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Hacking MPG
In 2001 at the height of the internet bubble, I sold stock options to pay for a minivan for Melissa. I knew she liked to have the air conditioning on all the time, and we needed to merge onto the...
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12-Step Program
While previous attempts at losing weight and feeling better have been successful, I fall squarely into the 90% of the population who eventually give up (I prefer the term “losing interest”) and gain it...
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Step 2: Light Exercise
As I wrote before in 12-step program, I’m going to try to change my lifestyle to become more healthy and fit. While weight loss will inevitably ensue, it is not the focus of this change. I am...
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The Incredibly Shrinking Trixter
I am finally reducing my volume and mass, and all it took was a combination of several events that converged into a resonance cascade of motivation. Let’s examine three big events in three small...
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DietHacking
“You have an unhealthy relationship with food,” Jason remarked, somewhat casually, after witnessing the satisfaction I got from eating a particularly crisp batch of crinkle-cut french fries. And he...
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Wave Of Change
This year has been, by far, the year that almost everything has changed for every member of the family, drastically. There’s a lot I could talk about, and a lot that I can’t at the moment, but one...
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Supercharging The Free Time
One month ago, I started work at my new job, a trading firm in Chicago. I live in the western suburbs, so I have to take a train in to the city. The train ride is only 35 minutes each way, but due to a...
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Hello Again Everybody
Exactly one year ago, I attempted to change my entire life to get ready for my 20th-year New Trier Class of ’89 high school reunion. Brought on by conflicting emotions of wanting to be accepted and...
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If you focus your energy like a laser, you can do anything!
It has taken me decades to understand my own behavior. Saving you the lengthy self-analysis, I can sum up most of my actions as a reaction to negative stimuli. No control over my social environment?...
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Walking the road to dead
As of this very minute, I am 40 years old. Barring any unforeseen disease or accident, my life is essentially half over. So, how’s my driving? Directly after graduating high school, my senior class...
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Collections
Now that MindCandy is out the door, I’ve had time to return to some of my more favorite pastimes, like retrocomputing. Perodically the topic of conversation in a retrocomputing forum turns inward as...
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October Lifehacking: Internet Detox
The month of October marks the 20th anniversary of when I first obtained internet access (thanks Brian!) and started accessing the internet at least once every single day. Back then it was mostly FTP...
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Internet Detox: Results
October’s lifehacking experiment is over! I’m back online and trying not to salivate. There’s a lot to update here, so I’ll start with the summary conclusions first, then work my way down to the...
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November Lifehacking: The Walking Dad
November’s lifehacking experiment is inspired by three things: I gained weight during last month’s experiment. I am winded going up stairs. My kids have never known me without a roll of fat around my...
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Internet Detox Addendum
While on my internet sabbatical, I watched most of the new season of The Outer Limits and was pleased to discover an episode that illustrated one of the concerns that led to my sabbatical in the first...
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Journey’s End
I was part of the first wave of people tackling the gigantic task of preserving personal computing gaming history in the early 1990s. (I suppose pirating software in the 1980s counts too, but scanning...
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Best In Class
Sanity wrote something in their Arte end-scroller that always stuck with me: If you can’t do it better, why do it? This was my hobby philosophy for over two decades. It’s the philosophy that created...
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If you’re gonna screw up, do it while you’re young
I’ve been quiet for a while due to dealing with changes in my professional life. I normally don’t talk about work in my personal blog because I don’t want to misrepresent my current or former...
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Leaving the main grid for a while
This is my 32nd year online. I used CompuServe and DDials in 1984, sent and received email on BBSes for the next 8 years, and switched to an internet-connected unix shell account in 1992. I’ve seen...
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The End of a Perfect Day
I remember a time when I was productive in my home life and my hobbies, both of which brought me great joy and validation. What’s changed since then? What’s happened to my output and my mental state?...
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End Of Line
I’m leaving myself behind. Wow, that sounds really melodramatic, doesn’t it? I have started this post multiple times, and each time, it sounds like some hammy grand exit, like I’m taking all of my...
View ArticleWhat does normal living feel like?
Technology has human physical cost. The year I started using computers daily may have been the most formative year of my life, but it also started a lifetime of bad habits. For decades, I haven’t...
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Experiment results and changing tactics
At the beginning of October, I pledged that I would do two simple things to see if I could improve my physical and mental state: Get enough sleep, and get a small amount of exercise every morning. I...
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How to reasonably archive color magazines to PDF
During a conversation with one of my archival collectives, the topic of archiving color magazines came up. Our goal was to distribute scans of the material as PDF, primarily because of its ubiquity of...
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