Dan on March 26th, 2006
Wow, it’s been a while since I last posted. I haven’t had much to discuss, but I’m going to try to update at least a few times this week.
The news is that I’m finally getting a better car. I’m picking up a 92 Eagle Talon TSi AWD this week. It’s setup for street and SCCA STX autocross racing. I’ll finally have something fun again. I’m setting up a new company, Perfect Apex Racing LLC. The car will be owned by the company and the goal is to get sponsorship. More details to follow soon, including a sponsorship proposal.
Dan on March 14th, 2006
I picked up “Fooled by Randomness” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb at the store about a month ago. While looking for a mathematical options trading book (big surprise, not found) this caught my eye. Randomness has always interested me so when I found a book in the trading section about it I couldn’t pass it up.
While the book is much more about the philosophy of randomness than it is about trading and math it didn’t disappoint. I find the interaction between randomness and daily life very interesting and this book covers it all. While I would have liked to see more mathematical topics, Taleb does hit on a few such as Monte Carlo generators (software that explores large numbers of random results). It drives home the main topic that nearly everything is signficantly influenced by randomness very well. If you don’t already attribute much of your life to random results then this is a must read. If you’re already interested in the topic like I was this will bring your knowledge on the subject to the next level. I’m sure that society would be a better place if everyone read and understood this book.
Dan on March 11th, 2006
This week’s sleeping went quite well. There were oversleeps here and there but overall I’m satisfied. Both school days went perfectly as did last night. Tonight should also go well. What I’ve found is that with the 2 core naps I can skip a 25 min nap when necessary and still function fine. However, the likelyhood of my oversleeping at my next nap in this situation is very high. When I do follow it and take all of my naps oversleeping either doesn’t happen or is much shorter.
So long as I’m doing something engaging I’m not tired at all. The problem is when I’m in class reviewing something I understand and am bored out of my mind. I start nodding off at that point. I probably had 20+ microsleeps in some of my classes on Thursday. I guess that’s better than not understanding the material.
I’ve found that napping in an unusual place isn’t as hard as expected. I’ve been sleeping in the library on campus now for 2 weeks. Every nap resulted in some amount of sleep. I’ve slept while sitting in a normal chair with my head down on a desk and also on a nice soft chair with a foot rest. I’ve been using my Etymotic Research ER4 canal phones (thanks Dave!) along with a white noise MP3 track to assist in blocking out everyone else. Even without the MP3 (as on Thursday when my battery went dead) they work very well as ear plugs. I highly recommend them, if not for the sound quality alone.
Dan on March 11th, 2006
I apologize if anyone could not reach my site tonight. Come to find out a UPS went down at the datacenter and the server was down for 8 hours. My hosting company never contacted me about it. Just as I closed a chat with tech support the server came back up.
This was the only hardware failure downtime the server has had since I aquired it. I’ve had no complaints up to this point. I understand that hardware failures happen but when a server is down for this long a hosting company should email their clients to let them know. I will be sending them a nasty gram tomorrow.
Dan on March 10th, 2006
Finally, a new goal! While simple, this one is not easy to achieve.
In 6 months I can write at a normal speed with acceptable penmanship using my right hand.
When I was very young, early single digit age, I was ambidexterous. I could write equally poorly with both hands 
At some point my left became dominant. However, I’ve always used my right hand for more than average. I used to play skeeball with it. I wash dishes with it. I can bat at softball just as poorly with my right as my left. I’ve always been able to write with my right hand, it’s just very slow and has poor penmanship. Now, through practice, I want to increase my writing ability to the level such that others can’t tell I’m left handed by looking at writing done with my right hand. It will take quite a bit of practice but I know I can do it. I’m going to get some penmanship and writing books designed to teach kids how to write. I think combining that with repetitively writing things like the alphabet will bring me up to a normal writing level.
Have you ever tried writing with your non-dominant hand? How’d it go?
