On my Mind
Other stuff on my mind (aside from the move):
* Nathaniel and Krista (Nathaniel was the first friend I ever made in America, in 5th grade, and we've managed to keep in touch all these years) came to visit this past Sunday the 3rd, and stayed for a night. (Incidentally, it is at their wedding that I met other people that became important in my life - mtolan and adelynne). Ohhh man, it was great to see them. I cleared out the house minimally for their coming; we touristed around the island, visited the Battery Steele fortress, climbed the abandoned observation tower, ate pasta, talked a lot about computers (he works for Google; gave me some good career advice), played some House of the Dead 3.
* Nathaniel and I went swimming (first swim of the season for me), and of course I forgot I was wearing my glasses, and promptly lost them in the ocean. That makes FOUR pairs of glasses lost to the water (and 3 cellphones). (The water was cold, of course, but lovely).
* At me'dayjob, we also moved to a new location (the same day I was moving house). It's now a little closer to the ferry, on Monument Square. Really nice office, more room, more windows, more interesting places to eat.
* I've been listening to Turntable.fm a lot. You sign in with your Facebook, and then.. there's basically a bunch of rooms / radio stations. And you go in to one (say, the Filthy Dubstep Wobble Nation room), and you see little avatars of DJs (up to 5), playing music, plus a bunch of listeners. As far as I can tell, you can just hop into a free DJ spot and start playing stuff (from your computer? I think? Haven't tried it), and people can hop in and listen.
Basically, you can start your own little radio stations. And get your friends to come and listen (and play their own stuff). The upshot for me, so far, is that I get all the dubstep I want (from people who know what they're doing). But it turns music listening (and playing, especially) into a social experience -- your distributed work team or a bunch of friends can create rooms and play stuff for each other.
* Readercon signup and scheduling software. So far, (with prodigious help and guidance from rosefox, who's the programming chair for this year's Readercon), we managed to code up enough to get us through panelist signup and scheduling, and this year's finalized schedule is due to be at the printer in a few days. Holy crap, that was a lot of work, but really interesting work. I hope to open-source the software shortly (after I comment it and clean it up), so that other cons can use it for their program signup and scheduling needs.
* Books. I've been reading two really good books lately (on audiobook, as I moved house): Sex at Dawn (an evolutionary psych book about how our sexualities evolved), and Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder. Both are really really interesting (the first one, as relates to polyamory and my general interest in evolution and prehistory, and the second, is really kind and intelligent and helpful, on living with ADD). Maybe I'll have a chance to rant about these books in more detail, maybe not, but still, I highly recommend them.
* Being diagnosed with ADD still looms hugely on my mind. I've been on medication for it for about a month now. And it's been helping immensely, life-alteringly much. Now that I've grabbed the low-hanging fruit (of diagnosis and meds), I'm into the territory of the more difficult stuff -- learning better organizational and life hacking skills to help me get around it, etc.
* Nathaniel and Krista (Nathaniel was the first friend I ever made in America, in 5th grade, and we've managed to keep in touch all these years) came to visit this past Sunday the 3rd, and stayed for a night. (Incidentally, it is at their wedding that I met other people that became important in my life - mtolan and adelynne). Ohhh man, it was great to see them. I cleared out the house minimally for their coming; we touristed around the island, visited the Battery Steele fortress, climbed the abandoned observation tower, ate pasta, talked a lot about computers (he works for Google; gave me some good career advice), played some House of the Dead 3.
* Nathaniel and I went swimming (first swim of the season for me), and of course I forgot I was wearing my glasses, and promptly lost them in the ocean. That makes FOUR pairs of glasses lost to the water (and 3 cellphones). (The water was cold, of course, but lovely).
* At me'dayjob, we also moved to a new location (the same day I was moving house). It's now a little closer to the ferry, on Monument Square. Really nice office, more room, more windows, more interesting places to eat.
* I've been listening to Turntable.fm a lot. You sign in with your Facebook, and then.. there's basically a bunch of rooms / radio stations. And you go in to one (say, the Filthy Dubstep Wobble Nation room), and you see little avatars of DJs (up to 5), playing music, plus a bunch of listeners. As far as I can tell, you can just hop into a free DJ spot and start playing stuff (from your computer? I think? Haven't tried it), and people can hop in and listen.
Basically, you can start your own little radio stations. And get your friends to come and listen (and play their own stuff). The upshot for me, so far, is that I get all the dubstep I want (from people who know what they're doing). But it turns music listening (and playing, especially) into a social experience -- your distributed work team or a bunch of friends can create rooms and play stuff for each other.
* Readercon signup and scheduling software. So far, (with prodigious help and guidance from rosefox, who's the programming chair for this year's Readercon), we managed to code up enough to get us through panelist signup and scheduling, and this year's finalized schedule is due to be at the printer in a few days. Holy crap, that was a lot of work, but really interesting work. I hope to open-source the software shortly (after I comment it and clean it up), so that other cons can use it for their program signup and scheduling needs.
* Books. I've been reading two really good books lately (on audiobook, as I moved house): Sex at Dawn (an evolutionary psych book about how our sexualities evolved), and Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder. Both are really really interesting (the first one, as relates to polyamory and my general interest in evolution and prehistory, and the second, is really kind and intelligent and helpful, on living with ADD). Maybe I'll have a chance to rant about these books in more detail, maybe not, but still, I highly recommend them.
* Being diagnosed with ADD still looms hugely on my mind. I've been on medication for it for about a month now. And it's been helping immensely, life-alteringly much. Now that I've grabbed the low-hanging fruit (of diagnosis and meds), I'm into the territory of the more difficult stuff -- learning better organizational and life hacking skills to help me get around it, etc.