparisons of who came first and
who were contemporaries when I was reading a bit more about them. Even
though all these facts are accessible within seconds on the internet,
there is something incredibly powerful about having them all in your
head at once. I think it's a foundation for creativity and true depth of
knowledge. I have big ambitions for using it to memorize hundreds of key
concepts in my field, not to mention references I might be asked about
in my PhD defence. And because it's so easy to use, there's no reason
not to boot up Anki at a moment's notice and add anything you want to
remember, including facts from something you're reading (especially
useful for mass anki-fying: the "cloze" feature)

Give it a try, and then tell me what you've got in your deck!

Be Pushy

2010-06-02T14:36:00.001-07:00

The most important advice for me personally I've heard lately, from
writer Dave Holmes.

http://myyearofeverything.tumblr.com/post/607422936/b-e

"BE AGGRESSIVE. Pretend you're giving it all up and going back to school
in a year. Act like you have one year to make it work before you give up
and try something else. What haven't you done? Where aren't you being
aggressive enough? Go do it and embarrass yourself with your pushiness-
after all, you'll be doing something else in a year anyway, so who cares
what people think? Push until you feel uncomfortable, and then double
it. The trick is: when you do that, good things start happening right
away, and you get yourself to a point where you can't imagine giving up,
one year from now or ever."

How (and Why) to Stop Multitasking

2010-06-02T14:29:00.001-07:00

Eyeopening stuff from Peter Bregman's essay:

http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/05/how-and-why-to-stop-multitaski.html

WHAT YOU GET FROM NOT MULTITASKING:
- It was delightful. "I never realized how significantly a short moment
of checking my email disengaged me from the people and things right
there in front of me."
- My stress dropped dramatically. Research shows that multitasking isn't
just inefficient, it's stressful.
I made significant progress on challenging projects
- I lost all patience for things I felt were not a good use of my time
"Since I wasn't doing anything else, I got bored much more quickly. I
had no tolerance for wasted time."
- I had tremendous patience for things I felt were useful and enjoyable.
HOW TO DO IT:
- the best way to avoid interruptions is to turn them off. Write in the
morning, disconnect. "most of us shouldn't trust ourselves. "
- Use your loss of patience to your advantage. Create unrealistically
short deadlines. Cut all meetings in half. Give yourself a third of the
time you think you need to accomplish something.

One strategy I thought of just now for helping myself stay on task:
write down on my pad of paper: "I AM writing a blog entry" or "I AM
reanalyzing the gaze data" At least then I can't fool myself into
thinking that doing this other thing is what I'm supposed to be doing.

How to bid for things on eBay: be a True Max sniper

2010-04-29T17:56:00.001-07:00

I've tried half-heartedly to buy a few things on eBay in the past, but
always ending up not winning the auction. Thanks to a webpage I ran
across by Tyler Jones, I now understand what the right strategy is, and
have since bought several things very much to my satisfaction. It's here:

http://members.cox.net/cruentidei/ebay/snipe.html

The important thing to understand is eBay is not a going-going-gone
auction like on TV. It uses a *proxy bidding* system, which is like
sending an agent to a tv-style auction to bid for you. You tell the
agent how high you're prepared to go, and he keeps raising the bid by
the *minimum* possible amount to get in the lead (beating all the other
agents' maximum bids), $1 at a time, stopping when he's either won or
hit your maximum.

What's great about this is that you don't have to actually *do* anything
during the auction: you put in your bid and it either gets it for you
for the best possible price, or passes if the auction goes too high. But
you have to make sure to bet what Tyler Jones calles your True Max - and
what my book about negotation calls your Best Alternative to Negotiated
Agreement. This would be a good spot to read my entry on negotiation if
you haven't:

http://howdanielworks.blogspot.com/2008/11/minimum-you-need-to-know-about.html

But in a nutshell it's about figuring out how high the price would have
to be before you walk away from the deal. And there's always an
alternative: the internet makes it easy to look for other places to
purchase an item, so if there's another website you trust that carries
it your bid definitely shouldn't be any higher than that (taking into
account shipping). Think Craigslist, Facebook, Kijiji, Amazon, etc. And
make sure to look at the other eBay listings for the same type of item.
Also, there might be a substitute solution you'd be willing to settle
for if the price got too high. Or you might just be able to do without
it, for a while or forever. Think all that through, read the item
description very carefully (does it have all the accessories? What kind
of condition is it in?), and figure out an exact dollar amount beyond
which it's not worth it. That is your True Max. (Tyler Jones provides an
interesting exercise to help you figure out your True Max as well if
none of those other things apply). Of course you hope that you will get
a better price - and if you win you usually will - but at least you will
never go over your budget.

So all you have to do then is as soon as you've decided to go for the
item, type in your True Max and click to enter it as your bid. Then walk
away and wait for the results of the auction. (NEVER bid on more than
one of the thing you want at a time, unless you're willing to buy both.
Only go after your second choice listing once you've lost the first one)
You don't even have to log on, except once you've won to arrange
payment. In theory this is the optimal strategy, called Proxy bidding,
and it works well.

However Tyler Jones recommends a different strategy if you have the
time, which is sniping. Sniping is waiting until the last possible
minute to put in your bid, still your True Max. If you understand eBay's
system you can see why this is not unfair: if someone else has a bid
registered that's higher than yours, they'll still win. It sometimes
helps because not everyone is following the optimal strategy, and so you
can beat them with sniping. Jones names two bad strategies, low balling
and nibbling, that involve not bidding your True Max, but the price you
*hope* to get. The distinction is that nibblers continuously raise their
bid, when they see that they're not in the lead anymore, just enough to
get back on top. This makes no sense, unless you are using the auction
process to figure out how much you really want to pay for something,
which is a very bad idea (well documented psychological phenomena
strongly bias your judgment). By bidding at the last minute, you beat
them, and also help to protect yourself against dishonest practices like
friends of the seller conspiring to run up the price.

How I've done it so far is to put something on my watchlist when I want
it, rather than make a bid, and make a note in my calendar about the
closing date of the auction. eBay sends you reminder emails for watched
items when the auction is about to end, so you could probably rely on
that too. 5 minutes before the end I sign in, watch the timer on the
eBay listing page count down, read the listing again *carefully*, and
then enter and confirm my bid in the last 30 seconds. (Any less than
that is probably cutting it too close, since there might be unexpected
complications like having to type in your name and password again).
Sniping is fun! You seem to have a good chance of winning, and also some
idea of what you're getting it for (though the bid might jump more than
$1, to $1 more than whatever the next highest bid is)

There's a few more things to think about, in terms of paying and what to
do if there's a problem, but that's how to bid. A few more tips I've
discovered in my short time on the site:
- The Watch button is really useful both when you're trying to decide
whether to buy something, or when you want to compare a bunch of
listings of the same type of thing.
- If you have no idea how much an item is typically worth, a good way to
research it is to look at the closed auctions on eBay for similar items.
How to do that, and a lot of other important information, is in the eBay
education center, which you should definitely read through (it's not long)
- I've developed a few ideas about what is a trustworthy seller besides
the percentage positive feedback: that they have a large number of
sales, that they have a kind of professional graphic on their listing
page, that it's a photo of the actual item you'll be getting and not a
stock photo of that model, and that it seems they specifically wrote
text for that item and didn't just copy and paste it.
- I bought something from a really sketchy looking listing: bad grammar,
short on specifics, and the seller had few transactions and a website
that was some kind of very dubious real estate consulting business. I
thought there was a fair chance I'd get ripped off. But I factored that
risk into my True Max, and bid 25% less than I would have for a more
solid seller. It came, and worked, despite some cosmetic damage that
wasn't visible in the photo, so I consider it a good deal.
- Make sure to sort lists of items by Price + Shipping, not just price,
because shipping fees can vary wildly, especially to Canada.
- It might make sense to bid non-round numbers: if you bid $61 (or just
add a few cents) then you'll win over someone who's betting $60. If
there's a tie the earlier bidder wins, so this is relevant to sniping.
- Listings come and go fast. It's a good idea to search over a period of
at least a couple of weeks, being prepared to possibly miss out on some
good deals in the process of learning what kinds of prices come through.

You Should Probably be Using Version Control Software

2010-03-08T14:40:00.001-08:00

If you're working on a coding project that more than one person *ever*
is going to be contributing to, you should definitely be using version
control software - in fact you would be a fool not to, just because of
all the headaches it will save. Even if it's just the two of you, with
some kind of system to not step on each other's toes, if it's not proper
version control, your system sucks and it will waste your time
painfully. But I'm going to say why it might be worth using it even if
it's just you and even if you don't need to do any programming.

How version control software works is that there is one "master" copy of
the project folder stored in something called a repository, which should
be on a shared server. When a programmer begins working on it, he or she
"checks out" that folder, into what is called a working directory on
their local hard drive. When a significant change has been finished and
tested, and the code is now back to working, they check the code back
in, updating the repository. The great advantage to using version
control software is that it handles the situation where two people are
working on the same folder or the same file - it identifies places that
were changed by both people and then aske you to manually merge together
the changes to make a program that makes sense.

What makes it super useful even if you're writing code solo is the
version tracking aspect of the software. The repository stores in an
efficient format the state of the project at all previous check-ins, so
you can always retrieve an old version. Much better than ad hoc ways to
hang onto old code (the worst being the "copy the folder and add 'old'
to the end of the name" technique, which I've definitely been party to).
You have a detailed log message (well it should be detailed)to identify
the version, and also powerful tools to tell you which files were
changed and exactly which lines were changed and how between the current
and any past version (or between two past versions).

I resisted putting my experiment code under version control for years,
but I noticed an immediate change in my behaviour when I did: I became
bold. I could plow ahead when I saw a change I wanted to make, without
worrying about how I might get back if I changed my mind. And I no
longer had many copies of the same code lying around, all with different
conventions to their names, with no idea which ones work or (if you
leave it long enough) which is even the final version. With version
control there is only one "real" version. But the whole history of the
project is well taken care of. (I'm not even going to get into the
ability to create and maintain alternate versions of a project, known as
branches, which is a more advanced topic) It even vastly reduced the
number of useless .m files around, since you have to explicitly add the
files you want to use to the repository.

Which brings me to the cost of starting up version control, which is not
insignificant, and kept me from bothering with it all this time.
Subversion, or SVN is what I use - it is free, very widespread, and
relatively simple, but it's still pretty intense for people not used to
using it. You have to create, move, and delete your files differently,
and think about checking in and updating your local copy, not to mention
learning to resolve conflicts. Most important is to really understand
the underlying concepts of what's going on, which in itself can take a
half day of reading and experimenting. You should *definitely* read at
least chapters 1 and 2 of this before starting:
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/svn-book.html
I was lucky enough to be trained in using version control in my software
engineering jobs, but even people who are ok with programming I might
have warned away from this because of the complexity, except that I've
found an excellent GUI for Windows that makes it much more intuitive and
accessible, and solves a lot of the headaches SVN itself introduces,
called TortoiseSVN:
http://tortoisesvn.net
It integrates beautifully with Windows explorer, and allows you to
easily surf your repository and past versions as well as some tricky
things (like importing an existing folder) that are hard in SVN. However
it's still very important to understand the underlying concepts, so
definitely read the background chapters in the TortoiseSVN docs. (it is PC only, but apparently there is an equivalent for mac OS called SC plugin, http://scplugin.tigris.org/, which should be uusable to interact with the same repositories and checked-out directories since they are both based on SVN)

TortoiseSVN also means for the first time that even people not doing
programming should think about using SVN, for one feature: Microsoft
Word versioning. SVN is ok for storing non-text files, it just can't do
comparisons between versions, or resolve conflicts. However Tortoise SVN
*can* do that for Word files, and amazingly: differences between
versions show up as though they were changes made with Track Changes
turned on, so dead simple if you're used to that. So version control
worth using on manuscripts you will be working on for weeks for the same
reasons as code: so you can boldly strike out in a new direction with
the text, and be sure that all the old versions will still be safe if
you need to backtrack or you need a complete older version to send to
someone while you're ripping apart the current one. It's happened so
many times, me and/or my advisor decide we should go back to an earlier
take on some material. Because of that, looking in a folder for a
current paper of mine, I have literally 10 copies of it with different
version numbers in the name. No more. From now on, with Tortoise SVN,
only one Word file for this manuscript. (plus I don't have to make up my
own version numbers)

Note that this solves a different problem than backups (which I cover
here), though it is related and can help with that. If you really know
what you're doing you might be able to use Apple's Time Machine software
to replace some of this functionality for the solo user.

The biggest challenge with adopting version control software beyond learning the basic concepts, and the one that can get you into snarls, is that you have to reteach yourself to do all the regular file manipulation operations in a new way. To that end I have made a summary of how to do the basics in TortoiseSVN:

Create a file or folder - just create it, and then later right click it, go Tortoise SVN -> Add...

Delete a file - right click and choose Tortoise SVN -> Delete.

Delete a folder - right click and choose Tortoise SVN -> Delete. Note that in this case the folder will not disappear until you commit the changes.

Move a file or folder -

select the files or directories you want to move
right-drag them to the new location inside the working copy
release the right mouse button
in the popup menu select Tortoise SVN -> SVN Move versioned files here

Renaming a file or folder - Tortoise SVN -> Rename

More detailed instructions at TortoiseSVN's user guide, http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_en/index.html

One more trick is that using TortoiseSVN it's easy to place folders that already exist under version control (copied from the manual):

Use the repository browser to create a new project folder directly in the repository.
Checkout the new folder over the top of the folder you want to import. You will get a warning that the local folder is not empty. Now you have a versioned top level folder with unversioned content.
Use TortoiseSVN -> Add... on this versioned folder to add some or all of the content. You can add and remove files and make any other changes you need to.
Commit the top level folder, and you have a new versioned tree, and a local working copy, created from your existing folder.

Dropbox: The Solution to Home-Work Sync?

2010-03-07T16:04:00.001-08:00

This is a superneat utility that seems to solve a bunch of problems I've
been having:
http://www.dropbox.com/
It's basically a magic folder that exists mirrored on any number of
computers you want, and also can be accessed via the web, with 2 GB free
storage. I've tried it out for moving files between work and home (it's
windows, os X and linux compatible) and it's a big improvement over
having to plug in a USB key. It also worked well for sharing a bunch of
large photo files with a friend (although it took a little while for all
the files to show up, with no indicator that there were more to come).

Sleep On It

2009-10-12T12:21:00.001-07:00

I've discovered something about myself that is very simple but very
powerful: problems get easier when I sleep on them. If I'm feeling
hopelessly stuck on something, I won't necessarily feel like that when I
sit down to work tomorrow, and must remember that and not despair. I think
this because of what creativity researchers refer to as incubation - the
thinking that happens when you're not working hard at it, while you're
walking around, taking a shower, doing your morning routine, etc. Also it
could be related to how my brain rehearses things during REM sleep - I'm
certainly better at presentations if I've had a sleep after memorizing it
and rehearsing it.

However it works, good reason to start as early as possible so as to allow
a good number of sleeps as I bang away on a problem. What's important is
to keep focus on just one major problem at a time, over a few days, and to
put in the work to get really and truly stuck on it - stuck hard. Only
then will this process get to work. Next, go to bed.

10 online apps for scheduling a meeting online

2009-10-02T13:04:00.001-07:00

http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2009/09/the-top-ten-apps-for-scheduling-a-meeting-online.php

I've tried Doodle at least, and it worked pretty well!

Achieving Your Goals the Lee Marvin Way

2009-07-07T21:59:00.001-07:00

At the library the other day I randomly picked up the book Get Up: A
12-Step Guide to Recovery for Misfits, Freaks and Weirdos by Bucky
Sinister. Though I've never had a drug or alcohol addiction, it turns out
to have lots of wisdom about living in general, told in entertaining, no
bullshit style. I especially liked his discussion of setting goals and
pursuing them, using the movie Point Blank as illustration:

"In this film, Lee Marvin is after $93,000 that was his share of some
unspecified heist. What stood out for me was his use of a step method to
get his money back. He calmly yet violently moved from one step to the
next in the quest to retrieve the money owed him.

We have two main lessons to learn from this: Be specific in your
goal-making, and be ardent with each step. Marvin doesn't look to get any
more than a specific amount. He's not interested in getting $100,000, he
wants what's coming to him. His resolve goes no further than what he needs
to do for that part of his journey."

Bucky Sinister goes on to talk about how asking "What would Lee Marvin
do?" helped him get through the horrible process of getting back into
school as a 35 year old 4th year dropout, and eventually getting work that
would earn him $40,000 a year. He resolved to do something on this quest
every day, whether it be a short phone call, or filling out a form. No
matter how complicated and intimidating the subgoal, he tackled it step by
step. After all, Lee Marvin started his quest with "nothing but one
address of one person who was slightly involved in the old caper. He went
from there, step by step, to figure out what he needed to do."

Clearly the really hard part is setting the right kind of goals, molding
them out of the amorphous blob of wants and fears for the future that are
always floating around inside my head. This is something I struggle with a
lot. Some of the subtle things I think make the Bucky Sinister type of
goal different than some of my past attempts:

-the specificty, to the level of what kind of car you want, what *colour*
it will be, the exact amount of money you want. That way when you achieve
it, you *know*. The specifics can be adjusted over time, but there's
motivational value in making yourself *see* what a goal will look like, in
great detail, when it is finished, *feel* what it will feel like. Some of
the decisions in visualizing it are arbitrary of course, but I think
there's power in making those decisions.

- There shouldn't be too many at a time. Even three might be too many.

- Each big goal has a smaller goal in front of it, blocking it from view
and from my mind, that I can start on *right now*, and that when done
will get me closer. Something that shouldn't take more than a few weeks.

- Sometimes thinking really big, like decades-long. Bucky talks about deciding that 10 books is a good lifetime's work for a writer like him, and getting started on the first one. Get Up was the second.

- At the same time, not setting deadlines for them (except, of course, death). Deadlines can be discouraging to me, at least if I take them too seriously (here we're talking about projects that don't have actual deadlines). If you keep going after each small goal steadily, a little bit every day or week, the rate doesn't matter that much.

- Still it's good to have automatic, indisputible metrics of your progress. For instance Mr. Sinister can count how many books he's written. A friend set up an automatic script to update the number of words in his thesis file on the front page of his website every day. Making every smaller goal have a very specific end state, so that you're very clear when it's done (and can celebrate!) is a big part of that.

There's more great stuff in here, for instance about using your inner
hustle monkey for good and how you need to nurture all four aspects of
your personality symbolized by members of the A-Team (this is not your
everyday self-help book) but I'll stop for now.

Huh, almost convinced myself watching point blank is my most important
next step...

The Cult of Done

2009-06-18T13:23:00.001-07:00

I printed this poster out and put it on my wall:

I love the spirit of this because of its emphasis on *finishing* projects
so that you can move on to the next. I don't really understand #1 or #11,
but I like all the others, even the ones I semi disagree with.

In text format:

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing
what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if
you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea
done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things
done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you
right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a
ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

How to Nap

2009-06-18T13:15:00.001-07:00

I've discovered naps! (when I told this to a female friend she rolled her
eyes and said, "every man I know says that at some point. What is it with
men and napping?") When my head is drooping down to the keyboard, instead
of forcing myself to go on I have a nap on our great lab minicouch,
and leap up 20 minutes later as my watch alarm goes off, totally
refreshed.
It's all thanks to these tips my man Jim sent, source
http://longevity.about.com/od/sleep/a/napping_tips.htm

* Nap Time: Prime nap time is from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., when your
energy level dips due to a rise in the hormone melatonin at that time of
day.
* Darkness: Use a face mask or eye pillow to provide daytime darkness and
make your nap more effective.
* Not Too Late: Napping within three hours of bedtime may interfere with
nighttime sleep.
* Quiet Place: Assure that you will not be disturbed for the duration
of your nap.
* 30-Minute Maximum: When taking a nap longer than 30 minutes, you run the
risk of heading into deep sleep, which will leave you feeling tired and
groggy. Naps as short as 1 to 2 minutes could be effective for some
people.
* Set an Alarm: You will eventually train yourself to nap for the
amount of time you set aside. Until then, set an alarm or ask someone to
wake you up.
* The Caffeine Nap: Some people claim that drinking coffee and then taking
an immediate nap works well. The caffeine kicks in somewhere between 10
and 20 minutes, waking them up. They feel extra energy from both the nap
and the coffee. Researchers in Japan found that subjects using a caffeine
nap rated highest in decreased sleepiness and increased productivity when
compared to subjects taking a nap and washing their face, or taking a nap
and being exposed to bright lights.

One more thing I like about naps: as my conscious mind releases, I often
have bizarre, dream-like thoughts, which I love - it's a surreal break in
the middle of a mundane day, like an episode of The Office had a few
minutes of Yellow Submarine spliced into it.

Mastering My Email REVISED

2009-06-18T13:05:00.001-07:00

Since I wrote the post about Mastering Your Email, I've made a significant
change to my system. It's to do with that problematic email folder
Deferred, where I would put things that I couldn't deal with in a few
minutes. It kept getting bigger, and causing more subliminal anxiety.

I've eliminated that folder, in favour of *actually* dealing with every
item in my inbox as I process it. If it really is going to take more
effort, I add a to-do item for it. Which means I have to have my palm
pilot every time I process my email, which is a good thing. Sometimes the
email itself contains stuff that I will need for the to-do item, but not
afterwards (I would have no reason to file it away for reference). For
that I've created a folder called TS, for temporary support. (I also now
use this instead of Deferred for my harddrive system and physical paper
system)

This has been a big improvement, because it now means that only my todo
lists have to be tamed and managed, and not the contents of Deferred as
well. It also means I decide what actual action needs to be taken as soon
as I encounter the email.

Making a Super-effective To Do list

2009-04-06T16:32:00.001-07:00

One of the things that absolutely sold me on my Palm pilot (vs paper
solutions) was the way it keeps todo lists, with things disappearing off
the list with a satisfying strikethrough. It makes it possible to keep
ongoing todo lists, that you never lose and just continually update. So
that's the first thing, but here are some other helpful practices I've
figured out over the years to make it work.

First, to have multiple todo lists, organized by location/ability to carry
them out. The idea being you can look at the list and see only things you
can take action on right here and now. So, using task categories, I have
one for home and one for office, and one for internet, that is, things I
can do anywhere I have a net connection (so also home or office). Then I
have one for Call - you wouldn't believe how effective it is to go down a
list calling all the numbers on there one after the other, like when
you're walking someplace, especially if you store the number as part of
the todo. Others are Downtown, Groceries, Library, and Anywhere, which is
great for those things that I just need to brainstorm or figure out with a
pen and paper, for instance during a boring lecture.

I also just last week figured out a really good way to use the priority
system that Palm has built in. Basically I divide todo items by urgency
and importance. It goes

1: Needs to be done today or tomorrow. Really urgent!
2: Should be done within the next few days, somewhat time sensitive.
3: Important to my work or to the smooth running of my life, should get
done within a week or two
4: Not important to get done, but fun or interesting, or may pay off way
down the line. Like a website someone sent me to check out.

Especially having that 1 category has helped with not doing the thing that
causes anxiety, which is storing important tasks in your head. I come into
the office and check my Palm first thing to see if there are any 1 items
that I have to tackle the second I sit down.

I haven't found a use for the due date feature - it doesn't really apply
to the way I think about todo items.

Finally, the most important thing to keep them working and not gummed up
is to frequently review all the todo lists, checking off things you've
done and things you no longer intend to do, and trying to do something
with the items that just stay on the list forever. They might need
to be changed into simpler, more concrete tasks, or - and this happens to
me a lot - it's not really a todo item, in the sense of a concrete,
physical task, but rather a project, that will take multiple steps, and
should go on the project list instead.

The Joy of C Projects

2009-03-14T09:54:00.001-07:00

One of the great things about a project list is that it lets you keep a
hold of little, less important projects (C priority on the ABC priority
system), and be just as persistent (if you want) about those as about the
big ones. Without ever putting these front and center and using up my
attention or high quality thinking time, just by doing one little next
action after another - pick up this thing at the store, take this thing to
the office, write this person an email, brainstorm about this - all of a
sudden I find it's done, even if it took *many* of those steps. This gives
me a neat little sense of efficacy, frees up a slot for a new
always-wanted-to project, and can have unexpected and nifty consequences.
Here are a few examples of things I've made happen, seemingly without
trying, and t hese are just the nonacademic ones:

* Found some awesome podcasts
* Built two new shelves to repair a bookshelf
* Learned tree identification at the local arboretum
* Bought a nice overcoat
* Developed a routine for cleaning my apartment
* Organized a bowling night and a Vincent Price film marathon
* Made a present for a clinical psychology PhD friend that was two stamps,
one that said SANE and one that said INSANE
* Started a garden
* Memorized all 10 verses of Desolation Row

Many of these may sound trivial, but they brought me pleasure and really
required very little extra time or attentino, basically just extra clock
cycles I wasn't using anyway. (it's amazing how often something will just
show up that will suddenly help you with one of the projects that have
been on the list for a while) And committing to projects and finishing
them can lead to many great consequences, even if at times you don't
really know why you're doing them (besides "it's on the list" - again like
the memento guy) For instance making the bookshelves taught me about all
the resources that are available at home depot, which could be useful
later on. And there was a call for submissions at a community art center
for a show on the theme of bob dylan, and having memorized and thought a
lot about Desolation Row I put together a performance about it which went
over really well. Which just goes to confirm my belief, which is also the
theme of a favourite book Son of Interflux by Gordon Korman, that the most
satisfying and fruitful way to spend leisure time and money is not on
simply amusing yourself, but on projects - especially ones that enlist the
help of other people.

The Project List: How to Be Like the Memento Guy

2009-03-14T09:51:00.001-07:00

At the heart of my life as a productive person is my list of projects. I
define what goes on the list pretty strictly, after David Allen's Getting
Things Done: a project is any kind of change in the world that I want to
make happen, that takes more than one simple step, and the list are the
projects that I am currently *committed* to making steady progress on. So
I draw a line between those active projects and ones that I might want to
do somewhere down the line - which go in a list called Someday/Maybe.
Those ones I don't have to worry about at all, unless I want to move it
over to the project list. In my conception projects should take between 20
minutes and 3 months to finish, and between 3 steps and like 200.

I store projects as memos in a special category on my palm pilot. I like
this because each memo can then hold my thoughts or info about the project
(project support), like if I do a little web research I can paste it in.
Most importantly is when deciding on what the next action is for a
project, I put that in there (as well as on a todo list) One of the
biggest mistakes people make with a todo list is to put things on there
that are really projects: that require not one physical, easily defined
action, but a complicated chain of actions, or a series of tricky
decisions.

My friend in psychology has designed a scale to test people on how
persistent they are and how much they resist giving up, and the amazing
thing to me watching my own behaviour is how using a project list has
drastically increased my persistence, such that I would probably score
higher on her scale now. I can avoid a project for a while, but unless I
take it off the list it's going to be there staring me in the face - it's
not going to be swept under the rug. It's like being the guy in Memento -
rather than keeping all the projects in your head at once, which is
stress-inducing, you can count on those words (like the tattoos) to prompt
you about what you could be/should be working on. I have about 40 projects
that are currently active (though only a handful of "A" projects, see the
ABC prioritizing system) - there's no way I could keep those in my head.
Like the Memento guy it makes me feel relentless and driven: I *will* keep
calling until I reach someone who can fix the problem; I *will* keep
thinking about this issue until I make a breakthrough. No more pushing it
to the back of my mind and hoping the issue will go away (which in the
case of positive opportunities, it is certain to do). Well less anyway.

For a project list to stay useful it has to be constantly pruned and
updated so that it continues to match that definition. I make myself do
that at least once a week, during the weekly review. There's a few tools I
use to make sure things on the list still match that definition. For
instance if I notice I havent moved on a project for a long time, that
might be a sign that I should simplify it - making it more immediate and
concrete - or break it into smaller projects. Or maybe I can't make
progress on it now, in which case it goes on the Projects - Suspended
list, and I put something before it that says when it's on ice til ("Til
April", "Til x gets back to me"). Or maybe I realize I just don't want to
commit to it now, in which case it goes to Someday/Maybe. Finished or no
longer relevant projects get taken off the list.

I now think of tons of things as a project, from revising a paper to
furnishing my apartment to teachinig myself a statistic to deciding where
to go for salsa lessons. It's an enormous help for planning my time, seems
to genuinely make me more effective, and also gives me a great feeling of
satisfaction when I can finish one off.

Mastering Your Email

2009-02-10T12:16:00.001-08:00

The ideas in this post are from a combination of David Allen's Getting
Things Done,
http://www.43folders.com/izero
and my own trial and error. One caveat is that I usually never get more
than 100 messages a day; more strategies are probably necessary if you do.

Email is a great place to start trying to amp up your organization, and in
particular to start training yourself to use an inbox. The most important
thing about email is not the program you use or the way your folders are
organized, but your daily processes of dealing with mail.

My inbox is always empty or nearly empty, and that's because of a shift in
mindset I made at one point, between thinking of it as "dealing" with
email and "processing" email. With "dealing with it" my inbox grew into a
huge, anxiety-provoking heap. Now when I check my inbox (way too often), I
zoom through all the new messages one by one - the image I think of is a
ninja, deflecting throwing stars as they come at him - until it's empty
again. How to achieve that is what the rest of this entry is about.

The most important principle is the 10 second rule: if it can be dealt
with in 10 seconds or less, do it, and if it can't, then move it somewhere
else - be *disciplined* about processing your inbox from top to bottom
without stopping to engage with a message. So that means making a snap
judgment about every email as you go through it: delete it, fire off a
quick reply, file it for reference, or put it someplace for more thought:
the Deferred folder, about which more later. The big thing is to take as
much quick action as possible the first time you read it, so you never
have to look at it again. I think of it as sucking all the juice out of
each email, and putting it in other parts of your organizational system.
Don't use your email as a reminder system; use your reminder
system as your reminder system. You should try to have all these
things instantly accessible while processing email, and use them:
- Calendar/day planner for setting up appointments and checking when you
can make appointments for
- A place to record things you might or might not want to go to (i.e. Maybe events)
- Contact list, if someone sends you their phone number etc
- To do lists
- Project list
- Someday/maybe lists, for book or movie recommendations etc
- Inbox folder on your harddrive to download attachments to, to be filed
later (like in your weekly review)

As you can see, emptying your inbox goes best when you've got all the
other aspects of your system working well (especially the calendar and
todo lists) But if you're still getting that under control I think this
approac of emptying the inbox will help regardless.

So now most of the emails that require you to take some action have been
dealt with. Some you can delete now, others you may want to refer back to
in the future: you are keeping them for reference. For that I use Zillion
folder filing, which has as its principle that you should never worry
about creating a new folder on the spot to handle even a single item, as
long as they are organized alphabetically. It took me a little while to
get happy with the way I used these folders; at first I filed by project
or topic, like for instance pigeonresearch. But that was a lot of work,
and there were problems like if an email was about two different topics
(there may be a solution for this in google mail technology, tagging or
some such).

Instead now my folders mostly represent groups of people: one for
correspondence relating to each class that I'm in and each that I TA, one
for toastmasters, one for administrivia from the department etc. There's a
few other folders for special purposes, like one called eventinfo which
has details about events (more than will fit into a calendar entry), and
one called spam for particularly entertaining spams. Basically it's
grouping by why I am keeping it (I don't organize by date or sender name,
because that's pretty easy to search or sort by). Of course many emails I
want to keep purely for sentimental reasons, and those go into a folder
called personal. Over time, personal has become the folder where I throw
anything that doesn't fit neatly into one of the others, and that seems to
work ok. Personal is the only folder I put a lot of effort into backing
up.

All in all there's 100 folders, which is definitely manageable both in
Pine and web-based email. Within-folder searches have saved my butt many a
time.

Now there's the last part of my system, the one that still inspires a
small amount of dread - though minor compared to how much my enormous
inbox used to. And that's the Deferred folder, where I chuck email I can't
deal with in less than 10 seconds. Only after my inbox is empty do I go
back and look into these. I try not to let it hijack my day, especially if
it's just writing a reply to a fun note (this is why you will sometimes
hear back a few days or a week or a month from sending something - but
hopefully you will always hear back). Yeah this is the hairy one, and I
have to make sure that despite some psychological resistance I open it up
on a regular basis (at *least* once a week) and see what's there, see what
I can make progress on, and make sure nothing that has a deadline
approaching. I think in an ideal theoretical system, there would be no
need for a Deferred folder but a todo list would replace most of the need
for it. But in practice thats just too cumbersome for me. I can say that
*eventually* everything is dealt with; it does turn over, and almost none
go back more than 2 months, plus its never more than 25 items - and that's
including friends' funny youtube links, and journal article alerts. As a
rule of thumb it shouldn't be more than one page.

So the 10 second rule, not using email as a reminder, zillion folder
filing, the personal and Deferred folders. With all these tricks and
techniques, I now feel like I have my email well in hand, which is
especially important when the student questions or participant
signups start flying.

Computer Dollars: Why to Upgrade instead of Buying New

2009-02-01T16:12:00.001-08:00

Oh man did I come close to buying that computer. Three days in a row I
visited the apple store website, and click through all but the final
screen to purchase it - just doing research on what the whole package
would cost, I told myself. There's a certain kind of consumer lust that
apple fanatics are a particular victim of, but I think everybody with a
computer has felt this, how great it would be to start afresh with the
instant gratification of a shiny new, fast system.

My friend snapped me out of it. He pointed out $2000 is a large amount of
money, for something I probably didn't need that much. In fact if I put a
small fraction of that money towards upgrades, I could be very happy with
my 6-year-old computer which I use for modest purposes (such as blogging).
With computers especially, waiting to buy a new one is almost always
better. *Always* better? I protested. But then when would you ever buy a
new one? Well eventually, but it's important to know just how much a
new computer dollar spent now will cost you; or alternatively, how much
money you can make by holding off on buying a computer for another year.

I looked at laptops at the $1299 US price point, one which apple is fond
of and which my modest dream computer (before the bells and whistles) was
at. I compared it to the specs on the mac laptop selling for the same
price that was available 2 years earlier, to see how much more bang for
your buck you get. (note that apple has fairly messed up pricing, partly
because of exploiting aforementioned consumer lust, so the exact values
will be quite different for PCs, but I'll bet the story by and large the
same) These are both 13" intel core 2 duo MacBooks. In two years the same
money buys you twice as much hard drive space (from 80 gigs to 160) and
twice as much RAM (1 gig to 2). The clockspeed has not increased, but the
Speedmark 4.5 overall benchmark (courtesy MacWorld magazine) has gone from
185 to 195, a 10% increase assuming a ratio scale (actually I thought it
would be more - it seems after going to Intel and adding a second
processor dramatic speed gains are harder to come by - but who knows when
the next big jump will be?) Finally, it's gotten lighter, from 5.2 lbs to
4.5, a 13% decrease, and with a nifty aluminum unibody construction.

So the same amount of money buys dramatically more built-in goodness. But
it came home to me when I looked at it a different way: If, in January
2007, I had shelled out the money for a computer as good as the $1299 two
years later, how much would it have cost me? A roughly comparable computer
of the time, according to the speed tests and the ram and hard drive, was
the 15" MacBook pro with 2.33 gigahertz. This computer cost $2499, $1200
more than the 13" 2 gig model. You could say some of that goes to the
larger size of screen, but on the other hand it had a 40 gig smaller hard
drive than the $1299 2009 macbook, and it was also more than 20% heavier.
Let's knock off $300. By holding out for 2 years, its like you've earned
$900-worth of computer. Take $250 worth of upgrades it might take to keep
you content with your old computer over that period, it's still like
earning $650 on $1300 that you put aside. A 50% return over 2 years,
which is like a compounded yearly interest of 22%. I don't know anything
about investment, but that seems good. (note that another thing you
might draw from this is that it might make sense when buying a new mac to
get a low-end model, and then soup it up with 3rd party components)

There's lots of other issues I'm ignoring, like resale value (I have never
sold promptly enough for the resale value to be worth anything) and the
math will be totally different for the PC world possibly leading to
different conclusions, but this exercise has led me to think it's *always*
worth souping up your computer before buying a new one - and for PCs,
where you can actually replace the CPU, maybe it virtually *never* makes
sense to buy an all-new computer.

Alert Me to Anything New in My Area

2008-12-11T23:19:00.001-08:00

This is a followup to the previous post about hearing about new scientific
articles in your area as they appear through an RSS feed or email alerts.
What gives me even more of a thrilling feeling of omniscience than alerts
for new issues of journals in my field, is a feature in ScienceDirect
called Search Alerts. If you create an alert for a text string signifying
your sub-specialities, any time *anyone* publishes an article on them in
any of the 2500 journals on sciencedirect, you will get an email. It's
like being a bigtime crime boss with ears and eyes everywhere.

Trollope on the Daily Task

2008-12-11T23:05:00.001-08:00

I was looking up that great "spasmodic hercules" quotation, and found this
wonderful passage around it, in Anthony Trollope's autobiography. It
describes how he wrote a bunch of novels despite having a more than
fulltime job as postmaster general. Because I am fascinated with details
of how any successful creative person works, and love this passage for how
it confirms that a good system will cleverly take into account your
emotions, I reproduce a huge chunk of it, at the cost of the pithiness
that should be the virtue of the blogger over other writers:

There was no day on which it was my positive duty to write for the
publishers, as it was my duty to write reports for the Post Office. I was
free to be idle if I pleased. But as I had made up my mind to undertake
this second profession, I found it to be expedient to bind myself by
certain self-imposed laws. When I have commenced a new book, I have
always prepared a diary, divided into weeks, and carried it on for the
period which I have allowed myself for the completion of the work. In
this I have entered, day by day, the number of pages I have written, so
that if at any time I have slipped into idleness for a day or two, the
record of that idleness has been there, staring me in the face, and
demanding of me increased labour, so that the deficiency might be
supplied. According to the circumstances of the time,--whether my other
business might be then heavy or light, or whether the book which I was
writing was or was not wanted with speed,--I have allotted myself so many
pages a week. The average number has been about 40. It has been placed as
low as 20, and has risen to 112. And as a page is an ambiguous term, my
page has been made to contain 250 words; and as words, if not watched,
will have a tendency to straggle, I have had every word counted as I
went. In the bargains I have made with publishers I have,--not, of
course, with their knowledge, but in my own mind,--undertaken always to
supply them with so many words, and I have never put a book out of hand
short of the number by a single word. I may also say that the excess has
been very small. I have prided myself on completing my work exactly
within the proposed dimensions. But I have prided myself especially in
completing it within the proposed time,--and I have always done so. There
has ever been the record before me, and a week passed with an
insufficient number of pages has been a blister to my eye, and a month so
disgraced would have been a sorrow to my heart.

I have been told that such appliances are beneath the notice of a man of
genius. I have never fancied myself to be a man of genius, but had I been
so I think I might well have subjected myself to these trammels. Nothing
surely is so potent as a law that may not be disobeyed. It has the force
of the water drop that hollows the stone. A small daily task, If it be
really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules. It is the
tortoise which always catches the hare. The hare has no chance. He loses
more time in glorifying himself for a quick spurt than suffices for the
tortoise to make half his journey.

I have known authors whose lives have always been troublesome and painful
because their tasks have never been done in time. They have ever been as
boys struggling to learn their lessons as they entered the school gates.
Publishers have distrusted them, and they have failed to write their best
because they have seldom written at ease. I have done double their
work--though burdened with another profession,--and have done it almost
without an effort. I have not once, through all my literary career, felt
myself even in danger of being late with my task. I have known no anxiety
as to "copy." The needed pages far ahead--very far ahead--have almost
always been in the drawer beside me. And that little diary, with its dates
and ruled spaces, its record that must be seen, its daily, weekly demand
upon my industry, has done all that for me.

There are those who would be ashamed to subject themselves to such a
taskmaster, and who think that the man who works with his imagination
should allow himself to wait till--inspiration moves him. When I have
heard such doctrine preached, I have hardly been able to repress my scorn.

Don't Break the Chain!

2008-12-11T22:53:00.001-08:00

Jerry Seinfeld, at least in certain periods, wrote comedy in a disciplined
way every day. He allegedly uses this technique which I read about here:
http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret-281626.php
Every day when he completed his writing quota he would cross off that day
on the calendar. If he felt like skipping it one day, he would tell
himself, "don't break the chain!" meaning don't make gaps in the sequence
of marks on the calendar, and keep growing those chains as much as
possible.

So far I'm just repeating another blog, but what got me excited about this
technique when I read it is that it is something I've been looking for for
a while, a perfectly balanced motivator. Reward and punishment systems (at
least when self-administered) don't work for me, because I already feel
crappy when I let myself down and can't bear to actually exact the
punishment or deny the reward on top of it. The seinfeld technique
combines a very mild punishment and a very mild reward, which in fact are
just reminders of my own resolution to myself.

You don't need to buy a calendar for this; if you start a new document in
Word, there's an option to download templates off the web, and if you do
a search for "calendar" there are files with pages for the months of the
year that you can print off and put, along with a pen, in a place where
you can reach it from the place you'll be doing this thing.

Tonight I really didn't want to do my 1 hour nonrequired reading that I
have resolved to do every evening; but by repeating to myself, "don't
break the chain", and also something that Anthony Trollope apparently
said, "A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of
a spasmodic Hercules," I made it.

Using RSS to Stay Hyper-Current on the Literature

2008-12-11T19:53:00.001-08:00

Another tip from Liz, who writes that it has "allowed me to be almost more
on top of the literature than my supervisor (in terms of finding articles,
anyway)" :

"Ok, so the first step is to turn on your RSS feed reader of choice (I use
google reader, because I check it obsessively for non-academic reasons).
Then, you can do a little bit of research and most journals that publish
online have feeds of the articles that come out as soon as they're
available online.

For example, Journal of Vision (which I believe is online-only) has a feed
link on their website. Vision Research I had to get through ScienceDirect.
I have four journals on my list (JOV, VR, IEEE: PAMI, and JOSA) and I get
2-4 new articles to check out per day. Usually this means skimming the
title and deciding I don't care/don't understand any of the words (I'm
looking at you, JOSA). However, I have found several gems and it's fun to
get them hot off the presses, so to speak. If the abstract (delivered to
my feed reader) is promising, I just download the pdf and enter into my
extremely efficient reference management system.

If you find some way to automate the reading part, let me know :P.

PRO TIP: If you don't already, use your feed reader to subscribe to
something fun like a comic (or five). That will keep you checking it on a
regular basis and comics won't derail you for long."

A good one! I experimented with using google reader for this for a while,
but I tend to use it exclusively for fun stuff - so I can avoid getting
into the habit of checking it during work time. Instead I have been using
email journal alerts, which also works really well, and there's one for
almost every journal (ScienceDirect can cover a few, and then others send
out their own). Whenever a new issue comes out I instantly get an email
with the table of contents, and like Liz I quickly scan it and only read
the abstract of a few, and then add even fewer to my Someday/Maybe reading
list. However at the moment I have a little backlog of those emails in my
Deferred folder (more about my email system in a future posting) so maybe
it's worth considering Liz's method, and interspersing the casual blog
entries with the science headlines.

By the way, if you read any blogs whatsoever regularly, google reader is a
must. It's one of those things that a friend said, "oh my god, you're not
using it?" and I was initially irritated and skeptical but then had to
admit he was right.

How to Sell Yourself in a Letter

2008-12-05T14:48:00.001-08:00

This is something I have agonized a lot over in the past, so I was glad to
run across two pieces bearing on it in the last little while. They're both
inspired by looking through real letters that people sent, hoping to sell
themselves to the writer, so this is based on something.

Screenwriter Alex Epstein (Bon Cop, Bad Cop) wrote about emails he got
from people applying to be his intern:
http://complicationsensue.blogspot.com/2008/12/job-applications.html
"First, the most effective letters focused on how you can help me. I want
this to be a good fit for you, but my primary focus is on what qualifies
you to do the job well. What are your qualifications? What are your
skills?

Second, the best letters tended to be shorter. I know this is your shot at
the job, so you want to put it all in there. But a really well crafted,
well-thought out half page impresses more than a page with everything in
it. Anyone who's looking to hire you wants to know that you can
prioritize. What's the most important thing you have to say?

Third, the most effective letters were unapologetically positive. Never
diss your lack of experience or the quality of your work or talk about
your doubts. Almost any letter you write to a stranger is partially a
sales letter. Sell yourself to the person you're writing to. Why give me
reasons to doubt you?"

This second article is by some prominent screenwriters (behind Disney's
Aladdin among other things), about how to write a query letter, which is a
letter you send trying to entice people to read your script and turn it
into a movie.

http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp38.Breaking.the.Ice.html

They write about the many mistakes you can make when writing a query
letter, but I find it more efficient to start by looking at someone
who has best practices (that was the one piece of advice my brain managed
to retain from a personal talk by Jeff Bezos we got as amazon.com intern)
He writes about the subtext that's present in even a short query letter,
and how often letters have the wrong subtext.

"The subtext we most hope to find -- beyond that great film idea in the
text, of course -- is:

'Here I am. I'm serious. I'm capable. I'm talented. I know the
business, and I'm ready to do this job.' "

Then they give a real example of such a letter (that manages to be "warm,
easygoing, straightforward, professional, funny, present the image of a
person that we'd like to meet and work with, all while staying on topic,
and be short, yet compelling"). Some excerpts, with their comments in
square brackets:

"I have very much enjoyed reading your Follywood columns and would like to
take you up on your kind offer to help promote a great script."

[This is a good start. A clear declaration of intent. It's
been personalized a bit -- the writer has read the Wordplay articles from
back in the old days on America Online.]

After the plot description:

"This is not my first stab at writing. A previous screenplay -- OK but
not great -- is currently under option by The Kaufman Company, Citadel
Entertainment (HBO) and another screenplay was a finalist in the Writer's
Film Project run by the Chesterfield Film Company."

[A nice bit of humility here, with the 'OK but not great' line. Subtext:
"I'm a nice guy. I'm not a nutcase." That subtext needs to be there, and
he's found a good way to do it.]

"Sun Dogs is by far the best thing I have ever written. I would like to
get it made -- and made as well as possible."

[This is a nice way to show confidence. Not a claim that the script is the
best script in the world, just the best thing he's ever done.]

(Jane Espenson has similar counterintuitive advice on her blog at one
point: "I'm big believer in high expectations. Tell people that what
they're about to read/see/taste will be wonderful and they'll tend to
perceive what they expect to perceive. This is why, every time I turn in a
script I proudly announce it's the best thing I've ever written.")

And the ending:

"In this spirit, I am searching for an agent to represent it. Any help
you can give me would be very much appreciated."

[A nice send off -- he's just someone who has a great idea and wants some
help, any help, in bringing the idea to life...Overall, there's a
no-nonsense professional feel to this letter.]

Finally, he signs it with the informal "Cheers", though it has the proper
formal letter stuff at the top and bottom.

You can read the whole query letter here
http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp38-xtras/wp38x.Sun.Dogs.html

From these essays, I conclude that these things are important in a letter
selling yourself:

- Signs that you know who it is you're writing to and are selling yourself
on the basis of their self-interest
- Prose that is concise and polished
- Avoids phrases that read awkwardly stiff or formal
- Communicates a bit about where you're coming from and a select few of
your most impressive concrete credentials
- No negativity (unless it's important for showing you're not a nutcase)
- Besides that, a general air of realistic confidence, expressing
the sense that you really believe in what you are selling and expect
that others, if not them, will want to snap it up.
- Crisp and polite openings and closings, not lengthy or grovelling.

Never Wait

2008-11-12T17:35:00.001-08:00

A condensed version of this article from a website about screenwriting,
and written by Terry Rossio (behind the scripts for movies such as Aladdin
and Pirates of the Carribbean).

http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp44.Never.Wait.html

You shouldn't wait.
Not for anything.
Ever.
Commit these two words to heart, now:
Never wait.
Not only is life short, windows of opportunity are shorter.
What can you do about it?
Never wait.
Not only is life short, it's actually getting shorter.
Never wait.
Successful people don't wait. They don't get stalled on one step, one
issue, one project. They continuously go about the problem of creating
value. They're not interested in struggling and waiting, they're focused
on doing.

Waiting less isn't about becoming more intense, or rushed; it's about
finding an optimum flow. Look at the sky. That thing up there is a
continuously changing spectacular work of art, and it just doesn't get
enough attention. You're not waiting when you stop to smell the roses.

Waiting -- the innocent little sucker is a tiny little bundle of death.

Please don't be one of those writers who 'hope.'

Fuck hope.

I don't ever want to be a hopeful, I want to be a professional.

To have a career is like running a series of marathons end to end. You
can't thrill or despair every few yards; another few minutes and the
entire landscape will change completely, anyway.
Don't live on hope.
Hoping is way too much like waiting -- and you know the rule on that.

How to Take the Mystique out of Published Writing

2008-11-12T17:31:00.001-08:00

Here's a trick to inspire you in writing: take some piece of writing that
looks impressive, such as a Nature article, use the text select tool
(assuming it's a pdf) and copy it into a Word document. Format it Times
New Roman double-spaced, 12 point. Suddenly your own prose doesn't sound
so far away from what the published professionals are writing. And it's
a good way to start the work of dissecting and reverse engineering a style
of article published in a specific publication so you can get in there
yourself.

I first figured this out when I started writing articles for the arts
section of the student newspaper. I would email them in, and then I'd be
startled to see how authoritative they looked when beautifully set out in
Quark XPress and printed on newsprint. I remember shortly thereafter
reading a Globe and Mail arts article, I believe it was a review of Stuart
Little 2, and mentally transposing it back into an email from its neat 1
1/2 inch column. It was some badly written, weak-ass crap! I was greatly
encouraged.

The Minimum You Need to Know about Negotiation

2008-11-08T09:47:00.001-08:00

I recently sold my old iPod shuffle online, and when I went to meet the
purchaser I was all set to show her the unit and discuss price, but she
met me with an outstretch hand containing the money. I was prepared to
negotiate, so I was surprised and thought this was a tactical error on her
part. But I think I understand.

Of course there are lots of reasons why she might not have wanted to get
into it. But one reason is that she might have thought like I used to
think about negotiation: that it is some kind of begging, or
favour-asking. Since I read this book, The Mind and Heart of the
Negotiator by Leigh L. Thompson - the book which may turn out at the end
of my life to have benefitted me in measurable, monetary terms more than
any other book - I now know that negotiation is just rightful exercise of
your real power. And that is the power to walk away. (if you absolutely
can't walk away, if you *have* to make a deal right then and there no
matter how bad it is for you, then it's not a negotiation, and all you've
got is begging or asking for a favour)

A negotiation actually benefits both partners, because a failed
negotiation means both people lose out. If she had held out for a lower
price money, I would have either had to go with it or walk all the way
back to my office with no more money and maybe wait another few months for
someone else to respond to my ad. Much better to have the money in hand.
So that's power that she had.

The major way to increase your power in a negotiation is with information,
in particular negotiation about alternatives to making this agreement.
Nowadays with the internet this is very easy. So I sold it to her for $35
- I did a quick search on apple store and found you can buy a brand new
second-gen iPod shuffle for $55 directly from them, under warranty,
shipping in 1-2 days. She could have pulled out that fact to explain why
she needed a lower price from me to make it worth her while. That's what I
did, successfully, when negotiating for my replacement to that iPod
Shuffle (though I was foiled, as I talk about later) Doing that kind of
research is called finding a Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement
(BATNA).

Also thinking about the other person's BATNA could help. She must have
noticed I'd been listing it for over 6 months. At this point my
alternatives were to keep it for myself as an inadequate backup in case my
nano ever broke, or giving it to a lower-tech friend for free as a
present. So I might have been willing to go down as low as $15. But it was
important that she not know that.

That value of $15 was what is known as my reservation price, the price
below which it makes sense for me to walk away. As you can see it comes
directly out of my BATNA. So these are the theoretical dynamics of
negotiation: Both parties have a reservation price, which is unknown to
the other. They go back and forth making offers until the price falls
within the zone between their reservation prices, at which point they make
a deal (if there is no zone like that, the deal fails). Both parties
benefit, no one is being exploited. The game consists of trying to pick a
price that is in that acceptable range, but as close to the other person's
reservation price as possible. That's why you should never reveal your
reservation price, the absolute most you're willing to pay for something
or least you're willing to give it away for. My buyer made that mistake
when she wrote in her email, "I can pay $35, I can't go any higher!!"
Assuming that really was her reservation price, I was happy to have it. So
figure out your own reservation price going into it, but don't reveal it.

Making offers and counteroffers is the only real move in a negotiation;
the rest should probably be ignored. For instance people may whine and
moan about how much they paid for the thing they are selling - that
doesn't matter unless they make a counteroffer. Also saying "that's my
final offer" should probably be taken lightly, just go ahead and make your
counter offer. Never make a concession, a second offer, until the other
person has responded to your most recent offer. The Thompson book says
that studies have concluded that the person who makes the first offer does
not have any consistent advantage - unless the other person makes the
mistake of using that as their primary information about how much it's
worth. I think that's what happened with my buyer: I just checked my
facebook listing, and it was for $50, which was even more optimistic than
I realized. She thought knocking off $15 was a good deal, whereas I
probably would have gone for knocking off $35 (though I wouldn't have been
happy about it). Go for the absolute price, not how much off (though of
course I make that mistake all the time at the supermarket)

Something you can do to increase your power in a negotiation is to improve
your Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement. Besides finding out more
information, you can also start discussions with other people about how
much they're willing to give you. That's why you sometimes hear about
actors lining up offers for movies they don't really intend to do, just to
get into a better negotiating position to demand more money for the movie
they really want to do.

Another way to help your negotiation, for both parties, is to throw in as
many extra issues as possible, especially ones that matter more to one
party than to the other. For instance, if she was having trouble making up
her mind about a particular price, I was prepared to bring out the iPod
protective cover I had and add it to the deal. It would be almost
worthless to me no longer owning the iPod, but potentially valuable to
her. So if she then went for it, we would both win. The book uses the
example of negotiating for a salary, throwing in as many things as you
can. For instance vacation time might be something that is not too costly
to the company, but very valuable to you. Be creative in brainstorm as
many extra dimensions to the deal as possible.

You're probably thinking about how there are ways you can be dishonest in
your negotiation, particularly with regard to your reservation price,
pretending it's lower or higher than it is and not accepting an offer in
that zone of acceptability. And this was my other big misconception about
negotiation, that it was all about trickery and outsmarting the other
person. Almost every single negotiation I've seen in a movie or on tv
falls into that category. But in practice almost all of the thousands of
negotiations that happen each day are in good faith. The book explicitly
cautions you against trying to be sneaky, saying that it very often
backfires and you should concentrate on properly exercising your real
power.

The number one thing Ilearned through trial and error after I read this
book and was fired up about negotiating was *never negotiate unless the
other person is in a position to make a binding agreement*. Not a verbal
agreement. In practice, that means either negotiating right at the point
of making the exchange, or where some kind of legally enforceable contract
can be authenticated. I learned this when I was negotiating for an iPod
nano via facebook messaging. The seller bitched and complained but agreed
to the price. Then I never heard back from him. This happened again when I
negotiated for a whiteboard for the lab over the phone with what turned
out to be the teenage daughter of the owner of the laundromat, who refused
to give it to me for that price when I turned up to claim it. Another
important lesson: never make the mistake of negotiating with someone who
doesn't have the decision-making power. All this doesn't mean you
shouldn't communicate with the person before you start the real
negotiation - in fact depending on how big a one it is, it's a great idea
to build rapport and learn as much about them as possible. The important
thing is to not make any concessions before the negotiation begins, and
try not reveal anything that could help them guess about your own
reservation price. Which can take many tricky forms, but in particular
avoid revealing: how bad you want it, time limitations, what your
alternatives consist of. (of couse all the better if you can find out that
information about them) Best to be opaque and general when the
conversation verges on the deal itself, though enthusiastic about the
prospect of the deal.

Since it is not at all inherently dishonest, I think it always makes sense
to try to negotiate, unless there's a strict rule against it. Especially
for things that you're inclined not to buy because they seem overpriced.
You can always say, honestly, it's not worth it for me at that price, but
I'll give you X dollars right now for it. Now I'm surprised when people
aren't willing to negotiate: did you really list as your first offer your
final offer? Don't you have any optimism that people might pay more than
the absolute minimum price you're willing to sell it for? (have you
noticed that in this country, explicit negotiation is mostly only part of the
daily lives of people on the very low end of the socioeconomic status scale, drug dealers and other underground economies, and the very high end, CEOs and movie stars and
government ministers? Could it be that disdain for negotiation,
considering it not respectable, is a uniquely middle class phenomenon?)

Of course there are going to be cases where for whatever reason you don't
negotiate as hard as you could, that is, you refrain from exercising all
the power you have. One last tip I heard which makes a lot of sense: if
you can possibly get someone else to negotiate on your behalf (i.e. an
agent), that's better. Even though you're perfectly within your rights,
you could imagine some lingering frustration from them over not getting
the price they first wanted, and I can see how that would be best directed
at someone else if you're going to keep working with that party.

Mark B. Kristal's Suggestions for a Basic Research Career

2008-11-07T12:25:00.001-08:00

It's rare that I encounter advice that's pitched at exactly the right
level for where I'm at in my life/career. This is such advice, and struck
me as excellent.
http://www.psychology.buffalo.edu/essay.shtml

Here are the best bits that I took away from it, in case this is taken
down:

* Establish an independent line of research as early in your career as
possible. If you can, do so even as a graduate student. Avoid the graduate
student's trap of thinking up experiments in other researchers' programs
that the other researcher has missed. Of course these are useful studies,
but do not form the basis of one's own independent line of research.
* Be problem-oriented, not technique-oriented. Use a variety of
techniques,
methods, and orientations -- whichever are necessary to solve the problems
at hand. Remember, technology comes and goes, but the underlying
questions are the meat of research. It is depressing to go to poster
sessions at the big conferences year after year and see the same questions
being asked over and over with different, more .cutting edge. techniques,
presented by people enamored of the techniques rather than the research
problems. If technology is so costly, in terms of equipment, learning
time, and other resources, how does one avoid the trap of becoming
technique oriented? The answer: collaborate.
* Think beyond the next publication, or even the next grant proposal. Take
the long view; look at the big picture. In other words, bite off a piece
of question that may take a decade, or even a career to answer. There is a
major difference between the scientist that wonders how to break the
question into appropriate sized grant proposals, and one who wonders how
to expand the question into a grant proposal. Furthermore, commit yourself
to your question; given the time and energy it takes to answer an
appropriate sized research question, pursuing a series of unrelated
research questions in parallel rather than in series is often a sign of
dilettantism.
* If you do basic research, keep your eyes open for applications of your
findings.
* Don't expect answers; expect more questions. Daniel Lehrman used to tell
us that a good experiment will raise more questions than it answers.
Perhaps non-scientists find this aspect of science strangely frustrating.
However, the lack of a final solution distinguishes the scientist's quest
from the engineer's.
* Never stop asking questions.
* Choose a problem that excites you. It should excite you so much that you
can't sleep. It should excite you so much that when someone asks you the
time, you blurt out your research topic.
* Strive for elegance in research. The elegance of an experiment is in
the quality of the thinking and the cleverness of the approach to
answering the research question, not in the complexity of the design or
the sophistication of the methods. Often, the most elegant experiments are
simple, low-tech attacks at the heart of the problem. Study classic
research in your field and appreciate the logic and thought that went into
it. All too often students nowadays ignore older research because it isn't
available online, or dismiss it for using old-fashioned techniques. There
is much wisdom and cleverness in some of those old papers. Reading them,
learning from them, and citing them, is real scholarship.

Work Break Programs

2008-11-05T09:39:00.001-08:00

I have trouble remembering to take breaks and adjust my posture etc while
I'm working on the computer. Fortunately there are lots of programs that
can help with that. I'm currently using a simple, free, unobtrusive one in
the office called Big Stretch:

http://www.download.com/Big-Stretch-Reminder-Program/3000-2129_4-10844515.html

but there are many, many options for PC, both commercial and not. As usual
the options are a little more limited for the mac, but I found a nice one
called Coffee Break Pro X, which is both easy to use and full of smart
features and customization options - for instance it can actually lock
down your screen for a period of time to force you to take a break.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16684

It costs $20 to buy it, but I found it to be worth it.

More Lessons from Barack Obama

2008-10-25T17:35:00.001-07:00

A few quotes I found enlightening from a NY Times piece, "Barack Obama,
Forever Sizing Up":
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/weekinreview/26kantor.html?ref=politics&pagewanted=all

On how he's run meetings since he worked at the Harvard Review:
"Everyone contributes; silent lurkers will be interrogated. (He wants to
'suck the room of every idea,' said Valerie Jarrett, a close adviser.)
Mention a theory and Mr. Obama asks how it translates on the ground. He
orchestrates debate, playing participants off each other -- and then
highlights their areas of agreement. He constantly restates others'
contributions in his own invariably more eloquent words."
(it goes on to say he then goes away and decides, with the decision
sometimes a surprise to the people at the meeting)

On time to think:
"As a community organizer, he spent his evenings filling journals, trying
to sort out the day's confusion. During his seven years as a state
senator, he used the time driving between Springfield and Chicago for
contemplation; when staffers suggested that a candidate for the United
States Senate should have a driver, Mr. Obama resisted, saying the driver
might intrude. Hence Mr. Obama's fluster when he misses his daily gym
time. 'That's when he can get his mind straight,' said Jim Cauley, his
campaign manager in the United States Senate race."

On how he uses planning:
"Mr. Obama resists making quick judgments or responding to day-to-day
fluctuations, aides say. Instead he follows a familiar set of steps:
Perform copious research. Solicit expertise. (What delighted Mr. Obama
most about becoming a United States senator, he told an old boss, was his
access to top scholars: he was a kid in the Princeton and Stanford candy
shops.) Project all likely scenarios. Devise a plan. Anticipate
objections. Adjust the plan, and once it's in place, stick with it. In
part, this approach explains how Mr. Obama won in the primaries: he
exploited the electoral calendar and arcane differences in voting methods,
and while Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton continually tried out new
messages, Mr. Obama modified his only slightly, even when some supporters
urged more dramatic change."

Don't ask yourself "what's my passion?"

2008-10-07T18:48:00.001-07:00

This is one of the most important posts I've ever read, and I may look
back some day to find it has changed my life. I'm excerpting it here so I
don't lose it.

http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2008/10/why-it-might-no.html

----

I'm paraphrasing, but in part Dan Pink answered, "I never ask myself
'What's my passion?' That question is too huge. It's not helpful."

I think that's absolutely correct. One of my happiness-project resolutions
is to "Think big," but sometimes you can paralyze yourself by asking big,
unanswerable questions.

When someone asks me for career advice (and I've been known to volunteer
this advice, even unasked!), I say, "Do what you DO. What do you do
already, in your free time? Try to do that as your job." In my case,
although as a Supreme Court clerk I surely had one of the most fascinating
jobs for a lawyer, on the weekends, I was writing a book. This was a
helpful clue as to a profession I might enjoy. I have a friend who always
felt guilty in law school, because he was wasting so much time playing
video games; after graduation, he gave up a prestigious clerkship to work
for a - you guessed it - video game company.

A friend told me that she was going to try to get a job as an editor of a
women's magazine like Vogue. "Do you read those magazines?" I asked in
surprise. I'd never seen her read anything like that. "Nope," she said. I
didn't say anything, but I wondered - would she be good at helping to
create those magazines, if she never chose to spend her time reading them?

It can be hard to identify your "passion," but you can identify what you
did last Sunday afternoon. "Do what you do" is useful because it directs
you to look at your behavior, rather than to your ideas - which can be a
clearer guide to preferences. It's not possible for everyone, but to have
work that is play, and play that is work, is a very, very happy state.

How to Choose a Thesis Topic (according to Joan Bolker)

2008-09-28T13:12:00.001-07:00

Author of "Writing your dissertation in fifteen minutes a day" (notice
that her opinion of the importance of topic choice contradicts the other
two authors):

* "Writing a dissertation is very much like being in a long-term
relationship: there are likely to be some very good times and some
perfectly dreadful ones, and it's a big help if you like what you've
chosen...If you choose your topic wholeheartedly, the writing process can
be a wonderful opportunity for pleasure"
* Choose a topic that's really going to matter to you: "follow your
curiosity, and, if you're lucky, your passion"
* Think and write about all the projects you've been involved with so
far, remember which were most fun. Do they have something in common?
"which sort of undertaking best suits how you like to work" Also what kind
of research you find most interesting to read.
* Find a model of a doable thesis for you
* Use advisor as a sounding board, especialyl about eventual job
search strategy in a topic
* One way to help choose a topic after you've done a fair bit of
groundwork: "Imagine finishing your dissertation and holding it in your
hand. Try naming it; play with titles that are clearly too outrageous, and
see which one most delights you." write them down
* Be writing every day all the way along, about ideas, what you've
read, problems, etc

How to Choose a Thesis Topic (according to David Steinberg)

2008-09-28T13:10:00.001-07:00

From the author of ""How to complete and survive a doctoral dissertation".

* Excitement about the topic not that big of a factor in success,
since all dissertations run into similar sets of difficulties
* Essential questions:

Is it researchable?

* "One must be virtually certain that the data for the dissertation
will be available and accessible when the candidate comes around to the
collection phase of his project."

Especially timing is important, eg staff turnover rescinding access to a
population

Does it make a contribution to the field?

* "dissertation-as-too-little" or "dissertation-as-magnum-opus"
syndromes (magnus opus will come in 20 years)
* Just have to think & write about it, as well as talk to everyone

Is it original?

* What you should be looking for is daylight: after studying the
literature, and scope and ambition of other recent theses, "do I find a
hole, a gap, a missing link that my topic can contribute to plugging,
bridging or forging?"
* Again, talk to all faculty, like a travelling salesman
* Don't worry very much about being "scooped"
* Topics rarely come by chance for real: "topics almost always come
out of extensive soaking in the literature and prior research of one's
field, and are traceable consequences of that immersion"
* Expansion of a master's thesis from a dissertation not really an
easier option
* Never pick a topic with the assumption that a particular faculty
member is going to be there all the way through! It must stand on its own
* As much as possible, discuss dissertations that appeal to you with
their authors. They're almost always willing to share their time and
dissertation experience, esp within the first couple of years (often
noticeably more helpful than faculty)
* Be cautious of opportunities to use spin-off data - what if the
grant is cancelled or the faculty member leaves?

How to Choose a Thesis Topic (according to Robert L Peters)

2008-09-28T13:07:00.001-07:00

It's that time now to return focus to my thesis. Hence it's helpful to get
a little perspective. Here's my notes from "Getting What You Came For: the
smart student's guide to earning a master's or phd"

---

* Don.t just worry about it, .ideas are generated by intellectual
cross-fertilization and the process of problem-solving. To find a topic
you must dive into research, discuss the ideas that interest you with as
many people as possible, and write about the subjects as much as you can..
* Start as soon as possible, you never know when a hint in a class etc
will come your way. Ask professors for suggestions, examine course
reading. Whenever you come across anything interesting ask yourself,
.could this be a dissertation?.
* PhD at least is original research which means to do at least one of:

1. uncover new facts or principles
2. suggest relationships that were previously unrecognized
3. challenge existing truths or assumptions
4. afford new insights into little-understood phenomena
5. suggest new interpretations of known facts that alter our view of
the world around us

* Think thesis question. A question intriguing enough to take a year
to answer. Begin with a major question, develop subordinate questions that
help you answer it, and plan and refine along the way research to answer
these questions.
* There are thousands upon thousands of thesis topics that will work
great for you, so it.s easy to find one if you search actively.
* Think of yourself as an apprentice - .At this stage, you aren.t a
great master who will find the secret of the universe. Originality does
not have to be spectacular, but can expand on existing research. People
hiring probably looking for dependable specialists who are well trained by
good mentors.
* If your advisor chooses the project, check it out by the criteria
below. But many advantages if you are working on the same overall endeavor
as your advisor

Don.t worry if nothing interest you

* .interest develops from immersion and activity. Luckily, people have
an amazing ability to become interested in almost anything once they are
working on it

Get perspective by reading theses and articles

* Use the best as models. Note aspects of. Go to other universities
theses.
* Start reading through journals in your field for possible topics

Phone research

* Speaking briefly to the top people in the area, asking to recommend
names. [Is this polite now? What is the best way to contact people in the
area?]

Start a research project

* best way to generate ideas is to be involved in an ongoing research
project

Use your professors

* Ask all of them

1. What are the hot areas in the firld?
2. What were the best theses written during the past few years?
3. Do they have projects associated with their research that could be
good theses?

Start a topic file

* Throw all ideas into one folder, then after a while start to have
folders for each possible topic as you flesh them out. Thoughts, notes
taken on discusssions with professors, relevant journal articles. Review a
few minutes each week so the search stays in the forefront of your mind.

Crteria for evaluating potential thesis topics
Does sufficient background information exists?

* do a lot of research on this (phone, computer)

Is the topic narrow enough?

* Be as specific as you can, easier to broaden a narrow topic

Has it been done already?
Is it tractable?

* Will it work in terms of the practicalities? Make sure every part is
possibile.
* Consult a statistical expert (power issues).
* How long will it take?
* Is it fundable? A good idea to do preliminary research to show that
it.s possible...
* Is it hot? find out this by talking to profs and reading current
journals.
* Avoid fields full of theoretical controversy.

Criteria that might affect your chances of getting a job.

1. Allow you to show off your background knowledge of the field
2. Focus on a narrow enough topic so that you can become the expert
3. Provide a springboard for future research

Start Writing immediately.

* "Writing is the best way to initiate, organize, and extend ideas."
* Start by doing a adetailed evalutation of each topic for

1. financial support
2. interest to you
3. extendability after completion
4. controversy
5. time to complete
6. "hotness"
7. advisor's enthusiasm
8. Closeness of topic to advisor's research
9. depth of existing research
10. duplication or uniqueness
11. narrow focus
12. tractability, including availability of research subjects or
materials, existence of preplanned experimental methods, degree of
methodological difficulty, and simiplicity of statistical design.

* For each topic under serious consideration, write an outline thesis
proposal: ask the major research questions, outline experimental or
reserach steps. This is good for showing to advisor and other for
comments, since it's specific.
* Live and breathe your topic to the point of being annoying. Talk to
everyone. Get immersed in planning. Draw in reserachers outside your own
university.

Maybe Events

2008-09-26T12:44:00.001-07:00

When deciding whether you can do something on a given day, you have to
look at not just what you have to do, but what you might want to do that's
going on that day. This is tricky if you adopt, as I have, the GTD notion
that your calendar should be used only to block off time that you're
actually committed to, like for meetings and classes etc, thus defining
hard edges to the landscape of your flexible time (that is available to be
managed). I discovered creating "no time" calendar events on the days
where something is going on is really useful for this. I prefix these
"Maybe Events" with an "ii" (the easiest letters to enter on a palm
pilot). That's to distinguish them from other no time notes, like when I
have library books due. Now when I see a poster or get a facebook invite
to something coming up, like a concert or talk or party I'm not sure
about, I add it to that day as a maybe event, making sure to include the
address, time, and cost - all factors that could influence whether I
decide to go for it. To plan my weekday or weekend, I look at the entry
for that day, with all the maybe events stacked up at the top (7 for this
weekend alone) and sort it out.

Advice to a Young Scientist by Ron Weisman

2008-09-26T12:31:00.001-07:00

I recently benefitted from the best "how to be a scientist" talk I've
heard since I hit graduate school (and started trying to be a scientist),
from the colourful, distinguished animal behaviour researcher Ron Weisman,
who I'd met before but never had much contact with. The advice that
follows is very specific to science, and some of it only applicable within
psych. To start, here are my notes and key excerpts from the paper he
published on the subject,

Weisman, R. G. (2008). Advice to young behavioral and cognitive
scientists. Behavioural Processes, 77(2), 142-148.

(he's working on a book)

- The most desirable approach is to begin with extensive observation of a
behavior in nature, move ahead to laboratory research, and then return to
nature to ensure that you have it right.
- My advice is to use as many tools as necessary to discover and explore
nature's secrets. [but think collaborators]
-You should not design your observations and experiments to test only one
hypothesis at a time. You should be testing as many alternative hypotheses
as there are ways for your experiments to come out. Think ahead about what
an experiment's possible outcomes might mean. If an experiment has only
two possible outcomes, one that renders it interesting and publishable and
one that renders it problematic and unpublishable, you have not designed a
good experiment. Anticipate the possible outcomes of an experiment and
tinker with the design until each of at least three possible outcomes has
a distinct and orderly explanation.
- Reviewers like to ask direct questions, such as, "Why did you do your
study in the way you describe?" For example, if your groups differed in
both pretreatment and treatment phases, a reviewer is very likely to ask
why you attribute the effect to the treatment phase. Reviewers also like
to ask about alternative explanations of your results. At the design
stage, you need to consider and sketch out possible outcomes so that you
can anticipate even an astute reviewer's alternative hypotheses about your
results. To conduct first-class research, you must consider and handle all
or at least most of the reviewers' possible questions well before
conducting the research.
- If you have waited eight or more weeks, you need to write the editor
politely requesting an action letter. Some authors have waited a year or
even two - don't join them. After 12 weeks, inform the first editor that
you are withdrawing your manuscript and submit your article to a second
journal.
- Once you have the editor's action letter and the reviews, read them
quickly, then put them away for a couple of days to let the heat go out of
them. No one likes criticism, and reviewers are critics, so the heat you
feel is unavoidable. However, don't wait more than a couple of days to get
back to your article as you have a lot of time and sweat in the
submission. The revision should be the highest priority item on your list.
Get the article and the reviews back out on your desk and begin to
organize the reviewers' comments under the topics the editor asked about.
Print out copies of the action letter and reviews, and work from the
copies to make an outline of your revisions and your cover letter for the
editor.
- Respond to reviewers' comments incisively and succinctly....Try to
answer in just a few words or at most in a sentence tucked into the
paragraph from which the comments arise. Beware of protesting too much:
never insert a paragraph, or worse yet an entire page, into an article to
answer a reviewer's comment. Sometimes it is best to paraphrase a
reviewer's comment, then either agree that it is an issue for further
research or point out how your research has already handled it - all this
in a line or two. If you must directly disagree with a reviewer, make it
as tactful and convincing as possible. Editors are rightfully biased in favor
of their reviewers. Bury your disagreements with reviewers deep in the
cover letter well after many instances of willing change.
- Every resubmitted article needs a cover letter; it should be highly
organized, carefully written, and keyed directly to the text of the
article by page and line number.
- Never make uninvited changes to your article
- You must be prepared to handle objections and I counsel you again to
give in as often as possible.

And some non-overlapping notes from the talk he gave, unfortunately not
capturing any of his very entertaining delivery. Love his approach to
drafting papers!

- Success in science requires a combination of luck and fire in the belly.
(if you can do a whole experiment without once looking at your data, you
might not have the fire)
- Not only must you have luck, but you must know when you've been lucky.
- Causation questions:
Proximate - mechanism
Phylogeny
Ontogeny
Ultimate - functional adaptation
You should be constantly thinking about all of them.
- Don't compare everything with everything. Base tests on the designs,
otherwise lose power.
- Stats secrets: if unequal variance, you can do two separate analyses. If
you can get invariance of p values over tranformations (e.g. to rank
order) you don't need normality.
- In-school proposals are for chumps and robots (robotic committees). Do
the shittiest job possible. The person who knows what to do well enough to
write a well-detailed proposal has already done the research. Proposals
for money are a different matter.
- Positive controls are critical: they let you falsify.
- Get and keep your participants' attention: prompts, rewards, whatever.
- How to write a paper: in this order: 1) methods, 2) figures, 3) results
to explain the figures or table, also at least outline the discussion. 4)
Intro (never use proposal intro) 5) finish discussion. Then revise the
whole article with linking and concluding sentences.
- Stick questions and summaries about your results in another file on
another monitor as you write, which becomes the discussion.
- Intro prepares the reader for the methods, results and discussion.
Prepare the reader all the way along for the conclusion.
- The writing scientists do is like brick laying, it's not like carving
marble.
- Memorize about 20 pages of Strunk & White.
- Make strong claims (not "it seems") - you will still get cited even if
you're wrong.
- Suck up to editors and reviewers at meetings and elsewhere. Helps if
they can put a smiling face to a name
- Pick a journal that publishes work like what you've done. Also pay
attention to impact factor. If rejected, try sending it to a better
journal.
- You must respond quickly and forcefully to the invitation to revise and
resubmit. Don't wait more than a couple of days to get back to your
article. Top priority.
- Revise & resubmit means they'll porbably take it.
- Cover letter to editor: "Reviewer 1 asked us to relate our work to
Jones's 2008 article, we now do so on line xx, page xx." Nothing more.
- Write a thesis as 3 or 4 papers stapled together.
- For postdoc, pick the best universities and the best supervisors, in
that order (for name recognition). Begin early and suck up big time. Write
professors directly and ask about their work. But think through your
questions and keep them simple. Get your supervisor to help. Remember:
it's impossible to overflatter academics.
- You go where the good job is (even the gates of hell)
- When you're hired, always bargain for more money.

How to Memorize a Poem

2008-09-26T12:10:00.001-07:00

Last year, just a little too late for the fall, I took up the task of
memorizing John Keats To Autumn. Why? I don't know. But I love the poem,
and I love having it memorized. Now I am endeavoring to learn a turgid
piece of prose for the Andrina McCulloch Public Speaking Competition, and
I am reminded of some of what I learned in that process. Here's some steps
and principles that were very effective for my brain:

- First, break it into chunks to learn separately, by general topic or
gist. I copied the poem into a word file, and added a double paragraph
break every time I felt a slight change of topic. This could happen after
several lines, or in the middle of a line.

- Next, make sure you understand the literal meaning of every word, and
every sentence, in the text. This gave me lots of unexpected rewards for
To Autumn, and made me realize I hadn't ever listened to it that closely.
For instance the line "where small gnats mourn among the river sallows", I
realized I had mentally interpolated "river shallows", like the shallow,
muddy part of the river. When in fact "sallow" is an old word for willow
tree! That makes a totally different image, which I find prettier.

- Beyond just the literal meaning, strive to get a vivid, specific mental
image of what each part is referring too. Google images is really useful
to this. For instance "barred clouds":
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2368/2327983768_194f6c7692.jpg?v=0
and until I found an image, I couldn't picture fruit hanging on "vines
that round the thatch-eves run" Of course it doesn't need to be an
accurate image, in fact it's probably better if it's an absurd one. The
important thing is to make a decision about what it means. I even drew a
little map for the second verse, deciding where I thought the granary was,
the half-reaped furrow, the brook, and the cider press. It should be an
extremely clear and complete picture, as striking as
possible, and accounting for every single non-abstract noun. Think not
just vision, but sound, touch, taste, and smell. I really don't take the time
to form mental images while I'm reading usually, but it's so
important for remembering.

- The whole basis of my learning it was to assume that no word was there
by accident, each word was absolutely essential and changed the meaning a
lot. So that played a part in the images I constructed. I tried to
exaggerate it so that every adjective and verb choice would seem even more
necessary, like "to swell the gourd", I pictured a squash inflating like a
balloon. (it reminds me a bit of "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote":
this approach to memorization is almost like setting you up to feel like
you are writing the poem yourself from scratch, and each word that comes
next is just the most obvious to capture your meaning) Try to get yourself
into the emotional headspace of the poem at each point, and greatly
exaggerate that too.

- Beside every chunk I wrote a couple of words trying to capture what that
part was about. For instance "sunset clouds" beside the chunk "where
barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day and touch the stubble plains with
rosy hue". The idea is to always be adding more and more funky structure
and meaning to the poem.

- If you have trouble remembering the order of the chunks, the ancient
"method of loci" works amazingly well. I know because I used it to
memorize the order of the 10 verses in bob dylan's desolation row. You
take your route to school, or some other route you know incredibly well,
and you attach each chunk subsequently to a landmark along that route.
While I was learning Desolation Row I literally taped verses to trees,
lampposts, and garbage cans. Then you can mentally trace the route, and it
will give you the order with perfect ease and certainty. It's even easy to
recite the chunks backwards: just mentally walk the route in reverse!

- Finally, there doesn't seem to be any substitute for drilling: going as
far as you can, or as good as you can, before referencing the source paper
again. After awhile I could drill myself without the piece of paper, just
saying it to myself, out loud or silently.

It takes a surprisingly long time to get every word right, but it's not
particularly hard work, and it's already brought me a lot of pleasure.
Once in a while I'll just recite it to myself while I'm washing my face or
riding my bike, like a mantra, enjoying making the mouth-shapes for the
words. I'm glad I have it this autumn, and hope I didn't learn it too old
to not have it for every autumn from now on.

Keep Your Exhaust Pipes Clear

2008-08-29T11:54:00.001-07:00

I just emptied my office garbage and recycling, as I do every single
friday. I think this is one of the most important things to help with
having a tidy, organized environment: always having your garbage and
recycling within arms reach, and almost all the time less than 50% full.
If they're more full than that, my brain starts to generate subconscious
resistance to putting things in there; if I have to force it down onto the
heap, I am more likely to absent-mindedly put my kleenex or whatever on my
desk (getting up and emptying it as needed would be even worse, for the
large disruption of flow) If there's not a regular, well-defined set of
processes taking garbage and recycling from your hand to out of the house
or office, crap will build up at the different stages, ultimately leading
to clutter and paralysis right where you don't want it, like sewage
backing up. When it's working good on the other hand, in the middle of a
work flow you can just reach over and instantly eliminate some piece of
clutter from your space and your mind, forever. So even when other
cleaning jobs fall by the wayside, I empty those wastepaper baskets like
clockwork!

A Few More Quotations about Feedback

2008-08-28T14:33:00.001-07:00

Giving your opinion of their opinion extends the conversation, makes them
too invested in putting their mark on the script, and it commits you
mentally to changes you may later realize aren't really what you want. You
should be in receive mode, not implement mode, at this point. Flip the
switch back from "listen" to "do" after the conversation, and after you've
had time to let it all sink in. - Jane Espenson

Don't confuse asking for your friends and colleagues' advice with
listening to unsolicited advice. Input from fellow artists is always
great, and it never dilutes your vision, because you only need to listen
to the helpful stuff. - Patton Oswalt

Cleaning Cycles, or, Filth Wizard No More

2008-08-14T21:06:00.001-07:00

Ok so I haven't fully tried this one out, but I'm excited about the
idea and so I want to get it down.

I am a slob, but I want to fake not being one. My plan is to use my own
likes and quirks, well documented on this blog, to make sure all those
cleaning jobs get done, and regularly. And to do that with hardly using
any willpower at all - I need 99% of that for my work. And not guilt
either.

Basically how it's going to work is that I made a master list of jobs, and
I've divided them into categories by how often I need to do them. So in
the end each job has its own period, in days and weeks. I will program a
reminder into my palm pilot to repeat at that period, and whenever one
pops up it's going to become a top priority todo item until I actually do
it.

The other important part is that I am writing out *exactly* what each job
involves, in as many steps as it takes, just like the cleanup sign I saw
posted behind the counter at the Tim Hortons. Lazy and easily defeated, I
like to know when a job will be done; exactly what it will require; and to
have very simple concrete steps I can follow. Here's an example of one:

Washing the Floor
NEED
All-purpose cleaner

SUGGESTED TIME
Just after tidy, sweep-up. Monday evening.

STEPS
- Fill up bucket of water in bathtub halfway, with suggested amount of
all-purpose cleaner
- All chairs and other objects in bedroom onto bed
- Put everything onto couch, in bedroom or in hall (or bathroom). Shoes
onto table, move table.
- Mop livingroom and kitchen
- Spot clean any kitchen bits that weren't gotten with paper towels or
washcloth
- Empty bucket and refill, with detergent
- Mop bedroom
- Let dry for 1 hour, dump out bucket
- Put everything back

ESTIMATED TIME 30 mins + 1 hour to dry + 10 minutes returning objects

NOT
under bed
Too far under desk

ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUES
None (yet)

And so on, for all the jobs.

Further decisions I made to make this system work:

* Cleaning is separate from tidying. Too often my ambitions start to
snowball, and then I will abruptly lose energy in the middle, which is why
I've had a tesselation of clothes on my bedroom floor (that used to be in
my closet, which I was cleaning out) for the last 5 days. So I can e.g.
wash the floor without actually tidying up, by putting everything into a
huge pile. And then even redistributing it on the floor afterwards if I
wish.

* I will stagger the first time I am doing each of these jobs, so as they
repeat they will tend not to pop up in the same weeks.

* If I do a job earlier than expected, I don't reset the counter, but get
to wait till the next scheduled time, so a bit of a break from that job.

* I am not telling you the length of the cycles, because some of them may
be embarassing. The purpose is to start out with easy, long cycles, and
then tighten up as I find I can actually do it. Even so all the
frequencies are much, much higher than my old, shame-based system.

* I will decide on some things that I won't clean, ever, until I move out
or there is a royal visit. This is mostly a list of things that I won't
clean underneath or behind.

* Also, I don't have to do any cleaning that's not on the list.

* I won't sweat it if things don't get perfectly clean, as long as I carry
out the steps. I hate how there are a few little particles even after I
mop (at least the way I mop), but it's still a big improvement over non
mopping.

* All these records I'm keeping in electronic form, so I can continually
modify them with experience. In particular tricky cleaning jobs like the
stove drip pans, I might try one method one time and switch to another
another time, until I find one that works for me. The knowledge is
cumulative and stored not in my head, so I don't ever have to think about
cleaning supplies when I'm not doing the job.

If this works out, I will still be the guy who, at any given time, can't
be sure that his t-shirt is jam free, but whose apartment is fit for
company - with a 15 minute head start, and a certain amount of
closet-cramming.

Steps for Creating Publication-Quality Figures Using Matlab 7 and PowerPoint (2003 edition)

2008-07-16T09:35:00.001-07:00

As with the Excel method, my objective here is to be able to make changes
to the data or the presentation of the data without redoing huge amounts
of fiddly work or presenting figures which are no longer accurate
representations of the data. My particular goal is to never again find
myself shifting around the spacing of axis ticks and tick labels in a
graphics program by hand.

First, in Matlab:
- Get the figure looking as close to how I want it as possible. Since
Matlab figures are generated once and not linked to their data, it is best
to generate every aspect of the figure, down to fonts etc, from a script.
Ideally going all the way from the raw data spit out by your experiment
program to the nicely formatted end result. There's a command File ->
Generate M-file that could probably speed up the process of making these
scripts.

- Sizing in the ballpark of what you want in the end. Again the things
that are easily to do in powerpoint:
* Extra bits of text
* Extra graphics applied to it
* Any other tricky modifications or overlays
* Combining different figures (though if arranged in a strict grid, use of
subplot may be easier)

- Copy the figure to the clipboard in Enhanced Metafile format. Normally
Edit -> Copy Figure would do that automatically. But in most cases you
will not want to do that. As I discovered, although it is stored in a
vector format on the clipboard, the default command discards some of the
data in your figure. Specifically any more data than is needed to draw the
data at screen resolution. So if you have smoothly changing lines in your
figure that you want to print nicely, use instead this command:

print -dmeta -r600

It's exactly the same as doing Copy Figure, but only discards data below
the 600 dpi resolution. (note that exporting directly to an EMF file and
then importing seems to have this exact same problem)

Then in PowerPoint, follow most of the same steps as pasting an Excel
figure:
- Make a slideshow with 8 1/2 x 11-shaped slides, and dotted lines
indicated the maximum width for the figures

- For each figure, go to Paste Special, and choose Picture (Enhanced
Metafile). This seems to make a difference. Place the figure approximately
where it should go.

- Ungroup each (saying yes to converting to a microsoft office drawing
object), then ungroup again. For figures with multiple axes, you may have
to ungroup a third time.

- To resize the graph (while keeping all the axis ticks and tick labels in
place), select just the data area and the axis tick labels, not the axis
titles or legend, and group, then resize. I sometimes had to move around
the axis titles a bit, and for the matlab imports, sometimes the axis
tick labels.

Finally, on a test print two issues came up with both matlab and excel
generation of plots: both had lines making up the axes that were too thin,
so don't forget to change that (possibly in the source), and there was
also a hairline drawn around the entire figure (for some goddamn reason)
so make sure to ungroup and delete that box.

Steps for Creating Publication-Quality Figures using Excel and Powerpoint (2003 edition)

2008-07-15T10:21:00.001-07:00

This is of fringe interest, and soon to be invalidated technology
probably, but I'm damned if I'm going to figure this out again.

First, in Excel:
- Autogenerate the figures in Excel based on my data. (use a previous
figure I made as a template if there's one that applies, that

- Important: Right click the middle of the chart, go to Format Chart Area
-> Font, and uncheck Auto scale. That way I can choose the font once,
and it won't change every time you resize the chart!

- Get it looking exactly the way I want, with the exception of:
* Extra bits of text
* Extra graphics applied to it
* Any other tricky modifications or overlays
* Sizing only in the ballpark of what it needs be. It looks like it's
actually easier to match the sizes of multiple plots to each other in
powerpoint, because you can enter in the dimensions of objects numerically.

Now in Powerpoint:
- Make a slideshow with 8 1/2 x 11-shaped slides, and dotted lines
indicated the maximum width for the figures (I'm submitting to Perception,
which uses 1.675 inch margins for figures, including all the text
associated with them.) Easiest if I put the dotted lines into a master
slide, so it automatically shows up in any new slides I create. Also a
good idea to turn on Snap objects to grid (which you can define the
spacing of), and Display grid on screen, in View -> Grid and Guides.

- Copy each figure to a separate slide from Excel, placing it
approximately where it should go

- Ungroup each (saying yes to converting to a microsoft office drawing
object), then ungroup again. This gives me the ability to fiddle with each
element of the figure individually. Moving multiple at once, and the Align
object commands are particularly handy at this point.

- To resize the graph to fit the area, select just the data area and the
axis tick labels, not the axis titles or legend, and group, then resize.
I sometimes had to move around the axis titles a bit.

Complicated! But fast once I got the hang of it, and allows for the most
important aspect of all: small changes, to the data or the formatting of
the graph, without doing everything all over again.

Your Home From Home

2008-06-26T20:49:00.001-07:00

I got back from a conference in London this week, where my shabby little
dorm room let me try out a principle I thought up the last time I was
staying away from home. At that time I noticed my bed & breakfast room was
a horrible mess, after only 2 days, and I was having trouble finding
stuff. I realized there's only one solution to that for me - the same
exact solution as for me at home. And that's attention to flow, and
processes. I realized I should set up a mini version of my home system
whereever I am, *even if only for one night*. I already know how to use
it, and so it's just a matter of setting up each of the components. And
here is that minimal set:

* A place for clean clothes
* A place fpr dirty clothes
* A clothes chair for the ones that don't fit either category (see the
limbo laundry entry)
* An inbox (for when I come home from a day at the conference and want to
just dump stuff - in this case it was just the corner of my desk)
* A garbage and/or recycling within easy reach.
* An out box - a location I put stuff that I want to remember to take the
next day.
* A "going home" out box. This is the only element that is special to the
away from home scenario. Here I put stuff I don't need to think about till
it's time to go home.
* A "temporary support" location, for things that I will need to make use
of for short-term projects.

These show that I'm now definitely leaning towards the "take everything
out of your suitcase right away" side of the issue. In about 15 minutes,
once all those things were in place, my UWO dorm apartment was a
functioning helpful organism, just like my home and office (well they are
that some of the time)

One additional thought I just had: if you're remembering various things
you want to pack a few days before a trip, why not toss them in your open
suitcase? It's taking up space anyway, might as well use it as a bin -
then the distance to move the stuff before you repack will be particularly
short.

Colour Coding to Help Intense Reading

2008-06-09T22:03:00.001-07:00

A great contribution from friend and fellow grad student Liz Arsenault:
--
Our lab holds small journal club meetings once a week where one member
leads a discussion on an article of interest. Everyone reads the article,
but only the presenter has any obligation to be very familiar with it.
When I am preparing to present an article, I like to underline the points
of discussion in colour-coded felt-tip pen and highlighter.

The procedure is way too intensive and time consuming for articles that
just need to be skimmed, but I've found it very helpful when I need to
know an article inside and out.

1) I colour code premises, methods, results, people, terms, and
definitions*. This allows me to quickly locate the answers to things that
can slow down discussion like misunderstandings on the finer points of the
methods, clarify terms/acronyms, etc.

2) Colourful felt tip pens are something I find motivating. It's fun to
do, and it's fun to look at.

3) It makes the amount of work you've done obvious to your supervisor ;).
Anyone can underline anything that looks like a declarative statement in
pencil. When it's in a lot of colours, it's clear you've done your
homework.

4) Reading looking for these sorts of information makes me approach an
article in an appropriately analytical frame of mind. Unfortunately, I
can't read science as easily as a novel.

5) Tracking people (authors, big citations) makes it possible to build an
understanding of which people work together championing which sorts of
ideas, and reminds me to look at author webpages to look for other papers
I might find relevant.

6) I'm trying to work out how to go through all my term and definition
highlighting to build a personal glossary of my area of study, and this
should also help me to detect when people use same terms to indicate
different things or when they use different terms to indicate the same
things (the latter happens a LOT between psychology vision papers and
computer vision papers).**

Granted, there are major headings for results, methods, conclusions in
most articles, but often some of these things are phrased most succinctly
in the abstract or results in the discussion, etc.. Plus, when you're
flipping through several pages (as long as you aren't colour blind),
looking for pink pen is a lot quicker than skimming looking for the
"methods" heading.

I will let you know of my other brilliant processes as they develop ;).

Take care, Liz

* Order of importance:
1) terms
2) premises
3) results
4) methods
5) people
6) definitions
... the lower priority elements get dropped depending on how quickly I
want to process the article.

** A psychological benefit of doing this is seeing yourself highlight
fewer and fewer terms as you become more proficient in an area of study.

How Obama Used Feedback

2008-06-06T15:12:00.001-07:00

From a fascinating New York Times profile a few days ago:
(one question: what does "favoring a hand on the shoulder" mean?)

"You don't go from being a community organizer to running for president in
15 years unless you have a lot of ambition," said Paula Wolff, a Chicago
Republican and a mentor. "He likes to listen carefully, and naturally you
assume that's very smart of him."

If there is an art to seeking advice, Mr. Obama holds a master's degree.
He favors a hand on the shoulder, a whisper in the ear. In 1996, when he
pondered a race for the Illinois Legislature, Jean Rudd, a mentor in the
foundation world, took him to lunch with a prominent lobbyist. The
appetizers had no sooner arrived than the lobbyist framed the question:
Why would a Harvard-educated lawyer want to step into a hellhole like
that? You'll leave your wife behind, you.ll be in the minority party,
you.ll be treated like dirt. Mr. Obama chuckled and asked questions. The
lobbyist later became an adviser.

Abner J. Mikva, the former judge, asked Mr. Obama, fresh out of Harvard,
to apply as his clerk. Mr. Obama declined, preferring to labor as a
community organizer. But, characteristically, he later befriended the
older man.

The judge recognized his talents, but oh that speaking style. Too many ers
and uhs, too Harvard and not enough South Side. Mr. Obama did not argue
the point; he began paying attention in church. [to learn public speaking]

By contrast, in a jawdropping interview on Fresh Air Scott McLelland
revealed that Bush hates to have opposing viewpoints from his own
represented in his advisory groups, and never reads opinion pieces he
doesn't agree with.

Life Advice from the Last Lecture

2008-06-02T18:57:00.001-07:00

"Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic
cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a
packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, 'Really Achieving Your
Childhood Dreams,' Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice
to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
(it's about 1 hour and 15 minutes, and enormously engaging and moving)

Much more than the time management lecture, these notes are no substitute
for watching him. Partly that's because what might seem like flat
aphorisms are just the punchline to rich stories from his career. And
partly because what really strikes me is the metadata: the context, the
manner of speaking, the life itself. My reaction was, this is a nerd made
good. Unlike some of us analytically-minded guys who are attracted to
computer science like he was, he reached outside himself, to find what are
the really important things that make up a life. And over and over he
defines it in terms of human relationships - technology is a secondary
(though important) player. There are three major things he shows off, that
I am currently trying really hard to incorporate into myself, and wish I
had started long ago: Appreciating people, being positive, and defining
and expressing who you are so strongly. Right at this moment, would I be
able to express so strongly who I am and what I'm about, what my story is,
if I suddenly had my own opportunity to give a Last Lecture? What an
inspiration.

---

Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want
things. They're there to stop the *other* people

Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You've got to get the
fundamentals down, or else the fancy stuff won't work.

When you screw up and no one's bothering to correct you anymore, that
means they've given up.

When you do something young enough and train for it, it just becomes a
part of you.

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.

It's very important to know when you're in a pissing match. And it's very
important to get out as quickly as possible.

That's one of the reasons you should all become professors: It's because
you can have your cake and eat it too.

Course called building virtual worlds: 50 students from all different
departments. (art, design, drama, and CS) Randomly chosen 4 person team,
change every project ("three new playmates"), two week projects, 5 per
semester.

What to do when they completely blow you away on the first project? "That
was pretty good, but I know you can do better." You don't really know
where the bar is, and you're doing them a disservice by placing it
anywhere.

ETC curriculum: "5 small projects followed by 3 big projects. All of your
time is spent in small teams, makin' stuff."

Project-based curriculum
Intense, fun student experience
Field trips!

Alice: "Millions of kids having fun while learning something hard. And
that's pretty cool. I can deal with that as a legacy."

He painted stuff all over his bedroom walls. To anybody out there who's a
parent, if your kids want to paint their bedroom, let them do it.

"Randy, it's such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant. Because
it's going to limit what you're going to be able to accomplish in life."
What a hell of a good way to word "you're being a jerk."

Particularly with middle school girls, if you present it as a storytelling
activity they're perfectly willing to learn to program computer software.

Decide if you're tigger or eeyore
Never lose childlike wonder
Help others

How to get people to help you
- Tell the truth
- Be earnest (I'll take an earnest person over a hip person any day,
because hip is short term but earnest is long term)
- Apologize when you screw up
- Focus on others, not yourself

Get a feedback loop, and listen to it. When people give you feedback,
cherish it and use it.
Show gratitude.
Don't complain, just work harder
Be good at something, it makes you valuable
Find the best in everybody. It might take years, but people will show you
their good side.

[the lecture is ] not about how to achieve your dreams - it's about how to
lead your life.

Wonka :: "Do you know what happened to the boy who got everything he ever
wanted?"
Charlie :: "No, what?"
Wonka :: "He lived happily ever after."

Finally, from his equally moving (and much shorter) commencement address
at Carnegie Mellon this May:

You will need to find your passion. Many of you have done it, many of you
will later, many of you will take until your 30s and 40s. But don't give
up on finding it. Because then all you're doing is waiting for the reaper.
Find your passion, and follow it, and if there's anything I've learned in
this life, it's that *you will not find your passion in things.* And you
will not find that passion in money. Because the more things and the more
money you have the more you will just look around and use that as the
metric, and there will always be someone with more. So your passion must
come from the things that fuel you from the inside... that passion will be
grounded in people. It will be grounded in relationships with people, and
in what they think of you when your time comes.

My Citation Management System: Refinements

2008-06-02T17:08:00.001-07:00

Unlike the system I talk about in the 3 previous blog postings on citation
management, these are things that are out there on the fringes of my
system, stuff I'm still tinkering with.

* My someday/maybe reading list was getting too long and intimidating, so
I started putting in a fake entry at the end of every month to divide it
into manageable monthly chunks. So may just passed, I created a new blank
reference in there with the title "2008 MAY" so all references I added
between the start of may (designated by "2008 APRIL") are nicely
delineated.

* My physical paper management system, which predates my general filing
system, was breaking down. I keep papers in hanging files by topic area.
If I were starting all over again I might use Jim's system of putting them
in manila folders by first author name in alphabetical order, but it's
nice to be able to scoop up a whole handful of a particular type of paper,
and hanging folders are much more sturdy. That's the problem though,
some are bulging. (though like with my manila folders, I make sure to have
plenty of empty ones within arms reach, so I can create a new one on the
spot) A couple of embarassing incidents of not being able to find a paper
made it clear I need to do better in indexing my printed-out papers.

I created a new field called Filed under, where I enter in the heading on
the tab for the hanging file it's in. What really makes this work, makes
it quite practical to (eventually) go through all my hanging files and
enter the Filed under in the corresponding citation entry in my Read
database, is a neat feature of endnote called Term lists. With just a
few minutes poking around in help and menu items, I figured out how to
make it so I would only have to type the first letter of a hanging file
name, and the rest of it would pop up in the field, just like it works for
author names in endnote.

So now whenever I have a few minutes when I have absolutely nothing else I
could be doing, I grab a couple of my hanging files and make sure all the
papers have entries in my databases and have their Filed unders filled in.
I also sort the papers in each hanging file by first author. So now (for
the ones I've done anyway), it's a snap to go from the citation entry to
the physical paper.

* Sometimes in doing a lit search I run across papers that are completely
irrelevant to my research but have too good titles to let slip away
forever: "A triangular theory of love" "Does Aerobic Exercise Decrease
Brain Activation?" I can stop myself from reading them on the spot by
throwing them into a new database I made called Interesting.

* By painful experience, I can easily read a paper and then have
absolutely no recollection of it just a couple of months later. Therefore
though it's cumbersome, I *must* keep notes on the papers I read, at least
if I'm ever going to go back to them. I tried many different ways to do
it, some electronic, some paper, but the best thing so far involves using
endnote again. In the Research Notes field, I type in what I call the
Gist. This is as few words as I can type to encompass everything I would
want to refer to this paper for. Sometimes that's a lot, including lots of
experiment details. Sometimes it's one sentence. However it almost never
looks anything like the abstract: first of all its in my own language
("...therefore, they say, feature integration theory is whack.") and
second it's what I got from the paper that was new and semi-surprising,
not everything that was in there. So it's customized to me and my
interests.

This takes effort for each paper that I read (though it doesn't mean I
have to read at the computer: I tend to jot brief notes at the bottom of
pages with a pen that I can then mindlessly transcribe into the system
later) but ultimately it saves a great deal of tiresome effort. Recently I
had to review an area (rapid visual categorization) and I was almost shed
tears of gratitude realizing I had filled in the gists for all 3 of the
key papers, and so would not have to even glance at the originals, let
alone read them through. A job that could have taken 2 hours (assuming
total amnesia, which is far from impossible) instead took 15 minutes.

Of course this means my endnote Read database is even more precious and
needing of being backed up.

* Somethign that goes great with entering gists in EndNote is creating
custom output styles to help generate neat reports on groups of papers.
It's easy to make a bibliographic list in APA format, just by selecting
multiple citations and choosing Copy formatted. But now imagine the power
of being able to create an output file with all those citations *plus
their abstracts*. This is easy to do: just make a copy of say APA 5th
style, go to Output styles -> open reference manager (this is all EndNote
X specific), click to edit your style, go to Layout under Bibliography,
and in "End each reference with" click Insert Field and add the Abstract.

I created another one based on APA 5th called Gist Output, which lets me
see the gist info that I've entered. It's particularly great for seeing
output in the preview pane when I select a reference in the window. Rather
than using the Layout mechanism, I changed the Bibliography templates
directly. So it looks like (this is for the Journal Article entry)

Author. (Year). Title. Journal.

Research Notes

(with title in boldface, and journal in italics) The disadvantage is that
you have to repeat those changes for all the different reference types you
might want to use.

Hacking output styles is great, because it lets you quickly and easily
output sheets of info, including gists/abstracts, for any subset of papers
you want. You could print out pages with all the abstracts from Trends in
Cognitive Science for a year, a great way to skim the literature. You
could choose two or 3 to have in gist form for an important meeting. Etc.

Time Management from a Professor with Three Months to Live

2008-05-31T16:50:00.001-07:00

I've been tremendously inspired recently by a lecture by the
computer science professor Randy Pausch called the Last Lecture - which it
almost literally is, since he is dying of pancreatic cancer. But before
putting up some of his life advice from that, even more core to the
purporse of this blog is a wonderful talk he gave about time
management, also after he was diagnosed (skip the first 8 minutes of
introductions):

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5784740380335567758&hl=en

Here are my notes from watching this, mostly to jog my own memory, but if
you don't have time to watch the whole talk you might be able to get some
ideas out of it. But I just wrote down a few of the items of maximum
surprise to me - you will probably pull different things out of it, so its
well worth watching, and fun too. One gratifying aspect is that he's
obviously absorbed Getting Things Done - its telltale signature shows up
in a couple of places.

---

If you're going to have to run with people who are faster than you, you
are going to have to find the right ways to optimize the skills you do
have.

I think it's very dangerous to focus on doing things right. It's more
important to think about doing the right things. If you do the right
things adequately, that's much more important than doing the wrong things
beautifully.

You can always change your plan, but only once you *have one*!

On a to-do list, do the ugliest one first.

Do the important/due soon items first - but then, instead of doing the
unimportant/due soon items next, do the important/not due soon items next.

Touch each piece of paper once.

Have multiple monitors. "I could go from 3 to 2, but I could not go back
to 1." (compares to working on a airplane foldout tray) Left monitor is
todo list, middle is email inbox, right monitor is calendar. Then just one
project on the desk.

Use a speakerphone for when you're placed on hold.

Stand during phone calls (so that they will be brisk). Start by announcing
goals for the call. "I have 3 things I want to talk to you about." Trick
for getting off the phone: "I'd love to keep talking, but I have some
students waiting." Don't call people when you have work you're avoiding;
for the same reason, call people before lunch and at the end of the day so
they have a motivation not to chat for a long time. Headsets are a good
idea too so you can do other things.

Write physical thank-you notes, not just for obvious things like gifts.
Put a stack from the dollar store on your desk.

I can't live without post-it notes.

Don't put comfy chairs in your office, except for yourself. He put folding
chairs in his office against the wall, so conversations would be standing
unless he graciously opened one.

Gentle "no"s: "If nobody else steps forward, I will do this for you"
Moving: "Hmm, that sounds like an 8 person job. If you give me the names
of 7 other people, I'll do this for you."

Find your creative time and defend it ruthlessly. Spend it alone, at home
if you have to. Find your dead time, schedule meetings, exercise, stuff
where you don't need to be at your best.

Find ways to make interruptions shorter and less frequent: emails rather
than phonecalls. His phone routes to a message that says "please send me
email" When someone interrupts you, say first of all "I'm in the middle
of something right now." or "I only have 5 minutes" (followed by "Well I
said at the beginning I only had 5 minutes and I really have to go now")
For people who don't leave, you get up, you walk to the door, you
compliment them, you thank them, and you shake their hand. If they still
don't get the hint, just go through that doorway yourself. Clock on the
wall, so you're not checking your watch.

Time journals. Monitor yourself in 15 minute increments for between 3 days
and two weeks. Update every 1/2 hour, not at end of day. Categories on
graph paper, make ticks. What am I doing that I could delegate, what don't
I need to do, what could I do more efficiently, how am I wasting someone
elses time.

For time that is hard to deal with, like a 1 hour block between classes,
make up a fake class: Go to a specific place in the library with your
books.

The time to aim for is right before the deadline; right at the deadline
has a lot of unnecessary costs (e.g. fedexing it). Make up a fake
deadline. Two reasons for procrastination: I'm afraid I'm going to be
embarassed because I don't do it well, and I'm afraid I'm going to fail at
it.

The right way to delegate: give them authority with responsibility. Give
them everything they're going to need: budget, time, etc, so they don't
have to keep coming back. Always do the ugliest job yourself. SPECIFIC
thing to do, SPECIFIC date *and* time, and a SPECIFIC penalty or reward,
for THEM. Delegate until they complain. Underdelegation is a bigger
problem. Followup meetings with two-line emails restating stuff (like
agreements). Give them objectives, not procedures. Tell people the
relative importance of various tasks. Dodge upward delegation: don't learn
how to do selected things.

Meetings should have an agenda (if there's not an agenda I won't attend),
never more than 1 hour. Someone designated the scribe, in one minute write
down what was decided and delegated, and email it out to everyone ("one
minute minutes")

If the person hasn't responded to email in 48 hours, it's ok to nag them.

When on vacation, have a message that says either "call this guy to get
your problem solved" or "call me back when I get back." It's not a
vacation if you're reading email.

Turn money into time at every opportunity. Hire people to do things.

Never break a promise, but renegotiate if necessary (before the deadline).

Most things are pass/fail. It doesn't have to be that good.

How to Ask for, and Listen to, Feedback

2008-05-27T15:17:00.001-07:00

"If you recall, my basic advice on this topic is to listen to notes
without reacting negatively in the moment and to think about the ideas
underlying the notes. When you approach your rewrite, you'll find ways to
supply what the reader found lacking or correct what they found
out-of-tune that you will never find if you bristle and bridle when you
first hear their reaction, or if you react to the 'letter' of what they're
saying without making sure you understand the 'spirit' of it."
- Jane Espenson, screenwriter on Buffy, Firefly, Gilmore Girls, The O.C.,
and Battlestr Galactica

Unaided experience is a poor teacher, I heard that somewhere and it's
true. What is the most important kind of aid I need in shaping myself into
the scientist I want to be? Feedback. If you have any personal ambitions
to get good at something, you have an enormous hunger for feedback. Here
are some tips for obtaining the kind you need, of maximum helpfulness.

* Wording. Here are some ways you could word a request for feedback, in
ascending order of your likelihood of getting it: "Pretty good, huh?" "Did
you like it?" "What did you think of it?" "What were the good and bad
things about it?" "What's something that worked for you, and what's
something that didn't work so well?" "I'm thinking of making some changes.
What are some things I could change to make it better?"

* Facial expression. Keep your face mostly relaxed and intent, maybe
nodding once in a while. Don't smile in response to things you like,
because then it will be obvious when you don't like things by the lack of
smile.

* Make it clear you are looking for *feedback*, not encouragement. Convey
that you're not going to get discouraged, you're going to keep going with
the project, no matter what they say. It can't touch your ego, one way or
another.

* *Under no circumstance* argue or make excuses - people will see that as
a sure sign you're not taking it as feedback but as judgment, since you're
arguing your case. Of course you might be sitting there thinking "this
feedback is idiotic." But don't let on.

* Ask questions (again not looking for reassurance) to clarify and to show
you're taking it seriously. Ask about specific parts you want feedback
for. Ask either/or questions, trying not to bias them towards one side or
the other in your wording: like "Did you want to see more of this
character or less?"

* Teach the difference between feedback and judgment. I
don't care what you thought of it overall, if you thought it was good or
bad: just tell me your reactions to different parts, and any ideas for how
to change it to make it better.

* At the same time, don't necessarily ask them for solutions (definitely
don't complain about how hard those problems will be to solve).
Their thoughtful reactions are what is most useful. In tv writing
terminology, people might say that some aspect of the script "bumps" them
- gives them a bad reaction, even if they can't articulate why. Here's
Alex Epstein, another successful screenwriter whose blog I love:
"All feedback is useful, if you know how to use it. If someone has a
problem, there is probably something wrong with your script, though it's
not always what they think is the problem. But most people's suggestions
on how to fix your script are crap."
The only people who can really help with how to fix it most of the time
are people who are good at the exact task you are toiling at. Those people
are gold.

* Tell them what level of feedback you want. If a friend is kind enough to
read a piece of writing and give notes, I'll be frustrated if they're
proposing sweeping changes to the theme and structure when it's well past
the point where that's possible. Conversely, if they're picking up on
typos when it's an early proof-of-concept type draft, that's also
annoying. So let them know your expectations.

* Finished stuff is more fun to read than something really messy and
preliminary, something to think about.

* Remind them to also mention things they reacted positively to, if
they're the type to zero in on the problems and just jump all over them
the whole time. Hearing what worked is useful, and it definitely helps me
to (secretly) feel better afterwards. (in toastmasters, where I learned
most of this stuff, we sometimes use a formula for feedback called the
"sandwich technique": start with specific positive points, put in a few
(not too many) points of improvement, then finish with some more specific
positive points)

* Coach them to talk in terms of specifics rather than generalities.

* Ultimately the best feedback you will get are from relationships you
will build over a period of years. It takes time to make people believe
that serious feedback of a particular nature is really what you want, that
you're not thin-skinned. And also that it will be worth their while, both
by seeing that they have a tangible effect on the final product (maybe),
and by showing that they are earning the right to your own high quality,
sensitive, kindly, thorough feedback. So it becomes an escalating ladder
of trust, going back and forth between you and these most valued of all
peers. (as a side note, giving unsolicited feedback is usually a bad idea,
risks being rude and condescending. So solicit feedback!)

* Say thanks!

My Citation Management System: To Read Someday/Maybe

2008-05-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

(see previous entries for other parts of this system)
This is an endnote database that I throw references into as I hear about
them, that I might want to read (someday, maybe). What's the motivation
for going to the trouble of looking them up and putting them in the
database? Well first of all it's not that much trouble - if you can import
citations off the web it's fast, much faster even if you can import from
ISI Web of Science directly within endnote. Secondly, it means its then
searchable, including metadata like the abstract and keywords. So you're
in a mood for a face perception paper, you can find all the ones you've
been planning to read. Third, you don't have to look it up again when
you've read it, you can just move it over to Read. Finally, you don't have
to actually find the citation if you don't want to: you could just make a
new one and toss in the author and year, and it will still be useful as a
marker that you ran across this paper once.

I don't use this for lit searches, where I'm reading intensely in some
area, but rather for those papers that pop up just outseide of my current
reading area but could be very important later on. What would you read
next if you were suddenly handed a bunch of time that could only be used
for reading?

A couple of refinements: I added a field called "Read For" so that months
down the line I could remember just why the heck I meant to read it in the
first place. I put just a few words in, like "Recent massive review of
visual search" or "Contextual cueing in a nautral context, maybe relevant
to virtual creatures", like a tiny sales pitch to my future self. I
set up the Read Someday/Maybe database to be sorted by record number, that
is the order it was added to the database, so more recently added showed
up on top. This worked well with my realization that this database would
never get emptied out, would only grow and grow as I went on, so best to
keep the focus on the ones I was excited about recently. As another
consequence I have stopped removing citations as I read them (and move
them to Read), but rather leave them there just with their "Order Read"
field filled in (in preparation for copying to Read) so I know I've gotten
to that one.

This system is far from perfect. For one thing papers do get lost down in
there - there's not a huge motivation to go trolling down into it to find
something to print and read, except on certain occasions, like for a plane
ride I might peak into it. But usually not all the way to the bottom,
which has stuff totalyl irrelevant to what I'm doing now. The fact that it
is searchable mitigates this. But to be honest I'm a bit scared of the
hugeness of the list now. Nevertheless it works pretty well for me to
capture the important papers that fly my way that I can't sit down to read
right now.

Developing Your Own Constructs and Other Advice from Western's Survival Skills for Graduate Students

2008-05-24T20:43:00.001-07:00

Western has a site called Survival Skills for Graduate Students, directed
primarily at neuroscience grad students:

http://www.physpharm.fmd.uwo.ca/undergrad/survivalwebv3/frame.htm

Some of the advice is routine and useless, but some is solid and novel,
for instance about how to decide whether you want a particular job, and
how to make slides. There's an interesting discussion of how to make
timelines, which I'm not sure I agree with, and at least one thing that no
one ever told me but I wish they had, about how your real job as a
scientist is developing constructs:

http://www.physpharm.fmd.uwo.ca/undergrad/survivalwebv3/s4_skill/constr.html

"As a scientist you need to develop constructs, in your mind, for how you
think things work. ... Now you have been given your own Lego construction
set and you have to learn how to build something. This requires *reading
less* and *thinking more*." Key ways it helps: To keep from reading too
much, to keep from doing too many experiments.

Yes, this is exactly how I will think of my work from now on.

Some other pieces of advice that struck me as surprising enough to note:

*Go to the graduate club. Being a scientist is being a part of a culture.
You will be surprised what you can learn about the brain, playing pool
with an anthropologist.
* Make sure to leave some unscheduled time in your regular working time.
Sit back and let your mind wander. You will find that this is your most
important time.
* Doing a literature search Do not start with a computer search (eg
Med-Line). Then they say how you should do it:

http://www.physpharm.fmd.uwo.ca/undergrad/survivalwebv3/s4_skill/Search.html

My Citation Management System: Read

2008-05-22T17:31:00.001-07:00

(this is part 2 about this) The EndNote database called Read is the heart
of my citation management system. Whenever I write a paper, this is the
database that the citations are drawn out of. Conceptually, it's a list of
all the papers I've read. That keeps me honest a little bit, since I can't
cite a paper I haven't read. By read of course I mean "read": at a bare
minimum,have read the abstract, a few paragraphs of the intro, and at
least skimmed the discussion. But I *must* do this much for papers I cite:
I've discovered all too often that you can't rely on how papers are cited
by others, you have to actually make sure it says what they think it says.
It's not as big a hassle to add every paper you read to the database as
you might think - especially compared to how long it takes to read 'em.
Even if you don't have EndNote and its direct connection to ISI Web of
Science, you can find the citation online somehow, with some combination
of google, google scholar, and your university library's homepage or the
publisher's homepage, within a few mouseclicks and keystrokes. Usually a
search by the first 4 or 5 words of the title is fastest. The advantage of
this is not only the higher likelihood (but far from guarantee) that it
will be entered accurately, but also that it will bring with it metadata
such as keywords and abstract, which are then readable and searchable on
your local machine. And its all ready any time you want to write a paper.
Besides being a huge pool of citations (which is sortable and searchable),
my Read database is also a kind of diary of my reading, that tells me
approximately when I read something. The most straightforward way would be
just using the serial numbers that endnote assigns when you add a record
to a database. But I wanted to do a bit better, for those times when I
want to insert something between previously entered records, since the
record ids are not changeable (this might be where I lose you, but it
works for me anyway). I added a new field to the citation record (more
specifically, redefined Custom 1) called Order Read. Then I made my own
serial numbering. I got this together in about january of 05, so
everything read before then is 1-100. January 05 is 101 and on, February
is 201 and on, etc. That lets me slot in ones I've forgotten where they
belong (I have not yet read 100 articles in a single month). I put a
comment in the Notes field of the first one of the month with the month
and year, so I can remember that eg the 1200s are October 2007. I made
Order Read one of the fields displayed in the box, and sorted by it.
Presto, a chronological list of my reading, and a hugely valuable pool of
citations to instantly draw upon for any future papers.

Next:

My Citation Management System: To Read Someday/Maybe

My Citation Management System: The Basics

2008-05-20T20:55:00.001-07:00

If you are an academic, you need citation management software. It's as
essential as a pen and tweedy elbow patches (ok more essential than even
that). If you are in doubt, consider how much of your life you want to
spend typing in citations into a reference list, in the exact right
format. Then how much you want to spend checking that each citation in the
text has a one-to-one correspondence with an item in the reference list.
There are lots of software solutions, and more all the time. The bare
minimum it must have is this:
* Be able to download citations off the internet (either directly or by
importing) - I only have to type in 1 in 20 by hand, and it's a lot easier
to check something than to type it in correctly (but you do have to check
it) Plus a bunch of metadata comes along for free, like keywords and the
abstract.
* Stores them in a pool that is searchable, sortable, etc and can be
reused for multiple projects
* Can generate reference lists and ideally in-text citations in many
predefined formats. Because it's very nice to have the ability both to
have a big assist with matching your target style, such as APA 5th (though
you *always* have to double check it), and to rapidly switch the style if
you decide to submit to another journal (Nature here I come!!)
I use a program called EndNote. It is powerful and well-supported, and
I've found it easy to use. The one drawback is that it is incredibly
expensive. If you can't get it through your academic connections you
probably won't be able to afford it. One alternative that is also well
supported is called RefWorks. At least at Queen's, it comes for *free*,
and seems to be somewhat intergrated with the library system which is a
plus. Another excellent thing about it is that it's on the web, so you can
access your references whereever you go. A disadvantage I can see to that
is the slight clunkiness of web-based applications, and also that it isn't
stored locally, so backing it up might be more of a procedure. But the
biggest disadvantage is that I don't know its disadvantages.
Advanced questions to ask about any such tool:
Does it let you:
* Do literature searches within the application?
* Do searches within your own past reading? (like being able to google
your brain)
* Do an operation on multiple records at once?
* Add additional fields to a citation record, like to make your own
tagging system?
* Allow for multiple databases/directories?
* Do clever search and replace?
EndNote is lightning fast in its operations, even with a list of 10s of
thousands of citations (I've tried it).It's quite customizable, in a
user-friendly way, and it has lots of support for various filters and
templates people have produced. Best of all is that it can hook into
online databases and suck down citations directly - I've found that ISI
Web of Science almost *always* has the journal article I'm looking for,
and any number of university libraries can contribute book citations. I've
been using EndNote all the way along and so far it hasn't done me wrong.
(ok in a couple of niggling ways)
So EndNote lets you make separate databases, as many as you want, and
those are useful for many things, such as doing a specialized lit search.
However my approach is to put all my citations into a couple of big pools,
that are used for all my papers. That's the most flexible way: it means I
can search, sort and edit them all at once. And reuse the same citatioins
in different papers. There are two major databases, which I will talk
about individually in the next couple of posts:

My Citation Management System: Read

My Citation Management System: To Read Someday/Maybe

How to Conduct a Super-search

2008-05-17T07:13:00.001-07:00

Last year around this time I was searching very hard for an apartment. I
felt like I'd never been properly taught how to do this kind of a search,
so I wrote up some notes on it. Looking at these, I realized that this is
a more general class of search in life that these might apply to, for
instance the search for a job, for the perfect couch, or an idea for a
thesis. But I will use my apartment search as an example. The core things are
EXPLORE EVERY AVENUE SIMULTANEOUSLY
ORGANIZATION and
PERSISTENCE.

EXPLORE EVERY AVENUE SIMULTANEOUSLY
* This is what you might call a parallel terraced scan (if you're a
Hofstadter fan), or equally nerdy, a breadth first search.
* Spend time assembling lists of places to look, constantly growing that
list. I kept a bookmark folder for the kingston websites that had
apartment listings, and kept finding new websites with listings that
weren't on the others. Ask people where they look.
* Places I looked: the web, riding my bike around neighbourhoods I wanted
to live in looking for "For Rent" signs, the newspaper classifieds (often
overlooked), and especially word of mouth. Of the 3 apartments I made a
bid for, one was from the web, one was from word of mouth, and one was
from the newspaper.
* Very important: TELL EVERY SINGLE PERSON YOU MEET about your search. I
was amazed at the number of leads I got from friends and friends of
friends, as well as advice. I must have looked at at least 5 based on
those tips. Keep your friends updated on your search. Ask them about their
places, what they're happy about and not so happy, and what they pay.
* Whenever you go to see a place, ask the person there if they have any
other properties they are trying to rent.
* Pursue all these avenues simultaneously, don't get stuck on any one.

Which definitely requires:

ORGANIZATION
* I would harvest addresses from all these different sources every day,
filter some out based on my criteria, and dump into a big file
* Pretty quickly I realized with the volume of listings I was checking
out, I would need to keep detailed notes on my progress with each one. I
actually came very cloee to visitng the same apartment twice when I was
right in the fury of it, and certainly got all excited about a listing
only to realize I'd already ruled it out.
* After a while I had set up 3 different files: one that I would dump all
the listings in that looked promising, with as much info on them as I
could glean but most importantly contact info, one called Apartments SEEN
with notes on my impressions after having visited, and one called RULED
OUT which I moved a listing to when it was no longer in the running for
whatever reason. So each listing only appeared once in the three.
* Record in a format such that you can compare them as much as possible
* The discipline of maintaining these notes became particularly important
when it came to places with just a phone number. If the person wasn't
home, I would write down the date I called, so I could make sure to try
them again.

Which leads me to:

PERSISTENCE
* The places that took the most persistence, for instance in calling back,
were not necessarily the best, but not the worst either. My eventual
apartment could have easily come from one of those places.
* Prepare for it to be a big, long search. Mine took 2 months, and in the
end I had been shown 27 different places. (wow) Go into it with that
mindset, and hey, you might get lucky right away.
* Start NOW. Even if you don't have all the info you need, even if you
don't really know what you want. Use the first ones you see to help figure
out what you want. Be ok with possibly losing one of those early places
because you don't yet know enough to be able to say yes confidently.
* By the same token, it's worth going out to check out places you're
pretty sure you don't want, just to clarify your preferences more. It's ok
to not quite know what you want at first.
* At the same time, always be working on a set of criteria where you know
it would be good enough for you, so you can rent on the spot to grab it,
and end this time-consuming search. This is known as satisficing: this is
so good that it would not be worth the cost of the rest of the search and
its uncertainty to find something better.
* As you can tell from the organization section, you have to get into an
everyday rhythm: checking your traplines for new listings, slotting them
where they belong, and adding info from phonecalls you make, emails you
receive, and visits you make. Each listing is its own mini project, that
you keep moving along.
* Learn to enjoy the process! Be like a machine grinding through this
stuff, not thinking too much about the endpoint. Do it with enthusiasm.
* Don't get fixated on any one as the perfect place. There will be lots
that will work fine for you; don't stop looking. And if you lose a
"perfect place" just yell NEXT!! That happened to me *twice*, that I had
settled on a place, had spent a lot of time picturing myself there, in
fact thought we had agreed that I had it, but was snatched away from me.
Frustrating, but the search goes on, and I ended up with a terrific place.

So that's my advice that should apply to any of these large scale super
searches. I took all that time and effort, maybe more than I really
needed, just to find out what it felt like to do it *right*. I won't
always be able to do that in the future either, but this is what it feels
like.

In addition I include:

ADDITIONAL KINGSTON or APARTMENT-SPECIFIC TIPS

* It ain't over till you sign a lease! Landlords will screw you like that.
To be fair, they probably get screwed on verbal agreements all the time
too.
* Sharing a two-bedroom makes a lot of economic sense.
* Lots of electronic listings you can copy out of your web browser and
paste into Excel, then you can sort by price, location, etc.
* Start before the end of may for sure, probably way earlier. However note
that all the Homestead places start coming up and being snatched up
in late may/early June, as that's the two-month notice deadline.
* You can find out what a place's elecricity bill was over
the last year from the city. Dial 613-546-0000,press 5
* Places to look you might not have thought of:
Kingston Whig-Standard
Craigslist
Facebook
Websites for holding companies: Panadew, Homestead, Keystone, Springer,
Lamb Rentals, Jonallea Housing, anglesey
* Try to ask around about your prospective landlord. I had an experience that left a sour taste in my mouth with one named Harvey Palmer.

Podless Days and Productive Boredom

2008-04-09T15:33:00.001-07:00

I recently saw a fun talk about advice for young researchers by Barrie
Frost, the very successful and entertaining octagenarian animal psychology
prof at Queen's. One of the things he said was about how he got one of his
best ideas (a flight simulator for butterflies!) while walking home for
lunch. He said, "A good way to have ideas is to walk home for lunch!"

This struck me, both because of how it tied in with what all those
computer scientists in my review said about their most creative times -
unstructured, quiet, regular and of a fixed duration, involving exercise -
and because it provides a possible criticism of my way of doing things. I
had been listening to podcasts every single day for my half hour walk to
school and back, and the talk started me wondering if it was stunting my
creativity. I can't mull over whatever problems I may be facing in my
research life if my mind is busy being stimulated and wildly entertained
by the likes of Ira Glass, Terry Gross, Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot, Jad
Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris, and Dan
Savage.

So mondays, wednesdays and (possibly) fridays are now podless days, where
I leave my iPod at home so there's not even the temptation. (the fact that
this feels like a big step is testament to just how much I adore these
shows - and how completely they alleviated the pain of trudging through
the snow for an hour a day this winter) And I have found a slight increase
in creativity. Even if I spend 25 minutes of the time thinking about Phil
Hartman sketches or sex - which are both likely - I'll likely spend 5
minutes touching on the problems I'm about to (or just finished) grappling
with at work, and with that time come up with an idea or two I never could
have in front of my computer.

Basically I wasn't letting myself be bored enough. Think about if you're
filling your day too full of entertainment or tasks, and not allowing for
enough boredom. Your mind needs time to wander and take the *long* way to
a totally novel solution, one that might seem too offbeat to contemplate
and explore when the pressure is on. One of the major foodgroups of
creativity has got to be big blocks of boring time, which a mind that is
already creatively revved up can make good use of.

My Photo System: Archive and Souvenirs

2008-04-08T20:01:00.001-07:00

My system for managing my digital photos broke down for good around the
time when more photos I wanted to save were coming from friends cameras
(usually via facebook) than my own. But it was already crumbling
around about the time when the novelty of snapping photos with
my first digital camera wore off. Now I have a new system. It's tuned
for my specific priorities and setup (an ancient iMac and the free
iPhoto), but you may find things you can use with your system.

The central dilemma with regard to photos boils down to: keep or throw
away? Do you err on the side of having oceans of photos, gradually filling
up your hard drive and impossible to find anything in, or carefully
selecting the best? I do both. There are two tiers:

THE ARCHIVE

Basically a bucket for all the photos that have something to do with my
life to collect in. From my camera, facebook, email, etc. The only
winnowing that I do is to erase the worthless blurry ones, or the near
duplicates, or ones taken for special purposes (like a web page). I also
don't put in just cool or funny pictures off the net - these are photos to
do with my life.

Each photo is saved at its original size, more or less unretouched, as
uncompressed as possible (my camera saves them as jpegs, so whatever)

This would still work if it was just a huge list of files - photo
management software could sort through them. But to make things a little
bit easier to find, I put them into folders by term (4 month stretch), and
in those folders I have optional subfolders by the batch of photos - like
"Lindsay's Birthday"

The archive allays my fears of deleting a photo I might value later, gives
me a resource if I feel like wallowing in plentiful images from a
particular time in my life, and lets me indulge the fantasy that someday
something in the corner of one of my photos may be needed in a criminal
investigation, like in Blow Up. (and what if I had just deleted it??)

On the other end of the spectrum are:

SOUVENIR PHOTOS

Complementing my term souvenir system which I discussed in a previous
post, this is a file of photos, divided by term, which have been carefully
selected for maximum enjoyment and reminiscing. Exactly 50 photos per 4
months selected, each retouched, cropped, and exported at 1024x768. Also
ordered chronologically, by hand if necessary.

This gives me a way to get a quick blast of a term - people, places,
events - without having to page through hundreds of repetitive photos.

An organizational system only works if it also comes with processes to
maintain it. Here are the processes for my system:
- Over a term, collect all the photos that come my way to the archive.
- When the term is over, actually a few months after its over so that
those last few photos come in, start going through the archive for that
term and select the photos.
- Every year or so, have the souvenir photos for that year printed and
mailed to me. So 2 years will fit in a 300 photo album.
- When the photo archive gets to be the size of a DVD, burn it and delete
from hard drive.

That last point was the key to my system, when I realized that my whole
enormous glut of photos from my camera over 2 years was only about 3 gigs.
You may use your camera a lot more. But still, I think it makes sense to
keep *everything*. If a photo is 1 meg, then you can fit 4700 photos onto
a DVD. Whether that lasts you 2 years, a year, or 4 months, it's still a
tiny cost in terms of both money and time. DVDs are not the most stable
and long term medium in the world, but it wouldn't be a horrible loss to
lose part of my archive. I can save the heavy backup guns for my souvenir
photos - which will have a tiny size.

Online Discretionary Income Calculator

2008-04-06T16:15:00.001-07:00

Following up on my blog post, here's a nice calculator for factoring in at
some of the common expenses into your discretionary (here called
disposable) income calculation, to get you started:

http://www.disposableincome.net/

A nice feature is a calculation of how much time it takes you at your job
to earn things like a coffee, a night at the movies, or a laptop.

The Golden Mango Regime

2008-04-02T20:09:00.001-07:00

When thinking about how to work effectively, it's worth looking back on
those times in your life when you just found a groove. In 2001 I had the
wonderful opportunity to write a book chapter for a cognitive science
professor. I set aside 4 months to do almost nothing but research, think,
and write it. But I had a terrible time with it. I was isolated, my time
had no structure, I was too timid to ask for enough help from the project
head, and as far as research went, I had no idea what the fuck I was
doing. It was ok when I was gathering materials and reading for it, but
when I had to admit I had collected as much information as I could use and
it was time to start writing, I stalled out. That blank screen would stare
me down. I had many many days where I did nothing for it, unless you count
worrying.

Finally, by accident, I hit on a fairly extreme regime that nevertheless,
over about a 3 week period, got my draft written. Every single day, I
would do practically no work on it during the day. I would chat with
friends, relax, go for a bike ride, maybe read a littlet for the or do a
couple mindless chores for it. Then every evening - and this seemed key -
I would order the #7 at the Golden Mango in Waterloo (that's shredded pork
on vermicelli with spring roll, yum). Then I would go for a long long walk
by myself, often travelling way out into the agricultural areas, walking
along the roadside or on biketrails in the dusk. Then at 9 o'clock every
day I would get to my little tiny office (actually a storage closet with a
computer in it) and get 2-3 hours of very solid writing done. I'd reread
what I did the day before, fix it up, and power onwards. It wasn't even
hard.

I'd completely forgot about this till just today, but now that it's in
my mind I want to ask, why was this so effective? What can I take from it
for my current life as a graduate student?
* I worked on it every single day. That meant it was always somewhere in
my mind, meaning I was actually doing some work during those unstructured
times.
* I had those unstructured times, when I wasn't trying to force myself to
think about it but had no other real demands on my intellect either. The
daytime, and especially those long walks were good for that.
* I had a workspace with no distractions (surely it had internet - I must
just not have been such an addict back then. See the Privoxy entry for one
approach to combat that)
* I had good food in my belly. There's a famous quote about how
stimulating and encouraging that can be to the cognitive faculties, but
I'm too lazy to hunt it up.
* I was getting some regular exercise.

So this was no doubt a tremendously inefficient routine (not to mention
impractical for most people; and what if you don't like vietnamese food?)
but there's lots I can take from it to add to what I know about how I work
- that is the very hardest parts of what I do, which are writing and
trying to come up with creative research ideas. I want to get back to the
feeling that I had, if only for a little while, then: that I was in
excellent mental and creative shape, with my powers in hand, running with
a long stride and easily jumping obstacles that came along.

Somewhat coincidentally, the point about needing unstructured time to
think was one of the major conclusions of mypaper, which was about
creativity in computer science: creative people need long blocks of time
to let their mind wander. Many of the computer scientists in a survey I
relied heavily on said that the times when they had their best ideas were
on their daily commute, just before or after bed, or in the bath or
shower. In fact Alan Kaye, one of the most creative of them all, had a
special shower installed in the Xerox PARC building just for that purpose,
to help him think! If you were there at 4 in the morning - when he got in
- you might hear him showering merrily away. So one way to be more
creative: take more baths.

How's Your Meez?

2008-03-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

I've been working on finally setting up my home office to be functional,
and have a flow, mostly following my own interpretation of GTD (David
Allen's system). I was been thinking about the importance of having all
the elements of your system, from inputs (blank paper, your inbox) to
tools (pens that work, stamps, staplers, hole punches, post-it notes,
blank CDs) to outputs (out box, reference filing system, garbage and
recycling) all *within arms reach*. Then I read this, from Anthony
Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, that reinforced why this is so important:

Mise-en-place is the religion of all good line cooks. Do *not* fuck with a
line cook's "meez" - meaning their set-up, their carefully arranged
supplies of sea salt, rough-cracked pepper, softened butter, cooking oil,
wine, back-ups and so on. As a cook, your station and its condition, its
state of readiness, is an extension of your nervous system - and it is
profoundly upsetting if another cook, or God forbid, a *waiter* - disturbs
your precisely and carefully laid-out system. The universe is in order
when your station is set up the way you like it: you know where to find
everything with your eyes closed, everything you need during the course of
the shift is at the ready at arm's reach, your defenses are deployed. If
you let your mise-en-place run down, get dirty and disorganized, you'll
quickly find yourself spinning in place and calling for backup.

Sure my job doesn't have the kind of ultra-high second by second urgency
of being a line cook, but I want to take this attitude towards my desk and
its immediate surroundings:, not just setting it up right to begin with,
but fiercely protecting and maintaining that arrangement. I have a sense
that's a critical part of getting that flow in my job going, that feeling
that my tools are "an extension of your nervous system", like those line
cooks *must* have to survive (I also have a theory that this setupcan play
an important part in fighting procrastination)
Now what is the equivalent of having a good mise-en-place on your
computer?

What's Taking Up All the Space On My Hard Drive?

2008-03-30T11:21:00.001-07:00

If you're wondering that, I've discovered a type of tool, called a tree
map, that is thrillingly perfect for visualizing the hierarchical
structure of your hard drive and how much space different files and
folders take up. There are wonderful free implementations for the PC:

http://windirstat.info/

and Mac OS X:

http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

Try it!

Another (Probably Better) Approach to Backup

2008-02-25T18:36:00.001-08:00

My backup system is failing. The latency is getting to a month or more,
and it's very tiresome. I'm seriously thinking of switching to this hard
core strategy, which seems easy and effective, but costs money to get
going. I'm pasting the text here so I can always find it and it won't
disappear, but it's from here:

http://jwz.livejournal.com/801607.html
(lots of useful, mostly mac-specific comments below)

Dear Lazyweb, and also a certain you-know-who-you-are who should certainly
know better by now,

I am here to tell you about backups. It's very simple.

Option 1: Learn not to care about your data. Don't save any old email, use
a film camera, and only listen to physical CDs and not MP3s. If you have
no posessions, you have nothing to lose.

Option 2 goes like this:

You have a computer. It came with a hard drive in it. Go buy two more
drives of the same size or larger. If the drive in your computer is SATA2,
get SATA2. If it's a 2.5" laptop drive, get two of those. Brand doesn't
matter, but physical measurements and connectors should match.
Get external enclosures for both of them. The enclosures are under $30.
Put one of these drives in its enclosure on your desk. Name it something
clever like "Backup". If you are using a Mac, the command you use to back
up is this:
sudo rsync -vaxE --delete --ignore-errors / /Volumes/Backup/

If you're using Linux, it's something a lot like that. If you're using
Windows, go fuck yourself.

If you have a desktop computer, have this happen every morning at 5AM by
creating a temporary text file containing this line:
0 5 * * * rsync -vaxE --delete --ignore-errors / /Volumes/Backup/

and then doing sudo crontab -u root that-file

If you have a laptop, do that before you go to bed. Really. Every night
when you plug your laptop in to charge.

If you're on a Mac, that backup drive will be bootable. That means that
when (WHEN) your internal drive scorches itself, you can just take your
backup drive and put it in your computer and go. This is nice.
When (WHEN) your backup drive goes bad, which you will notice because your
last backup failed, replace it immediately. This is your number one
priority. Don't wait until the weekend when you have time, do it now,
before you so much as touch your computer again. Do it before goddamned
breakfast. The universe tends toward maximum irony. Don't push it.
That third drive? Do a backup onto it the same way, then take that to your
office and lock it in a desk. Every few months, bring it home, do a
backup, and immediately take it away again. This is your "my house burned
down" backup.
"OMG, three drives is so expensive! That sounds like a hassle!" Shut up. I
know things. You will listen to me. Do it anyway.

Update: Mac users: for the backup drive to be bootable, you need to do two
things:

When you partition the drive, use GUID, not Apple Partition Map;
Get Info on the drive and un-check "Ignore ownership on this drive" under
"Ownership and permissions."
You can test whether it's bootable by holding down Option while booting
and selecting the external drive.

----

UPDATE: I have now implemented this system. Well not all of it - I don't have a backup backup hard drive. But I bought a spacious hard drive that is compatible with my computer's internal HD (not that swapping it in will be a piece of cake, but possible), and an enclosure with a fast connection (USB 2.0/Firewire). It wasn't too expensive. I use a program for the mac called Carbon Copy Cloner to automatically backup all changes every week at noon. This hard drive is also bootable - I tried it out. A nicer thing to have would be Apple's Time Machine, which keeps track of many old versions of your files too, but for my geriatric computer and price range Carbon Copy Cloner works well, if slowly, and there are no doubt thousands of similar applications for the PC (and if you're using Linux you're probably comfortable enough with using rsync on the command line). So I'm feeling a lot more secure about my data now. The critical points are that it's *automatic*, it backs up *everything* (don't have to manually add files to backup), and it's *bootable* (so I'm not stuck when my hard drive dies).

How to Ship A Lot of Books Across Canada

2008-02-25T18:28:00.001-08:00

BEFORE YOU START

You will need a bunch of boxes, and a tape dispenser (the kind with a
handle and teeth). You can get the boxes from behind a liquor store, or in
the cardboard-only dumpster behind many other kinds of businesses (there's
one behind the McDonald's on Princess in Kingston). You want smallish
boxes, about the size of a cat carrier at most. I found that some of the
plain brown cardboard boxes started to fall apart in transit. What
survived much better were the wine (or wine-making kit?) boxes, which were
shiny and strong, and a nice shape.

You also need a big piece of floor, for the next step.

PREPARING THE BOOKS

This step might not seem necessary, but for me it was the secret, to
making it both manageable and efficient. Pull all the books off the
shelves, every single one, putting them into piles by *size*. In my
collection there are 4 main sizes: pocket book, trade paperback, oversize
trade paperback, hard cover (or super sized trade paperback), and
textbook. If one is not an exact fit for a category, you can always err on
the larger size. And then one more pile for "weird shape" books (which
included a lot of coffee table books for me, since they vary in size).

First of all this lets you see just how big the job is, and how many boxes
you'll need. It's a process that is easy and satisfying. Secondly, it lets
you pack the boxes by size, which is both a very good way to fill the
space and fast - once you've discovered what orientation they will fit in,
you can drop them in by the armful. It had the expected side effect for me
that they are sorted by size when I took them *out* of the box, so I could
fit them to my variable height of bookshelves.

Once a box is full of a certain size of books, you can then fit the
weird-shaped books, and also magazines, in around the sides. One problem I
haven' was that some of these books got damaged around the edges - maybe
it would be better to pack that with clothes or something. Especially if
you use the brown cardboard, this is not a method that can guarantee to
keep your books in mint condition.

I made up some address labels on MS word, which saved some time.

AT THE POST OFFICE

First of all, there is no longer any "book shipping rate" via greyhound or
viarail or some such. At least none that I could find via internet search.
Please tell me if there's an alternative. But as far as I can see you've
got to go canada post.

My big secret here is to tape smaller boxes together, using packing tape
they supply, and that's cheaper. My dad has known this trick for years,
but I went so far as to geek out and prove why that's true. I spent a fair
bit of time experimenting with the online package rate calculator, and
these are my findings, valid as of January 2008:

- Canada Post rates are calculated by weight, unless the dimensions become
oversized, at which point it is calculated by size.
- The formula is $1.18 per kg + $8.70 (when not oversized) This may not
include the fuel surcharge I just realized, so may underestimate by $1-3.
- Switching to the oversize will always make it more expensive, so you
want to avoid that. The formula is to add up all 3 dimensions in
centimeters, multiply by $0.56, and subtract $50.52.
- The rules for when something becomes oversized are complex, and I didn't
figure them out entirely. Things can be bigger if they're heavier, and I
suspect the more cubic something is (and so hard to pack) the lower the
threshold. A medium box packed with books won't be oversize, but if you
tape a bunch together it might be. Your best bet is to consult with the
person at the post office to make sure you don't go over.

You can see the logic of taping boxes together now: since a 0 kg box costs
$8.70, that's how much you save everytime you tape together two boxes.

At the post office is the place to make sure they're really well taped up.
Some of mine not so much, and there were rips in the cardboard.

That's basically all I've figured out, besides make sure to have a car or
a friend with a car on both ends (my awesome dad actually did the final
mailing on the Victoria side)

THE COST

I shipped the equivalent of about 19 wine-kit sized boxes of books,
8x12x14 inches each (so a bit more than 22 feet on the shelf), for
$319.42. A typical box, actually two taped together, was 16 kg and about
$30. It hurt, but it was sure nice to be reunited. Like all book-loving
people, building a proper home (not a temporary home), I'm just going to
have to get used to this whole process happening every few years.

If you're reading this and know any tips, I'd love to hear them. The
biggest thing that would have helped me: improved tape despenser
technique. I still can't get the hang of that, and end up completely taped
to myself.

Souvenir Folders, Pouches of the Past

2008-02-22T11:58:00.001-08:00

The first time I organized in any way shape or form was halfway through my
first term in residence. I was trying to clean up entirely, for
essentially the first time (I was a pig. Still basically am). I found
places for all the things I needed to function, and threw out a lot more,
but then I was still left with papers that I wanted to hang onto, even
though I didn't need them. That was the key revelation: that I want to
keep them for the *memories* associated with them. They were souvenirs.
Which is a totally legitimate reason to keep something. Here's the system
I came up with.

Every 4 months I start a new big yellow envelope (whatever they're
called). 4 months because that's the schedule I ran on for years in
school, and still feels like a natural way to segment my life. I write on
it Souvenirs 2007 Sept - Dec for instance. In there goes anything flat I
want to save to remind me of that period: ticket stubs, show posters,
personal letters and postcards, notes from people and from myself,
newspaper clippings. Then after the 4 months it's effectively sealed
(though not literally, since I will often find things later on that belong
in there). How to deal with 3D objects? Well there aren't that many of
them. But in some cases, I suppose you could take a lot of photos of it,
and put those in the folder...

I've adopted the same system for computer files: images and text off the
internet (and increasingly, flash videos downloaded from YouTube that
reflect something that affected me at the time - like Obama's recent
primary speech answering the accusation that he was about "just words"),
bits of work by me and friends. I also use it now to archive all the
personal email, digital photos (including other peoples'), and substantial
MSN chats that I have over the 4 months. They all go in the same folder,
which is named like 2007 Sept-Apr - I discovered if I used that
convention, alphabetical is the same as chronological order (Jan - May -
Sept).

This means that all this stuff is out of my current workspace, but is
safely preserved. Once in a while I will go back to one of those old
folders and crack it open, and it's like the aroma of that time in my life
comes pouring out: fears, excitements, people and places. It's important
to start being the librarian of your own life right now, because that
stuff will zoom into the past so fast. Do *you* remember what was on your
mind in say, the winter of 2004?

Quick Reference Check Trick

2008-02-04T13:46:00.001-08:00

This is for a pretty limited audience, but I find it so useful I'm
putting it here so I don't forget it.

If you are writing an academic paper with citations, and you're worried
about getting the formatting of them wrong - especially if you use an
automatic reference manager like EndNote - this is a way to quickly step
through every reference in a Word document. It only works if your
references are in APA style or similar, that is, (Schlemiel & Schnook,
2007)

1. Go to Edit -> Find
2. Click the More button
3. Select Use wildcards
4. Type into the Find what box (exactly): [0123456789]\)

Now just keep clicking Find Next and it will take you on a tour of all the
references in your document.

If you are using EndNote, it's also a good idea to search for "#" and "{"
just to make sure there aren't any unprocessed tags you've left.

The ABC System for Prioritizing Projects

2008-02-01T15:25:00.001-08:00

I keep a list of projects in my PDA, frequently updated (at the very least
once a week). When I started doing that after a while I found the length
of the list overwhelming - and a lot of it were things that I'd just like
to make progress on if I had extra time, but weren't that urgent. So now I
put a letter in front of each project name (which makes it sort the list
this way):

A: Top priority projects, must be significantly progressed *this week*.
Often need to be finished this week.

B: Projects that are a bit time sensitive, or important, but nothing bad
will happen if I don't make any progress this week.

C: Projects I would like to get done, but nothing bad would happen if I
didn't get to them in the next 4 months or so. Or else they are time
sensitive, but really unimportant so it would be ok to let it go. Should
keep next actions on the todo lists, but no worries if I don't get to the
todo item for a long time.

This is why frequently reviewing it is absolutely essential: B items can
become A items! Todo list items in my PDA can have a priority from 1-5. So
it's natural to associate 1 with A, etc. for the todo items associated
with a project.

5 Things To Do When Starting a New Project

2008-02-01T11:48:00.001-08:00

1 Make space for it. First clear your desk of other projects, by filing
away or dumping into your inbox. Then choose a name (or code name), very
important, and making a file folder for it (under Zillion Folder Filing).
Take out a blank piece of paper, the first piece of paper for the folder,
and use that for things 2-4.

2 Purpose. Write it down in about 1 sentence, why you're taking on this
project.

3 Outcome visioning. Envision WILD SUCCESS for your project. Try to
imagine as many details of what that would look like as possible.

In case you need encouragement, Bill Drummond says:

"We all have the capacity for unlimited fantasy, it is the fuel of genius.
Do not be afraid to turn on the tap and let it flow. ... Fantasy can be a
dangerous area to delve into, an unreal place to escape into. Fantasy is
also the place where everything starts from. The place where a personality
can grow. ... Do not be afraid of your fantasies. Dive into them."

4 Subprojects. Break the project into subprojects that you can pursue and
finish independent of each other, as many as possible. Think of one
concrete, physical action, no matter how small, you can do towards each
one. If some of those subprojects look big and intimidating by themselves,
you might want to repeat these steps 1-5 for it.

5 I Have Decided. Write that as a heading, with lots of space underneath,
and quickly make and write down as many decisions as you can think of
about the project: when you want to finish it by, when and how you'll work
on it, what you *wont* do for it as well as what you will, even when and
how you'll make other decisions.

(This is basically David Allen's "natural planning", with a few tweaks of
mine)

The Sleep Formula

2008-01-15T19:00:00.001-08:00

Running low on sleep turns up the suck on everything, especially
intelligence and mood. Sleep deprivation sucks in any job, but is
especially disastrous in a self-motivated, creative-type job like being a
grad student. I can easily lose a whole day of sciencing if I screw up
that night's sleep. What's confusing though is the sense that the night
*before* last night plays a big part too. So how can I predict for how I'm
going to feel on a given day? (the non-geek may wish to skip
to the punchline at this point.) As a simple model, I will call the lack
of sleep deprivation, or the amount of well-restedness, my "sleep charge",
and it will be a function of the last n nights' hours of sleep. Let's make
it a linear function then at time t it's x(1)*s(t) + x(2)*s(t-1) + ... +
x(n)s(1+t-n). So what are the x's and the n? How far back do I look at my
sleep pattern, and what weightings do I give them?

This will differ for different people. But for myself I've decided and
tested the model of going back only 2 nights. And they will be equally
weighted. (so this is a 2-point simple moving average) The formula I now
use, and which has been remarkably successful in predicting how much I get
done and how I feel about it is this then:

Sleep charge = number of hours slept last night * 0.5 + number of hours
slept the night before * 0.5

As an example, 6.5 hours one night and 8 hours the next, equals a sleep
charge of 7.25. Now all I need is interpretation. Using intuition, for me
I think it goes something like this:

Sleep charge < 7: Zombie like.
Sleep charge 7-7.5: Ok
Sleep charge >= 7.5: Shiny and full of pep, cleverness and creativity.

This rule has been astoundingly accurate at predicting my days over the
last week and a half. Just as the formula predicts, one bad night affected
two days and then I was fine. And knowing that showed how it's useful: by
knowing I was going to havee a zombie day, I could stop panicking about
being too scattered and slothful, take it easy on myself, and plan for
what I *can* do - there are always a few zombie jobs around that I've been
putting off. And it becomes ultra-clear what the benefit of getting that
extra bit of sleep is, and when to plan to exploit that burst of willpower
and inspiration (like I had sunday).

What have you figured out about how your sleep works?

Ira Glass on the Taste Gap

2007-05-07T18:30:00.001-07:00

These youtube videos by Ira Glass of the glorious radio show This American
Life make up one of the most inspiring 12 minutes I've ever seen:

http://www.maximumfun.org/blog/2007/02/ira-glass-on-storytelling.html

The biggest revelation was this one, in Glass-speak which I have
painstakingly transcribed (because I love it):

"there's a gap - that for the first couple of years that you're making
stuff, what you're making isn't so good, ok, it's not that great. It's
trying to be good, but it's really not that good. But your *taste*, the
thing that got you into the game, your taste is still killer. And your
taste is still so good that you can tell that what you're making is kind
of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean? Like you can tell that
it's still sort of crappy. A lot people never get past that phase, a lot
of people at that point they quit. And the thing I would just like to say
to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know, who does
interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they
had really good taste and they knew what they were making wasn't as good
as they wanted it to be. They fell short...

You gotta know that it's totally normal, and the most important possible
thing that you can do, is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put
yourself on a deadline so you know that every week, every month you're
going to finish one story, whatever it's going to be.... it's only by
doing a volume of work that you're going to catch up, that you're going to
close that gap and the work you're making will be as good as your
ambitions."

And then, god bless him, he plays an old, embarassing tape of himself on
the radio, to make the point of how after *8 years* working at it he was
still pretty bad. And yet, eventually, he *got* it.

The Weekly Review

2007-05-04T20:54:00.001-07:00

This is such an essential part of how I work now that when I miss it for
some reason I feel a sense of confusion and anxiety. However when I do
complete it I feel just the opposite.

Like most of the revolutionary changes in my habits over the last 16
months, this is from Getting Things Done. But this one is the motor that
powers everything else about the system. Basically all the lists I use in
my daily work get updated and cleaned up, and so do all the papers and
objects in my working area.

I block out early friday afternoons for this - recommended because if the
process turns up something urgent then you can still catch people at work.
I have to make sure to allow no less than 2 full hours. The fact that I've
missed no more than a handful of weekly reviews in the last year - in the
middle of a work day on a typically busy week, all through writing my
thesis - speaks to how critical it's become.

So what it involves is going down a checklist that I made in Microsoft
Word and print out each time. I changed it around a lot at the beginning,
but now it's pretty much stabilized. Here's the short version, of the
absolutely key parts of my weekly review:

* Dumping my pockets, backpack, and desk clutter into my inbox (this step
is great - today I realized I've been carrying a loaf of bread in my
backpack to school and back for three days)
* Pruning all my to do lists
* Copy reminders and notes from my pocket index cards into my PDA
* For every project on my list, check out that the timetable is on track,
and figure out what is a visible, physical action I can do towards it to
put on a to do list.
* Process all my inboxes (more on this in future, but basically go through
every item one by one and put it away, chuck it, or do one step towards
dealing with it, until the inbox is empty)
* Go through my deferred work boxes, to make sure nothing is mouldering in
there
* Empty my garbage and recycling

My real list is much longer, since it's such a habit I can easily attach
more items to it that need to happen regularly - like making backups.

Interestingly, the emptying garbage & recycling is one of the best
results. There's an insidious bit of mental resistance to getting rid of
something if you have a full recycling box, and fixing that alone can help
organization a lot.

When this is all done, my desk is clean and clear. Everything is in its
place. In the words of my favourite kids book, Rhyme and reason reign once
more, sense and sanity prevail. And not just physically, I know that my
projects are mentally in order, since I've looked at them and their
deadlines and figured out what the next step is for each. I can leave to
enjoy my saturday with a lightness in my step.

Magpieing: How my collectors work

2007-05-04T20:22:00.001-07:00

I had this image of like a giant bin I could carry along with me, like an
apple-pickers sack if you've seen one of those, and I could pick out and
collect all the shiny and fascinating things I heard or saw or thought of
and toss them in the hopper to be saved for good. Because I'd been
thinking about the problems of creativity, how many ideas you come across
in a day and forget about, and also how people manage to think of the
perfect quotation to head their book chapter, or give weight or wit to a
best-man's speech. Certain people must have found a way to build their
private hoards, like a magpie.

So about a year ago I discovered that I can comfortably sit on five
ordinary index cards in my back pocket, along with a pen clipped on the
outward side. As people who've hung out with me lately know, I can whip my
stack of cards out at a moments notice to make a note. Quotations,
research ideas, to do items, upcoming events, people's names, all go on
those cards.

Then at least once a week I enter it all into my PDA and replenish with
fresh cards. This is a certain amount of work, and takes at least half an
hour a week, but I've found that it's totally worth it. It means that if
something comes up for me to work on in the future I can act on it
immediately, making a note, rather than attempting to mentally store it
away. It's nearly perfect in its capturing of book recommendations,
projects to try someday maybe, and events around town. But it's really
changed things in how it lets me save random inspirations I have
throughout the day. For instance I will share with you this one, from last
month:

"The fantasy of an edible world, made of candy or chocolate. Does that
mean on some level we'd really like to bite everything we see?"

Ok they're not all gold. But that's the great part: good or bad, it's out
of my head and down on paper, freeing up space for the next idea to come
along. As David Brooks says, "your brain is a great place to have ideas,
but not to store them."

Why index cards and not directly into my PDA? Well it's slightly less rude
to be writing on an index card, since people might think I was checking
email (even though my Palm was manufactured during the Clinton
administration). I'd take them places I wouldn't take my palm. But the big
point is just that little bit of extra time to write using the touch
screen could mean just enough resistance for me to decide to be lazy and
skip this one (pretending that I'll write it later). It's got to feel
pretty much automatic.

The quotation collector is working great too, already giving me a glorious
heap of endlessly ponderable thoughts, like this one also from April:

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend
to be." -Kurt Vonnegut

This is what sold me on the PDA in the first place: a practically
unlimited storage space for bits of text and lists (and searchable!).
Paper just won't do for a permanent storage medium for this, because it
inspires rationing and stinginess: it should be ok to have one month where
I collect and store *a thousand* quotes - maybe even all from the same
source if you really hit a vein. In the realm of digitized text it's ok to
be a packrat.

The funnest part of it I'm finding are the lists that aren't so essential,
but come along with the rest for free. Without them I would have already
forgotten my enjoyment of the words chthonic, paragon, chirality and imbue
last month (in the Words list). And my unexpected favourite is a list I've
been keeping of Phrases, funny, catchy or interesting strings of words
that have caught my ear. They come from rap songs, newspaper headlines,
advertising, the web, tv shows, comedy routines, overheard conversations,
spam, and my own brain. Keep in mind while reading this list is that I
made no special effort to notice these in April, and by just emptying my
collectors this list essentially made itself. (please see me about
permission if you wish to use one of these for your band name)

2007 April
fill your boots
haplessness, hype and hypnosis
You can allure femme covert?
fleeing inmates seldom analyze the consequences
If it wasn't for disappointments, I wouldn't have any appointments
Desperate lark
A flying screamer, and a crasher too
All persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.
accidents in a very busy place
Shields up, lock the door and keep your dukes up
We're all concerned about how gross you look.
looking like you just got diagnosed with cancer of the puppy
spurty knowledge
the only way out is through
two-story outhouse
If this isn't nice, what is? (I don't know what is)
The first of your many reverse masterstrokes
The weather is not trippy, perhaps it is the way we perceive it that is
indeed trippy...
Who will survive, and what will be left of them?
I believe in an eye for a tooth and a tooth for an eye. I like to mix it
up like that.
Reincarnation is making a comeback
Kittenball
Feeling dangerously well
Pick up your whiskers
This teetering bulb of dread and dream - Edson
Soul shards
Dessert in motion
fast snails
That's where I'm a viking
I like people with big egos. They remind me of me.
If you're going to laugh about something in 5 years, you might as well
laugh about it now.
Love not given lightly
SCIENTIFIC PROOF THAT I'M JESUS CHRIST AND GOD
Designated mammal
Hasta la bye bye
Now he walks through his sunken dream
Even the blues gets the blues

(I wrote that last one down in the middle of the night, and I have no
idea what it means. Any thoughts?)

How To Get Things Done With No Deadline

2007-04-24T21:24:00.001-07:00

From the wonderful and inspiring blog by famed Buffy writer Jane Espenson,
some advice about how to finish projects regularly without setting
yourself artificial deadlines - which rarely work for me, so the job ends
up expanding to fill the time allotted for it:

"Well, save me from myself, because the answer seems to be: take on
another project. Suddenly, that distant deadline looks a lot closer,
doesn't it? Because I know there's that other thing that also has to get
done in the same amount of time. Now I'm working -- fast, smoothly,
without a lot of hand-wringing and pacing. Just writin' without thinkin'.

My father always says 'give the job to the busy person.' He means that the
reason that the busy person has so much work on their desk is because
everyone knows that they're the one who will get it done. There's a lot to
be said for making yourself the busy person."

http://www.janeespenson.com/archives/00000204.php

This idea makes me feel a little scared, even gives me that sensation in
my gut remembering what it can be like to be overwhelmed with commitments.
And yet I think there's wisdom there. As I greatly improve my organization
and hence ability to manage multiple projects, I actually find I *want* to
take on more. For instance, becoming the VP of education of Queen's
Toastmasters. In general, these projects are getting done - largely
because I see the other ones lined up behind them.

Zooming In

2007-04-24T21:17:00.001-07:00

I've been working at getting good at projects that require a lot of tiny
errands that have to be done at specific times and places, like doing my
taxes. So getting things done smoothly without a lot of mental effort. But
when it comes down to it, there are certain projects that just demand
extended concentration - and those include any project that really takes
creativity. I've just read two articles, one in Time and one in Walrus,
about how harmful multitasking turns out to be, and I think they mean this
kind of project.

So I think of it as "zooming in" on a task, an image I like because it
includes the most important part: excluding things that are outside the
focus of the task. To do good writing, for instance, it really seems like
I have to have pushed other things out of my mind - and off my desk. Off
the desk is easy, I just dump everything in my inbox (or file it away if I
want). Then thanks to my Zillion Folder Filing system, I can have a folder
in front of me with *just* the things that are relevant to that project.
Often it helps to grab a fresh piece of paper.

Clearing a space mentally is harder. When you've got half a dozen
deadlines or undone tasks - even other parts of the same project - nagging
at your mind, it gets hard to concentrate for more than 10 consecutive
seconds. The only solution I've found is better time management. You have
to be sure that you have *plenty* of time to focus on this one thing, and
nothing else. That means budgetting that uninterruptable time, at least an
hour usually, and making *hard barriers* on either side of that time to
stop other tasks from seeping in, even if they are urgent. Often for that
to happen I have to make sure I've decided when those things *are* going
to get done. This is why I try to always block out my day the night
before: "project A before lunch, and not even thinking about project B
until after lunch"

Of course the other thing that can prevent focus sometimes are other, more
emotional issues: guilt, insecurity, all those negative inner voices.
Those can be reflective of bigger things than the scope of this blog, but
two quick strategies that sometimes work: arguing with those voices, in
writing (what the psychologist Martin Seligman calls disputation); and
sometimes when I can't actually do the work, I can *plan* the work - as in
the tactic I read somewhere of pretending you've given up on the task, but
you have to write a detailed list of instructions for what the person who
*is* going to finish it needs to do.

The Ten Year Rule

2007-03-04T16:55:00.001-08:00

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=00010347-101C-14C1-8F9E83414B7F4945

Fascinating article about the psychological concept of chunking, and how
it takes about 10 years of hard work in any area to become a master of
that area:

"Ericsson argues that what matters is not experience per se but 'effortful
study,' which entails continually tackling challenges that lie just beyond
one's competence. That is why it is possible for enthusiasts to spend tens
of thousands of hours playing chess or golf or a musical instrument
without ever advancing beyond the amateur level and why a properly trained
student can overtake them in a relatively short time."

That fits in well with my maxim of "experience alone is a poor teacher" -
that you need continual feedback and consideration, as well as always
pushing yourself further, to benefit from experience. I've seen how it's
possible to get good incredibly fast if these conditions are met. Which
gives me hope for all the abilities I haven't even started trying to
master...

I found the link on a great screenwriting blog by Alex Epstein, at

http://complicationsensue.blogspot.com/2006/08/push-envelope.html, who
adds about the process of chunking:

I think I do that, in my field. When I have a screenplay in my head, I
sort of "feel" it. I don't think in terms of beats, though beats are what
I write down. I think in terms of story structures. In other words I don't
see a beginning, a middle, and an end; I see a beginning-middle-and-end
that all go together... Comedians do the same thing. Ken Levine wrote in
one of his posts about how Jim Brooks [of the Simpsons!] would come up
with entire pages of dialog on the spot. It wasn't that he was having one
insight after another. He had ONE BIG INSIGHT that gave him the whole run
of jokes.

The Emergency Break Glass Kit

2007-02-20T10:23:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you just know you're about to waste a whole afternoon. You've got time, but you're feeling so groggy or unmotivated or indecisive that you know those hours are going to slip away. For times like that, I envisioned an emergency kit that you would break the glass on with a little hammer, and it would contain all the things you need to get energized and accomplish at least *one* thing.

Maybe I'll make that someday, but what is almost as good and that I make use of every so often is this list of commands for me to follow, unthinkingly, when I find myself in that predicament:

1. Have a snack (I keep protein bars in my desk)
2. Drink a short can of cola (ditto)
3. Sweep everything on my desk into my inbox (sometimes mere clutter slows me to a halt)
4. Take out a blank piece of paper and write down the name of 1 project to make progress on for 2 hours solid. (having too many projects vying for my attention can also be a source of paralysis)
5. Brainstorm all the ways I can make progress on this project
6. Pick one of those ways, decide what the next simple, physical action would be towards that. If the task is an unpleasant one, launch web browser and do 10 and 2s.
7. Two hours later, go home!

For a while I was trying to make something out of a shoebox, that would contain the pop and protein bar, and these instructions. I still want to someday. What would you put in your emergency kit? Some other suggestions for what might go in:

* A cd burned with high energy music
* A map to go take a walk
* Inspirational phrases
* Step by step list of exercises
* Smokebombs. Because those are always handy.

Saturdays Are Off

2007-02-17T20:56:00.000-08:00

I take saturdays completely off. I might take the evenings of a few other days off, but saturdays I *have* to take off. Jim Davies, a hardworking, successful cognitive scientist, showed me how this works; definitely read about his philosophy here. It struck a chord with me because I'd read a Garison Keillor advice column years ago about a man who was being driven almost to insanity, on the tenth year of his PhD, stressed out every single day and yet no longer making any progress at all. "Mr. Blue" advised him to take one day completely off, to reconnect with life and at least briefly lift the burden of his career worries.

So that's what I've done every week for about 10 months now. I kept it up all through the writing of my masters thesis, through many other scary deadlines, breaking my rule only twice that I can remember and that was when I was just getting used to it. It *is* possible, and a glorious thing.

Some saturdays end up being about rest and self-indulgence, like spending most of it catching up on some tv show, but many are about having adventures and trying new things. What I've really come to treasure is the looseness of the day. Saturdays are for serendipity and digressions, randomly running into people and spending the next 3 hours hanging out. On saturdays my theme songs are "The 59th Bridge Song" by Simon and Garfunkel and Mr. Tambourine Man: "I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to."

Today was a great example. I slept in late after going dancing last night (friday nights are the other time that I almost always take off), then wandered downtown to get my hair cut. Afterwards I strolled on Princess St, as I often do of a saturday - it's the long main street in Kingston and offers constant interest in the form of shops and people. I lunched at a deli I'd never been in before, and tried a czechoslovakian pickle recommended by the counter lady. Then I went with Jamal and Michelle for a matinee of the ridiculous, wonderful spectacle of Ghost Rider. For dinner I ate enormous amounts of sushi served in a wooden boat with Meghan and Tyson. And now I'm writing in this blog. Soon I will watch an episode of Friday Night Lights, or read my book about Baltimore homicide detectives. All these things I do because I feel like them, without the tiniest bit of guilt or having any obligation to think about work once (although it's not uncommon that I get good ideas on my day off! That loose mindset is great for creativity)

I can justify this not just for my sanity, but for productivity. The flipside is that I put in a nearly-full day of work on sunday (often getting a slightly later start). It's nice and quiet in the office, completely free of distractions. Sunday is frequently my most productive day of the week. I used to have weekends that were two days where I could never fully enjoy myself and yet got hardly anything done. Instead I have a great time on saturdays, and on sundays get more done than I used to in two days - usually more than on any other day of the week.

Give it a try!

The Importance of Alone Time

2007-02-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

Interesting advice from a cutting-edge web development company:

"When you have a long stretch when you aren't bothered, you can get in the
zone. The zone is when you are most productive. It's when you don't have
to mindshift between various tasks. It's when you aren't interrupted to
answer a question or look up something or send an email or answer an im.
The alone zone is where real progress is made.

Getting in the zone takes time. And that's why interruption is your enemy.
It's like rem sleep - you don't just go to rem sleep, you go to sleep
first and you make your way to rem. Any interruptions force you to start
over. rem is where the real sleep magic happens. The alone time zone is
where the real development magic happens.

Set up a rule at work: Make half the day alone time. From 10am-2pm, no one
can talk to one another (except during lunch). Or make the first or the
last half of the day the alone time period. Just make sure this period is
contiguous in order to avoid productivity-killing interruptions.

A successful alone time period means letting go of communication
addiction. During alone time, give up instant messenging, phone calls, and
meetings. Avoid any email thread that's going to require an immediate
response. Just shut up and get to work."

http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch07_Alone_Time.php

The Joy of Outboxes

2007-02-01T10:48:00.000-08:00

I'm going to write a longer entry about the greatness of inboxes, but
something of immediate use is an outbox: a place you can immediately put
stuff in to be taken to the office, or from the office. The important
point is that it's got to be within arms reach. At work it's a plastic
tray, at home it's one side of the top of my dresser. When I leave either
location I automatically scoop what's in my outbox into my bag.

This works for the same reason as a lot of the things I've recently
adopted: it means I can act *immediately*, even thoughtlessly, when I
think of something I have to do - instead of making a mental note, which
a) often doesn't work and b) adds to stress as I have to keep reminding
myself over and over. Goes to my outbox, goes out of my head.

Swaying To The Top

2007-01-22T14:44:00.000-08:00

"When the Bass brothers financed the first Biosphere, that earth in a
bubble out in Arizona, the trees all failed in an interesting way. All the
trees in the biosphere were droopy and lacked the strength to stand
upright. They grew, but were too weak to stand. They studied the problem
and found the answer. No wind. The Biosphere bubble lacked any wind so the
trees had nothing to make them sway. It was the swaying, pushing against
an invisible yet very palpable force, that gave them the strength to grow
upright, stand reaching up to the sky."
- reader of David Byrne's online journal

This is such a beautiful metaphor, and quoted on so many christian
websites, that I was afraid it would turn out not to be true. Not so. From
a transcript of PBS's Scientific American Frontiers:

ALAN ALDA You know what else I noticed that you don't seem to have- out in
this big open space, anyway- is wind.

BERND ZABEL That's correct.

ALAN ALDA That's a big element that's missing, isn't it?

BERND ZABEL Which causes a problem for these trees. When you look here,
these acacia trees, they have very funny forms. And what we found out
later on, that if a tree grows, to harden the tree it needs wind action.
Every time when a tree moves, it builds actually outside what is called a
stress wood.

ALAN ALDA So that strengthens the tree?

BERND ZABEL So it strengthens the tree. In our case here, the tree is
growing without any wind, without any disturbance, and it actually becomes
so top heavy that they break off.
- PBS Scientific American Frontiers

What's Your Learning Style?

2007-01-18T10:47:00.000-08:00

I had the interesting experience today of filling out the Kolb Learning
Style Inventory, homework for my university teaching course. You answer 12
questions, and it gives you a readout on where you are along four learning
style dimensions. These are Active Experimentation, Active
Experimentation, Reflective observation, and Concrete experience. From
there they show how different combinations of strengths in these areas
make up different overall learning styles.

I only half buy this stuff (mindful of the Barnum effect and the often
unearned authority of things that have numbers attached to them), but it
has been a valuable experience calculating my own score and seeing what it
can say about me - as well as the alternatives to the way I learn. I turn
out to be a highly Converging learner, because of my Active
Experimentation and Abstract Conceptualization. Especially the latter was
really high, the result of ranking highly statements such as "When I learn
I like ideas and theories" and "When I am learning I am a logical person".
(big surprise)

Somewhat disturbingly, this learning style is thought to work best in
highly technical professions like economics, engineering and computer
science. The learning style of the scientist and mathematician is more
Assimilating (Reflective observation and Abstract Conceptualization) Could
knowing this help me to become more comfortable and affective as a
scientist, by developing my more Assimilitating side?

I recommend you give this a try if you have the chance. I feel that not
only will it help me to teach people with other learning styles and
appreciate their different strengths, it's made me think about what I can
do to take advantage of these other types of learning. Interestingly, some
foreign and awkward skills I am working at these days, like socializing at
parties and lifting weights properly, are probably really working those
underdeveloped learning styles. Kolb provides a semi-helpful table of
advice for what to try to improve on each style:

For Diverging (Reflective observation and Concrete experience)
* Being sensitive to people's feelings
* Being sensitive to values
* Listening with an open mind
* Gathering information
* Imagining the implications of ambiguous situations

For Assimilating (Reflective observation and Abstract Conceptualization)
* Organizing information
* Testing theories and ideas
* Building conceptual models
* Designing experiments
* Analyzing quantitative data

For Converging (Active Experimentation-Abstract Conceptualization)
* Creating new ways of thinking and doing
* Experimenting with new ideas
* Choosing the best solution
* Setting goals
* Making decisions

For Accomodating (Concrete experience and Active Experimentation)
* Committing yourself to objectives
* Seeking new opportunities
* Influencing and leading others
* Becoming personally involved
* Dealing with people

How Much Money Do I Have? The Concept of Discretionary Income

2006-12-13T21:12:00.000-08:00

All the bright-eyed 17 to 19 year olds in the huge auditorium were asking questions like, are blue chip stocks as good an investment as they once were? and Is property a better investment in this economic climate? but I just had one simple, burning question for the money guru: how do I figure out how much money I have? Bits of money are coming in and going out at all different intervals, and it is bewildering! My rent cheque is every month, but my graduate award money comes in a big chunk in september and january. Then my TA pay is spread over 7 months. I definitely can't just look at the number in my bank account: most of it might be earmarked for a big withdrawal, for tuition say, the tuition that changes every term!

He looked a little impatient, but spat out the following great advice: pick some span of time for which your big expenses and earnings are fairly predictable. Could be the next 12 months, 6 months, or in my case 8 months. Add up your earnings over that period, and then subtract your fixed expenses. Then divide by however many months. That's your discretionary income! That's the money you make a conscious decision how to spend each month.

In my first calculation, I included for expenses my tuition, and rent (which in my case includes utilities, phone bill and internet), but also a few other expenses I knew were fixed: my regular laundry bill, my zip.ca membership, and a monthly grocery budget, which I estimated by looking at the last year of interac payments to grocery stores. I just tonight made a second version of this discretionary income, adding in my B.C. Provincial Health care payment, an estimate of how much I spend on photo developing and stationery every month, my fancy new haircut expenses, my cellphone, and my allergy medication. I put it all into a microsoft excel spreadsheet, so that I can see the calculations laid out, and so that if any of the numbers change I can easily recalculate. (one tip: if something goes over say 5 weeks, like my haircut, just divide by 5 and multiply by the average weeks in a month, which is 4.34)

Now I've got a number, my discretionary income for the month. This is great, because it makes possible again all the good financial concepts you had when you were a kid, with just a piggy bank: saving up for things, waiting for your allowance, not being able to afford things, giving up something so you can buy something else. (one way to see just how much something will set you back is to look at it in terms of percentage of your discretionary income, and compare it to other things. Can be surprising!). And then, if you decide to chop off a bit more to save for the long term (what do they recommend? 10%? 20%?), and maybe an emergency fund, you can feel totally free to spend *all* of what is left.

Though you probably learn this in the first day of Accounting 101, it was a big revelation for me: not only does this mean more confidence when I pull out my wallet, but I probably will actually spend more - or at least splurge, and economize, on the right things, knowing where it counts. (hey why not spend the extra dough for the *good* jam - 0.1% of my discretionary income is not going to kill me!)

In a future entry I'll talk about the way I use my PDA to conveniently track basically everything I spend, and some nerdy but neat and useful things you can do with that.

How Important Is Networking?

2006-11-12T15:48:00.000-08:00

Here's a bit from an interview with the lead special effects artist on
Angel, about getting established in a competitive field like his:

WWFF -
How important is networking?

AH -
The two things you have to do in LA, boiled down, are, 1. work on your
thing, and 2. build relationships. You have to know when to shut the door
and get some time on the clock building your skills. That.s why you.re
here, so, get something done. Don.t party everyday, unless you already
have the career you want. But then, you also have to know when to go out
and drink (or not drink) with people. You have to build relationships with
people you.re going to work with. Go to all film wrap parties. A film wrap
party is not so much about hooking up with the wardrobe girl as it is
about having a little fun with each crewperson. You.re kind of saying,
.hey, I liked what you did on this movie, lets work together again some
time.. You have to become a face in the film community, even if just in
one small circle. And if you can, you should constantly try to hook other
people up with jobs. Do a little bit of that and now you have a family.
Going out to parties and bars has gotten me jobs, gotten me into doors to
pitch movies, gotten my screenplay to a high profile Hollywood agent (even
though he didn.t like it, my vodka-aided pitch in the corner of the bar
got him to read it within a day, which is almost unheard of). I suppose
the same could be said of golf courses.

One Approach To Version Numbers

2006-10-14T13:48:00.000-07:00

Make the whole numbers the "official releases": the ones that are good enough for official-type people (in the case of my thesis, my advisor or my thesis committee members) to read. Or, if it's a sofware package you're working on, to try out. The decimals in between, associate with preplanned milestones. So for example, here are some actual version numbers I planned out for my thesis
(after version 1, which my advisor Niko and others read):

Draft 1.4 First pass, incorporating the major points of comment
1.5 textually complete, but without all the final checks on the
text, and not the refs. Incorporates Niko, Jim & Anna's comments.
1.8 Formatted according to apa and everything, but has not had a final
readthrough by me for spelling etc
1.9 Try to get other people to proofread

And then version 2 went to my committee. Once a copy of the file you're
working on has met the milestone criteria, save it with the filename of
the next version along, so "Thesis draft 1p5" is the file for draft 1.5
*in progress*. For supersmall changes, fixes etc that are not planned,
you could maybe use the next decimal: 1.9.1 has a disastrous typo fixed,
etc.

Then, and this is important, you save that list of the version numbers and
what they mean, either on your computer or in your paper filing system.

Two points:
This is mostly for handling linear versioning for one person, not those
complicated cases where you want to branch off in two different
directions. So you can go back to earlier versions, but you can't work on
two alternate versions in parallel. We had extremely complex commercial
software packages at Amazon.com just to handle those kind of cases -
especially the difficulty of putting two alternate versions back together.

And if you just need linear versioning, Word now has a feature that can
let you save all those versions into a single file. Go to File ->
versions... and you can see how it works. For that there would probably be
no point to having version numbers. But I'm not sure if I entirely trust
that file format.

The Zillion Folder Filing System

2006-10-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

"I bought a donut and they gave me a receipt for the donut... I can't imagine a scenario in which I would need to prove that I bought a donut. "Listen, skeptical friend, don’t even act like I didn't buy a donut, I've got the documentation right here. Oh wait, it's back home in the file... under 'D', for donut."
- Mitch Hedberg

(you might want to peek at the Prelude to the Zillion Folder Filing System for some accompanying illustrations)

It doesn't sound like it would work - but I've been using it for 8 months, and so far, it totally does. And having a filing system that really works, that you actually *use*, makes an incredible difference. Imagine never losing a scrap of paper, very important or not so important, lists, plans, instructions, previous work. Imagine being able to instantly pull up every single piece of paper associated with a particular project and have it on your lap.

I think what inhibited me in developing an organizational system was the feeling that I should have a clever, detailed hierarchy set up that would anticipate my every need. What are the major divisions of your life? Now how can you subdivide those? You could spend a lot of time trying to figure that out. Then a piece of paper comes along that doesn't fit into one of the categories, so you don't file it, or stick it somewhere it doesn't really belong, and bingo, your system is broken, like most people's.

So this is one that actually works for me. I got it from Getting Things Done by David Allen, and have named it the Zillion Folder Filing System. There's no point in repeating it all, so I'll just give the skeleton and my experiencce with it. What you absolutely need to make it work:

* A filing cabinet with drawers that slide open and closed smoothly, even when heavily loaded
* The metal thingy that goes in those drawers to help file folders stand up. Sometimes found at the very back. (mine was in pieces, so it was a great victory when I figured out how all the spring and all the bits of metal went together)
* A zillion ordinary manila folders (in practice I think I bought 200 - the point is that they should feel very plentiful)
* A labeller, and at least one extra roll of tape for it. (I bought a Dymo Letra Tag, about $30, and it's worked great for me)

How to do it:
1. Place all of these items within sitting-down, arms reach of your desk
2. When you have a piece of paper you want to save for future reference, put it into an existing folder, or grab a manila folder and make a label for it.
3. Stick that folder into the drawer in *alphabetical order*

That's basically all there is to it. Occasionally there might be a topic that really demands subfolders. In that case, just put the heading then a dash then the subheading. Like for my teaching assistanceship, I have "Psyc 380 - Handouts" and "Psyc 380 - Marking". You should feel totally ok with putting a single piece of paper in its own folder. Definitely every distinct project you start should have its own folder.

So you probably have lots of objections coming to mind. This is an extremely *dumb* system. But that's why it works: by not having to deal with a fancy system when you want to file something, you actually *use* it. (plus using the labeller is *fun* - I wouldn't even bother trying this out without buying a labeller) There have been cases where I couldn't remember what the name of the project was that I filed it under, but those are surprisingly rare. Generally I can go directly to the one I need. The alphabetical system means that you can usually aim for the right spatial location. It also happens once in a while that I make a folder where one already exists, but that's not too big of a deal either.

You still might feel like it will be overwhelming. To give you an idea about how it scales up, I have at least 150 folders in my drawer at the moment, almost all being the top level of a hierarchy. The whole system is about a foot and a half in thickness. Sometimes I have to adjust the slidy thing if they get too tight, but in general I can pull folders out and drop them in with ease, as well as sticking in pieces of paper and flipping the titles to find one.

Some examples of folders I have in my office reference system:
* Business cards
* Passport (this just contains my passport!)
* School admin (eg registration forms)
* Taxes 2006 (every time I got a piece of paper for my taxes, I stuck it in here. This year I finished my taxes 3 days early - instead of 2 months late like last year)
* Thesis (at least 20 subfolders under this heading, such as "Draft 2" "Planning", "Results", etc)
* Medical receipts
* Advisor meeting notes

I was so inspired by how well this worked that I adopted Zillion Folder Filing in lots of other places. I have another paper one at home, in one of those standup plastic frames which used to hold my ineffective six hanging files. It includes categories like Gift Certificates, Warranties, Menus, Manuals, Landlord and Poems. I use the system for my email - navigating a zillion folders is even faster and makes more sense in an electronic system. I have 81 email folders, and it's absolutely no problem. I use it on my harddrive at home (55 folders) and at work, and to organize all my internet bookmarks. Sometimes in an electronic context it makes more sense to organize things into subfolders. But I generally do this just when the folders for some area are getting very numerous. It just makes it less easy and fun to file something if you have to dig around in an elaborate hierarchy for where it belongs, and that means you won't file.

Again it's hard to overstate the impact consistent filing has had on how I work. To pick just one aspect, if I scrawl some plans or a diagram of something for a project, on the back of an envelope say, it's still amazing to me that I'm able to instantly retrieve it two months later, when I've nearly forgotten it existed - and start from *there* rather than from scratch again. Gradually I'm coming to trust my filing system, and I'm only beginning to see the power of that.

As a final note, Zillion Folder Filing might be helpful on its own, but it is made to work with two other David Allen concepts which I live by and plan to post about: having an In box, and doing a weekly review. If you try it, first of all post a comment, and second if it works, you should probably buy the David Allen book for all the other good stuff in there.

No I don't have a file for "Donut" - but I do know just where it would go.

Some Rules and Hints for Teachers and Students

2006-09-27T08:24:00.000-07:00

Some Rules and Hints for Teachers and Students
----------------------------------------------
By Corita Kent

cf. The Next Whole Earth Catalog, ed. by Stewart Brand (Point/Random
House, 1980), p. 540

Rule 1: Find a place you trust and then, try trusting it for a while.

Rule 2: General duties of a student---pull everything out of your
teachers; pull everything out of your fellow students.

Rule 3: General duties of a teacher---pull everything out of your
students.

Rule 4: Consider everything an experiment.

Rule 5: Be self-disciplined---this means finding someone wise or smart and
choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way.
To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.

Rule 6: Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail, there's only
make.

Rule 7: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something.
It's the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually
catch on to things.

Rule 8: Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're
different processes.

Rule 9: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's
lighter than you think.

Rule 10: "We're breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do
we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities." -- John Cage

Hints: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to
classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies
carefully, often. Save everything---it might come in handy later.

(found this on the net attributed in whole to John Cage, have not verified
the Kent attribution at the top - or the fidelity of this text to it - but
it seems relatively convincing since it has a page number. In any case
thought these were worthy of pondering and discussion. Some parts I find
vague or don't make sense to me, but I particularly liked the hints and
rules 7 and 8)

How To Run A Brainstormer

2006-09-23T21:53:00.000-07:00

"The best way to have good ideas is to have a lot of ideas."
- Linus Pauling

I ran my first brainstormer this past august in the lab where I am doing
my graduate studies, the biomotion lab. Our supervisor, Niko, was going to
be away for a month, so I thought it was a good opportunity for us to take
charge a bit and think of ways we could be doing things differently around
the lab.

I was inspired by a neat book, The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley, about
an incredibly creative design company called IDEO, who were behind eg the
original apple mouse, the Palm V, the TiVo, and many other product
designs. Once they developed a radical new shopping cart prototype in 5
days for a Nightline challenge. Anyway they use brainstormers, as they
call them, as an integral part of their day-to-day process.

Here are the guidelines I used to run our brainstormer, mostly derived
from ideas in that chapter (though they don't lay it out like this):

BEFORE

* Having the boss gone really helps. The book actually recommends sending
him or her out for snacks, I'm not sure for the whole thing or just while
you're getting started. But the point is to try to set up an atmosphere
where people don't feel they are getting judged on the quality of the
ideas they shout out.
* Choose the room. With a table to write on and walls to stick stuff to,
but ideally kind of cramped - I think that helps the creative energy.
* Bring in toys: prototypes, diagrams, anything remotely relevant to
the subject that could spark ideas. All I could think of was a
crude floorplan I drew to help us think about possible alternative
space arrangements
* Figure out a clear statement of the purpose of the brainstormer. Should
be focused, but without presupposing what kind of solutions there will be.
I chose "How can we make the lab work better?"
* Prepare the room. I put big pieces of paper on every wall and spread them out across the desk, with tons of
felt pens around. The idea being people can sketch away to work on and
show their ideas.
* Write up your purpose statement at the top of one of the sheets of
paper, and then put up any rules or slogans you want people to keep in
mind. I wrote up "QUANTITY NOT QUALITY" - somewhat tongue in cheek, but I
thought that's what we as a group needed to hear to get uninhibited.

DURING

I acted as the facilitator to the session. My job was to stand up at
the front and write down on a big piece of paper every single idea that
anyone said, and to keep up the energy and focus of the session, by
asking questions, encouraging elaboration, etc. Here's
what I followed:

* Announce a strict time limit, and a goal for the number of items. We
went with 40 minutes (you probably don't want to go over an hour), and a
goal of 50 ideas.
* Number the items as you put them up.
* Have the rule no discussion allowed, and especially no criticism,
thinking of the problems with a suggestion. I had to stifle this a few
times.
* Encourage silly and extreme. As long as the purpose is up there and the
pacing is kept up, I think joking around is really good for creativity
(the book has a couple of examples of creative solutions that started off
as jokes). I made sure to write up all the silly suggestions too ("A
wading pool")
* Don't worry about repetition or overlap. Write them all down as their
own item.
* Ask questions and solicit contributions based on the concept of "build
and jump". This is a bit tricky to explain, but felt totally
natural to do. You encourage more and more ideas in a particular
vein ("ok lets hear some more ideas about what we could be doing with the
space layout"), until they start to peter out. Then jump to a different
area, either a totally new one or an area you were exploring earlier. It
works well to physically go back to that area in the list - spacial
memory.

So there are a few things to keep in mind as the facilitator, but it was
really easy, I'm pretty sure any member of the group could have done the
job just as well.

It felt like a success, in fact it felt electric. The actual count of
ideas after the 40 minutes: 53. Everyone contributed some, including
people who almost never speak up during lab meetings. We found out about
people's problems or preferences that we would never have known about, and
came up with creative solutions to them. Out of the 53, at least 10 were
great ideas for improving lab workings, or at least the beginnings of them
- and those are 10 great ideas we might never have come up with otherwise.

AFTER

This is the part where there's more I have to think about: what's the next
step after a brainstormer? Anyway here's what we did. We left the 53 ideas
up in that meeting room for a week or two, and some people added more
ideas to the list, at least 10-15. I moved one of the sheets into where we
have our lunch, and we ended up chatting about it a bit while eating for a
few days. At the next lab meeting we went through and mined it for 5
projects that seemed easy and valuable, and 1 or 2 people volunteered to
lead each of them. Eventually I took down the sheets and consolidated them
into a best-of list with repetitions taken out that I put on our wiki (the
subject of a future blog entry)

The best measure of the success of this session: as of now, three of those
projects have been accomplished. About 3 more are still moving forward
actively. And we've all got a little bit more into the mindset of, "what
could be different? how can we make things work better?"

I hope you will try running a brainstormer yourself someday, in your lab
or office, and that you'll tell me how it goes. As long as you define a
fairly specific objective statement, it could be used for a huge range of
purposes. I predict you'll find your group as a collective is far more
creative and good at solving problems than you ever imagined.

Prelude to the Zillion Folder Filing System

2006-09-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

I'm going to write a post soon about the wonderful, lifechanging filing philosophy I think of as Zillion Folder Filing, but before I get to that I wanted to show this picture of Jim Davies' implementation of the same system, derived like mine from David Allen's Getting Things Done. This is his filing drawer for life in general, and below is a picture of his drawer for scientific papers, in his new system where each author gets their own folder.

Some Web Essays For Grad Students

2006-09-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

From Nature, a bunch of substantial essays with hints for graduate
students in science and graduate supervisors, including time management
and collaboration. Probably good ideas in there for people in other lines
of work as well.

http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/magazine/editors-choice.html

They also have an article that links to this terrific document "Guide for
PhD students (and post-docs) aiming for a successful career in science" by
people at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research:

http://www.qimr.edu.au/research/labs/georgiat/Guideforphds.doc

"Doing a PhD should be fun, rewarding and be seen as a privilege. It's
the only time in your life that you can spend 100% of your working time
learning to do research, finding out new things, having freedom to pursue
new areas and getting paid for it, without any administrative or other
responsibilities. Those who stick it out do so because, despite the
relatively poor pay, long hours and lack of security, it is all we want to
do because of the intellectual satisfaction it brings, the excitement of
discovery, the freedom to make your own work schedule, the opportunities
for travel, the pleasure of being in an international community of
like-minded people and (for some people) the possibility that we might
actually help the human condition!"

8 Tricks I Learned about screenwriting

2006-09-05T09:33:00.000-07:00

From this guy, http://jamesgunn.com, who wrote Slither. I don't want to be
a screenwriter, but it's writing and it's very hard, so I still found
some inspiration in this:

"Remember, these are 8 TRICKS, not 8 RULES. I believe each of these gives
a person a greater chance at becoming a successful screenwriter. But NONE
of them are NECESSARY to becoming a screenwriter (although the last one
comes pretty close.) Here goes:

1) Write at least 3 hours a day 6 days a week.

2) Move to Los Angeles. Of if you can't do L.A., move to New York.

3) Spell check, of course, but also make a pass checking for "its" and
"it's", "their" and "there," "your" and "you're", and so on.

4) Don't even think about trying to get an agent until you have completed
your best possible work.

5) Don't blame others for your failures as a screenwriter. By assessing
your own responsibilities, and learning from your failures, you
supercharge yourself and become unstoppable!! (NOTE: it's good to read
this trick out loud and pump your fist up in the air while doing so).

6) Got friends who like to cut you down and tell you "this isn't possible"
and "that can't be done"? Lose 'em.

7) On the flipside, have 3 good objective readers, who are very honest,
even harsh, and who have your best interests at heart. (Mary Harron agreed
with this trick, but added that you should make sure the objective readers
at least somewhat share your tastes -- that is, they have the same goals
you do).

8) FINISH WHAT YOU START. Are you doubting what you write? Are you
starting to think it's crap? Good! That's a part of being a writer! We are
doubting, tortured, angst-filled souls, and all it takes to be a writer is
to write in the face of that!! "

Can you call on doozer power?

2006-09-03T17:56:00.000-07:00

The Doozers are a race of beings in Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock universe. They are green and about six inches tall, and wear little yellow hardhats. Unlike the Fraggles, who play all day, the doozers are seen labouring to build elaborate structures made out of glass sticks. They stay in the background of the show much of the time, so it's neat when you occasionally get a glimpse into their highly structured society. In one episode, we see the doozer community coming together for the ceremony wherein young doozers receive their helmets, initiating them into adulthood. It's also an occasion for reaffirming the basic values of doozer life. I think it's beautiful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=262kfAoZmog

(I love the doozer moms in their working class sunday-best hats) The song they all sing takes the form of a call and answer, of all the things that a doozer does, and one verse goes:

Can you build a doozer tower? (Yes we really can)
Can you call on doozer power? (Yes we really can)

That part struck me when I heard it again recently, as I'm finishing my thesis. What is doozer power? I imagine it as an ability to work hard, but joyfully, and with purpose. To work as though that's what you were made to do. You just have to watch these cheerful little guys are, marching along with their work crews, or sitting in tiny construction equipment moving things into place with great satisfaction. Even though their constructions will quickly be eaten by fraggles ("Ah it does my heart good to see architecture being enjoyed" says one doozer watching a fraggle chow down) they take enormous pride in it.

Another great doozer song has the lines, "Every day the world is new, there's dreams to pay attention to, and building is the surest way we know (two three four)" Maybe "calling on doozer power" is what you do when you feel your will or inspiration flagging, to give you that extra juice, reminding you of what you're about: dreaming things up and then making them real by planning, cooperating, and building, constantly building.

--

Jim has a different, and as usual interesting take on doozer power: maybe it's the power of the doozer community, the aid that you can call upon if you really need it. That's an inspiring thought too.

An MSN Discussion About Jim Davies' Lit Search Process

2006-08-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

Had this conversation the other day, thought it was worth sharing:

Daniel S says:
How do you attack a lit search on a totally new area?
Do you start a new notebook?
JimDavies says:
I don't use paper. I start a new lit review file in my lit review directory
lit-reviews/face-to-face-human.txt
Daniel S says:
What goes in there?
JimDavies says:
SaundersDaviesHaighMaitee2006: Shows that 20% of discussion is talking about girls
referencing the pdf in my articles directory and the paper in my files
Daniel S says:
So a blurb about each paper you "process"
JimDavies says:
yes, and perhaps the sentence you'd cite it in
put the paper in multiple lit review files to handle crossreferencing
Daniel S says:
Nice. So what constitutes an individual review? Like on some question or subject area?
JimDavies says:
you mean a text file?
Daniel S says:
Yes
JimDavies says:
a subject area. I don' thave a systematic way to decide the granularity.
Daniel S says:
Do you organize under subheadings within a file?
JimDavies says:
no. visual.txt, visual-analogy.txt, analogy.txt
flat file system, not subdivisions within a file
I have too many refs to keep track of indentation and subdivision within a file
The articles do not even have an order in a file
Daniel S says:
Ok, so you use it as a bin and go for smaller order insertion time versus extraction time (which is still very fast I'm sure)
JimDavies says:
I follow the stub with an R if read, and S if summarized on my website
Daniel S says:
Oh ok so you don't have separate lists for "to read" vs "have read" or "not sure if I want to read"
JimDavies says:
no. it's just so if I want all papers relevant, I know where to go
Daniel S says:
So if you look into something and it isn't relevant you might take it out. It's just a big heap of papers etc. related to the topic, some read, some not etc
JimDavies says:
yes but if the paper is in my articles computer directory or in paper form in my file,it must be in at least one review document, so it's not lost. They are the index to the paper file system. I can grep on the directory to find papers. grep -i saunders *
Daniel S says:
So the heap has threads leading out of it to the real active papers
Daniel S says:
What about books? How do you read books in a big lit review?
JimDavies says:
Saunders2007: RS proved a theory of everything
if it's just a chapter, I note it as such
but I will put books in there without having read them if I'm pretty sure they're relevant