Can I get back to you in 5 minutes, I'm really busy at the moment?

Actually, no you can't. Because you're not busy, you're living in some fantasy land where you don't give yourself a second. And the reason for this is because you believe you're always busy.

It's important to remember, that each day, you create your own work load. If you don't have 5 minutes, then you need to stop what you're doing and change the way you work. No one should be worked every minute of the day, it's unproductive and unnecessary.

On the flip side, when you begin to recognise you do have spare time, you must ask yourself 'what am I doing with my spare time?' and if the answer is nothing, then that is fine. As long as you don't moan about not having any, because the bottom line is, we all have plenty.

Richard Dawkins was on the box last night, talking about Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. Last year I read 'The Selfish Gene' written by Dawkins and found it pretty interesting and would recommend it to anyone. That said he seems stuck up his own ass, please do excuse the language. His views are very "2D" and he takes everything literally. I think if he was more opening minded when discussing his thoughts and opinions with others he'd gain much more respect from none atheists. When he's talking to others who do not share his opinions, his body language is like that of a child, who is ready to pounce with a witty response rather than trying to understand what they're saying. I think it would be fair to call him an absolutist, which is fine and we need people who are willing to discuss their thoughts in public and have ideas to back it up, but personally I think he's allowed science to blind him to the illusion in which we exist.

If you were to throw a word at me, agnostic would probably stick best

Cheers
Ryan Partington

In school you get taught an awful lot of rubbish. And at the end, you're judged on the ability to remember useless facts.

The biggest life skill in my eyes? How well you can communicate with strangers, how fast you can build rapport with different personality types. Communication is so important, as only a certain percentage of what we're saying is usually received by the other person(s). The higher this percentage on a send/receive level, the more successful, I believe, you'll be in what you're doing. You could spend years becoming a leading expert in a specific role, but it may be worth spending some time talking to complete strangers and seeing how well you do. Over time your confidence will grow and you'll be able to express the skills you already have, a lot better.

I've just watched a film called 'Felon' and there was a quote I'd like to share. Two inmates are locked up in 'the shoe', the elder and the new comer. The new guy, Carter, asks how the elder survives without being part of any gang.

Perception is reality, I chose to create mine, others chose to accept it

Cheers
Ryan Partington

I’m going to take another shot at explaining the rules of the universe. There are a few core principals, belief, living for now and understanding how time works.

Starting with belief, whatever you believe is real, is real. Fact. Whether or not everyone else holds the same perception is irrelevant, if you actually believe it to be true, then at this point in time, it is.

Living for now (or in the moment), forget the past, worry not about the future. Focus on what is happening around you now. The universe is always providing you with opportunity and challenges to achieve whatever you want, today. You’ll become unhappy if your focus is anywhere else because you’ll be blind to the beauty of life.

Time, I’ve said before, is an illusion. For that matter, "Life is an illusion; albeit a persistent one." (Thanks Albert Einstein). But for now let’s focus on time. Forget about it, there is a single state of mind; time is just a way we organise information. Last year, next year don’t exist, it’s the way we store thoughts and memories. Once you understand this, you can be anywhere at any time. Not in the logical sense because we don’t live in a logical world, unless - you believe we do.

Want to test the theory? Easy, believe you already have something you don’t currently own. Believe it every day and act like it’s already yours. Don’t question how the universe will answer, don’t think about when and never doubt. The universe will provide as long as you believe.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

I'm the lead developer for a game called Goon World. An NDA has been signed so I can't say too much. The project's split into two, 3d version and a browser based version. I am working solely on the browser based project. I've been given the opportunity to write the design document which details how the game will actually play. This is separate from writing the code, I'm talking about the actual dynamics of the game, how it will look, how you get money, methods of transport etc. I am not getting paid for this work at the moment and there is a chance I never will. The contract is 'Profit Share', which basically means you get paid when the game makes money. The risk is spending an awful lot of time working on something which ends up down the pan. I'm telling you about this now as it's the kinda thing that is presented to us all everyday. My decision to take on this role lies with me today. I don't know if I'll accept or decline, I'm looking forward to seeing what happens.

And remember,

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

Live differently this week. If you're usually organised and write everything down, try going with the flow and see how you react. Maybe you're one who enjoys going the gym? I know how crazy this may sound, but have the week off. Challenge your mind and see how adaptable you are.

Focus on what you enjoy doing, and you’ll do more. I’ve found that in the past, if I had something to do, I’d force myself to do it. Usually using this system which I blogged about in December last year. It works for getting what you’ve written down done, but it removes a certain level of creative freedom. For example, using the system helps if your direction is to remain the same for a long period of time. You get used to adding repetitive tasks such as ‘write book review’ and are pleased when you get to the end of the day to find you’ve completed everything you wanted. What is does not account for is direction. It’s like choosing a destination and setting off on a long run, it’s easier to keep going and not question your journey, as after all, you’re half way there. I found – I’d stopped thinking of new things to try, as I was busy achieving the old ones. My point being, don’t keep doing something because it was for the best then, stay true and act on how you feel now.

You’re losing interest in this post. To be an effective writer you need to communicate your message using as few words as possible. Before typing anything, have a clear understanding of what you’re trying to say.

KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is a philosophy which can also help create good technical documentation.

Today I came across this interview whilst reading new scientist, and I was amazed by the content. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did

From New Scientist 19th April 2008 edition:
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On 10 December 1996, neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor had a stroke when a blood vessel ruptured in her brain. Robbed of her memory, motor skills, even personality, she retreated into herself and dwelled primarily in her brain's right hemisphere. During the eight years to full recovery, she found ways to control her thoughts and rebuild her mind. She tells Michael Reilly why the stroke was the best thing that ever happened to her

What did the stroke do to you?

Because the haemorrhage was in my cerebral cortex, it wiped out my cognitive mind. I was very fortunate, though, in that my body was going to be OK.

Describe the days that followed.

I was in hospital for five days. On the morning of the third day my mother came to my side. Now, I did not know what a mother was, much less who my mother was. She came in, acknowledged everyone in the room, and then immediately picked up the sheet and crawled into bed with me. I didn't know who this person was. I didn't know what this person was. All I knew was that this very kind woman just crawled into my bed, wrapped her arms around me and started rocking me, like I was her baby. And I was her baby. She just recognised that I was an infant again and that was that.

What did you do for your rehabilitation?

The only formal rehab I had was speech therapy. I saw a speech therapist for about three months. My real rehab was done by my mother from the day she brought me home. She was an angel in my life. She would take me to the bathroom, feed me and then if I had any energy left she would work me - children's puzzles, teaching me to read, walking me around the apartment and then the block, those kinds of things. I would not be here if it were not for her.

The advantage I had was that I believed in the ability of the brain to recover itself. That meant primarily for me to get out of its way.

How do you get out of the brain's way?

My number one recommendation is sleep. The brain needs sleep. These cells have been traumatised. The person is totally burned out and fried, and they want to sleep. In our society, generally what happens in a rehabilitation environment is that wake-up time is at 7 am. Everyone gets awakened. If you are a stroke survivor and you are zoned out and don't want to be awake, you will be pumped with amphetamines. Stimulus is stuck in your face, often in the form of a TV set in the room, sometimes literally a foot from your face. It's pure pain. And then we keep these people awake through dinner. After dinner they're put back to bed. The idea is that if you're going to recover, you have to act like a normal person. If that had been my experience, honestly I would have chosen not to engage. There's no question in my mind that we're not treating stroke survivors effectively.

You have said that you retreated into the right hemisphere of the brain. What was that like?

When I had the haemorrhage, the personality of my left hemisphere was traumatised. I shifted all the way into the right hemisphere, because the left-brain personality became non-functional and released her dominance, or released the dominating neural fibres that were inhibiting my right hemisphere. That's from an anatomical perspective.

As time went on, different circuits in the left hemisphere started to become functional again. It was like repairs. So it was a long process of me in relationship with my brain, day after day, year after year, rebuilding. I was consciously choosing and rebuilding my brain to be what I wanted it to be.

Did you actually consciously reconstruct your brain with your thoughts?

Yes, renewing or rerunning neurocircuits was a cognitive choice. The non-functional circuits started to come back online one at a time and I could choose to either hook into that circuitry or not feed it. For example, when the anger circuit wanted to run again, I did not like the way it felt inside my body so I said "no" to its running. Every time it tried to get triggered and run again, I brought my attention back to it - I did not like the way anger felt so I shut it down. Now that circuit rarely runs at all, mostly because I feel it getting triggered and nip it in the bud.

It was so clear to me during my recovery that every ability I had was because the circuit that controlled it was good, it was functioning. I learned that certain thoughts that I had could stimulate the emotional circuitry, which could then result in a physiological response.

So, I look at us as a collection of neurocircuitry of thoughts and emotions and physiological responses. When you see the brain as the kind of computer network that it is, it becomes easier to manipulate. But you have to be willing. People say "Oh I'm so much more than my thoughts, I'm so much more than neurocircuitry," and I'm like, yeah, I had that fantasy once, too. I don't any more. As human beings we all have the ability to focus our minds on what we want to think about.

This sounds like the claims made by meditators.

I think folks who meditate are willing to pay attention to their thoughts so that they can purposefully redirect their minds. Mantras, prayer beads, consciously thinking about one's breathing - these are tools that provide the brain with an alternative to the constant brain chatter, permitting the mind's focus to shift to something else. It's the same sort of thing. There are people who are comfortable witnessing their thoughts, while there are others who think they are their thoughts. Learning to observe our neural circuitry and not engage with it is a skill we all can learn.

When did you know you had recovered?

I felt I was completely recovered when I felt I had become a solid again. Up until then I felt that I was a fluid.

What do you mean by becoming a "solid"?

I'd get up in the morning and take my dog out. I have woods out back, and I knew I had recovered when everything blended, everything radiated the energy of life - the trees and the light coming through them, the grass and the sparkling dew. Everything was vivid, beautiful and connected, and I was a part of it all. That's very different to saying "I am a solid, and that's a tree and that's a blade of grass and that's a drop of dew," and everything is separate. I don't know how else to describe it.

You do a lot of stained-glass work now. Has your perception of the artwork, and indeed your life, changed much since your stroke?

Oh yeah, everything's more vibrant, more alive and more beautiful now. More fluid, more curves, fewer lines, more relative, less disconnected, more similar, less different. Everything in my life has changed like that since the stroke. If someone said to me, "Okay Jill, we're going to put you in a time capsule and let you wake up that day again and you get to choose to have the stroke or not have it," I would have the stroke in a minute.

Profile
Jill Bolte Taylor studied neuroanatomy at Indiana State University. She then worked at Harvard University, where she investigated the influence of schizophrenia on the brain's perception of reality. Having fully recovered from her stroke, she now teaches neuroanatomy at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. Her book, My Stroke of Insight, was published in 2006

I don't know about you but I do a lot of thinking in my native language, English. I'm sure I was still thinking before I knew English but it's hard to imagine what it's like. Meditation, so I read, is a way of relaxing the mind and letting thoughts, words, ideas and unknowns float through your mind. Sometimes towards the end of a day my mind has had enough of thinking but I find it difficult to turn off, normally a few beers can help us relax. Beer can help us forget our language, and in some cases where we live, haha! Is the link between alcohol and relaxation it's properties' that promote creative freedom without sticking to the strict rules of logic and language we follow through our working week?

I like science and the thoughts it provokes. Today I read about the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York whom suggest blue lights could be used to reset our body clock. The idea is that to help reduce people falling asleep at the wheel, drivers can pull into a service station and take a 30 minute "bath" in blue lights. Another thought is fitting blue LEDs to truck cabs to prevent them falling asleep at the wheel. A bid has been put together by the institute to progress research.

This however, I believe is science going mad. Blue lights to reset the body clock? 30 minute bathing sessions to prevent accidents, and money for such research actually gets approved? Ludicrous.

The great art of forgetting. Yesterday I was on my way to a client's site and remembered I was climbing that evening. I had not however remembered to pack my kit before leaving for work.

We may look at forgetting as a negative, but what would it be like to remember everything? Would our mind be able to cope with all that information and how would we sort useful memories from useless? Later in this article we look at someone who never forgets and the pain and stress this can introduce. Before we do I'd like you to understand how memory works and why forgetting is as important as remembering.

New Scientist, 16th Feburary 2008:
In simple terms, new memories start life as the temporary excitation of synapses in a network of neurons. If you recall a memory, the same neural pathways are reactivated. The more times this happens, the more important the brain deems the memory to be and the more likely it is to be converted into a long-term memory, by forming permanent connections between the neurons. These connections are reinforced each time the memory is recalled, making it easier to retrieve. The brain contains so many potential synaptic connections that, in theory at least, there is no limit to the number of long-term memories that the brain can store. [End quote from New Scientist]

When reading technical books you are reminded of the same important concept throughout and now we can see the benefits of such teachings. I feel much more comfort when I'm reading a book or article and don't quite 'get' what is being said. I can now put it down to new information, a new memory which while it may be important and accurate, it will need to prove it's worth over time. Instead of reading it over and over again, move on. If it's of any value you'll come across it again in the future. This is assuming you continue reading about that topic or technology in the future. My point being, if you want to be good at something, read as much as you can about it. Worry not about understanding but about getting to the end and starting the next book or article. Mass information may prove more useful than the quality of a single source. Why though can we not just remember everything?

New Scientist, 16th Feburary 2008:
"A system that records every detail willy-nilly and makes that information accessible on an ongoing basis is one that will result in mass confusion," according to Dan Schacter of Harvard University. He says we forget because the brain has developed strategies to weed out irrelevant or out-of-date information. Efficient forgetting is a crucial part of having a fully functioning memory. When we forget something useful, he says, it just shows that this pruning system is working a little too well.[End quote from New Scientist]

A real life example of a 42 year old woman who cannot forget

New Scientist, 16th Feburary 2008:
SOME things in life are best forgotten. Unfortunately for AJ, forgetting is a luxury she can only dream of. A 42-year-old woman from California, AJ remembers every day of her life since her teens in extraordinary detail. Mention any date since 1980 and she is immediately transported back in time, picturing where she was, what she was doing, and what made the news that day. It's an ability that has baffled and amazed her family and friends for several decades, but it comes at a price. AJ is locked in a cycle of remembering that she describes as a "running movie that never stops". Even when she wants to, AJ cannot forget.[End quote from New Scientist]

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Science, a truth of fact and evidence. My interest grew in science because I thought it was more accurate than any other explanation. I thought information was backed up by experiments and analysed by experts in the field. This being the case, the information provided by science was more believable than from anywhere else. However, the more I read about time travel machines and such like remote possibilities, science started to sound like science fiction. Some may go as far as saying it's like religion, but for people who think they're smarter.

Have a read of this article from a recent copy of new scientist; reality check required.

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IF SOME Russian mathematicians are right, then 2008 will be a year to remember. Extraordinary as it sounds, this could be when humanity unwittingly creates its first time machine and we receive our first visitors from the future - presumably wearing, as future-fashion dictates, silver jumpsuits and driving flying cars.

These theorists speculate that at the much-delayed opening of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN on the French-Swiss border, the assembled scientists and dignitaries may be treated to a big surprise. The LHC could, thanks to some mooted possibilities crashing around on the wilder shores of physics, become a time machine - specifically, the end of a "closed timelike curve" connected to the future (see "The accidental time machine").

This is not the first time we have been told that the LHC could change, or rather end, life as we know it. A few years ago someone calculated that the collider might create a mini black hole which would promptly set about eating the planet, starting with Switzerland. Or worse, create a weird subatomic particle called a strangelet that could devour the entire universe. Physics and cosmology stories are like this these days. Once it was all hard sums and red-shifted galaxies; awesome enough one would have thought. Now it's time machines and universe-eating particles.

Does any of this bear any relation to reality? Or is Big Physics guilty of some serious sexing-up, drifting away from the realm of hard data and into the softer universe of science pornography?

As well as accidental time machines we are told of cosmic strings - gigantic filaments of super-stuff that warp and tear space-time like ladders in a pair of celestial stockings - and crashing branes, titanic slabs of maths that give rise to the big bang in the exotically lovely ekpyrotic universe of Neil Turok.

Not crazy enough for you? What about the multiverse? One of the biggest sell-out lectures at last year's Hay-on-Wye festival in Wales starred the UK's astronomer royal, Martin Rees, who entertained his audience with a discussion of the possibility, indeed the probability, of multiple worlds - endless parallel realities existing in a gargantuan super-reality that makes what we think of as the universe as insignificant as a gnat on an elephant's backside. Or there's the simulation argument, philosopher Nick Bostrom's delicious idea that since it should be possible to replicate an entire universe in a computer, and that this could be done countless times, statistical cleverness proves that we are not the real McCoy but the figments of some electronic entity's imagination.

Don't get me wrong, I love parallel universes. I love the idea that, 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 100 light years away is an identical me, sitting down at his computer writing this very same article in a world exactly the same as mine except that the gear stick on the Honda Accord is a slightly different shade of grey. And I love the idea that every time a subatomic particle goes hither or thither, a whole new creation is invoked; forget half-dead cats in boxes, we are talking worlds in which Hitler won the second world war, or where there was no Hitler, and no second world war and no Honda Accords at all.

It is fun to know that serious scientists believe the fabulous alternate realities of the Philip Pullman novels could be accurate descriptions of reality (for in a multiverse of infinite size and scope there will, somewhere and somewhen, be a world where a little girl called Lyra befriends a talking polar bear and where people's souls take the form of animal familiars).

Fun yes, but is it harmless? Scientists, and people like me who stick up for science, are happy to pour scorn on astrologers, homeopaths, UFO-nutters, crop-circlers and indeed the Adam-and-Eve brigade, who all happily believe in six impossible things before breakfast with no evidence at all. Show us the data, we say to these deluded souls. Where are your trials? What about Occam's razor - the principle that any explanation should be as simple as possible? The garden is surely beautiful enough, we say, without having to populate it with fairies.

The danger is that on the wilder shores of physics these standards are often not met either. There is as yet no observational evidence for cosmic strings. It's hard to test for a multiverse. In this sense, some of these ideas are not so far, conceptually, from UFOs and homeopathy. If we are prepared to dismiss ghosts, say, as ludicrous on the grounds that firstly we have no proper observational evidence for them and secondly that their existence would force us to rethink everything, doesn't the same argument apply to simulated universes and time machines? Are we not guilty of prejudice against some kinds of very unlikely ideas in favour of others?

Believing in ghosts takes a different mindset to advocating parallel worlds or cosmic strings. But do we really believe that we are all the creations of a computer sitting in some higher-dimensional adolescent's bedroom, or that time travellers will land at the LHC? Or are we, too, seeing fairies at the bottom of the garden?

-----------------------------

Cheers
Ryan partington

Are you ready to travel to the future? Time travel is possible. Imagine where you'd like to be in a number of years from now. New career, house or maybe improved family relations? Anything is possible but nothing is easy in time travel. If you can carry a thought through multiple states then your chances of success will increase. Understand that time is an illusion and what we're looking at in this article is 'mind manipulation'. To take an easy example lets travel to a future where you are a car mechanic. You set the date for tomorrow, you sleep and awake to find you're knowledge about auto mobiles has not changed. You failed to time travel. No one said it was going to be easy. Your goals remain the same and this time you set the date for a couple of years time. The journey begins. Time travel is not about closing your eyes and travelling to the year 2050. Why? Because time is an illusion and 2050 does not exist. Instead you use what you have in this dimension to change the reality of 2050. You want to time travel and become a mechanic, so focus on reading, training and educating yourself in any and every way possible to achieve your dream. Look at it like this, if in 2 years time you're a car mechanic then your trip to through time was a success. The key is direction. Many people are running but is it in the right direction?

Stop. Think. The universe is yours, where do you want to go?

Ryan Partington

I always doubted time travel because if it were possible then people from the future could return to now and I've not heard any new reports. No doubt time travel would be regulated by some body to stop such extremes. However like in all movies, namely 'The Trueman Show', someone would manage to get through and end all life as we know it by creating some super paradox that would cause the fabric of the universe to rip apart. OK the last part never happened in 'The Trueman Show' but you get my drift.

Then there is the grandfather paradox but I'm happy to accept solutions to that problem. I've been reading about this new particle smasher due to go live this year. Apparently if time travel is possible we can only travel as far back as when the first time travel machine was built. This is the first time I've heard this one but it makes some sense. 2008 may be the year described above, the window for our future race to travel back. The chances are slim, but very possible.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Eat less, exercise more. In four words we have the answer to obesity.

The truth is, it's not that simple. In a world where logic rules maybe, but in this place we call reality things are different. 'The strongest will survive' - wrong. An ESS (Evolutionary Stable Strategy) is not based around the strength of an individual, but the stability of the pact. I've found the (ES Strategy) works just as well when applied to everyday life. Let me explain.

Extremes such as 'I'll eat less and exercise more' tend to fail as we exists as 'multiple state beings'. The number is infinite but to help explain, imagine we have 10 states of mind. When we make this decision/thought it's owned and exists in a single state. If done correctly this thought will traverse across all 10 states of mind and you'll achieve your objective. However to create a thought that traverses across all states is difficult but possible. Lets examine a common example.

Imagine our 10 states as extreme emotions, positive, negative, happy, depressed so on and so fourth. In a moment of depression you decide 'I'm going to lose weight', you're psyched and strong willed, that is until your state of mind changes and your priorities are no longer the same. The depression has lifted as you've taken action to address the problem but over time, your new state of mind has it's own agenda which is not losing weight. Over time you spiral down into depression and this loop continues until you you've lost faith in your own ability to achieve certain goals.

Each state has it's own strengths and weaknesses, goals and desires. Some people excel in one or two states, some more, others none. This is down to genes and environment in our logical world.

Then good news is we all have the ability to maximise the chances of 'thought propagation'. We just need to know how

Stay tuned
Ryan Partington

Time is an illusion, four words stood next to one another with no clear message. How can time be an illusion when we have the past, present and future? I have no idea.

Lets explore the possibilities. We only experience the 'present'. We remember the past and predict the future, but we only have here and now to analysis our thoughts and theories. All we have is here and now but the past must exist because two people can experience the same event and accurately recall afterwards.

The future is a lot harder to prove as it's yet to happen. But we can imagine an event which may occur in the future, i.e. day turn to night and the probability of this happening is pretty high. What we've done with these analogies is prove a change in state, some may look at this as evidence of time.

We come back to the present, the only state in which we experience anything and everything. Imagine the past and the future as we know it, were simply methods to analyse and process information. A way in which we can exist within a considered logic.

When we say 'Time is an illusion' one may argue that because we only ever experience the present, how can we be sure of a past and future. Of course above we looked at how one may justify the past and future but one may argue that's not enough evidence to say it absolutely exists.

I recently read an article on dreams, originally from 'The Interpretation of Dreams - by Sigmund Freud'. The point was that when we hear a sound from the waking world, be it an alarm clock in the morning, we awake with memory of a long and detailed dream based that ends with the sound of your alarm clock. This experiment was also done with random sounds that the dreamer would not expect, and fascinating the same results were found. The dreamer would awake and could vividly recall a dream in great detail. This dream had it been in real life would have taken many minutes and maybe hours to play out, although the sound to which they awoke was only on for a few seconds. The whole dream seemed to have been focused upon this final event, the sound of a drum being beaten, which was interpreted as the final stage in the dream where someone was trying to break down the door.

Dreams and real life are not the same thing, but the experience is intriguing all the same. If time was an illusion what relevance would this have to you and me in our day to day life? I have no idea.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Shares and money making. Had a nice chat with Halifax yesterday, amazing the help and support you get if you're just honest and tell them you haven't a clue how things work, could they answer a few questions. After reviewing my account we found my purchase was scheduled for late February. Whether that was my mistake or the systems is irrelevant, I changed it to mid February and we'll take it from there. Stay tuned.

On another note, simplicity always wins the day. Simplicity is the property, condition, or quality of being simple or un-combined. It often denotes beauty, purity or clarity. Simple things are usually easier to explain and understand than complicated ones. Simplicity can mean freedom from hardship, effort or confusion.

"Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right." -- Henry Ford

I'm designing a web based game at the moment. Something when asked I thought I could do. And I can. But had I known the complexity initially I may have thought I could not. Everyone is capable of anything, you just need to believe.

I'm going to call halifax today and asked them about the £200 I have in the sharebuilder account, it still shows £200 total. I have £100 in Marks and Sparks and £100 in Barclays. I thought the £££ would rise and fall with the value of the share. I'll give the results tomorrow.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Microsoft to force IE 7 update. Not that I really care, bigboys use firefox. I'm going to chase e-trade today (again) and have another appointment with Black Horse, this time I'll be taking my mobile so if I get lost I can give them a ring.

Quick note on opportunity, yesterday I was idling in #php and someone was asking if anyone would like to get involved in online game development. By the time I'd read the channel logs he'd left the room. I found a link advertised and browsed over to the site, sent him an e-mail requesting more details. That story ends there. Later on I watched a TV show about an island and a tribe and what not. Bottom line I found it interesting and sent them an e-mail asking if they needed help. I noticed in my inbox a reply from the game guy I e-mailed earlier and ended up talking to him for a while. That's moving forward and may end up going nowhere, many of these things do but you need to expose yourself to these things and ultimately statistics will play into your favour. Luck comes to those who search for it

Yesterday I received two books to review. There were 7 sets for English in senior school and I was in set 5. English, and education in general were not a strong subject of mine, so receiving a couple of books to review was rather ironic. No doubt someone stumbled across my blog and found a potential marketing opportunity for the cost of a couple of books and got in contact. Now maybe I'll write a review on a certain site and link back here and double the number of readers. To blow it out of proportion lets say I can retire on the number of hits the site ends up getting due to advertising I implement at a later date. When I first created the blog I never even thought about books reviews or direction, but it felt like the right thing to do. Even if you can't visualise future benefits of an idea don't let that or others slow you down. Follow your instinct, it got you to where you are today.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Yesterday I read about Procrastination in New Scientist. Today I'll show you how to defeat it. It's easy to get to the end of the day and not know what you've achieved. The best way to combat this in my view is write out at the start of the day a minimum number of tasks you'd like to have complete. At the end of the day review the list and anything you've not completed, write down on tomorrows list. Keep it to three maximum and start with real easy tasks. Like anything, in the early stages it's about training your habit. Once your comfortable and in a regular habit, then you can start with bigger and more ambitious tasks. They'll be days when you think "there's nothing I need to achieve today, I'll leave the list blank" this is a very bad idea indeed. Instead, just write one thing down, no matter how simple and review your list at the end of the day. Habit allows you to make mundane tasks easy, don't break the habit as you'll only make it harder to fall back in line.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Christmas is creeping up and you have a chance to show your generosity. I do believe that we get what we give and in direct proportion. Negative people have negative lives, optimistic's have happier lives. Every empty can of beer you take to get recycled will impact your life in a positive manner. I couldn't tell you preciously why this is true but I honestly believe it is. Christmas is about far more than presents. Attitude towards others is far more important. Even if you have little you can give a smile for free. Be different, try and strike up friendly conversation with strangers and I guarantee it'll make your life a lot richer.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Good morning rise and shine. Recently a colleague handed his notice in, he's off to a new job. It got me thinking about how these choices have a massive impact on our lives, and yet are relativity easy to make. I'll spare you a discussion about 'comfort zones' and focus on perceived risk. We as human beings under estimate our ability to deal with change. We are finally tuned machines who can adapt to almost any circumstance. Our lack of confidence in this ability reduces the number of risks we are willing to take. Small choices can lead to big rewards, don't let anything get in the way of were you want to be, the worse that can happen is you fail. Us humans eat failure for breakfast, we've had 3 million years to learn how.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Yesterday I was asked to set-up an ADSL box with a watchguard firewall for a new client. It was a last minute thing so I had to go to site with the kit and configure there. Shortly after I turned up it was clear the ADSL line had not been activated. After a couple of calls here and there I was left on site waiting for a response from the office. I got talking to one of the other engineers on site about various things. Ten minutes later I'd arranged to go in and review their infrastructure as they were currently going through a system refresh. Doesn't sound like much but a few words can bring good returns. At the time it's easier to stare out the window and chill out for 15 minutes, but if you're in the right job you'll naturally want to progress business.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Continuing on from yesterdays post on time travel I'd like to show you how to change history. Our past is how we remember it, not how it was. If you can change someone's memory of an event you can change history. When in a position that you feel will benefit from change in the future the number one rule is stay calm and don't let anything extraordinary happen. Memory is easily manipulated with the perceiver's awareness is kept at a standard low level. We all have this level of low awareness when there's nothing much happening. If they become excited/angry etc you're best staying calm and subconsciously pass the message "hey, there's not much going on here, no need to freak out". Afterwards your account of the situation also becomes stronger as they are aware you kept your calm and was able to see the situation a lot more clearly. After the event you can get to work straight away with what happened and in time will learn to manipulate time with great accuracy. Be careful though, there are other time travels out there, some not even aware they're doing it. They're compulsive liars and everyone knows it. You'll need to build up credit before you can convince someone a flying sourcer took you all to Mars for breakfast yesterday.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Time travel's great. Lets look at the grandfather paradox: Suppose a man traveled back in time and killed his biological grandfather before the latter met the traveller's grandmother. As a result, one of the traveller's parents (and by extension, the traveller himself) would never have been conceived. This would imply that he could not have travelled back in time after all, which in turn implies the grandfather would still be alive, and the traveller would have been conceived, allowing him to travel back in time and kill his grandfather. Thus each possibility seems to imply its own negation, a type of logical paradox.
That's all nice and well and until last night when I read this comment in New Scientist: I have often read of the time-travel paradox, in which you go back in time and kill your grandparents, thus deleting your existence. But what makes people think that nature would allow them to kill their grandparents? Wouldn't every opportunity you took to kill them likely be thwarted? The very fact that you exist means you could not do anything that would jeopardise your future birth.
Now I'm with this guy, the very fact that we exist in this space time means we would either not choose to go back and kill our grandfather, or while trying get killed ourselves. So in this instance we would exist in the future but die in the past.

Nice
Ryan Partington

Time travel's great. Lets look at the grandfather paradox: Suppose a man traveled back in time and killed his biological grandfather before the latter met the traveller's grandmother. As a result, one of the traveller's parents (and by extension, the traveller himself) would never have been conceived. This would imply that he could not have travelled back in time after all, which in turn implies the grandfather would still be alive, and the traveller would have been conceived, allowing him to travel back in time and kill his grandfather. Thus each possibility seems to imply its own negation, a type of logical paradox.

That's all nice and well and until last night when I read this comment in New Scientist: I have often read of the time-travel paradox, in which you go back in time and kill your grandparents, thus deleting your existence. But what makes people think that nature would allow them to kill their grandparents? Wouldn't every opportunity you took to kill them likely be thwarted? The very fact that you exist means you could not do anything that would jeopardise your future birth.

Now I'm with this guy, the very fact that we exist in this space time means we would either not choose to go back and kill our grandfather, or while trying get killed ourselves. So in this instance we would exist in the future but die in the past.

Nice
Ryan Partington

It's Monday morning so lets not get too technical. Last night I had a lucid dream (where you become aware that you're dreaming and able to control what happens). Lucid dreams are great because in dream land there is no logic. Although nothing makes sense when you awake, it did make sense when you were asleep. Lucid dreaming allows you live in an alternative reality and not question the obvious illogic happenings all around. Make you question the reality of the waking world. To read my method of lucid dreaming, click 'View Page'. On a lighter note, check this out 4 lessons on learning from your mistakes

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Good morning. Sleep is an interesting subject. Einstein would sleep nine hours a night and ten if he had something important to do the next day. Now I always thought Einstein said "Sleep is a waste of time" until I googled it this morning. Anyhow dependent on how much sleep I've had and if I've woke at a consistent time over the last week directly results in how efficiently I think. Coding is a good example to explain this. When writing in PHP I actually need to work with my raw intelligence as many new methods are required to solve complex issues. You can't just refer to your 'experience bank' or google it as you're not totally sure what you're looking for. Now without going into detail, if I'm tired it takes longer to resolve bugs etc. I'm also shorter tempered and less enthusiastic about everything. All in all lack of sleep has quite an impact. Learning how to sleep therefore has many benefits. I'll give you my top two tips.

1. Get up every morning at the same time, including weekends even if you've got a hangover (I've not yet masted the hangover bit)
2. Read sleep skills by Scott Adams, the guy who writes the dilbert blog.

Try your best to follow these to techniques and your overall fighting efficiently should improve by at least 100%

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Today I went the dentist to get my head shaken around by a drill. The smaller drill heads aren't that bad, but when they use the piece that rolls your eyes around your skull it can be rather unpleasant. It got me thinking. Every time I come out the dentist I feel I was only in for a short time but after a glance at my watch it's been much longer. Before you think I'm billy bad teeth, read this which explains an accident that caused a few teething issues, I do love my toothbrush. Now back to my point, I'm sure your perception of time is slowed down when the experience is not pleasant but there is nothing you can do about it. This brings me to work, you can have a long day or a short day and the latter will also help progress your career. I've always found being busy is far easier than pretending to look busy, which is hard and slows time riggghhhhhttt down. Now all you need to do is review what you're spending time on and ask yourself at the end of the day, have I moved towards my overall career goal today? If not change what you're doing in the day so you are aiming in the right direction.

or not

Cheers
Ryan Partington

I wrote back in September about light programming the mind http://ryanpartington.com/article/programmingvialight/ Last night I read about 'Flicker Illness' which can result in, and I quote "extremely unpleasant symptoms ranging from the dizziness, vertigo and nausea associated with motion sickness" Flicker Illness can be a reaction to "sunlight dancing on water or flickering through church railings" Last week a client applied a firmware update to their Watchguard box and it went horribly wrong causing total loss of connection to the outside world. Sometimes, updates fail. Click 'View Page' to read the article from New Scientist.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Last night I had an encounter with anger. It was a series of events which lead down a dark path. Afterwards I tried to reason with what had happened and take what good I could, however I was far too pissed off to see any good in knocking a glass of water over all my electrics. Knocking the water over was the last step down the dark path, it all began with something that could have been prevented.

Today I was able to look on the situation with grater clarity and make changes to the process which started the chain of events. Without anger things would be the same. Next time someone or something rubs you up the wrong way remember you've been presented with an opportunity to adapt for the future

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Today I was reading an article that used the word 'apoplectic'. I looked up the word and all was well. My English is poor and I understand it's my weakness. Without going into detail I find it difficult to visualise words. The purpose of writing for others to read is that they understand what you're trying to say. For me the message is more important than the delivery. If you're writing technical documentation, user guides or anything were the message is important consider engaging the wider audience. Write with clarity. You can be exact and precise without limiting the number of people who understand the point you're trying to make.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Communication I believe is one of the best skills you can have in any position. Even if you know little about the field you’re working, a good personality and good communication skills can see you through pretty much anything. Eventually if you want to progress you’ll need to learn your trade to the best of your ability. Practice where you can and remember to be constructive, a conversation in work has little meaning if all you’re doing is bitching about someone. Negative words bring negative thoughts, and moral is important in business if you want to inspire the best performance from your organisation.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Early last week I had to write a rather large bit of complex code. I'd been putting it off as I knew even if I had got things correct the first time it was still going to give me pain. What I had to do was factor in a number of different variables and how they would affect the rest of the application. This is a weakness of mine as I'm no good at concentrating on more than one thing at once. I decided to write the code down on paper first and review it for seven days. Once I came to implement the solution I made a mistake and wasted plenty of time trying to resolve it. My point is some things, no matter how much thinking and planning you do, will still bring pain. You just need to get on and do them, methods and ideas can't solve everything.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

My organisation has recently introduced small incentives. Every month individual’s performance will be measured and small rewards offered to those who meet or exceed targets. It’s a simple system and I believe it will work as long as those involved in setting it up stick to their guns each month. It’s a good way to measure performance in a positive way and engage with those who are not achieving. The key to any such system is the persons who run it. If a meeting is to be held on the first day of each month, make sure it happens, or the whole system could fall apart.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Football the beautiful game. I’m currently going through a stage of managing Arsenal football club on Football Manager 2007. (Yes 2008 has been released, but I’m sure there are plenty of bugs, so I’ll wait until a couple of fixes are out first thank you) Is it fair to say they way you manage the team has any reflection on real life management? You sure get stressed playing FM, losing games you should win, and there are the up’s, winning when you should lose. You also have the option of quitting when the game doesn’t go your way and trying again, or you can take it on the chin and move on. I’ve got my strategies and ideas and believe they translate someway into the real world, at what level I’m not too sure.

Cheers
Ryan Partngton

Yesterday I was pleased to find a new service pack had been released. I'm looking forward to what's in store and I already have an idea what it's focused around. Although history has a good way of taking what you think and turning it on its head. One can only be open minded and embrace new thoughts, good and bad. I'm ready for the experience, or maybe I'm not.

Who knows
Ryan Partington

Being male I can't have too many things going on in my head or I just melt. What I tend to do is concentrate on a single question/problem, decide the best action and either do it, or write it down. It's more important to make a bad decision than none at all. Once you've dealt with that, you can then move on to the next thing

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Despite previous success and failures, today you will wake up feeling normal. We learn to adapt to our environment. We're all in control of our perceptions so if you've been thinking of doing something for a while and haven't got around to it, take action today.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.
Winston Churchill

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Do you have a personal target, somewhere you'd like to be in 1 month, 1 year or 5 years time? If so, do you feel as if you're on target, what do you have in place to measure your progress? Try writing down each day what you've done towards your target, because if you're not as focused as you thought you were, at least you'll be aware.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

My latest service pack contained a path which led to a fractured jaw. I thought one of my lower right molars was loose but a few referrals and x-rays later we discovered a fractured jaw. Upper left canine was sheered in half, the front of the tooth had left the building leaving the nerve exposed. A couple of chippings elsewhere but nothing serious.

Got the jaw plated on the NHS and plan to get the teeth sorted once the swelling's gone down. Wonder what's in store for version 1.01?

Cheers
Ryan Partington

The powers above apply service packs via light. My ideal location is on the way home as a drive down a 2 mile stretch of road. There are plenty of trees and the sun sets west. As I drive along the flashes of sunlight rewire the mind. The changes are subtle but significant.

Embrace

Before the meeting ends, explain exactly what the next steps are. Make sure everyone knows and agrees who is doing what. Make a note and follow up with an e-mail detailing these steps. Agree a date when the majority of the tasks should be complete and arrange a follow up meeting, you may not require all attendees participation. Communication and understanding are the back bone of a successful business.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

I solve problems that I don't understand. I have an MCSE and have forgotten the vast majority of what I've learnt as my last exam was a couple of years back. That said, I can troubleshoot faster now that I could when it was fresh. This is not down to experience alone, but process. I can look at a new technology and troubleshoot them efficiently without any prior knowledge of their workings.

If I can't resolve something quickly I begin to over complicate the entire situation. I can only concentrate on one idea/solution at a time, but my mind tries to view every angle and this just complicates things.

Grab a pen and note three things to try, once one fails add another to the list. You cannot have more than three items on the list but you can choose which item to work on next.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

We have the opportunity to develop when we face problems. Lets take learning a new skill for example. You're hitting your head against the wall because you don't understand a new concept and you're presented with two options, quit or continue. Don't look at this as time to quit, look at it as a time were others will, but you'll continue.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Habit may be the easiest way of achieving things, but getting into the habit can be difficult. If I'm trying to get into the habit of something new, like updating a site everyday I try to make it as painless as possible or the habit wont stick. For example, I could have written half of this post today and struggle finishing it off. I'd have two choices, keep at it or continue tomorrow. For new habits, I'd finish it tomorrow as the negative memory associated with finishing it today may do more harm than good.

Or maybe I'm justifying laziness
Ryan Partington

Look over to the right and you should see a link to my 'To Do' list(this link has been removed). Until yesterday I had at least 20 items on there, none of which had been looked at in months. I've got various To Do lists and I'm finding as soon as it hits about three items or more the chances that I'll do anything fall dramatically. In the future I'm going to try and keep these lists shorter and see what happens. What's your number?

Cheers
Ryan Partington