Firstly, thank you to everyone who gave me mobile phone advice. I've probably disregarded all of you with my eventual purchase, an OpenMoko Freerunner :D
The Freerunner is pretty nice, except of course that every piece of software on it is an utter pile of unusable fail. However, I paid for the phone and not the software, so I'm going to try and make some decent apps for it.
At the moment I'm getting responsibilities piling up though :( I've got homework assignments, Free Software Society organisation, Computer Science Society collaboration to manage, Access Space, ShefLUG and Manchester Free Software collaboration to manage, Sun Microsystems relations, out-of-hours programming for my course to catch up on, relationships, general society stuff like RockSoc and things, Free Software programming (some of my projects are in dire need of some time, which I simply don't have), I have a pile of books which I want to read, the constant barrage of email, XMPP and RSS, going to the gym (which I still haven't done), sorting water stuff, sorting rent and contracts, sorting legal bollocks, sorting TV license, sorting the electoral roll and to make matters worse I'm rather ill, resulting in painful sneezing and coughing fits (I've even had to take some days off, which means missing lectures, which means catching up :( ).
I think the way to tackle this is delegation. The Free Software Society takes up a lot of my time, but is also full of awesome people who gladly help out. By getting these people to help out, like Arthur organising the socials, it will result in a lot more free time in which to do the other stuff.
Still, I've only got the one life, so why waste it? It does annoy me though, when I spend two days attempting some Physics homework and make absolutely no progress :'( That's at least 12 hours I could have used to get something else out of the way, but unfortunately I fail at Physics too much. The solution is, of course, to work even longer on it. Bugger.
Ah well, I don't have time to blog away so I'll wrap this up now.
By the way, PubSubClient is now hosted on GitHub rather than Gitorious due to a request in my blog comments.
Until next time!
Showing posts with label time wasting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time wasting. Show all posts
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Sunday, 1 June 2008
My Dilemma
Other than fitting blocks into a designated area, of course, is the battle between what I want to do and what I want to do. It is the internal confict of desirable means with no ends versus less desirable means with ends. I'll try to list the current options for spending my time post-exams:
Programming - Pros: Learning and getting better, has a good output, possibly career-related, Cons: tedious at times, solitary, staying inside
Drawing - Pros: Learning and getting better, has a good output, Cons: can't be simply turned on, staying inside, solitary
Animating - Pros: Learning and getting better, has a good output, Cons: staying inside, solitary
Computer games - Pros: Time can be spent with other people, fun, Cons: Doesn't achieve any output, doesn't better myself
IRL games - Pros: Time can be spent with other people, fun, time can be spent outside, can involve exercise, Cons: Doesn't achieve any output
Exercise - Pros: Has an output, time spent outside, Cons: Has little transferable output
Watching TV/Films - Pros: Can be done any time, little effort required, time can be spent with other people, Cons: No output, staying inside
Sleeping - Pros: Needs to be done sometime, Cons: Doesn't have any output
Getting a job - Pros: Produces an output, possibly career-related, Cons: Fixed timeframe, may be difficult to find something desirable
Those are a few of my options. I generally catagorise things into creating and consuming, then avoid the consuming things unless there is a reason not to. This is the reason I don't play computer games or watch Anime anymore, why I minimise my TV watchage, keep away from NoDDSoc, etc. However, if I'm to be internally self-consisent I need to make sure I actually do stuff. A breakdown of my University holidays would go as follows:
1st year Christmas: Long periods at home doing nothing significant other than talking online to Harriet and waiting to go to Huddersfield, interspersed with periods spent there. Can't remember making anything creative I can look at now. Altogether dominated by the time wasted at home, pretty hypocritical really.
1st year Easter: Long periods at home where I worked on a physics engine in Java, partly course related partly personal. Learned a LOT about programming. Interspersed with going to Harriet's and Harriet coming to Sandbach. Pretty productive overall, since time alone was spent well.
1st year Summer: Very long periods doing very little at home, interspersed with short periods with a lot of activity. These periods were going to Huddersfield a few times, all such visits I am counting as being productive BTW since relationship time is always time well spent (why else be in a relationship?) LUG Radio Live, GUADEC and time at Loz's and in Sheffield. Was slightly productive when I was on my own, since I made the first incarnation of my package management tool, but considering the time I was alone it's pretty mediocre.
2nd year Christmas: Other than going to Jo's didn't produce any kind of output, except for negative shortbread. Time alone spent badly.
2nd year Easter: Mostly spent at Jo's so very little time to waste on my own. Still, didn't get much done.
So, I am writing this because I am clearly a lazy bastard who needs to either stick to his philosophy and be creative and useful, or else spend the time he's not being productive doing something he would enjoy (ie. the stuff I've been stopping myself doing).
The irony of this post is that I should be revising for my Solids exam which looks like I will fail epically at.
Programming - Pros: Learning and getting better, has a good output, possibly career-related, Cons: tedious at times, solitary, staying inside
Drawing - Pros: Learning and getting better, has a good output, Cons: can't be simply turned on, staying inside, solitary
Animating - Pros: Learning and getting better, has a good output, Cons: staying inside, solitary
Computer games - Pros: Time can be spent with other people, fun, Cons: Doesn't achieve any output, doesn't better myself
IRL games - Pros: Time can be spent with other people, fun, time can be spent outside, can involve exercise, Cons: Doesn't achieve any output
Exercise - Pros: Has an output, time spent outside, Cons: Has little transferable output
Watching TV/Films - Pros: Can be done any time, little effort required, time can be spent with other people, Cons: No output, staying inside
Sleeping - Pros: Needs to be done sometime, Cons: Doesn't have any output
Getting a job - Pros: Produces an output, possibly career-related, Cons: Fixed timeframe, may be difficult to find something desirable
Those are a few of my options. I generally catagorise things into creating and consuming, then avoid the consuming things unless there is a reason not to. This is the reason I don't play computer games or watch Anime anymore, why I minimise my TV watchage, keep away from NoDDSoc, etc. However, if I'm to be internally self-consisent I need to make sure I actually do stuff. A breakdown of my University holidays would go as follows:
1st year Christmas: Long periods at home doing nothing significant other than talking online to Harriet and waiting to go to Huddersfield, interspersed with periods spent there. Can't remember making anything creative I can look at now. Altogether dominated by the time wasted at home, pretty hypocritical really.
1st year Easter: Long periods at home where I worked on a physics engine in Java, partly course related partly personal. Learned a LOT about programming. Interspersed with going to Harriet's and Harriet coming to Sandbach. Pretty productive overall, since time alone was spent well.
1st year Summer: Very long periods doing very little at home, interspersed with short periods with a lot of activity. These periods were going to Huddersfield a few times, all such visits I am counting as being productive BTW since relationship time is always time well spent (why else be in a relationship?) LUG Radio Live, GUADEC and time at Loz's and in Sheffield. Was slightly productive when I was on my own, since I made the first incarnation of my package management tool, but considering the time I was alone it's pretty mediocre.
2nd year Christmas: Other than going to Jo's didn't produce any kind of output, except for negative shortbread. Time alone spent badly.
2nd year Easter: Mostly spent at Jo's so very little time to waste on my own. Still, didn't get much done.
So, I am writing this because I am clearly a lazy bastard who needs to either stick to his philosophy and be creative and useful, or else spend the time he's not being productive doing something he would enjoy (ie. the stuff I've been stopping myself doing).
The irony of this post is that I should be revising for my Solids exam which looks like I will fail epically at.
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