sci-fi author, beatmaker

Month: October 2015

30-Day Experiment: Daily Idea List

photo by Adriano Agulló

photo by Adriano Agulló

For the last month or so I’ve been practicing James Altucher’s habit of writing down ten ideas every day.

I agree with Altucher that you can exercise the “idea muscle” and improve your idea-generating abilities. Almost any kind of intellectual activity can be improved with practice, and at the same time degrades with lack of use. I’m not even sure that I believe in “general intelligence” anymore. Human beings are either good or bad at doing particular things. 95% of that ability is determined by the amount of active practice (not just practicing but actively trying to improve your skills and knowledge). But what about innate ability? Sure, we all have genetic proclivities, but babies who might become geniuses still can’t do anything except cry and shit their diaper. Life takes practice.

Why I’m Joining the Maximizers

Maximize your sound ... and everything else.

Maximize your sound … and everything else.

I first became familiar with the term maximizer from Penelope Trunk’s blog. According to Trunk, a maximizer always wants the best, and spends a great deal of time and energy trying to make the best decisions, acquire the best things, and have the best life. Maximizers are competitive, ambitious, and according to Trunk, have more interesting lives.

Update on the Facebook/Reddit Nuke Option

No half measures.

No half measures.

I deleted my Reddit and Facebook accounts back in July and August respectively. I quit Reddit because they don’t do enough to fight blatant racism and misogyny. Also I was wasting too much time on the site. Thirdly, I found that the anonymity often encouraged mean or disparaging comments (though, to be fair, there were just as many clever, helpful, and/or friendly comments).

I quit Facebook because 1) I was seeing too many posts from random people I didn’t know, 2) my time on the site wasn’t strengthening or enhancing the relationships I cared about most, and 3) I wasn’t enjoying time on the site. Also because of various privacy violations.

So I went cold turkey. Nuke option in both cases, account deleted, no going back (unless, of course, I decided to go back and start from zero karma and zero friends, respectively).

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