Young Hands Club

November 18, 2019

WH Plan for Week 6 (Nov 18th-Nov 24th)

Filed under: Will Haack — Will Haack @ 1:52 am

Note that the date window in the title is now only seven days inclusive, down from eight. ((i.e. Last week’s plan was Nov 11th – Nov 18th)) This small detail is meant to represent a new era of my time management where I do not consider Sunday night an opportunity to finish leftover work for the week. In addition, per diana_coman’s advice, I will break this week’s task into daily chunks. The downside of this is that since this plan is more specific, it will need more alterations throughout the week. The upside is I am held accountable for any daily failings immediately.

Each day includes log reviewing as well as a little Spanish study, although these are not explicitly listed. Surfing and guitar are snipped out and are just treated as a reward upon completion of a good day of work.

1. Monday 11/18

  1. Saltmines (8h) ((Only did 4))

2. Tuesday 11/19

  1. Travel to nearby town to pickup chair ((Mugui won’t deliver my chair to the door, and they don’t have an office. They gave me the personal number of the delivery guy, and I have to meet him on the road in a nearby county.))
  2. Saltmines (8h)

3. Wednesday 11/20

  1. Read the man page of rsync and fix crontask so blog gets backed up locally. Write a sane backup strategy with corresponding scripts. (4h) The script that backs up the blog will contain an if-external-hard-drive-plugged-in-save-it-there-too clause. The script will also keep a saved copy of the wget of all younghands posts. (2hr)
  2. Saltmines (8h)
  3. Make the worthless pathfinder someone else’s problem (2h) Surfpal doesn’t seem to care about moving the car, perhaps because he understands its actual value. ((I told surfpal I will fill it up with gas and drop it off where he likes. He hasn’t followed up with me and if he doesn’t I will focus on taking care of other shit first. But I would like to get it out of the way.))
  4. Finish rough draft of first An Outpost of Progress article (2h)
  5. Begin list of computer part accessories and items needed from the hardware store. (2h)

  • 4. Thursday 11/21

    1. Continue list of computer part accessories and items needed from the hardware store. (3h)
    2. Make a trip to town. This includes grocery shopping, getting a cheap phone for backup internet via hotspotting, picking up test item from boxcorreos, and going to the hardware store. (5h)
    3. Finish my first An Outpost of Progress article (3h)

    5. Friday 11/22

    1. Order computer parts or plan trip to San Jose (4h)
    2. Read 40 pages of The Odyssey and read while taking notes on the two trilema articles. recommended by diana_coman (4h)
    3. Saltmines (4h)

    6. Saturday 11/23

    1. Write the week’s review + plan for next week
    2. TBD / 4 hour slot for making up a task
    3. Saltmines (4h)

    7. Sunday 11/24

    1. TBD / 4 hour slot for making up a task

    —

    November 17, 2019

    WH Review of Week 5 (Nov 11th – Nov 18th)

    Filed under: Will Haack — Will Haack @ 11:27 pm

    Note: this week’s review was written before I had this conversation with diana_coman. After our conversation, I only updated my draft with minor grammar and style edits. I believe diana_coman will find it interesting to read what was in my mind prior to having spoken with me.

    1. Foreward

    During this week I had positive output but the rate of my progress staggered. When I first joined Younghands I had a hope that my thumb twiddling would disappear completely. Previously, I’ve always had the excuse that what I was doing was not important. Now I am both working on what matters and experiencing internal growth. Even so, I still struggle to apply myself 100%. It is torture knowing what I am forgoing. I’m not sure how the cognitive dissonance manages to continue. I know what I should be doing ((Or rather, what I should not be doing.)) but day after day I continue to make the same mistakes that stem from laziness and lack of character.

    When I sit down and focus, I get output. And I believe that output is improving, even if just slightly. ((Although I will let diana_coman be the judge of that; I have reached the level of DK where I am at least aware I don’t have the capabilities to properly asses myself.)) That said, my ability to stay focused for longer stretches of time has hardly improved. And I am not reinvesting the time I gain from working more efficiently. ((An example of a technique I learned that saves me time is taking a break before proofreading a blog article. Before I would spend many hours revising a piece and still end up with “word salads.”))

    2. The events of the week

    This week started off with low effort put into my saltine’s job. I worked 15 out of the 20 hours I always aim for. I only lost 3 of my potential hours since the previous week I had put in 22 hours. But my subpar effort with my saltmines job was an example of the lack of discipline that carried into the week.

    On Wednesday I had set out to complete my article on the information I had learned from hanbot and begin a rough draft on An Outpost of Progress. I finished with only a rough draft of my hanbot advice article. I burnt time helping Richard get setup with irc. I am dubious about the benefit of that; he didn’t do quite a good job parsing messages he received in his conversation in #eulora. ((Richard seems to be a good hearted, interested individual, but I am dubious of whether he will put in the work he needs to to make any meaningful contribution. Perhaps he could do some loading screen or cover art for Eulora.)) In any case, the work I did helping set him up on irc was avoidance behavior.

    On Thursday I had to do more saltines work; I finished around 4pm. I did not seize the rest of the hours I had available in the day. I tired myself out with an evening surf session and then did ~nothing for the rest of the night. Five minutes of solid work can produce something. I may have been able to produce an acceptable article for An Outpost of Progress this week if I had taken advantage of that time window.

    On Friday I was fairly productive. I finished my article on receiving handbot’s help and began working on my An Outpost of Progress article. I had planned to work into the night, but I instead socialized with my neighbors. It wasn’t wrong to spend time with them, the mistake was thinking I had time to work in the evening. Towards the start of the week I pretend I have all the time in the world and I work inefficiently. Then later there are “surprise” events that take me away from using my imagined time.

    On Saturday I made more of an effort, aware that I was behind on my schedule. I made distance in my An Outpost of Progress article, and I did a majority of the work researching and finding a list of computer parts for my machine. I read through the pages giving information on different computer parts on kitchentablecomputers and then selected compatible parts available on bestcomputersa.com.

    There were a few other areas where I was productive this week. I ordered my chair and followed up with the construction of my desk. I should have the chair by this Tuesday and the desk one week after that. ((The person I commissioned told me he would have it done by Thursday, but I am allowing five days for Tico time.)) My Spanish study is going well. I had more 2hr+ and 4hr+ conversations. I also am applying an effective reading routine. I turn off all my devices and I sit down with a Spanish book ((Currently La Perla, a translation of The Pearl by John Steinbeck. I choose La Perla because it is a short story and one I have already read in English. In the future I will try to stick to original Spanish texts.)) and dictionary. I read about a page and a half, circling the words I don’t know. Then I stop and look them up, which often includes also looking up the words in the definitions. (( I described this method for reading the courier websites.)) I will do my best to bring more of these moments of structured work into next week.

    November 11, 2019

    JFW plan, week of Nov 11 2019

    Filed under: Jacob Welsh — Jacob Welsh @ 5:58 am

    Required tasks

    1. One-hour daily blogging. Topics lined up: finish “Road to Ossasepia” and WoT series; Saturday’s hiking trip; my IRC client.

    2. Finish research on Uruguay logistics, finalize personal valuations of the NSA/Pizarro surplus, fund deedbot wallet, place bids (plus manual raises if needed): 6h

    3. Script/test blog image uploading: 1h

    4. Research apartment options: 2h

    5. #trilema and blogs reading: I’m getting the sense that I need to start taking this more seriously. Thinking to try 2h/day.

    6. Investigate undelivered pingbacks (bumped from “time permitting”): 1h

    7. Plan next stages of development on my Bitcoin wallet / inquire whether there are options I’ve not yet considered: 4h

    JFW review, week of Nov 4 2019

    Filed under: Jacob Welsh — Jacob Welsh @ 5:46 am

    My main shift this week, at my Master’s direction, was to boost my writing to a daily routine, with a blog article to be published at the close of each day’s one-hour slot, even if that means getting things out in small slices for now.

    diana_coman: jfw: how’s the writing going taken like that in 1 hour chunks?
    jfw: it’s been a struggle, but of a healthy sort I reckon.
    jfw: A confession is that today’s was the first without existing draft material to work from, and I didn’t make it near the minimum word count by the bell. Since what I wanted to say in the segment was fresh in mind and words were flowing, I opted to take more time to see it through, ended up at 2.5h.
    diana_coman: hm; as a once off it’s fine but it shouldn’t go on like this; and ftr, the lower limit I set there is …lower than usual, specifically because you have this problem.

    Getting six installments ((one of which partially inspired a Trilema article, including title, which might not even be entirely mocking!)) published in this manner felt way better than the goose egg of the week before. I’ve still had some anxiety each time, but of a more manageable level. On the review I found I’d quite forgotten the subsequent comment about the greater gains from quantity over polishing, and my analytic mind got to be annoyed all over again. I’d also like to move to the morning routine, though so far I’ve at least managed to pull it back from being the last thing in the day.

    My most recent article getting started on an overview of the WoT also fell short, this time on the word count axis. Factors that may have activated my over-caution here were my perception of the foundational importance of the topic and recollection of earlier flailings on it.

    On Tuesday I conversed for a couple hours in the channel, mainly with Diana Coman who steered an inquiry into my computing projects and interests. Topics included parts for workstation building, Gales Linux in comparison with Cuntoo, “upgrades”, Scheme, software cleanliness versus limitations, making own FGs, BIOS hacking, and what I like about computers.

    Discussion continued on Wednesday mainly around the upcoming hardware auctions, with BingoBoingo suggesting the personal trip to Uruguay route if I were to win, and Diana Coman broaching the thought of Robinson and I switching business plans to running a proper ISP. I committed a major communications blunder in breaking the news of changed weekend plans then running right off to something else (and just as she was trying to sign off for the night, to make matters worse), and was properly taken to task for it on Thursday.

    On Friday I processed the fallout of Robinson’s ill-fated rescue attempt on asciilifeform as best I could, and was glad that my input at least lead to some further clarifications.

    Of the remaining items from my plan:

    2. Re-read of http://ossasepia.com/2018/02/06/its-only-words-and-assumptions-and-priorities-and-ouch/ – comments and log references: 2h

    is done;

    3. Test/script blog image uploading (bumped up from “time permitting”): 1h
    6. Prepare to negotiate next year’s apartment lease. At minimum, start researching options online: 2h

    were dropped. On the second I at least spoke with a friend who owns some rental properties, whose assessment was that what I could reasonably expect to save for a place like my current one would be around $50/month.

    RMD plan, Nov 11th-Nov15th

    Filed under: Robinson Dorion — Robinson Dorion @ 5:12 am

    As I failed to deliver multiple tasks last week, I’ve made the adjustment of stating deadlines for delivery.

    1. Things my Master assigned me:

    1. (8h) Article on my experience living in Panama, 71 months in. Deadline: Wednesday, November 13th, Noon EST
    2. (8h) Convert Latex source of JWRD business plan to blog article. Deadline: Friday, November 15th, Noon EST
    3. My series of posts adding meat to the bones of The Fabled Outlines.
      1. (1.5h) 2.1-2.2: Prospecting from Prospect Point : recollect the process and struggle of settling into the islands, the pleasure of making new friends and the refuge of sanity provided by calling the lead pool.
      2. (3h) 2.3.1-2.3.{3,9}: How many Banks in a Bank : describe the layers of asset custody and the layers of data custody of the bank’s infrastrucutre.
      3. (1.5h) 2.3.4-2.3.8: Learning to Work : Describe my n00bishness and how I worked through it with a good guide for the purpose.

    2. Things I want feedback on/help with.

    1. JWRD Computing Business Plan.

    3. anything else that takes up a significant amount of your time.

    1. (20h) JWRD : 3h of management. 11h ((4 90 minute sessions + 2.5h of commute (walking) + 2.5h prep and review.)) of session preparation and delivery. 7h of local relationship development ((Touch base with as many relationships as I can within the allotted time as this is my last full week in Panama for the calendar year.)).
    2. (21h) Following the forum and conversing when it’s my time. I’m planning to block off 14:00-15:30 ((9-10:30 local time)) and 19:00-20:30 UTC to properly eat and engage the logs and blogs. Not sure if this is enough time, but think I need to work in blocks to maximize my focus.
    3. (7h) ((30 mins in morning, 30 mins before sleep)) Daily Review/Preview to start up, wind down day.
    4. (3h) Weekly review/preview. ((Shift to publishing review by midnight UTC Saturday and plan by 15:00 UTC Saturday.))
    5. (5h 15m) 45 minutes of exercise each morning.
    6. (5h 50m) 20 min Spanish ((With so many English speakers in Panama and English heavy work, gotta keep the gears greased.)), 30 min French each morning ((Currently halfway through Pimsler audio heavy with reading supplement course. Reaching out to French speakers locally.)).
    7. (5h) Begin packing for travels, preparing to be away 6 wks. My departure flight is a red eye on Wednesday, November 20th. Goal is to be packed Sunday to provide plenty buffer.

    Summary

    The lists above mark out 88 hours + 49 hours of sleep make 137 hours allocated of the 168 ((Shifting my reporting time means this number is off by 48 hours this week, but many of the estimation above are based on 7d week, so leaving as is this time.)), leaving 31 h. I’m satisfied with leaving it here, documenting how well the above estimations pan out in next weeks review and adjusting as needed. I’m looking forward to reviewing on Friday how well my discipline and rhythm improved with deadline imposition.

    RMD review, Nov 4th-10th, 2019

    Filed under: Robinson Dorion — Robinson Dorion @ 4:26 am

    While my first week as a Young Hand was a bit rough, in this review I’m writing to land on my feet to set up a more productive week to come, abide the dorion-rule and not leave myself too black and blue and commit to whatever training I’m to carry out as directed by my Master for my own improvement.

    I allowed my blog to remain without the signal of new articles and made uninvited noise. Why did I allow this to happen ?

    In looking at my plan for the week, the first deficiency that calls my attention is while there are time estimates for several of the deliverables, there are no deadlines. Without a deadline for delivery, can it actually be said I made the decision to do the task ? My plan for the week to come will have deadlines to help structure my work and make my communications more reliable.

    While I made time estimates for the tasks I was assigned, I left the article on reflecting on my life in Panama after seven years and the publishing of the JWRD business plan without time estimates of their own. The Panama article was bumped up to top priority and I did make headway on the outline, but unpublished outlines aren’t articles.

    I outlayed unplanned time and energy on my Saturday trip with Jacob and friends to El Valle de Anton. When I wrote the plan for last week, I thought we’d be making that trip the 16th, but learned Tuesday the 5th it had to be this Saturday if it were to happen at all this calendar year. I ought to have communicated the original plan in my article last week since I communicated further dated plans there anyways. As I build this habit, I see more reliable short term communications growing into more reliable long term coordination.

    I spent further unplanned time considering the swatting of a teeny-tiny-little-bitty-baby fly ‘just wanting’ to embody Iago. While the unplanned time outlay kept me from focusing on delivering my assigned tasks from last week, it was a test through which I learned about myself and deepened my commitment to my improvement through working myself into shape here ((My evaluator was identified to be weak from the onset.)). At the end, laughs were had.

    As noted last week, the liquidation of S.NSA was quite a bit for me to process. Some questions had come to mind that I’d not seen asked and appeared to me as blind spots. I assumed asking certain questions would bring the blind spots into view. After being permitted to proceed, I started gathering references to support the cause of my questions and further apparent blind spots occurred to me to point out; these latter seemingly more evident ((It does not escape my notice that while I talked to him about planning, my plans were not prosecuted. So help me my own intelligence and cursed be my own stupidity that is holding me back.)) than those I’d planned to inquire about, but in hindsight were probably more charged ((The originals were about Stanislav himself or things he’d said; those asked were about S.NSA and the business he was soliciting from S.MG. I quoted MP on several occasions and given the current state, I can see why it’d be hard for him to hear.)).

    I paid a cost for my old habit of staying in the shadows in that much of the response I received was communicated on the assumption that I wasn’t aware of the history. Upon conversation and reflection, by the end I ‘just wanted’ what I think are blind spots to be seen, was frustrated that they weren’t and wasn’t able to relax the urge to issue a judgment I’d not earned. I’d stayed in the shadows out of fear of making a douchebag of myself, as I’d seen countless others do, then essentially projected what I was previously trying to avoiding in my first week. I take heart in accepting that the backs and forths are the nature of growth and very much appreciate the conversations I was gifted in the afterglow, which seem to support a path to realization through socialization.

    JWRD work progressed. I followed the forum relatively well working within the time I allotted, but am aware there remains some scar tissue to work through to improve my efficiency and lower my latency. I was consistent with my daily previews and reviews, which is helping the integration from day to day. I was also consistent with exercising my body and language skills and have shored up my travel plans.

    I will take my own advice in the weeks to come and write to start each morning to build that skill.

    On the review and planning process, I am shifting to organize myself to publish the weekly review on Friday evening and plan for the week on Saturday mornings.

    WH Plan For Week 5 (Nov 11th – 18th)

    Filed under: Will Haack — Will Haack @ 2:04 am

    In addition to the below I have been invited to a nearby town’s fiesta this weekend that I am excited to attend.

    Must Do

    1. Follow up with handyman on fortify base and building my desk.
    2. Place an order for a proper chair.
    3. Publish a list of the computer parts I plan to buy on my blog. If I have time, order them.
    4. Write a summary of the information I acquired from speaking with hanbot.
    5. Write a review of An Outpost of Progress.
    6. 20 hours of saltmine work.
    7. Daily Spanish Study – Specifically carefully reading the courier company websites.

    Time Permitting

    1. Reread The Odyssey
    2. Practice guitar for 45 minutes 5/7 days of the week.
    3. Surf (about 15 hours total. Last week I said I was doing 10 hours and only during the morning/sunset, but given the excellent waves that came, I did not follow that guideline. I also must say I feel it dishonest to put this in the time permitting section, because I _always_ do it. I only leave it here because I know it is something that I _could_ forgo.)

    WH Review of Week 4 (Nov 4th – Nov 11th)

    Filed under: Will Haack — Will Haack @ 1:46 am

    I will break this review into two sections. The first is a review of what I did, and then the second part will be a brief analysis of my methodology and productivity (and lack thereof. )

    The Review

    This week I dipped out of normal routine in order to setup my base. As usual, the first order of business was knocking out my weekly saltmines work. This went better than the previous week in terms of staying motivated and productive while doing the grind.

    The next task I took on was figuring out how to get myself an ergonomic desk and chair. I did some poking around the internet trying to find guides on how to get a healthy setup. The best guide I found online seemed to be one posted by The University of British Columbia. ((I also acquired some information from a blog called coding horror.))I figured out how high my chair would need to be to sit such that my knees form an angle an epsilon above 90 degrees. From there I calculated what height my desk should be so that my elbows form a 90 degree angle while typing. I spoke with a local tico who was doing some construction work nearby, and commissioned a desk with a proper height ((29.5 cm, I am 181cm tall.)) that will fit nicely into my apartment. I also spoke with him about acquiring caulk and materials for sealing my apartment’s cracks and unwanted entryways.

    Afterwards, I worked on figuring out how to deliver items from the states to CR. I spoke with locals and an acquaintance here who does quite a bit of business. ((He is an architect that has constructed a few luxury vacation homes and his built his own resort.)) He says he uses crbox.cr, but noted that he has run into issues with customs. He informed me it is always better to have a friend bring what you need as personal luggage. I spent some time reading the websites of the courier companies, but as noted in the logs I did not do the job carefully and this task is still incomplete. ((Recent help from hanbot leads me to believe it may be possible to source most of my parts locally, and then have perhaps Adam help me with the small bits I can’t find. In any case I still believe it’s worth doing a test run with the best service I find. I would like to be a point man for having items delivered from the US to Guanacaste.))

    During the course of the week, I took advantage of opportunities to speak Spanish. Yesterday I got drinks and held conversation for over five hours with my neighbors. ((I perhaps drank a tad too much ~ I had roughly six drinks over the span of that time. I don’t consider alcohol as much of a problem compared to weed, because I hate being disoriented and hung over so I rarely get into the habit of drinking frequently. That being said it’s important to note times when I do indulge.)) I also put in a great effort into improving my surfing. Being inside of a barreling wave has eluded me for quite some time. ((I may have gotten inside of one this week. I went for a barrel and was in the critical section of the wave, but I did not get a good view of the lip curling over my head. Still, the locals in the water cheered and complimented my tube ride. Whether or not I was actually inside, there is nothing special about having done something that you cannot repeat. But hopefully this event is a sign of significant progress.)) To fix this, I am trying to apply the takeaway from my ‘verifying my understanding’ article to surfing. I am heavily questioning my fundamentals, such as foot placement on the board. I am also testing the edges of certain parameters, such as how deep ((In surfing terminology, being ‘deep’ means being closer to the beginning of where a wave starts to peel in a certain direction.)) I can be when I catch the wave. ((This has caused me to go into the ‘washing machine’ a few times. Learning is painful, I guess.))

    The Analysis

    I was not very productive this week. I hardly walked away with anything concrete, all I have are various plans for acquiring parts / setting up my space, but no wheels are set in motion.

    I struggle with more open ended tasks. It is hard enough as is for me to focus when I have one clear writing assignment. But when I have to do various small tasks, some of which involve waiting for responses from people, I work inefficiently. There was time spent spinning where I was jumping between deciding to do different tasks and then not getting anything done. “hm okay now I should focus on getting a good desk — err wait no I should read more about picking computer parts — err never mind let’s go back to figuring out the desk.”

    On another note, I have learned that taking time to do things carefully and correctly brings you down unexpected paths. For example, when I went to edit a blog post this week, I was unable to access my wp-admin page because my ip address had changed. This required me to update my .htaccess on my server. I’ve had to do this before, so taking what I learned from uploading images, I decided it was best to write a bash script to automate the process. When I looked for a bash command to edit a file in place, I found that this could be done with sed -i s/str to replace/new str/g /path/to/file But, I did not really know how the sed command worked, and remembering last week’s punishment I dared not use the tool without first reading the man page. So I wound up reading how to use sed. This made my “1 minute” task of changing something on my blog take closer to two hours. That was somewhat frustrating, but I walked away with a script that will save me time in the future and a better understanding of how to use a powerful tool.

    November 4, 2019

    JFW plan, week of Nov. 4 2019

    Filed under: Jacob Welsh — Jacob Welsh @ 5:59 am

    Required tasks

    1. Finish last week’s blog post reflecting on my path towards joining YHC.
    Publish last week’s blog post reflecting on my path towards joining YHC in daily installments: 5h

    2. Re-read of http://ossasepia.com/2018/02/06/its-only-words-and-assumptions-and-priorities-and-ouch/ – comments and log references: 2h

    3. Test/script blog image uploading (bumped up from “time permitting”): 1h

    4. Begin blog installments on my understanding of the WoT: 2h

    Time permitting

    4. Blog post on my understanding of the WoT.

    From last week:

    5. Investigate undelivered pingbacks.

    6. Prepare to negotiate next year’s apartment lease.
    At minimum, start researching options online: 2h

    JFW review, week of Oct. 28 2019

    Filed under: Jacob Welsh — Jacob Welsh @ 5:51 am

    The elephant in the room would be

    diana_coman: jfw: how’s it going?
    jfw: diana_coman: not the greatest, I’m in the eleventh hour crunch again
    jfw: draft is not finished
    diana_coman: jfw: what does it lack to be finished?
    jfw: I’ve got a bunch of context as to my original goals and steps but what’s lacking is much delving into the events of the month
    diana_coman: jfw: in truth, it is a whole month indeed, dunno who exactly made it that.. long :P
    diana_coman: but I’ll let you focus on it now then, no worries.
    dorion: dunno who exactly made it that.. long :P << keks
    jfw: diana_coman: ok. Assuming I make it out of this one alive, is there an upcoming assignment I should get in next week’s plan?
    diana_coman: jfw: an overview of the WoT as you understand it.
    jfw: alright
    diana_coman: and do get out of it alive.

    (the last of which I took as friendly encouragement with a hint of “you’d better…”)

    And then

    jfw: so my ‘reflections’ article just isn’t anywhere publishable. Got maybe 80-90% of planned content in the draft, but not reviewed at all, placeholder references and such. Trying to at least not snowball the mess to the review+planning but even that’s looking iffy.

    And the draft isn’t that long anyway, ~1400 words. I’m uncertain how severe the failure on the article is by itself, given my lack of clue on the timing. But then I let my time management slip regarding Young Hands stuff in going for broke on the article and

    2. Re-read of http://ossasepia.com/2018/02/06/its-only-words-and-assumptions-and-priorities-and-ouch/ – I’m through the article itself but reckon I should also include the (English) comments and log references: 2h

    didn’t happen (with irony not lost on me, yes). What I will do to prevent this from recurring is to maintain respect for my time allotments and not rob from one necessity to cover for another mess.

    The third layer of the problem I see is that I’m not getting anywhere if I can’t break this pattern of writing hangups (a past teacher once said – “your writing is fine, it’s just that you have to sweat blood to do it, huh”). I’m seeing I logged 14 hours on the outline – which turned out useful for remembering what things to write about but lacked a coherent flow and the draft ended up wandering pretty far from the outline – and 18h on the draft.

    At least one thing is I haven’t really managed to apply the oft-given advice of “don’t self-censor on the draft, just let it flow”. Can’t say I know why, given I’m perfectly capable of speech and all! But perhaps a bigger one is the:

    jfw: diana_coman: I report with some trepidation that I didn’t finish my outline last night. It wasn’t distraction, more of a sulking state where I know I gotta, but something in me just doesn’t wanna; then somehow I got unwedged and it started to flow. Clearly a time waste and I dunno what to say other than it’s a long standing pattern with my writing and I want to fix it. Gotta focus on other things now but I’ll get back to it with urgency tonight and remind myself not to pre-optimize.
    diana_coman: jfw: treat the sulking state with a big ignore and – if need be – force writing ie just *write continuously* whatever until sulky-you can’t stand it anymore and rather than keep at nonsense will back off.

    I tried the forced writing, which did “get the pen moving” and certainly felt better than just sitting there, but the momentum didn’t quite seem to translate back to the topic at hand. Seems like I need something stronger than “ignore it” – like, shooting it (yet not myself) in the head, or something. (Aaand it also occurs to me that a sufficiently developed set of “just don’t wanna”s would form the negative space of the detested “Just Want To”…)

    Otherwise this week, I was privileged to see my pal Robinson interviewed and accepted to the club and to celebrate it with him. I did some reading in Trilema, Ossasepia and the #t log, mainly on the situation with asciilifeform, and contemplated, which hit me pretty personally given the aspects of him that I see in myself, for better and worse, and how much I looked up to him (and think I still do). At any rate I take heart from knowing that if there’s hope for me, I’ve chosen a promising (necessarily not easy) path for realizing it. (Though it’s not like his life is over or anything either, what.) Between Diana Coman, billymg and myself we got to the root of a WordPress editor bug that I and some others had noted, which turned out to be in the cleanup patches. Finally, I got to ponder the subtleties of what constitutes adapting man to machine or the other way around.

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