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  <title>Paradoxes!</title>
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  <lastBuildDate>Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:50:55 GMT</lastBuildDate>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/685732.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:50:55 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Reality&amp;#8230;you suck sometimes.</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/685732.html</link>
  <description>&lt;p&gt;Oh crap. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So, I&amp;#8217;ve caught something, some dastardly  virus or bacteria.&amp;nbsp; It&amp;#8217;s sort of descended like a calvary of doom out of nowhere over about four hours; this morning I felt great and tonight I&amp;#8217;m barely on my feet.&amp;nbsp; Even the neti pot barely touched it.&amp;nbsp; &lt;em&gt;::cowers::&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;CRAP!&amp;nbsp; I was doing so well!&amp;nbsp; I was having a productive and weird Manic Sunday and it was pretty fun, for a December day.&amp;nbsp; I was doing the good kind of brainwashing!&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; I had leapt out of bed for alarm training 18 times already!&amp;nbsp; And I got stricken by stupid germs, brainwash interruptus.&amp;nbsp; &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;You are really not fair sometimes, life. &amp;nbsp;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Oh well.&amp;nbsp; Crap happens.&amp;nbsp; It&amp;#8217;s important to stay focused on what to be thankful for:&amp;nbsp; the talented musician practicing in the dining-room; the opportunity to strengthen one&amp;#8217;s discipline by trying these projects again later; ginger tea, and it&amp;#8217;s amazing ability to unplug the stubbornest sinuses.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Ugh.&amp;nbsp; G&amp;#8217;night and sneezes.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;border: 1px solid black; padding: 3px;&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Originally published at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/12/06/reality-you-suck-sometimes/&quot;&gt;*Transcendental *Logic&lt;/a&gt;. You can comment here or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/12/06/reality-you-suck-sometimes/#comments&quot;&gt;there&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
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  <category>better thinking</category>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/685474.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sat, 05 Dec 2009 10:01:00 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/685474.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;08:54&lt;/em&gt; It&apos;s NEWS when a rich guy cheats on his wife now? I mean, if it doesn&apos;t surprise ANYONE, is it news? &quot;Today on Fox...the sun rose! Discuss!&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6337241626&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;08:58&lt;/em&gt; More than an hour this a.m. to catch up on polyphasic comments/emails.  Yowza! &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6337353053&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;10:54&lt;/em&gt; BEHOLD!  I have made a lentil soup, and it is AWESOME. Somehow I stumbled on a recipe that&apos;s very close to Indian-restaurant-spicy. Woot! &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6340521024&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/685140.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:00:49 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/685140.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;10:30&lt;/em&gt; @&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/bricestacey&quot;&gt;bricestacey&lt;/a&gt; If it were you, where would you ask?  I trust people more than companies anyway, as a rule.  I like my donations direct!  ;) &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6306126461&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;12:02&lt;/em&gt; It&apos;s cold and grey out and life is deeply uncertain...obviously the only answer is to MAKE SOUP.  *yay soup* &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6308711422&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;12:05&lt;/em&gt; RT @postsecret: 1 (800) SUICIDE Fundraiser :: For every new follower today, I will donate $1 to HopeLine. Please Retweet. &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6308771445&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/684929.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:00:39 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/684929.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;11:30&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Sometimes you just have to put on a record and sit on your floor and cry,&quot; the &apos;Net tells me today.  Having had my appt, I understand why. &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6273769843&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;16:55&lt;/em&gt; Give $10 to this family today and save their home: focused donations FTW!  &lt;a href=&quot;http://bit.ly/6geDny&quot;&gt;bit.ly/6geDny&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6282389194&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/684762.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:01:15 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/684762.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;08:55&lt;/em&gt; I told my boy I wanted to be less nervous singing/reading with microphones. Now he&apos;s got me carrying one around all the time. Brilliant, y? &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6235381108&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/684327.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:58:05 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Ahead of the Curve (By Definition)</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/684327.html</link>
  <description>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Kids are the future, you know.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;That makes &lt;strong&gt;three teenagers who&amp;#8217;ve asked me questions about doing experiments on Polyphasic Sleep&lt;/strong&gt; for their school science projects.&amp;nbsp; \o/&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Whether or not those projects get done (I&amp;#8217;m not really hot on the idea of the UnFullyGrown messing around with restrictive sleep-schedules, personally), it&amp;#8217;s awesome that high-schoolers combined with the Internet are arguably more innovative than anything that can put &amp;quot;Fortune 500&amp;quot; anywhere near its name.&amp;nbsp; &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;*woot!*&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;border: 1px solid black; padding: 3px;&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Originally published at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/12/01/ahead-of-the-curve-by-definition/&quot;&gt;*Transcendental *Logic&lt;/a&gt;. You can comment here or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/12/01/ahead-of-the-curve-by-definition/#comments&quot;&gt;there&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
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  <category>polyphasic sleep</category>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/684184.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:00:42 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/684184.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;10:48&lt;/em&gt; I feel certain that no matter how wild the future, there will be a place in it for storytellers. &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6204696198&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;15:17&lt;/em&gt; @&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/sagefrancissfr&quot;&gt;SageFrancisSFR&lt;/a&gt; So...did it win the fashion battle AND the wardrobe?  ;) &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6211803160&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;15:18&lt;/em&gt; @&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/jemaverick&quot;&gt;jemaverick&lt;/a&gt; Is &quot;As a favor to women everywhere&quot; on the list?  B/c if the article&apos;s aimed at the public, that&apos;s true over half the time....;) &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6211834188&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;15:20&lt;/em&gt; Ooo...I just had to critique a really BAD story. Ick...pulling punches is no help to the author, but I hate being That Harbinger too. &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6211878987&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;15:22&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Writing, like sculpting, means first making the idea present, then removing all the stuff that&apos;ll keep people from seeing it clearly.&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6211953931&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;15:24&lt;/em&gt; (Okay, so sometimes I get off on my own advice.  Sue me.  In, um, masturbation court. Is there one yet? Get on the ball, Catholic Bishops!) &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6211991252&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/684001.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:20:32 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Uberchronology: Working with what you&amp;#8217;ve got</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/684001.html</link>
  <description>&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;ve tried to be a &amp;quot;good blogger&amp;quot;&amp;nbsp;about having normal-ish post titles that at least don&amp;#8217;t actively obscure the post&amp;#8217;s content&amp;#8230;but when it comes to the simple &amp;quot;update&amp;quot;&amp;nbsp;posts that I don&amp;#8217;t expect people to be searching for, the gloves are still off as far as I&amp;#8217;m concerned.&amp;nbsp; ;)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;First, if you&amp;#8217;re interested in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/11/22/uber-time-management/&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Uber Time Management&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, you should know that &lt;em&gt;my&lt;/em&gt; opinions ought to barely even count as such, considering what&amp;#8217;s going on with me right now.&amp;nbsp; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/time-management-how-an-mit-postdoc-writes-3-books-a-phd-defense-and-6-peer-reviewed-papers-and-finishes-by-530pm/&quot;&gt;This is a much better source&lt;/a&gt;, if you want more details on the concept.)&amp;nbsp; I&amp;nbsp;can&amp;#8217;t really elaborate because it&amp;#8217;s ALL&amp;nbsp;still way up in the air, and that&amp;#8217;s precisely why any attempts at &amp;quot;scheduling&amp;quot;&amp;nbsp;I&amp;nbsp;make during this time should be&amp;#8211;I think&amp;#8211;viewed as successful or not relative to the &lt;em&gt;complete and total holy crap chaos &lt;/em&gt;that everything is TRYING really hard to be.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Details below that there cut.&amp;nbsp; ;)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;a name=&quot;cutid1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So.&amp;nbsp; Monday and Tuesday, I&amp;nbsp;had to work, but had a lot of free-time due to the PD-pocalypse taking away significant chunks of my usual duties.&amp;nbsp; So I tried the &amp;quot;Uber Time-Management&amp;quot;&amp;nbsp;schedule I&amp;nbsp;found a few posts ago, and lo, during both of those days I&amp;nbsp;got several pages written or edited on two different stories, plus stayed ahead of my mountain of &amp;quot;administrative&amp;quot; obligations.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;m dividing my days into four:&amp;nbsp; A morning admin period, morning writing block, break for nap &amp;amp;&amp;nbsp;lunch; then afternoon admin period and afternoon writing block.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;On Monday and Tuesday all of these &amp;quot;blocks&amp;quot; were adhered to, but often broken up by work demanding that I&amp;nbsp;Do Things.&amp;nbsp; Cal over at Study Hacks talks about how important it is to &lt;em&gt;keep those blocks of time sacrosanct and uninterrupted, &lt;/em&gt;and I&amp;nbsp;think he&amp;#8217;s right; but even with the interruptions, having distinct blocks of time for specific things was really helpful.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;On Wednesday I&amp;nbsp;had no such interruptions. &amp;nbsp;I was mentally and emotionally exhausted from Monday and Tuesday (yes, I&amp;nbsp;had a two-day work-week that wiped me out worse than most five-day ones), so I spent the time before my day started at 8:30, in the 12 &amp;#8211; 1:30 break, and after 5:30 playing video games and being basically inert.&amp;nbsp; In spite of that, though, I still got a lot done on my big story &amp;quot;Fangboner Street&amp;quot;, my short-story &amp;quot;Good Morning, Bert &amp;amp;&amp;nbsp;Ernie&amp;quot;, and my Secret Project, all of which advanced several pages that day &amp;#8212; a day when, to be honest, without that schedule I&amp;nbsp;doubt I&amp;#8217;d have accomplished anything at all.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Thursday was Thanksgiving, and though my family got it out of the way last week and I&amp;nbsp;had no plans, I decided to take a &amp;quot;break&amp;quot;&amp;nbsp;from my schedule.&amp;nbsp; Actually nothing got done on Thursday, in spite of my firm &lt;em&gt;intention &lt;/em&gt;to write anyway.&amp;nbsp; &lt;strong&gt;This is an important lesson, I&amp;nbsp;think:&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Intentions are nice, but even the firmest needs support from some kind of schedule or dedicated block of time.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Friday I decided I&amp;#8217;d learned my lesson, but also that I was still on vacation, so I&amp;#8217;d continue to be lenient.&amp;nbsp; Then an interesting effect kicked in:&amp;nbsp; Because I&amp;#8217;d been writing on the current fiction projects for several days straight, &lt;strong&gt;the bug bit me.&amp;nbsp; Ignoring the various alarms that told me to switch tasks, on Friday I&amp;nbsp;wrote for about ten hours straight.&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;nbsp; It was fabulous; I&amp;nbsp;won&amp;#8217;t lie.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Saturday I&amp;nbsp;got back on the schedule and again, got a lot done. &amp;nbsp;(I started actually tracking pages written &amp;amp; edited on Friday, as part of the morning admin time before I&amp;nbsp;got sucked into Fangboner; but those notes are at home.&amp;nbsp; I&amp;#8217;ll post the numbers later.)&amp;nbsp; Not only did I&amp;nbsp;write on my projects, but I&amp;nbsp;cleaned my desk and paid the bills and wrote several critiques for other writers, and it wasn&amp;#8217;t really hard at all.&amp;nbsp; By 5:30 I&amp;nbsp;was playing video games again, feeling like an Uberman again.&amp;nbsp; (This in spite of my sleep-schedule being all kinds of screwed up&amp;#8230;I&amp;#8217;m still &amp;quot;on&amp;quot; Everyman if I&amp;#8217;m on anything, but I&amp;#8217;ve been getting poor sleep due to all the stress, so I don&amp;#8217;t think I&amp;#8217;ve had a perfect day in two weeks.&amp;nbsp; Ugh!)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Sunday I&amp;nbsp;kept my momentum up with Fangboner, but without the schedule again, I&amp;nbsp;didn&amp;#8217;t get much else accomplished.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Today I&amp;#8217;m back at work with the attendant interruptions.&amp;nbsp; I actually have no idea how many days this week I&amp;#8217;m working, or how much there&amp;#8217;ll be to do while I&amp;#8217;m here (oh yes, it&amp;#8217;s that crazy), but I&amp;#8217;m planning on nailing my life together with this schedule:&amp;nbsp; I&amp;#8217;ll follow the blocks of time if I&amp;#8217;m at work, and just deal with the interruptions.&amp;nbsp; If I&amp;#8217;m at home, I&amp;#8217;ll be as firm as I can about not being interrupted.&amp;nbsp; I&amp;nbsp;have a mostly-finished novel (I&amp;#8217;ve been calling it a novella, but I suspect it&amp;#8217;ll turn out to be a smallish novel), a finished short-story to submit, two short-stories that need editing, and a Secret Project or two.&amp;nbsp; I&amp;#8217;d like to see them all get done before next summer, when things get REALLY&amp;nbsp;crazy again and I&amp;nbsp;suspect I&amp;nbsp;won&amp;#8217;t have time to write any more for a while.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;*sigh*&amp;nbsp; So, maybe I can turn this ridiculous time of my life into something useful, eh?&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;strong&gt;It&amp;#8217;d be nice if all time-management was about what to do with stable situations and good work environments, but you know me&amp;#8230;I&amp;#8217;m a big believer in working with what you&amp;#8217;ve got!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;border: 1px solid black; padding: 3px;&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Originally published at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/11/30/uberchronology-working-with-what-youve-got/&quot;&gt;*Transcendental *Logic&lt;/a&gt;. You can comment here or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/11/30/uberchronology-working-with-what-youve-got/#comments&quot;&gt;there&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
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  <category>logos addict</category>
  <category>&apos;pocalypse</category>
  <category>hacks</category>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/683606.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:01:01 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/683606.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;11:27&lt;/em&gt; Awesome bumper-sticker I saw:  Politicians and diapers need to be changed often...frequently for the same reason. &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6144537171&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <pubDate>Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:01:18 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/683420.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;14:10&lt;/em&gt; Awesome start...Obama shoves lobbyists off of federal advisory boards: &lt;a href=&quot;http://bit.ly/56rQhB&quot;&gt;bit.ly/56rQhB&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6119896044&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/683186.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:01:02 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/683186.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;11:46&lt;/em&gt; Wow, been a long time since a concert.  The Jesus Lizard and Easy Action were both AWESOME. Gods I love hardcore. I need me a hardcore band! &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6086027521&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;16:14&lt;/em&gt; Whups, sorry @undegaussable &amp;amp; @noraknickers - that&apos;s in reference to the antepenultimate post over at TL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://bit.ly/5hMxEe&quot;&gt;bit.ly/5hMxEe&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6092677273&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/682947.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:04:58 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/682947.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;11:58&lt;/em&gt; Holy crapgasm, am I getting a lot done!  It&apos;s only day three, but I think I have to say that uber-time-management thing works REALLY WELL. &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6054760766&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/682527.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:04:26 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Abandoning Philosophy for the Hard Work of Being a Continuing Machine</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/682527.html</link>
  <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img align=&quot;right&quot; src=&quot;http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2011/1839412495_e781dd0fec.jpg&quot; style=&quot;width: 306px; height: 191px;&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; /&gt;Sometimes I&amp;nbsp;say things, at night, to my partner, like, &amp;quot;I&amp;nbsp;wonder if I shouldn&amp;#8217;t have written off a career in philosophy so flippantly.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;To which he answers something like, &amp;quot;Are you high?&amp;nbsp; You agonized for &lt;em&gt;months &lt;/em&gt;about that decision.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: left;&quot;&gt;To which I&amp;nbsp;&lt;em&gt;could &lt;/em&gt;answer, &amp;quot;Well, maybe that&amp;#8217;s flippant &lt;em&gt;for me&lt;/em&gt;,&amp;quot;&amp;nbsp;&amp;#8211;but in reality it makes more sense to admit that it wasn&amp;#8217;t the speed of the decision, but the fact of it, which consternates me still.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;It&amp;#8217;s hard to let go of things with which you identify.&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;nbsp; But isn&amp;#8217;t to identify with anything just another way of failing to know who you really are?&amp;nbsp; In the world of equations, 1=1, and the only thing you = is you.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Know thyself or perish in mathematical hell&lt;/em&gt;, heh.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In any case, we all have to let go of things we identify with, good and bad, because one of the fundamentals of the Universe is &amp;quot;shit changes&amp;quot;.&amp;nbsp; Failing to get okay with that is one of humanity&amp;#8217;s more potent recipes for agony and dissatisfaction, right?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Still.&amp;nbsp; I&amp;nbsp;was &amp;quot;the little philosopher&amp;quot;&amp;nbsp;since I was &lt;em&gt;very &lt;/em&gt;young, and most of my life I&amp;#8217;ve been defined in some way by my tendency to ask, chew over, and spit out some attempt at answers to, all kinds of questions that normal humans assure me they&amp;#8217;d rather leave lie.&amp;nbsp; I&amp;nbsp;laid awake at age eight for &lt;em&gt;weeks &lt;/em&gt;because I couldn&amp;#8217;t figure out why I&amp;#8217;d ended up in the body I&amp;nbsp;was in, and nobody at the Church (who, I was convinced, knew the answer on some level) would tell me.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Further, I was a &lt;em&gt;damn &lt;/em&gt;good philosophy student. &amp;nbsp;My aptitude with written English combined with my natural fearlessness about scary questions and the consequences of their answers made me a darn good group-discussioner and paper-writer, and I&amp;nbsp;spent my whole (lengthy) undergraduate career kicking ass and having my name taken by some very impressive people.&amp;nbsp; I&amp;nbsp;was the pet of every professor I wanted to impress, and I&amp;nbsp;would have had a lot of help if I&amp;#8217;d wanted to go further.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In the end, I&amp;nbsp;let it go for practical reasons:&amp;nbsp; My education was interrupted by ten years of &amp;quot;other stuff&amp;quot;, and by the time it was time to get serious professionally, I&amp;nbsp;was in a position that I&amp;nbsp;could neither afford to move around chasing jobs, nor work stupid-long hours for chickenfeed pay.&amp;nbsp; (No amount of connections was going to get me out of that, sadly.)&amp;nbsp; I&amp;nbsp;decided that, much as I&amp;nbsp;love (LOVE!) a good philosophical romp, as far as careers go, I&amp;nbsp;was actually better off chasing my dream (the only earlier dream than philosophy)&amp;nbsp;of being a science-fiction writer.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Which was probably a good decision.&amp;nbsp; (How good will be determined by the success of my stories, I&amp;nbsp;suppose.)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There was also the fact that my chosen philosophical forays are all geared towards a specific set of answers I desire to understand (not find or discover; &lt;em&gt;understand&amp;nbsp;&lt;/em&gt;and hopefully elucidate to others) during my lifetime.&amp;nbsp; Professional philosophy would have provided some tools towards that end (but few that I&amp;nbsp;don&amp;#8217;t have access to anyway, given some books and some time), but it would have also required that I&amp;nbsp;do a lot of philosophy that didn&amp;#8217;t aim in that direction.&amp;nbsp; Professional philosophy is about filling in gaps in human knowledge, ironing out kinks, publishing papers on how you think you got that wrinkle out.&amp;nbsp; There&amp;#8217;s a lot of talk about Big Answers, but not as much &lt;em&gt;work &lt;/em&gt;available to do with them.&amp;nbsp; I would have, I&amp;nbsp;think, been like a lover of fine German auto-engineering who took a job on the line at Ford, at least for a while.&amp;nbsp; And components that I&amp;nbsp;feel are necessary towards grasping the things I&amp;nbsp;really want to understand, like kungfu and meditation, would have had little or no place in my &amp;quot;official&amp;quot; philosophical toolbox.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So I opted to do, and read, a little philosophy that was specifically targeted to my personal goals; rather than make philosophy my living and possibly subordinate those goals in the process.&amp;nbsp; At least on the face of it, that still doesn&amp;#8217;t look like a terrible decision.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;And yet.&amp;nbsp; I no longer get called a &amp;quot;philosopher&amp;quot;; now that I&amp;#8217;m an adult I don&amp;#8217;t qualify (according to standard terminology) if I&amp;#8217;m not a professional, or at least on the road to try and be one. &amp;nbsp;I&amp;#8217;ve officially diverged from the path of &amp;quot;philosophy&amp;quot;, a path I&amp;#8217;ve been pretty well matched-up with for most of my life.&amp;nbsp; Ever since it happened, I&amp;nbsp;feel a bit&amp;#8230;unmoored.&amp;nbsp; Not in a bad enough way that I take it to mean I&amp;nbsp;definitely made the wrong decision, but it is distinctly uncomfortable.&amp;nbsp; Part of me wonders if I&amp;#8217;m a failure because I couldn&amp;#8217;t, or wouldn&amp;#8217;t, stick with this.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#8217;t know what to call myself anymore, I&amp;nbsp;guess.&amp;nbsp; I&amp;#8217;m not quite a writer, not just a wife and mother, not yet a guru, not really a technonerd.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But how important are labels, really?&amp;nbsp; &lt;strong&gt;We obsess about getting out from under the labels others impose on us, but aren&amp;#8217;t our own impositions a thousand times more restrictive and just as artificial?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If I&amp;#8217;m smart, I&amp;nbsp;guess, I&amp;#8217;ll take the opportunity to get used to just &amp;quot;being me&amp;quot;, and get a little less hung up on how to put that in words.&amp;nbsp; My job is to live this life, not record it for posterity.&amp;nbsp; If someone else wants to call me philosopher, writer, nerd, whatever, then I&amp;nbsp;suppose that&amp;#8217;s their choice. Narrating the chase while you&amp;#8217;re still having it is hardly a good plan:&amp;nbsp; &lt;strong&gt;Your attention is needed in the moment.&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;nbsp; I think it&amp;#8217;s the same with being alive.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Because really, that&amp;#8217;s the answer to the question I&amp;nbsp;had when I was eight:&amp;nbsp; You are the body, and the person, you are, because the Universe is all about things existing, exploring the possibilities of creation in a specific context, and then seeing how long it takes and what it does before it gets destroyed.&amp;nbsp; Essentially I&amp;#8217;m a character-study for a writer with infinite time to play with and an imagination that mine is literally only a shadow of.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My job is to play this form out, in this setting, and see where it goes.&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;nbsp; Not to &amp;quot;be&amp;quot; an &amp;quot;X&amp;quot;, where &amp;quot;X&amp;quot;&amp;nbsp;is anything besides just me.&amp;nbsp; And in the end&amp;#8211;Catholic upbringing aside&amp;#8211;I&amp;nbsp;feel pretty confident that my decisions will be viewed (if at all) with curiosity and sympathy, and not judgment or any negative sort of labeling.&amp;nbsp; Other humans may judge me, but that&amp;#8217;s just them playing out &lt;em&gt;their &lt;/em&gt;existence, and how I choose to answer them is part of how I&amp;nbsp;play out mine.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As Mr. Vonnegut so brilliantly put it, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385334206?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=thetranswildc-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=0385334206&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;you&amp;#8217;re a Continuing Machine&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp; You were put here to go, and keep going, and see how far you get and what you do before you&amp;#8217;re over-with.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;From that perspective, any attempt to be other than the fullest expression of precisely what you are seems pretty misguided.*&amp;nbsp; What would I&amp;nbsp;have gotten from &amp;quot;being&amp;quot; a philosopher anyway, other than ego-gratification?&amp;nbsp; I&amp;nbsp;can still read philosophy.&amp;nbsp; I can still go to lectures and talk to philosophers and write down my thoughts, even publish them (thank you Internet).&amp;nbsp; &lt;strong&gt;The need to &amp;quot;be something&amp;quot;&amp;nbsp;is nothing more than a type of resistance to what one already &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;nbsp; Innit?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;small&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/small&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;small&gt;*Of course, this begs the question, &amp;quot;What if what I&amp;nbsp;am is a miserable shithead, or a murderer?&amp;nbsp; Should I still be seeking to be the purest expression of it?&amp;quot;&amp;nbsp; &amp;#8211;The answer to which requires an exploration of whether one feels that human beings are innately good, which exploration I just so happen to have been writing recently.&amp;nbsp; It&amp;#8217;ll be up soon.&amp;nbsp; ;)&lt;/small&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;small&gt;&lt;em&gt;Awesome picture (of Confucius and Machiavelli) by &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/small&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.flickr.com/photos/helico/&quot;&gt;&lt;small&gt;Helico&lt;/small&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;border: 1px solid black; padding: 3px;&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Originally published at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/11/25/abandoning-philosophy-for-the-hard-work-of-being-a-continuing-machine/&quot;&gt;*Transcendental *Logic&lt;/a&gt;. You can comment here or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/11/25/abandoning-philosophy-for-the-hard-work-of-being-a-continuing-machine/#comments&quot;&gt;there&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
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  <category>kungfu yay</category>
  <category>philosophy</category>
  <category>know thyself</category>
  <category>logos addict</category>
  <category>better thinking</category>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/682072.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:01:20 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/682072.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;09:51&lt;/em&gt; Schroedinger&apos;s Cat walks into a bar... &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6009608599&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;09:51&lt;/em&gt; ...and doesn&apos;t.  ;) &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/6009611224&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/681830.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:01:09 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/681830.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;08:52&lt;/em&gt; @&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/sergiosfirefly&quot;&gt;SergiosFirefly&lt;/a&gt; Those beliefs themselves won&apos;t make being monogamous for decades easy. They may help you deal w/ how hard it can be, though! &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5976680130&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;08:54&lt;/em&gt; @&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/bricestacey&quot;&gt;bricestacey&lt;/a&gt; @Sydney_Everyman Wow, thanks for the interest!  Am invigorated and terrified about finishing it now.  ;) &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5976719165&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/681478.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:46:53 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Everybody who cares about the effort for Health Care Reform should read this one.</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/681478.html</link>
  <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/robert_reich/2009/11/harry-reid-and-what-happened-t.php&quot;&gt;Harry Reid, and What Happened to the Public Option | Robert Reich&amp;#8217;s Blog&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;First there was Medicare for all 300 million of us. But that was a non-starter because private insurers and Big Pharma wouldn&amp;#8217;t hear of it, and Republicans and &amp;quot;centrists&amp;quot; thought it was too much like what they have up in Canada &amp;#8212; which, by the way, cost Canadians only 10 percent of their GDP and covers every Canadian. (Our current system of private for-profit insurers costs 16 percent of GDP and leaves out 45 million people.) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This is a simple, fast read that clearly elucidates what&amp;#8217;s happening to the public option and its likely fates. &amp;nbsp;Which are deeply frustrating and troubling.&amp;nbsp; Being that I&amp;#8217;m honestly worried that a bad health-care reform effort may be too expensive a blunder for America&amp;#8217;s stuttering economy to withstand, I wish I could do more.&amp;nbsp; I can&amp;#8211;and do&amp;#8211;communicate with Congresspeople, my own and others; but fundamentally I feel that I can&amp;#8217;t communicate as, um, &lt;em&gt;loudly &lt;/em&gt;as the major corporate lobbying groups in question, who seem to have the ear of the majority of Reps and Senators regardless of which party is technically in power.&amp;nbsp; What puts the pressure back on politicians to answer to the people?&amp;nbsp; Surely not &lt;em&gt;legislation &lt;/em&gt;that forces them to, because that would be ludicrous, right?&amp;nbsp; Violence?&amp;nbsp; I can&amp;#8217;t stomach the stuff, and don&amp;#8217;t see a reason to want to learn how.&amp;nbsp; Boycotting maybe?&amp;nbsp; Boycotting what, though? &amp;nbsp;Withholding tax money hurts citizens, by impacting schools and other programs they need; it doesn&amp;#8217;t cut a Senator&amp;#8217;s salary any.&amp;nbsp; &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Okay.&amp;nbsp; Rather than have no ideas, I&amp;#8217;ll say that &lt;em&gt;my &lt;/em&gt;idea is that We, The People should pool our dough and hire some really super good hackers to make the lives of our Congresspeople hell until they relent and pass a real public option, a &amp;quot;Kennedy bill&amp;quot;&amp;nbsp;as some are calling it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Of course my idea kind of sucks, so I&amp;#8217;d love to hear yours.&amp;nbsp; :P&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;border: 1px solid black; padding: 3px;&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Originally published at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/11/23/everybody-who-cares-about-the-effort-for-health-care-reform-should-read-this-one/&quot;&gt;*Transcendental *Logic&lt;/a&gt;. You can comment here or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/11/23/everybody-who-cares-about-the-effort-for-health-care-reform-should-read-this-one/#comments&quot;&gt;there&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
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  <category>poly-ticks</category>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/681264.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:36:17 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Not everything interesting is fun.</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/681264.html</link>
  <description>Oo, go read &lt;a href=&quot;http://sanguinity.livejournal.com/517341.html&quot;&gt;Sanguinity&apos;s post&lt;/a&gt; helpfully summarizing an article (by a guy) that gives a &lt;i&gt;lot &lt;/i&gt;of fascinating information about rape prevention.  Don&apos;t miss the comments either, and if you&apos;re interested in the topic, the blog she links to is an awesome source.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/680808.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:01:51 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/680808.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;10:28&lt;/em&gt; Part One of Thirteen of the novella is edited. Progress! What do people think of &quot;Fangboner Street&quot; as a title? &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5947823251&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;10:30&lt;/em&gt; @&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/sergiosfirefly&quot;&gt;SergiosFirefly&lt;/a&gt;  Well, I hope expecting it to be easy doesn&apos;t stymie you when it gets hard...how about we both agree to keep open minds? &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5947853801&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;21:00&lt;/em&gt; Finished some #shorinryu practice &amp;amp; @riotmod tells me, &quot;Every time you say &apos;pinan&apos;, I want to laugh.&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5963019430&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/680599.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:43:27 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Uber Time Management!</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/680599.html</link>
  <description>&lt;p&gt;Okay, now THIS is exciting: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;ve been looking for a way to manage my time during the next few months &amp;#8212; my daily schedule is about to change and I&amp;#8217;ll need it to be as productive and results-focused as possible; but let&amp;#8217;s face it, I&amp;#8217;m so scattered and multitasky most of the time that even with 20 hours a day to mess around with, I usually end my days by working until it&amp;#8217;s nearly bedtime, and still not getting enough done. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I think I might put this idea to the test!  Would anybody like to try it with me?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This past summer, for example, I completed my PhD in computer science at MIT. Simultaneous with writing my dissertation I finished the manuscript for my third book, which was handed in a month after my PhD defense and will be published by Random House in the summer of 2010. During this past year, I also managed to maintain my blog, Study Hacks, which enjoys over 50,000 unique visitors a month, and publish over a half-dozen peer-reviewed academic papers.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Put another way: I&amp;rsquo;m no slacker. But with only a few exceptions, all of this work took place between 8:30 and 5:30, only on weekdays. (My exercise, which I do every day, is also included in this block, as is an hour of dog walking. I really like my post-5:30 free time to be completely free.)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I call this approach fixed-scheduled productivity, and it&amp;rsquo;s something I&amp;rsquo;ve been following and preaching since early 2008. The idea is simple:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;* Fix your ideal schedule, then work backwards to make everything fit &amp;mdash; ruthlessly culling obligations, turning people down, becoming hard to reach, and shedding marginally useful tasks along the way.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The beneficial effects of this strategy on your sense of control, stress levels, and amount of important work accomplished, is profound.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;via &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/time-management-how-an-mit-postdoc-writes-3-books-a-phd-defense-and-6-peer-reviewed-papers-and-finishes-by-530pm/&quot;&gt;Time management: How an MIT postdoc writes 3 books, a PhD defense, and 6+ peer-reviewed papers &amp;mdash; and finishes by 5:30pm | I Will Teach You To Be Rich&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;border: 1px solid black; padding: 3px;&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Originally published at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/11/22/uber-time-management/&quot;&gt;*Transcendental *Logic&lt;/a&gt;. You can comment here or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/11/22/uber-time-management/#comments&quot;&gt;there&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
  <comments>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/680599.html</comments>
  <category>hacks</category>
  <category>the root of all wealth</category>
  <lj:security>public</lj:security>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/680298.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:01:25 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/680298.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;19:12&lt;/em&gt; @&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/postsecret&quot;&gt;postsecret&lt;/a&gt; @SergiosFirefly Just b/c you love someone doesn&apos;t mean being &amp;amp; staying 100% sexually compatible w/ them for 30+ years w/b easy! &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5932119375&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/679905.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:02:01 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/679905.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;12:38&lt;/em&gt; Got haircut: The Iron Curtain has been tamed again--for now. I think it&apos;s a tad &quot;normal&quot;, but @riotmod says &quot;librariany&quot;, which is cool. &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5863440309&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;12:39&lt;/em&gt; RT @chrisguillebeau: Daily Ass-Kicking: &quot;The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.&quot; -Anne Morrow Lindbergh &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5863477957&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;21:24&lt;/em&gt; I predict that physics will end up validating Zen Buddhism! &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5877163296&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/679132.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:01:29 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/679132.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;14:40&lt;/em&gt; &quot;Once, Ian McKellen looked sideways at Vin Diesel; Vin Diesel’s grandkids will be born bruised.&quot; (--tor.com. I agree; Ian is The Shiz. ;) &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5835093000&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/678852.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:05:45 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Some things are so good it doesn&apos;t matter if they&apos;re NSFW</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/678852.html</link>
  <description>...Like, for instance, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ginandtacos.com/2009/11/17/going-rogue/&quot;&gt;this AWESOME HILARIOUS REVIEW&lt;/a&gt; of Sarah Palin&apos;s &quot;book&quot;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now we are faced with the daunting task of wrapping our minds around the Palin memoir &lt;em&gt;Going Rogue&lt;/em&gt;, appearing atop a bestseller list near you. Millions of copies will be sold of a book written by someone who can’t write, intended for an audience that doesn’t read, about the thoughts of a person who doesn’t think. God is dead.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are in a hurry, here is the succinct version of this review: &lt;em&gt;Going Rogue&lt;/em&gt; is shit. It is groundbreaking in its banality and disregard for facts. If you are sentient, it will pain you to read it. Imagine watching your parents 69 one another while John Madden sits behind you and bellows out color commentary and you will have some idea of how excruciating and profoundly scarring it is to plow through each page of this wholly fictional monument to self-aggrandized mediocrity. &lt;em&gt;Going Rogue&lt;/em&gt; is to the art of writing what the Holocaust is to the concept of a just God – the piece of disconfirming evidence so overwhelming that we are left questioning whether it can exist at all.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;...Aaah, I needed a ROFL today.  *happysigh*</description>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/678483.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:05:39 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>Use Necessity to Augment your Willpower</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/678483.html</link>
  <description>&lt;p&gt;It may not surprise you that I&amp;nbsp;like coffee &amp;#8212; I&amp;nbsp;am a computer-centric organism, after all.&amp;nbsp; But obviously I&amp;#8217;m also health-conscious (though I believe in moderation for that too &amp;#8212; moderation in all things, including moderation!*).&amp;nbsp; So anyway, you may remember that several months ago, I decided to make a concerted push to &lt;strong&gt;learn to enjoy my coffee without milk or cream.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;nbsp;used to take sugar in it, too, but when it started negatively impacting my teeth, I forced myself to get used to it without sugar. &amp;nbsp;That wasn&amp;#8217;t so hard.&amp;nbsp; Looking around a decade later, I figured that &lt;strong&gt;I probably consumed about $5 a week and 200 calories a day worth of dairy creamer in my coffee&lt;/strong&gt;, and I&amp;nbsp;decided it&amp;#8217;d be nice to get rid of it, just because. &amp;nbsp;Also, if I drank black coffee, it&amp;#8217;d be easier to accept a cup at other people&amp;#8217;s homes and in circumstances where there might not be cream (I &lt;em&gt;hate &lt;/em&gt;the powdered stuff, so if there&amp;#8217;s no cold milk or cream, I&amp;#8217;m outta luck for my coffee).&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My goal was just to simplify this little thing, my daily coffee, and I figured that it wouldn&amp;#8217;t be half as hard as some of the other changes I&amp;#8217;ve made. &amp;nbsp;I mean, really; where on the continuum that includes learning Taiji and adapting to Uberman is &amp;quot;drinking black coffee&amp;quot;??&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So, every day for a week, I&amp;nbsp;put less cream in my coffee, until it was nearly black.&amp;nbsp; Well, dark brown, anyway.&amp;nbsp; But you know what?&amp;nbsp; I couldn&amp;#8217;t get farther than that.&amp;nbsp; I still liked the mellower taste, and &lt;strong&gt;I&amp;nbsp;couldn&amp;#8217;t bring myself to stop using cream altogether.&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;nbsp; (I&amp;nbsp;tried getting rid of my half-and-half, but since the household always has milk on hand for the kid&amp;#8217;s use anyway, that didn&amp;#8217;t really help.)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Then, a few weeks ago, opportunity knocked.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;Opportunity&amp;quot; was actually two really icky necessities:&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;nbsp;One, I got a chest-cold and coughed my butt off for a while.&amp;nbsp; Two, a restaurant served me coffee in a dirty carafe, and I&amp;nbsp;ended up with a big blob of something slimy in my mouth (before I spit it out and got the management!), and I&amp;nbsp;spent the next few days seriously squicked out from that.&amp;nbsp; But both of those things turned me off to cream &amp;#8212; it tasted disturbingly slimy, and it was aggravating my cough, as dairy products do.&amp;nbsp; Plus, very little else tasted right thanks to the mucus overload from my cold, so basically all I &lt;em&gt;could &lt;/em&gt;drink for a whole week was water and hot black coffee.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I &lt;em&gt;could &lt;/em&gt; have gone back to using cream last week, now that my cough and the squick have both subsided; but you know what?&amp;nbsp; I didn&amp;#8217;t.&amp;nbsp; Now that I&amp;#8217;m used to it, I find black coffee tastes just fine, and I&amp;#8217;m enjoying how it doesn&amp;#8217;t curdle or go gross in the crevasses of my travel-mug, not to mention the other benefits.&amp;nbsp; &lt;strong&gt;The opportunity posed by the unavoidable events I experienced helped get me &amp;quot;over the hump&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;nbsp;of getting used to drinking black coffee regularly.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Even though I had help &amp;quot;quitting cream&amp;quot;, &lt;strong&gt;I still get some of the credit.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/strong&gt; Why?&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Because it was &lt;em&gt;me &lt;/em&gt;that realized that those icky and unpleasant coincidences could be an opportunity to do something I&amp;nbsp;wanted to do, and it was me who chose not to go back to the comfy old status quo when I could have.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So there&amp;#8217;s a lesson here:&amp;nbsp;&lt;strong&gt; Sometimes you just can&amp;#8217;t make a change on your own, and that&amp;#8217;s okay. &amp;nbsp;Don&amp;#8217;t beat yourself up.&amp;nbsp; But DO continue to keep your eyes open, because very often the Universe will give you the extra push you need to make it happen.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Cheers!&amp;nbsp; &lt;em&gt;::raises coffee::&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;*a little-known Greek named Petronius said that.&amp;nbsp; But my &lt;em&gt;favorite &lt;/em&gt;moderation-related quote is by Thomas Paine (one of my favorite writers), who said that &amp;quot;moderation in temperance is a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice&amp;quot;.&amp;nbsp; Isn&amp;#8217;t that &lt;em&gt;awesome?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style=&quot;border: 1px solid black; padding: 3px;&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Originally published at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/11/18/use-necessity-to-augment-your-willpower/&quot;&gt;*Transcendental *Logic&lt;/a&gt;. You can comment here or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/11/18/use-necessity-to-augment-your-willpower/#comments&quot;&gt;there&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
  <comments>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/678483.html</comments>
  <category>better thinking</category>
  <category>ditch medicine for suburbia</category>
  <category>psychology</category>
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  <lj:reply-count>2</lj:reply-count>
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  <guid isPermaLink='true'>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/677955.html</guid>
  <pubDate>Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:01:55 GMT</pubDate>
  <title>PD IN PIECES</title>
  <link>http://pure-doxyk.livejournal.com/677955.html</link>
  <description>&lt;ul class=&quot;loudtwitter&quot;&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;09:22&lt;/em&gt; My dad likes photography, so I&apos;m giving him A Trip Somewhere Pretty &amp;amp; We&apos;ll All Dress For Pics for his b-day. Anybody else doing &quot;XP gifts&quot;? &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5796653702&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;11:09&lt;/em&gt; Put in an hours&apos; writing this morning and FINISHED THE NOVELLA.  Woot!  Now to rewrite that and the 4 short-stories. \o/ &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5799216132&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;14:25&lt;/em&gt; Re: Stupak &amp;amp; the bishops: &quot;One never sees that kind of effort on behalf of other...Catholic teaching, like opposition to the death penalty.&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5803857280&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;14:26&lt;/em&gt; From this awesome article on Stupid--er, Stupak, in the New Yorker:  &lt;a href=&quot;http://bit.ly/2sZewa&quot;&gt;bit.ly/2sZewa&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5803871240&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;16:44&lt;/em&gt; I ain&apos;t happy; I&apos;m feelin&apos; glad -- I got sunshine in a bag -- I&apos;m useless, but not for long; the future is comin&apos; on.... #truelyrics &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5807242535&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;21:40&lt;/em&gt; @&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/ojodeodin&quot;&gt;OjoDeOdin&lt;/a&gt; Those were absolutely AWESOME words to read in a foreign language.  Loved &quot;kungfuteka&quot; especially! &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/puredoxyk/statuses/5815188889&quot;&gt;#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;...This concludes our WTFcast for today.</description>
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