Thoughts on multitasking

- Theres no such thing as 'flow'  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)) in multitasking, and this is the mode in which we are most productive doing complex work

- Women are colloquially better at it…. But most 'traditional' women's tasks (housework, watching children) require frequent, small, bursts of attention, and don't require you to load any knowledge ('state') on the situation into your head. More complex or potentially dangerous tasks (such as attending to a squirming infant, and ironing) are *not* multitasked for obvious reasons.

- Multitasking is a copout for not setting boundaries with other people. "Sure I can do that for you….(while I juggle my five other projects)

Giving up multitasking for a week

 
Or at least cutting it back….

I'm flustered and whether I have ADD or not, it sure looks that way. Task X and Y are both due, but if task Y is more boring or daunting, I'll 'multitask' it with task X and end up barely touching it.

I've learned this behaviour over time, but maybe I can change my habits.

It means taking responsibility for how I allocate my time, and not putting down a task I've started until I reach a checkpoint or until I have to do so. It means setting boundaries with myself and other people.

I've read this http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/27/2221228&from=rss and then followed it up with this - http://fabadger.blogspot.com/2005/11/giving-up-on-multitasking.html

The latter advocates a task handling structure of

• Job in
• Job allocated a time to be done with full attention
• Requester informed of where their job is in my scheme of things
• Job done

I think that could work.

/I've got STOP MULTITASKING!!! Inked on my wrist.
//Buddhism has many, many words devoted to this concept, which indicates its been a Known Issue in the human brain for some time.

FW:

FW:
Originally uploaded by MidBlueMac

Giant bees!

On projects

How much you procrastinate on projects is directly proportional to how
much you've already invested in it.
You can motivate yourself by inviting feedback from others.

Turns out I'd rather eat ground glass than apologizing when I've done
the wrong thing. But I do know when it's the right thing to do. And I
will do it, as I'm not a passenger, a pet or a child in this life.

--
Sent from my iPod touch

Two Hands

 
http://www.theage.com.au/news/people/heath-ledger-found-dead-in-new-york/2008/01/23/1201024937306.html?page=2

RIP. Gut feeling is 'tragic accident' instead of 'Michael Hutchence MK II'. Probably took enough sedatives to suffocate in his sleep, as he had pneumonia.

Very sad as he was about to hit it big via the next Batman movie.  

iPod Touch is "Mainstream wifi mobile platform"

 
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/01/22/apple_ipod_touch_is_now_a_mainstream_wi_fi_mobile_platform.html

And a seeeeeeexy one.

/I broke. My icons jiggle.

//Roll on SDK?

Sorry guys

100_0680.JPG
Originally uploaded by MidBlueMac

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aEt_ee8lyiGM&refer=home
Offering my apologies...
I groped the bull and I think I broke it's mojo. I'll be consulting some voodoo texts to work out how to restore it.

/Hang tight! Its only money!

Boomwave Klique iPod Touch Case review on MacTalk

http://forums.mactalk.com.au/showthread.php?p=417510

I did a bit of a review on my new iPod cover, linky above.




--
Sent from my iPod touch

My Boomwave Klique, let me show you it

Boomwave Klique
Originally uploaded by MidBlueMac

My new iPod case turned up today. Very bling with a couple of minor issues, review to come.

Updates

Qantas ended up putting my luggage in a taxi back to me maybe a day
after my last post, so thanks QF. (Wasn't your screwup).
Bag arrived with all of my stuff still in it, including DVDs, and TSA
had repacked neatly. Can't complain at this point.
I have an iPod touch case (The Ultimate Case, possibly,
pda/wallet-style) that is biding its time at the local Fedex center with
a status of "Package not due for delivery". A week without my good jeans
has given me the correct perspective on such things, and at least I know
where it is.

21-12-07_1828.jpg

21-12-07_1828.jpg
Originally uploaded by MidBlueMac

Here comes the rain again...

Crates o' bags

Got a helpful Qantas person on the phone (that's where the Tulla lost
baggage line will send you) and there are a couple of crates of bags
coming in on the QF94 today. There's bottlenecking at LAX, and your
ass on the plane is higher priority than your baggage.

He didn't *really* know where my baggage was but at least he was
sympathetic, so I'll wait and see if my stuff turns up on Worldtracer.

My luggage vs security theatre

My luggage vs security theatre
Originally uploaded by MidBlueMac

Here's a couple of pics of what my luggage looks like... loud red
Samsonite with a Chococat tag.

Seeing as Qantas have no idea about anything, electronically speaking,
I'm going to try my luck today at the Tullamarine T2 Qantas baggage
services.

Day 3 without my luggage, bets on malice or incompetence?

This http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=9114&page=1 is a pretty good mirror of my experience, complete with staring at the useless WorldTracer page.

Don't Expect Luggage To Arrive, or, Friends Don't Let Friends Fly Delta

Luggage, once checked onto Delta Airlines, ceases to exist. Really.
They can't track it. They have no idea where it is. Bob from Bangalore
can't help you.
I've been calling Qantas too and they've been only slightly less
useless, but as the fault didn't originate with them that's not all
that surprising. As the final carrier, it's their responsibility to
check

http://www.worldtracer.aero/filedsp/qf.htm and offer useless
platitudes.

Luggage has now been missing for 48 hours, somewhere within JFK,
because Qantas have no record, so there has been no handoff.

If anyone has any better ideas re: Delta, let me know, but I'm going
to try to hunt down a number for the JFK terminal Baggage Claim .

New York, New York

I am EXHAUSTED. Safe to say I've probably never walked so far in my
life before.

Spent the weekend in the big Apple, of which Ive only seen a tiny bit
and probably not the good parts . Yesterday I explored some of uptown
and today was downtown, Wallstreet, Battery Park, Soho, Noho, possibly
Tribeca. I dont know, I got lost a lot. But if I hadn't got lost on
53rd trying to find MoMA, for example, I wouldn't have found the
Berlin Wall piece, off the sidewalk in a little courtyard (scene where
world got better). And I found Ground Zero more or less by accident,
wondering briefly why there were all those cranes behind Century 21
(where world careened off into absolutely fucked up with no reset
button) .
Though tawdry Century 21 right next door kind of makes me smile. It
seems kind of wrong, but as I get older I know there's no Right. We
are what we are. We tolerate. We do our best.
Second ever snow experience while I was there. It has stopped snowing
much by afternoon, but the sidewalks were slick with ice. I learned
quickly to not try to walk on a slope (can't keep your balance). You
have to brace your leg muscles at every step for stability. Came
close but did not fall on butt in a grubby snowdrift, or worse, slip
into traffic. I'm sure nobody does that, but if you know me, you know
I'd find a way.
Thanks to the many free wifi providers I used along the way to help me
find stuff not on the Lonely Planet map. This would be the Pod Hotel,
CBS, Staples, the free NY city wifi on Wall Street, and occasionly
Linksys. Another tactic that worked was getting directions off a
display iPhone at AT&T. Heh heh heh.
Five million photos of NY will be going up on my blog shortly.
As an aside, the food's a bit overrated, and the closer to the
tourist strip you go, the crappier and more expensive it gets. Rhode
Island is better.
Note - everyone I sat near in every Starbucks seemed to be a British
tourist. Also tourists asked me for directions a lot.
Other than the ice and losing a glove, no bad experiences. Subway
stinky but not dangerous during day and early evening.
--
Sent from my iPod touch

Ducks

Went to Boston again on Sun. The other options were doing my expense
report, or doing my laundry. I coaxed myself out of the hotel with
the promise of getting the couple of groceries I needed while I was
there. (I can't wait until I can get home and Leopardize this laptop.
Blank slate, two years of binary cruft just squeegeed off. Right now
it chugs along reluctantly).

Current Inventory : Boston Duck Tour receipt, a Harvard fridge
magnet, and a Red Sox teddy bear.

I went to Back Bay this time, to check out stores like Neiman Marcus
and the rest of the pretty nice shopping district. This is in the
vicinity of the Mass State Library and the Trinity Church as well.
(Nobody seems to pronounce their way through the whole word
'Massachusetts' . I'll be watching for this next time I see a tv show
or movie set around here. ) Pics on Flickr.
I went looking for the flagship Boston Apple Store allegedly also in
this vicinity, close the Prudential building, also hoping to leech
some wifi for Google Maps. Well, said flagship store is still a
construction site. I was still not sure I hadn't just missed it,
until I noticed that someone had helpfully stuck an Apple sticker on
the metal building notification placard on the fence. I like that
there are people out there far, far nerdier than me. This also
restored my faith in Google Maps - when Google Maps on my iPod can't
find an Apple Store, I should just accept that it probably doesn't
exist (yet).

It was getting up in the afternoon so I went to the Prudential center
to book onto a Duck tour, the last of the day as it turns out
(www.ducktour.com) . You get into a 1940s all-terrain vehicle,
whimsically painted up, and you get a driver with lots of personality
giving a tour, driving you to the Bay, *into* the Bay, around the
Bay, and then back to the mall. I actually had a really good time.
The only downside was the cheesy tourist photo I picked up afterwards
(mild extortion pricing. And as usual, I look like I'm on drugs.).
Anyway, Duck tour rules. Do it.

Conserving my cash for New York next weekend, after another week at
work.

Dave and Busters

Went to Dave and Busters at the Providence Place mall and had some
fun there. The food is pretty good, and if you could weld a video
arcade to the side of a TGI Fridays this is pretty much how it would
look. I killed some Aliens and then went back into the mall to blow
torch a few more holes in my credit.

Psychically clean and tumble dried

Not an action-packed Sunday. Caught up on laundry, sometimes its good
to just chill out and blend in. So I found this laundromat near the
university with free wifi.
Got plenty of walking exercise over the weekend which is important,
because I've eaten all kinds of stuff lately that you won't find in
the Atkins book.

--
Sent from my iPod touch

I'm in ur Boston, eating ur lobster

I'm in a tiny nautical themed restaurant called "the salty dog" in
Boston, near the waterfront. I'm surfing the free wifi here, courtesy
of the city. I found the Mall and the Hard Rock Cafe. Even though we
just lost Melbournes, I didn't feel like going to a chain restaurant.

Sent from my iPod touch