Solar powered assistance bike SOHH Project

In my earlier post 'Business Sucks' I wrote how I sometimes find it difficult to sit down with people and have a decent debate. One of the things that I find the hardest to deal with is when the argument gets changed regularly. I believe that people do this because the original argument does not have enough merit and needs support.

What I just stumbled upon is that there is a term for this, it is known as a Straw man Argument.

From wikipedia

"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position."

The wikipedia article also has some good examples.

Full article Straw Man.

I just finished reading an interesting article on zenhabits.net. The article was '3 ways to get more done with the power of less.' and who would not want to get more done with less?

Some might call me lazy but I would rather call it efficient. Why vacuum the house this week, I can do it next week and save some time, how bad can it be to vacuum the house every second week? There you go, efficient. But the problem is that if I am bargaining with my self about saving time. What am I then doing with this extra time? What am I achieving? Squat? No, I have made some progress but if I was truly efficient I would be getting 'more done with less'

In Dave Allens book 'Getting things done' he discuss the idea of open loops. When there is a task that you have not completed, even if you are not consciously thinking about it you are in your subconsciousness. This is taking up precious resources, and if there are two many open loops you can feel like there is two much to do and nothing gets done, almost like the problem is to big.

Any one ever use Microsoft Windows? it kind of works the same.

I am the default computer guy at work. I am not a computer guy, I just appear to know more than the next guy and therefore I get called by people with their computer problems. My first response is RTFM or as it stands for 'Restart The Fucking Machine'. (RTFM can also be used as Read The Fucking Manual) 9/10 times this fixes the problem. One of the reason that this works is the computers memory can be filled with crap and it needs to be cleared. Once you think you have closed a program some of that can reside in the memory even thought the process has been terminated.

So if you put this analogy together with Dave Allens open loop idea what do you get? Closing the loops will allow us to put more resources into other projects and we will be able to get things done.

Ok, now lets get back to the original article '3 ways to get more done with the power of less.'

The article has some great advice.

-Have one big goal. “Something that is achievable but challenging, probably within about six months to a year.”
-Only have three projects going at a time
-Every night before you go to bed write down your 3 most important tasks (M.I.T.) that need to be completed the next day.

Now as you focus on getting these tasks done and completed you can get on to the next goal/project/task.

This also fit in with Tim Ferriss philosophy of not multitasking. Something that I have already implemented into my day to day.

So lets get it down on paper so I have to do it.

Main Goal
Get my waste measurement half my height measurement. I stand 193cm tall and my waste measurement is currently 127cm. This means I have to loose a whooping 30cm. How am I going to do this. As detailed on my blog Fat man getting thin, i have really increased my physical out put, now unfortunately i have to dial in my eating. But if I can just find a diet that includes fried chicken :)

I will be making up dates on the fat man page as progress continues.

In my 17th May 09 article 'De Clutter' I spoke of my new mythtv box. Boy I am loving it. With its EPG it has helped me not watch more TV but be a lot more selective of the TV I am watching. This has effectively de clutted my TV watching experience.

Now It has also been working well for the girlfriend. I now have a steady stream of programs for her watch why I am pre occupied (like when I am building Mythtv Boxes.) One thing that my girl friend loves is monkeys and apes. So these two titles have been added to the program finder and automatically recorded. We have had an almost continues supply of primate specials featuring everything from eastern low land gorillas to chimpanzees. But the animal that inspired this article is the orangutan.


"Right Turn Clyde"

My first memories of orangutans was of Clyde, the hard drinking, hard partying, shit on command orangutan from the 'Every which way' films. He was remarkable in his roll with his almost human quality range of emotion and comical timing.

Unfortunately our close relative the orangutan is now under threat, and remarkably its not due to our insatiable need for pretty hardwood floors and bleached toilet paper. But due to our sweet tooth.

Currently the biggest threat to orangutan habitat is palm tree plantations. These plantations have been spreading at a remarkable rate and their product, palm tree oil is used in all maner of food products. While watching the latest episode of the excellent new BBC documentary series 'Orangutan Diary' my girlfriend stated that she from now on would boycott any foods that contain palm tree oil. My reply to her was "how do you know which ones contain palm tree oil?"

My girlfriend was under the assumption that palm tree oil would be listed on the ingredients listing on the side of the food packaging. But, unfortunately I was correct when i stated that it would be listed just under vegetable oil.

Not to long a go my girlfriend sent me the following link to the Palm Oil Action Group shopping guide. I had no idea that so many items were made with the oil. Decisions become a lot harder when tim tams are involved.



But I just cant look at these poor little buggers and be hungry. In the next few weeks I will be looking for items that we can substitute for any thing with palm tree oil and post them here on the blog.

The poor get the picture. The bombs never hit you. When you're down so low." - Read About it, Midnight oil.

In my first post for this blog i stated that I would like to get my weekly spending down to the same as some one that was unemployed and on a government allowance.

Well, I would like to say that i am pretty damn close to that. weekend splashing on the step kids for lunch is the regular expenditure that would take me over this limit.

Why would I want to lower my expense to the 'dole' amount.

- To help funnel my money to pay off my debits. Fuck banks, I aint going to give them a cent more than i have to. Once all my credit cards and loans are paid off, I will try as much as possible to wash my hands of them.

- To see what it would be like to live at such a point.

- But the major reason is this. I would like to have a life style with as little stress as possible, I have a mother, I dont need any more stress than that. By lowering by expenditure to that level I could take the fear of losing my job away. Not saying that I would like to be unemployed, I just dont want to have to worry about car repayments ect.

The interesting thin that i am becoming more aware of is that it cost money to be poor, especially if you have dependents.

A friend was the first to alert me to this. I was visiting him while he was living in London. The first time I visited him he was living in a nice group house in Wimbledon. It was a nice place but quite a trip to soho were he worked. Close to a year after he moved to London he had some very good luck, his father was posted to london and got a nice government funded house in Kensington. Now what does this have to do with my argument? My mate had to live in Wimbledon due to his income. Wimbledon was Zone 3 on the tube payment system and when he moved this went down to zone 1. That is a half decent saving right there. Because he was able to live in a richer part of town he was able to save more money.

Now there were other benefits as well. The amount of services closer to him had increased substantially. Big chain supermarkets with there lower prices, health services ect, He didn't need his car any more, another huge saving.

This link is to a article from the Washington Post. Obversely the US has a larger population than here in Aus so there problems for the poor is a lot worse. But it is same the world over, it cost money to be poor

In my previous article when I reviewed the book 'The four hour work week.' I set a list of what i would like to achieve from what i got from the book.

- Only agree to meetings that have a clear objective and agenda.
I have not had a meeting since the book, yippee. Every time some one has suggested that we sit down to discuss something I request that they out line the purpose and wanted outcome from the meeting. As of yet there have been no meetings. I think a)the reason for the meeting was more social and they had no real agenda. 2)They think that I am a prick and dont want to deal with me. 3)They had an hidden agenda that they want to push.

Now this could back fire but at the moment i am happy to not have my time wasted.

- Stop multi tasking and set stringent times for doing specific jobs.
I used to think that there was something wrong with me, that I wasn't able to just sit down and work at a constant pace through out the day. After reading the book I realised that like others i am better at working in strong burst. The problem with this is if I am working on a project I get quite frustrated when i am disturbed. So to help get around this I have set my most intensive programs for the times when I am least to be interrupted. I have set also days of the week for certain projects. Doing work on the weekend is not may favorite mostly for the fact i dont get payed for it, but the 20minitues of work I did on Sunday would have taken a couple of hours through out the week.


- Remove my self from being instantly contactable.
The only people that i have on instant message are, two from upper management and the my girlfriend (who called also be mistaken for upper management.) :)

On weekends, if I am with the ball and chain i don't carry my mobile. She is the person i really need to be instant contact with. I have also set my phone message to states that I will only check messages at 9am business days and added my work number. After all, it is a work phone, i can talk to any one when i am being paid to care.

- Check emails only twice a day.
Ok, this I havnt been to good with. But I only respond to certain emails at 10am and 4pm. I get a lot of small request from people, setting deadlines for when i am going to respond helps consolidate everything. People are starting to respond the same, it is great. One thing have changed is that I dont check emails on weekends.

- De clutter my house and belongings.
Well, I have done a good job of making piles of goods that I dont need any more, but at the moment they are still just piles. I will work on getting this stuff out of the house. The big problem I dont just want to throw this stuff out, I have to look at selling some items and giving the rest away.

The area that is going to be the hardest is IT and gadgets, how many leatherman multi tools does one need? you would think one wouldn't you. This article describes how some one has done this to make there life more efficient.

To help consolidate my IT I am going to have to spend some money, sounds stupid right? I have always enjoyed getting the most out of legacy equipment but this has left me with multiple computers doing different tasks and the only way out of this is to buy more, still sounds stupid. Here is an example.

I have a home server that runns 24/7. It is a Frankenstein of parts thrown together, every time I find a larger IDE hardive ready for the scrape heap, I liberate it and add it or replace another drive. For a unit that cost me nothing, it has over a terabyte of space. I know that these days this not a lot of storage, but hey, it did cost me nothing.

On the weekend I set up a mythtv box and it is awesome, really awesome. Now this gives the following dilemma. It has made my sony DVR obsolete that only two years ago cost me $800, I am going to have to find another home for, plus I now have another computer that runs 24/7. That is a waste. And due to the computers different ages parts arnt swappable between them. My mythtv box only has 80gig of storage and the tv tuner wont fit into the server.

Solution? I am going to sit down and design and build my first new computer for over ten years. It is going to have to the following requisites to make it worth while and future proof. The positive is that it is going to replace three items with one.

- 2 gigs of storage
- 2 gigs of ram
- HDMI out
- 2x digital tuners
- f'ing quite.
- Low power consumption.
- remote
- Blu-ray player and DVD/CD burner.

I will keep you uptodate with the progress.

I still have the scars from first trip to Disneyland. Only those that have been there, seen it first hand, experienced it in the flesh can understand the trauma. These are not physical scars, but the pain can still be seen on my face. Its the anguish caused buy having the song its a 'Its a small world after all' on a continuous loop in my head wich has unfortunately caused irreversible damage. People still today question why i bombard my ears to Swedish deathmetal. It is the only thing I have found that can sooth the pain.

Music, the Internet and disease. There is nothing else that proves conclusively that it is a small world after all. The current out break of swine flu has only the latest example of how all corners of the world are connected.

Playingforchange.com with the use of music and the Internet (and hopefully with out disease) have proven how small the world can be. Following is one of those touching videos that dont come along often enough.

PS. if you dont beilieve me about disneylan, see how far you get through this

I wouldn't give you the poison with out the cure.

Here is an article from one of my favourite blogs Lifehacker. in this article they discuss extended travel with only one board baggage.

Article

Over the weekend I read 'The 4-Hour Work Week' by Tim Ferriss. 1/3 of the book was Great, 1/3 was crap and the last 1/3 just helped reinforced things that I always knew I should do. Do I recommend the book? Definitely. It was a great slap in the face to get motivated and complete things that I have wanted to do for years. I don't think I have finished a book in one weekend since the first Harry Potter.

I found Tim through his blog I was researching for my last vacation. It was my goal was to only pack a carry on bag to eliminate the hassle of checking in and recovering checked baggage. I found an interesting article from Tim about what he travels with OS. From there I new that we shared the same minimalist approach. The big difference he was living it but I was some how still had a life full of clutter.

Over the years I have often had moments of inspiration were I was to de clutter my life and live with their bare essentials. Normally I get this inspiration when traveling internationally. It is easy at this time to have goals like

- Only have enough clothing to fit in a suit case.
- Only have one of everything else that I might need. Spoon, plate ect.
- The websites, TV shows and newspapers that I read at home because I feel I need to be up to date arnt really that essential and stop reading/viewing them.

Then I get home and quickly get back to your normal life. I believe this is because all these things that we build around us are there as crutches to helps us get through normalcy and as Tim puts it, to fill boredom.

I often joke with my girlfriend about leaving my house and moving into a cargo container. She doesn't think it is that funny at all. But to me, it is really me saying to my self I should be able to get buy on what I could fit into the container.

The book has really highlighted that I need to get rid of this clutter to feel better about my self.

So what was the best part of the book?
Reading the book really made me review my life looking from the out side in. I already know that I am quite inefficient and do many unnecessary tasks during the day to fill boredom. But the best bit of the book dealt with how do deal with other people that waste my time for no other reason but to fill the boredom in their life. No 1. was people that always want to have a face to face meeting when it is not necessary to actually complete a task. How often do I get request for a face to face meeting that after completion has resulted in nothing. After reading the book I have concluded that these meetings are held for the following reasons.

- An excuse to have a social meeting.
- For the person to use their power of persuasion to get something they want but I do not and ends up being a waste of time.
- As a system of control. The person either wants to prove to me or to them selves that they can get me to jump through meaningless hoops.

How does Tim rectifying this? He does not agree to a meeting with out a clear agenda of what is to be discussed and completed. Also, to try to set a finish time to the meeting.

Any other important lessons from the Book?
Yes, the other major lesson that I got from the book was the 80/20 rule. I will write about this in another article.

So is the four our work week a myth?
When it comes down to it I think that Tim was part lucky, part genius, I will not be able to reproduce what he has done and recommends in his book. I have a problem how he out sources a lot of his responsibilities to Virtual assistant in India. I agree with his methods of become more efficient but this will not allow me to vagabond around the world. I believe that inefficacy is a major problem with our society and I will use his methods to help my self and those around me more efficient I will think there is better uses for this time.

What recommendation am I going to implement?
- Only agree to meetings that have a clear objective and agenda.
- Stop multi tasking and set stringent times for doing specific jobs. When I come to work on a weekend I can do a days work in two hours. I can apply my self to getting one job done free from distraction and other little jobs.
- Remove my self from being instantly contactable. This will make me more and the way other people deal with me more efficient. I have already deleted every one from my gtalk account accept for my girlfriend, I like her distractions.
- Check emails only twice a day.
- De cluter my house and belongings.

and many others that will appear in further articles.

In February i have will be away. What I am going to out line in the post is what i want to travel with.

Now my objectives are
- Keep the amount of items down to a bag that I can carry on the plane.
- Keep a log of what worked and what didn't for future travel.

Neither trip is international so items like Passport and power adapters are not necessary.

Things I will try to Pack or wear when traveling
essential
- Ipod (Music Comes first)
- Laptop
- Video Camera
- Way to Charge Electrical items
- Torch
- Micro Towel
- 3 Shirts. 2x T-shirt, 1x more respectable.
- 2 pair of Fast drying underwear
- 1 pair of Shorts
- 1 pair of long pants with un zipper legs (Yes, i have no shame)
- 1 pair of slip on shoes that can get wet
- 1 pair of closed shoes
- 2 pairs of Socks
- Spray Jacket
- something warm
- Tooth Brush and Paste (will take old tube that is almost empty to save some space.
- Soap
- Handy wipes.
- Toilet paper (been caught out a few times.

non essential
- Power board (there is never enough power sockets)
- Retractable travel Ethernet cable
- Security cable lock for bag in hotel.
- Still Camera
- Jumper
something light weight but warm. This trip an item like this will not be needed.
- Plastic Coffee Cup
there is never enough at the hotel
- On-plane earphone adapter

things I like to pack when traveling internationally
- Power adapter
- Luggage Scales
With my last trip to the states i had a problem with baggage weight. Everything was fine when I started but the purpose of the trip was education so very soon i started to build up literature. I quickly went over my weight allowance. I then proceeded in a hurry to remove items from my bag as i did not want to pay the penalty. I ended up removing way to much and through away a lot more than i need which in the end was a waste of money.
- Medication to stop leaks
Pills to make both my arse or my nose from dripping. I have been told that it is better to travel with nose pills that do not have any pseudo-ephedrine, they dont work as well but might save so hassle.

I will add to this list as I think of it.

I have been quite on this Blog. This is due to not really achieving any of my goals lately. In stead of creating a New Years Resolution list that will most like fail I am going to use the 1st of January 2009 as an important marker. For the Year of 2009 I am going to keep a list of non essential items that i purchase and see what I am using at the end of the year. I look through my collection of junk that i have acquired over the last couple of years, it is amazing how much of this stuff I thought was essential and is no longer being used.

The other thing i am going to try to this year is plan sick months ahead on projects. This means completing winter projects in summer.

Lets see how I go.