Feb. 20th, 2006

jack: (Default)
Often people who play computer games complain that life lacks appropriate hacks. But it does; we're just used to them.

Look at, for instance, Casimir effect. Who on earth would have expected that? Free pressure, generated from nothing. But it happens, someone figured it out, and eventually will be exploited.

The same mentally. Is it cheating to not have strength of will? Somewhat. It's certainly better to be strong, and then you can be in unexpected occasions as well. Then again, you might as well get things done in the meantime.

I used to be hopeless. I'd let emails, bills, work, everything pile up until I responded in a rush.

My current habit is that everything that has to be done, is essentially a unit task (ie. requiring little decision, and about 1/2 hr or less), I assign to a day at some point in the future when it arrives. Anything I want to put off more, I assign to next month. I categorise things into such tasks; 'Q something' -- where I need to decide something; and '#' where I lump a compound task to be broken down later.

Then on any given day, I have up to half a dozen, and can do them without worrying about any of the others. It's easy, it works.

It works for me. Specifically, most things at home *are* such simple tasks. At work, or writing, or programming, I need decent structure. And none are hard in themselves. And there few are enough that I generally do have time to do them all. If you differ, you may need something else.

Why does it work? Well, five years ago, I could keep everything I needed to do in my head. Later, I couldn't, but still had the habit of doing so, so generally ended up with a scribbled mess in my mind at the bottom of the list, containing things I'd forgotten until they became urgent. But knowing that there's nothing being lost, and I don't have to do 20 things, just 5, enables me to do them easily and without fuss.

It's like extelligence; I use the paper (ok, text file on server or gmail) as an extension of my mind. And by writing it down remember it better anyway, if I need to. Of course, some people are naturally orgnaised. But then, successful people have their own systems. Who is to know I'm not? Only me, people who know me well, and people who take away my crutches :)
jack: (Default)
I was reading Curse of Chalion again. I don't like Lupe as much as I liked Miles[1] -- though I do a lot -- but I did enjoy it a lot.

[1] Which am I more like? I don't know. Lupe is a nice example of a successful person fighting (externally caused) low self esteem. Miles has his depressions, even suicidal thoughts, but never assumes he's not worthy of something.

But the theology is one of the best. There are five gods, who are all mostly good if occasionally harsh or unsavoury. They can perform powerful supernatural acts, but only through a human who truly opens to them.

The quintarian nature takes something from polytheistic religions, but it feels quite like christianity to me in the way it's used.

Thus, we can have our miracles, either doing something or providing judgements, but not at any time. So we can justify both (a) people putting their faith in gods and (b) not asking why couldn't the god just fix it?

I think all the fantasy religions I can recall have such contradictions, or take different approaches:
(a) are sufficiently unknown you can excuse not knowing
(b) have fairly unpowerful gods, or one non-interfering god, or no gods, and concrentrate on souls and things
(c) have some or all gods bad or whimsical
Which are as interesting, but less illuminating to the real life religions I know best.
jack: (Default)
For sunflowerinrain and the nice librarian in the black dress I can't remember the name of.

An elephant, an engineer, and a mathematician walk into a building and the mathematician says "If two people leave, the building will be empty again," and the engineer scratches himself with his tusks and trumpets loudly.

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