Simplifying Life and Getting More Done

This won’t turn into an annoying journal. I will probably regret posting this even. But I’ve grown annoyed with my inefficiency and clutter. I thought maybe if I typed out my plans I’d be more likely to follow them, and if I posted them it would cause people (like Kevin) to claim I won’t follow them. Giving me motivation to prove them wrong!

1. Become an early riser: Yes, some probably think I am an early riser already; however, I am not satisfied. Many days of the week I am up at 6am but there are too many days I sleep in till 7am or even 8am! I also think 6am is too late now. I plan to start with a more consistent schedule of 6am and then improve from there. This was easier when I could use the paper, which would show up at 6, as a “reward” of early rising. I’d be able to relax with a cup of coffee and read through it before having to start on work, impossible if I wasn’t up early enough. With the paper coming even less often than it did before, I had to cancel it because of how rare it showed up, I’ve started slipping more. So, I need to develop new “rewards” for the morning. Maybe actually walking to get the paper in the morning, helping with number 7 as well.
2. Read less useful and useless news: Working from my computer all day means I switch over to Firefox and start clicking through news sites too often. I must get on a schedule of reading morning news and reading evening news, nothing in between.
3. Remove clutter: Not only is clutter distracting, useless and at times a time suck, it also pisses me off (yes, its far worse than just anger or annoyance). Some times I just want to toss everything I own out the window… I’ve done well to restrict my workspace down to a few things (keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers and coffee warmer; goodbye stapler and pen holder) but the rest of the apartment needs the same attention. Which means getting rid of clothes I won’t wear, books I’ll never reread, games I barely play, DVDs I don’t watch, papers I won’t reread, take out menus I’ll never use, etc, etc! Its crazy how much builds up. I think I do a decent job of not purchasing useless junk, DVDs, games, clothes and snacks (I try to keep food down to only “necessities”), but when I do get those things, one way or another, they never go away. That will be stopped. Additionally, I’ve unsubscribed from most mailing lists in an attempt to declutter my Inbox.
4. Furniture: I have a fairly minimal setup, just a mattress for a bed, no chest of drawers and a table instead of a desk. But not good enough! Maybe I’ll get rid of the table and chairs in the living room I’ve been left with or the computer chair that won’t be used anymore. I’ll figure something out. But if any of you Chicago GLUG people want either of those, let me know.
5. Monotask: I’ve tried to convince myself that multitasking and using switching to a different task as almost like a break from the current one is a good way of getting things done. Now I plan to completely change that in an attempt to be more efficient and less stressed. My hope is that focusing on a single task allows for the best possible work on that task, instead of having my mind have to reload what I was working on when I switch back.
6. Slow down: This will probably be my toughest, but be really good for stress and quality of work. I’d at least like to not start back on work while still finishing my last bite of a meal, working while eating or always cooking and eating in just a few minutes. Obviously these are dependent on how soon my current task is due.
7. Exercise: Nothing extreme here. Its not about getting strong or even my health. Exercise is suppose to help with early rising and reducing stress. Like the rest of the tasks, I’ll start this off slowly.
8. Schedule: I already have useless schedules. Maybe they aren’t schedules, but ask someone who’s lived with me what happens if I have to do my morning tasks (or any really) out of order :). Now I will start adding useful tasks to my morning schedule, as well as my daily work schedule, in hopes of not procrastinating or flat our skipping them. Additionally, having a pseudo night schedule, getting everything cleaned up and washed before bed and such, so that when I wake up I won’t dread what awaits me.

Collective Caml Intelligence

I wanted to finally really learn OCaml and couldn’t think of a project to start. So, I’ve begun implementing the code in Programming Collective Intelligence, originally in Python, in OCaml. I’ll save my initial complaints about OCaml till later, since they may go away once I become more accustomed to it, but there are definitely things I miss from Erlang and Haskell.

Below is the first code for making recommendations, Chapter 2. Its very simple but will be built off of in my next posts.

let sim_distance critics critic_1 critic_2 =
  let movies_1 = Hashtbl.find critics critic_1 in
    let movies_2 = Hashtbl.find critics critic_2 in
      let add_squares movie rank_1 sum =
        if Hashtbl.mem movies_2 movie then
          let rank_2 = Hashtbl.find movies_2 movie in
            sum +. ((rank_1 -. rank_2) ** 2.)
          else
            sum
      in (1. /. (1. +. Hashtbl.fold add_squares movies_1 0.)) ;;

let create_hash list =
  let hash = Hashtbl.create 1 in
    let rec create_hash_rec list = match list with
        []               -> hash
      | (key, value)::xs -> Hashtbl.add hash key value ; create_hash_rec xs
    in create_hash_rec list;;

let test =
  let critics =
    create_hash [("Lisa Rose", (create_hash [("Lady in the Water", 2.5) ;
                                             ("Snakes on a Plane", 3.5)])) ;
                 ("Gene Seymour", (create_hash [("Lady in the Water", 3.0)]))]
  in sim_distance critics "Lisa Rose" "Gene Seymour" ;;

This code creates a hash with keys being the name of a movie critic and the value is another Hash containing names of movies and the score the critic gave the movie. The sim_distance function finds the similarity between two reviewers, when the test is run it return 0.8 for the similarity between Lisa and Gene. I’ll go into how similarities work later.

My main problem with the code is its not purely functional. I originally implemented it with lists but wanted the running time to be the same as the Python code, requiring a hash for O(1) lookups and, sadly, destructive data structures. Luckily, this gives me a reason to play around more with Purely Functional Data Structures. Meaning, I’ll probably get caught up implementing data structures for this very basic first part of Collective Intelligence…

As I said, I don’t know OCaml, so this is probably not the best code but it works. Suggestions would be great.

Over Consuming and Underpaid

Who would have thought that an economy based on overspending wouldn’t work forever? Who would have thought that a society where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class either stays stagnant or gets poorer wouldn’t work?

After the great progressive boon in the early to mid 1900’s the United States took a drastic turn for the worse. The levels of inequality are offensive and the middle class falling is inexcusable. And the only half assed solution that can be provided to stimulate the economy is to expect those overspent and underpaid workers to do the same thing again and again. People are not spending like they used to because they can NOT, they see a bleak future and know to save. Which means they will not go out and spend this stimulus package at a whim.

There is no doubt that this is NOT a turn towards a complete downfall of our economy. We can dance on needles for decades. But things are going to have to change. People are going to have to accept living within their means and wages are going to have to FINALLY go up. Businesses are going to have to start accepting an economy based on selling any random shiny crap by convincing people how much they want it will not last! The rich must be taxed more. The government must also live within its means. This ridiculous military spending and selling itself to foreign powers must stop.

I hear Obama talking about “change” alot. Maybe he has mentioned these simple things and I haven’t heard them. If not, he better start.

Gravmas Ale

The Gravmas Ale has been bottled! Came out with a 1.014 final gravity, with a 1.075 original gravity that gives it a ~7.8% abv. Can’t wait to try one in the beginning of March. Tasting the non-carbonated beer it tasted really good but the amount of spices may be less than I would have liked. Next time around I’ll definitely be throwing in more.

For my next brew I’m thinking Szechwan Porter. Not sure what extra I’ll put in it, probably just ginger, dried peppers and peppercorn. Suggestions? And really, don’t we need a nice dark beer that will go well with our Chinese food?

Guns continued…

This should probably be the last post on this matter. Could go on forever with Tim. And I’m sure The Manchicken will fly in at some point. This is a hard debate with facts supporting both sides (not referring to readings of the constitution, but murders and availability of guns) and this forum just doesn’t work well for it. Don’t worry, I’ll have more annoying posts about other issues as I continue to listen to Patriot radio in Diginux’s car…

Another question. Think about all the large shootings you’ve heard about in the past. Now, how many of those were done with illegally purchased guns? I’m sure there were a few, but to my knowledge, almost none. So, this notion that these people would have definitely decided to go on their rampage despite not having readily available legal firearms is bullshit.

Will illegal firearms be available forever, yes. We can only hope to make legal and illegal firearms harder and harder to get. Everyone owning a gun makes absolutely no sense. We have troops coming back from Iraq and owning dozens of guns, snapping and shooting. There have been hundreds of deaths due to this. I’m sure some of them would still find a way to get a gun illegally, but most carry weapons because they can and because its the thing to do for protection.

And personally I don’t care much for what the wording, or even what it says, in the constitution, about anything. I know we have amendments to keep it up to date, but the fact is, the document was written 200 years ago, a very different time. Its nice when it seems to agree with me, but in the end its just a document. All the constitutionalists just seem silly to me.

And, although it really has nothing to do with your point or mine (referring to comments to my past post), the constitution didn’t protect everyones rights. I’d put a after that… but just seems wrong.

Gun Control

Quick question. Man enters a public area with the intent of killing as many as he can. What will result in the most damage, man with gun, man with knife or man with bare hands? Tough question isn’t it… No wait, it isn’t at all. The gun lovers would like you to think it is. ‘A person with murderous intent can just use his bare hands’. I’ve never tried this but I can guess it is far more difficult.

No one could ever think that gun control could stop all murders. But, I have no idea how the pro-gun groups can think this is some win for them pointing this out.

Now, the 2nd Amendment. The one that the pro-gun nuts can’t properly read. First off, the damn thing is not that old! I find it very sad that it could be wrapped in so much mystery. Though sadly it had changes even when it was written and the dreaded comma placement is at the root of the argument. Problem is, back then they threw commas around like pieces of meat!

The fact that militias are protected by the federal government does not mean that you can carry (or even own) a firearm where ever you damn well please. A nice editorial on the phrasing of the amendment can be found here.

Racist Remarks: Does Ron Paul Know or Not?

Everyone knows Ron Paul supporters want this to die and they think this is just an attack from “big media” and liberals. Too bad if it is. Other candidates have to deal with it, too.

So, I’m trying to piece together how Paul could have fired the person who wrote the racist comments, as stated here, “They were instead ghostwritten by someone in his campaign, who he would go on to fire because of it”. But on CNN he and his campaign claim they have no idea who wrote the racist comments, video here. ” PAUL: I have no idea. Have you ever heard a publisher of a magazine not knowing every single thing?” There are many cases of Paul supporters claiming he fired the person for the racist comments as comments to blog posts regarding the racist newsletters.

What is really going on? Are Paul’s supporters lying or is he lying?

Gravmas Ale

I took the Northern Brewer’s New Old Ale kit and added spices to make my Gravmas Ale.

Crushed Grains:

• 0.5 lbs. Simpsons Dark Crystal
• 0.5 lbs. Golden Naked Oats

Fermentables:

• 2 lb. Golden Light DME (boil for 60 min.)
• 6 lbs. Gold Malt Syrup (boil for 15 min.)
• 1 lbs. Dark Candi Sugar (end of boil)

Hops:

• 0.75 oz. Target (60 min)
• 0.25 oz. Target (15 min)

Spices

• 1/8tsp ground allspice
• Dash of ground cinnamon, and small piece of cinnamon stick
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground Ginger

Yeast:

• Wyeast #1084 Irish Ale Yeast

I’ve never worked with spices before, so hopefully this turns out well. Should be interesting with the spices and the Belgian candi. It is currently in secondary and will be bottled in a week.

Tilda 0.9.5 Released

A new version of Tilda has been set out into the wild yesterday, version 0.9.5. The source can be downloaded here, or wait for your distro to include it.

Plenty of new features and bug fixes for this release:

• Tabs now loop to beginning/end for next/prev
  
• Better animation support
  
• major code reorganization
• Make WWW links Ctrl+Left Click to open in a web browser
• Remove old configuration conversion script
• Updated documentation
• Use glade to generate the config wizard
• Fixed clear/reset issue
• Switched to Gnome shortcut keys
• Fixed background scrolling bug
• Gettextize for translations
• Added true transparency
• Made scrollbar off by default
  
• Fixed another bug in getting the new lock file (Thanks Wilberding)
• Removed resize/move from hide when animation is turned off. This will fix the closing of certain program (i.e. nano) when Tilda is hidden
• To keep Tilda open on ‘exit’ set Preferences->Title and Command->When Command Exits to “Hold the Terminal Open”
  

Philly Cheesesteaks

Need to get more people in the Chicago GLUG to share not only brewing and coding experiences, but cooking as well! Manchicken got us started. So, here is how I threw together some amazing cheesesteaks. A must try!

• Ribeye (about 1/4 lb per sandwich)
• Onion
• Green Pepper
• Cheese Whiz
• French Roll
• Oil

Freeze the ribeye for a few hours. Dice the onion and green pepper and cook in pan with oil until soft. While those are cooking cut the ribeye into thin strips. Also, warm the Cheese Whiz during this time. I just use a large pot with water in it and a small pot with the Cheese Whiz set in the water, on medium heat. Once done, remove the onions and green peppers from the pan and add the ribeye to the pan on medium high heat, use lots of oil if you want it really greasy.  Once the steak is brown on both sides, add the onion and pepper back and mix it up good. Warm the French Roll if you so choose, I heat it for a short time just to warm it up but not brown it. Spread the Cheese Whiz onto the roll, flop on the steak, onion and peppers and squash the beauty together to soak the bread in grease and Whiz.

I must say they turn out amazing, but a little tough on the heart. I don’t see any reason to go out for a Cheesesteak anymore. I can save money and experiment with different ingredients at home :).

I assume it turns out just as good for any cheese you choose. If its sliced cheese just place it on top of the meat when you add the onion and pepper back in, so it melts in nicely.