Toot

I rarely toot my own horn. Especially regarding this whole science thing that I preoccupy my time with. But I just got word this week that 2 manuscripts I have co-authored were accepted for publication.

One in the Journal of Applied Physiology - I revised a mathematical model for determining strain energy of blood vessels.

The other in the Journal for the American Thoracic Society - I ran some statistics for a cardiothoracic surgeon working with pediatric heart disease.

Things are looking up. Haney, JL coming at ya.

Sorry that was stuffy as all get out. I'm still no where near as accomplished as this guy:

Perks of Not Sleeping

Sunrise in Bethlehem.

Echo Chamber

There was an article in Wired this month about this thing called the "echo chamber" effect. Naturally, as everything else, it got me thinking.

So the "echo chamber" effect is one of the many dangers of the internet age. It's the worry that people too commonly seek out like-minded peers to gather their daily dose of opinion and information. In doing so, they shut off new branches of thought and really just reinforce their own beliefs.

I am totally guilty of this.

If it's not alternative, progressive, or liberal in nature, I have not been hearing about it. I blame databasing and web personalization. You know, the whole, "if you liked ABC, you'll love XYZ". How does the internet know that I won't love PQRS if it never asked me about JKLM? Even Netflix tailors my movie selections based on my pre-programmed tastes. Not that I don't adore crime thrillers based on books, action/adventures starring Paul Newman, feel good romantic comedies, and witty independent dramas, but who does Netflix think it is for boxing me in? (I took those right off my Netflix home page, what happened to comedy and action as labels?) Sheesh, I need to widen my filters a bit.

If I had any spare time at all I would recode the algorithms of the internet to include, "you may like this if you gave it a try" types of suggestions. But I'm busy this week.

Lovely

Found this picture of my mom on her wedding day. Stunning.

Good weekend. Good weather. Good company.

What to do about the to-do

How do you accomplish things? Like a lot of things, that are important, and due on deadlines. Do you make TO-DO lists? I do, I can cross off blog for today, so that's a start. Do you multi-task? Do you feel like you give adequate attention to tasks that are rushed? Haste makes waste, ya know. I have been thinking this over for a couple weeks since I am juggling a hell of a lot right now. I've got my research, which I am trying to propose my thesis by the end of summer... stress. My "part-time" job at the hospital which I have been putting in like 25 hour weeks with overnights... insomnia. Then there's the cavalcade of side projects I get myself into... not necessary. Oh, and I am moving... sore. So I am in need of the most efficient mode of task management and processing. Here are some failed attempts.

We'll call this process the coffee pot, it's when I get barraged with things to stress over and I process them at a slow drip, but even after I feel like I covered it all, there's still this chunk of grounds in my head like I missed something, like I could soak more juice out.

Then there's the three's company approach where I will try to blend two seemingly dissimilar to-dos together in attempt to "kill two birds with one stone" (I should have called this approach that, oh well, I like John Ritter). THE PROBLEM with this technique is that the bigger you make a task, the more you have to do to accomplish it. Case and point: I was finishing my statistics final last year (task A) and working at the hospital (task B) and one of the CT doctors asked how much time I spend on statistics. "A significant amount", I retorted. Wham, bam, 3 months later I am in a statistics collaboration with him and his researchers that I have had to put countless hours into. Still haven't crossed that one off the old list. Oh, well I did hand in my final, so whatever, you get the point.

Blogging is an incredible waste of time. I have a ton of stuff to do. Just wanted to chat. Let me know what's worked/failed for you go-getters.

Nice socks.