Thinking of...

I believe one of the marks of a good book is that one thinks about it often in the weeks, even months, after reading it. This evidences the sticking power of a good idea—or a good writing style.

For me, a recurrent books is Strunk and White's Elements of Style. This combines both of the above-mentioned attributes, being a good idea about good writing style.javascript:void(0)

For the past few weeks, I haven't been able to get through so much as a chapter of anything without thinking of Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach. Maybe it's that the ideas presented are so fundamental to the world in which we live, or maybe his astounding use of language just tickles my fancy, but either way, it keeps coming back to me.

But not all "sticky" books hail from so lofty a class. A Void has stuck in my mind, too, but only owing to its putting my brain into such a condition that on thinking a thought, I find my subconscious dutifully figuring out if this thought contains any of a particular symbol (the fifth in our ABC's, if you must know).

Give me a sticky book any day!

Goal of the month: NetWorker

At work, I use the Internet. All the time. Above the local network stuff (HR, internal memos, and the like), I am constantly doing research about various items in my work life.

However, the Internet is also quite the distraction. Yes, I can get sucked into Slashdot and lose an hour. But also in more insidious ways. For example, checking my e-mail. It's great to stay on top of things, but nervously checking it every five minutes is not helpful to my work flow. (Yes, I have been known to do this, mostly when expecting confirmation or a reply.)

Anyway, this month my goal is to get more productivity out of my Internet time (or around my Internet time). Specifically, my resolutions come in two forms: a prohibition and several limits.

Prohibition: No idle browsing

That means no clicking onto Slashdot because I'm bored. If I'm bored, there's probably a reason, and the reason is probably that I am avoiding doing something.

This also includes Slickdeals and other deal sites, which can be real time-sinks for me as I peruse the deals and think about them. To help with this tendency, I've created a custom RSS feed (using Yahoo's Pipes) to go through all the deal sites I could find and filter out the mess, to return just the things I'm looking for. It's worked well so far (I've found one or two pertinent things and ignored countless "deals" that wouldn't be deals to me.)

Daily limits

My feed reader: 1x. I use RSS to catch up with my favorite websites, and to put reading material on my Palm for later perusal. However, checking my feed reader more than once a day is wasteful. Indeed, an RSS reader functions as an aggregator, so I don't have to check multiple places for information. What I'm planning now is a similar aggregation, only across time: checking just once a day will still get me all the information.

E-mail: 5x. I will check both my personal and business mail only five times daily, maximum. Tentatively, these five times will be allotted as follows:
* once in the morning, after I arrive to my office
* once just after lunch
* once before leaving work
* two discretionary times
This should free me up to do more work with fewer interruptions.

What to do instead

With all the time freed up by not browsing idly and aggregating tasks across time, what should I do? My focus is going to be on my to-do list. That is, not things that pop into my head on their own, but things that have "made the cut" and are already on my list. This should help me filter out spurious "urgencies" and make room for important things that I might otherwise neglect.

That should leave me room to get my workday (and life) in better shape.

The Other Y

Okay, on a whim, I was looking up basic information on Yale (mostly to find out its physical location) and found, to my surprise, that their seal contains Hebrew!

As a secondary surprise, this (apparently) says "Urim and Thummim"—how interesting! Note that on the banner below, they've translated it to Latin as "Light and Truth".

Curiouser and curiouser...

(source)

Shiny "new" gadget

My pocket gadget of choice is a Palm Tungsten T3. It is a model that was introduced in late 2003, but though it's coming up on its seventh birthday, mine still works great. (I haven't had it for all of those seven years—in fact, I bought it in 2008.)

Anyway, Palm T3 owners share one chronic complaint: Palm manufactured the device with some screws in the bottom that tend to worm their way out of their sockets. Though my Palm arrived with all screws in place, they had fallen out after a year or two. The device still functioned properly, but... well, nobody likes a loose bottom.

I found online that several opportunistic entrepreneurs offer replacement screws, and I even found some advice on how to keep them from falling out once they'd been replaced. Unfortunately, these suppliers charged eight to ten dollars for their services, which was a bit more than I was willing to pay for four tiny screws.

Fortunately, we found the local hobby store. When I asked them about finding these tiny screws, they found them right away. And with that, I tightened up my Palm's bottom (a much more pleasant way for a bottom to be). It feels like a new gadget, so I'm treating it like one!

The only difference is that the new screws are a lovely shade of gold:



Hmm, looks rustic!

Random Musical Tidbit

Happened today across a video of Lisa Bassenge's rendition of a song "Overload". (I really dig the break at 2:23.) She's been affiliated with Jazzanova's Sonar Kollektiv label through her group Micatone, and produced some excellent music then and since. I think this whole subculture of Berlin is taking an exciting tack on contemporary music.

It is of particular note that jazz, an American invention, is being moved along by other countries. Of course, this kind of globalization goes all ways, but it is refreshing to see a different take on the style. Kind of a beneficial cross-pollination, in the musical landscape.

A Minor Infraction

(Mom asks cops to handcuff 5-year-old)

Your son's a budding firestarter.
Is a cop the best rebuff?
Though patient helping might be harder,
Parenting's best off the cuff!

My vocab is not rewarded at work

So, I work in a "diverse" working environment. That is, lots of people from different ethnic groups. Which is fantastic. The perspectives that people bring to the table from their varied work experience are a real asset to the team. However, this also means that there are varying degrees of lingual proficiency (at least in English).

Honestly, despite having worked here for coming up on two years, I just realized this yesterday. It probably has something to do with my reading of a book with such a phenomenal vocabulary, which I have been enjoying. New words all the time—what a wonderful experience!

So yesterday, I was present in a meeting when someone used the term "purview". About a third of the room was thrown into confusion by this. Admittedly, it's not a technical word, so it wouldn't be something I would expect a foreigner to know. And it's certainly nobody's fault they don't know every word in what is essentially, to them, a second language.

Nonetheless, I was saddened by the realization that expanding my vocabulary is not likely to bolster rapport with my co-workers, nor is it likely to be the fun cooperative game in which I have participated throughout my life, from my family to my four-two-love friends.

Anybody have any tips on building word power in such an environment?

For now, I guess I'll stick to Scrabble on weekends.