Apathetic Thursday

I recently posted my equation for figuring out your current level of sanity. (See here.) As I have been thinking about it, however, I have thought that it would be best to generalize it so that it’s usable for people who are not in school. (The whole “desired grade minus current grade” thing didn’t sit right for me.)When trying to generalize this equation, however, I have discovered that this equation doesn’t seem to work as well as I first thought. I’m not saying that it is completely void, but I think it is good to note any inconsistencies or criticisms of my work. My original equation looked like this:

 Which I rationalized by saying that as the days of the semester came to a close, the students go insane because of all the homework and projects and tests that they have to deal with. (Stress from grades is accounted for as well.) This seems to work pretty well, I had several students tell me that they like the formula.

When you break it down to the most generic form, you find that it is simply:

 This also made some sort of sense. The more work that needs to be done, and the less time that is left to do the work produces the lowest feeling of sanity. (That is, the largest feeling of insanity.) On a side note, people are not always honest or accurate with predictions of work and/or time. So perhaps the equation should read more like:

But back to the generic equation, anyone with an understanding of physics should quickly recognize that:

 Which means that power and sanity are inverse each other.

 But this doesn’t make any sense at all. The more power you have, the more work you can get done per time period, the less sane you will be (or feel)?

My current conclusion is that the equation should not deal with the amount of work that a person needs to do in a certain time, but maybe something along the line of the number of events happening within a given time period. Each test, project and paper are then classified as events, but the equation is still generic enough to be applied to non-school-going people as well as holidays and vacations.

When I get my equation tweaked I’ll post it here. Until then, let me know what you think. 

UPDATE: I have discovered some issues with this equation, see my new posting here. I was thinking the other week, and developed the following formula for your current level of sanity. The main goal was to model sanity from a student’s perspective, but the formula may be tweaked for other occupations of lifestyles. Enjoy!

Forecast is calling for  4-8 inches of snow today, and it started earlier this morning. A dozen of us bundled up and played Ultimate Frisbee for an hour in the snow. It was cold, the wind was biting and the snow was coming down steadily.  You haven’t played ultimate until you’ve played it in the snow.

I totally knew it! I totally called this! I knew my blog was worth something, now I just need to find someone to pay me for it.

The oranges in the cafe here on campus have finally started to be a nice bright orange color, rather then the usual yellow-ish. This makes them more attractive and appealing to eat. (Yes, that was a pun.) I have decided to make this week “Scurvy Prevention Week” and have had at least one if not two oranges every day. I encourage you to do the same.

Inspired by another blog, I thought it might be a neat idea to post the links to the blogs I read, as to spread the news of new blogs to others. This was actually quite a task to round up these blogs, because with my reinstall for Leopard I had no bookmarks left, so I went around and found all the blogs that I like to read or occasionally visit or best yet, things I would like to read in the future.

I then compiled the entire list into Vienna, a free RSS reader, and then inscribed them into this post.

I didn’t want to stop with blogs though, so I also went on to list the podcasts I currently subscribe too as well.

In no particular order, here they are.

Blogs:

• http://bobnation.org/ - A blog by my a good friend.
• http://daringfireball.net/ - John Gruber’s site, usually a good place for news and comments.
  
• http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/ - I love Fake Steve.
• http://xkcd.com/ - Great comic strip, if you like math, technology and relationships.
  
• http://apatheticthursday.net (Yes, my own website is my homepage… I am that vain… …but it’s such a lovely site!)
• http://www.tedwinder.org/ - A neat blog about technology, photography and other random things.
  
• http://www.bloggingwhilepaused.com/ - Video game characters, blogging about video games.
• http://www.smashbros.com/ - Until Brawl comes out, I’m drooling over this site.
• http://www.randsinrepose.com/ - The Nerd Handbook, this man described me.
• http://www.alistapart.com/ - Excellent web development techniques.
• http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/ - Just found out about this one, but great photo tips.
• http://www.tuaw.com/ - Gotta read my Apple News.
• http://indexed.blogspot.com/ - Not quite sure what this is, but it looks interesting, so I’m watching it from a distance.
• http://ilovetypography.com/ - Someday I am going to sit down and read up everything I can on typography, this site is on the list of literature.
• http://cabel.name/ - For all your Panic goodness.
• http://theappleblog.com/ - The Apple Blog
• http://diveintomark.org/ - Mark Pilgrim’s Blog
• http://5ives.com/ - A neat idea from the Merlin Man
• http://www.43folders.com/ - And the Merlin Man’s Site.
• http://www.cwob.com/ - Andy Ihnatko’s Colossal Waste of Bandwidth.
• http://www.crazyapplerumors.com/ - I love Crazy Apple Rumors
• http://www.macalope.com/ - Good site for Mac thoughts. (In the 3rd person.)
• http://ambermac.typepad.com/ - “Everybody wants to be like Amber”
• http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/ - Red vs Blue FTW!
• http://leoville.com/blog/ - Leo Laporte, where can’t you find this man?
• http://modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/ - Web stuffs, good articles, I’m a fan.
• http://thewiire.com/ - Nintendo news.
• http://www.macworld.com/ - Mac Stuffs
• http://macuser.com/ - More Mac Stuffs
• http://www.uncrate.com/ - Coolest creations ever.
• http://www.makezine.com/ - I wish I could do it all.
• http://www.howstuffworks.com/ - For the scientist in me.
• http://www.instructables.com/ - More stuff I don’t have time for.
• http://lifehacker.com/ - Awesome concept, good articles as well.
• http://www.theonion.com/content/ - My Official source of news.
• http://blog.despair.com/ - My favorite company ever.

Podcasts:

• Security Now - http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm
• This Week In Tech - http://twit.tv/twit
• The Daily GizWiz - http://twit.tv/DGW
• Onion News Network (Video) - http://www.theonion.com/content/video/
• Webb Alert - http://webbalert.com/
• Windows Weekly - http://twit.tv/ww
• Ask A Ninja - http://askaninja.com/

It’s official. I am now going to rely on the Onion as my sole source of news.

Yeah, I totally knew it, and I don’t need any of you! I am an Expert, I’m just Undiscovered. Some day, you’ll be polishing my shoes. Just remember that. You had your chance to get in touch, rub shoulders, you know, make a friend, but if you blow it now, don’t expect my sympathy later.

Later days!

It’s day 3 of mid-term break. A solid 3 days without classes. I spend day 1 working in the Theater department, and I spend most of day 2 playing video games and watching TV. Today was spend mostly outside, but between today and yesterday, I have just hit the point where, I feel like I have nothing to do.

When life becomes busy, people get use to it, then when it stops being busy they don’t know what to do with themselves.

I think we have forgotten how to relax. Even I find it hard to sit back and enjoy myself if I know there are a dozen things I should/could be doing. Even our “down time” is being filled with online interaction, video games, movies, all keeping us from truly relaxing.

Assignment for this week: spend 30 solid minutes doing absolutely nothing, and don’t regret it afterwards.

It’s funny how this works. The day after I devise a quote in my head, a similar quote appears on a website I frequent, and says something very similar. I still think I like mine better though.

“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be too cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”

- Ray Bradbury (1920- )