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This will be the year that I will end with a shorter, not longer, backlog of things to do. That’s really been my problem in recent years is that the things I’m able to do increased, but not the time to do them in. Time management is probably my biggest challenge, but I’ve got the tools at my disposal and am getting better at it, so less overlapping things will occur (I hope.)

That means I’ll be getting caught up in more of the reading, writing, learning, and playing of things. Getting more things done is what’s going to be different. I’m already doing good, I think, with 1/365 daily posts done.

Basically, I want to reuse the resolutions I made a year ago as well. I’ve pretty much lived all of 2014 with those in mind.

How about you, dear reader? What is going to make this year different than every year before?

via Daily Post – 1.1.2015 – Daily Writing – Desk Community.

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Sometimes, I think my phone’s brightness is too bright. It’s often that I find myself fiddling with the brightness, especially in a dark environment, such as outdoors at night.

It’s a little tricky to get it right when indoors as well, and I’m hoping I can find the right setting that automatically adjusts to a comfortable setting no matter where I’m at. I’ll keep tweaking it until I hit the sweet spot.

One Word Wednesday: Bright

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There’s somebody in my life that I feel could use more of my time. I say this, a bit selfishly, as I’d like to have a little more of her time as well. Life just doesn’t seem to want to make that easy, by throwing up some pretty serious hurdles, such as a 45 minute drive for a visit, or a work schedule (hers) that has big time commitment and difficulty with being in any way spontaneous. At this point, I’m seriously considering using vacation days just to hang out more often. If I’m going to, though, I want to plan some really fun stuff for us to do. Ideas are most appreciated here, and keep in mind that we’re both fairly geeky and don’t usually go for the traditional stuff.

Now, it’s your turn to think about things a bit. 🙂

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eBay listing, November 4, 2214:

 

Vintage Laptop Hard Disk 500GB

 

That’s the likely listing heading, when it goes up for sale online for lovers of old techknowldgy in 2214. What the buyer will find on it, will likely be of interest to a historian of culture and technology. There’s a few things that might stand out from the mundane data that most disks contain. Examples:

 

  • A folder for an old massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), World of Warcraft, which was released 210 years ago and was very successful for its era.
  • transcripts from text-based chat software. A relic of pre-telepathic communications.
  • A relatively small Music folder. Unsurprising, as the era of storing personal media files locally was on the decline with increasing cloud-based storage gaining popularity.
  • The remaining used space (the drive is 75% full) is taken up by the other application software, mostly prouctivity and software development applications, and a few otheer notable games such as the sandbox of Minecraft, and even the first popular game library managers (Steam, and Battle.net).
  • Last, but not least is the operating system itself (Mac OS X, a flavor of the ancient UNIX family of software which was popular with not just academics, but this one had many creatives using it as well).

This drive is in surprisingly good condition, considering drives of its kind had a useful operating lifetime of roughly 10-20 years, depending on usage and environment. This one sems to have seen light usage before being taken out, likely to use a much higher capacity drive, or even one with no moving parts. The drive was only powered on after being recovered from a “time capsule” to check its usability and contents. A real collector’s item, but there’s still no reserve because it’s value speaks for itself. Thanks for checking this listing out!

—END LISTING-

 

I’m participating in Blogging 101. Here’s today’s prompt:

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/buyers-beware/

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OK, let’s suppose, for a minute, that I got the chance travel back in time to relive part of the past. If I got to do either high school or college over again, what would I do differently? I’d first like to think I’d need a good reason to do so before tackling the question.

That’s actually pretty tricky because where I am now is a result of both, in different ways. I’d say that I would have rebelled more in high school. Instead, I really believed everything that my parents said about how hard academic work would pay off (which is only partially true – social skills help too) in having great relationships, and that people that value intelligence would come around, despite the awkward nerdiness – i.e. no need to change for other people. I say it’s partially true because being smart only gets one so far, but being smart and witty is a good combination.

Being able to carry on, socially, means you become approachable so that people can see your true self. If you’re just some know-it-all who can’t carry on a conversation with a layperson, you’re going to struggle. I did (and still do) and hopefully will come through it relatively unscathed. I’m far from perfect, but I hope a bit wiser for the experiences.

Here’s the inspiration for this bit of introspection:

https://twitter.com/DeskPM/status/525595268972961792

Would you do either over again? Let me know.

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You are presented with two career choices:

Deck Hand :

a worker on a ship who does work that does not require special training

To be sure, if I was ever found working on a ship, this would likely be my role. I definitely do not have any specialized nautical skills now, so manual labor would be what I’d do. This is an easy choice since I would quickly become bored, even with the occasional excitement of rough seas to throw a bump in the monotony of cleaning and moving equipment around. A pro would be the travel aspect. It would be fun to visit exotic ports, even if briefly. Getting a taste of multiple cultures directly is hard to beat.

Librarian :

a specialist in the care or management of a library

I like to read. Right now, it’s mostly fiction, but if I were a librarian, I think I’d expand that reading to non-fiction as well. I hear that some historical non-fiction is pretty compelling sometimes. The rise and fall of ancient empires, biographies, and even more magazines that I’m not sure I’d subscribe to (but might like to try), to name some of the stuff I’d read, even as I’d help keep things in order in the shelves.

If you are forced to spend the rest of your life as either a deck hand on a ship or as a librarian at a prestigious university, which would you choose and why (if neither, I want to know as well)?

Based on writingprompts on tumblr

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The WoW guild I’m an officer in, Sanctity (US-Azuremyst) downed Lady Vashj this evening for our guild’s first downing of her. It was very fun, especially since the team vibes were flowing. For those who understand the fight, it’s also interesting to note that one of the tainted elementals unfortunately de-spawned (really bad luck that a strider came at the exact same time and place as the elemental) on us, making phase 2 a tad long, but the team persevered and prevailed.

Screenshot after the jump.
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