End of Week 2

Two full weeks in. Almost half way there. It's been tough, but I still feel alright.

So is it working? I really can't tell. I have a hard time knowing when I've gotten better at anything unless I measure it. I don't even take aspirin because I can't tell if I've gotten better. I'm getting better at the games, I do know that. I'm also understanding certain things about my focus. Things like the chatter and music that go off randomly in my head. Last night I was reading (which is also a good sign) but a song from a game started playing in my head and distracted me so I turned on some music (my Post Rock station on Pandora) and that quieted down considerably. The only problem was that after I got into the flow of reading, I had to turn down the music.

It would be really nice to have a reading mode on the ipad where it starts playing some music to help you settle in, turn off all popups and notifications, and then some kind of sensor tells it how in flow you are and dims the music as needed. It would also have to use the microphone to adjust to the ambiant noise to make sure that was being blocked out if you're reading at Starbucks or something.

I've also come to some interesting realizations. One is a problem that goes way back: I've been afraid of doing tasks as they come because I was uneasy about comitting to a lifestyle that could take more energy than I was comfortable with. But then I thought of all the energy I've spent trying to remember assignments or the consequences of dropping them.

I'd also been concerned about a sort of zombieism and the whole lack of work/life balance. I was horrified of the thought of an "effective person". I thought it sounded way too mechanical. And really, it's business speak so it should squig everyone out a bit. But then I started thinking "Wait. There are things that I want to do. I actually would like to be effective." Maybe I'll just not use that term, though cyborgs are pretty sweet ....

In other news, I've been listening to more of the Alan Watts lectures. I had been into him previously, and it's too bad he came from a time where you were expected to write so formally. His talks are a lot of fun and it does cary the outsider perspective. He's not trying to sell Zen or Taoism or Buddhism or anything to anyone. He just thought it was really cool and wanted to show it off.

Also I'm pretty sure that if AI happens and goes out of control, Zen is our secret weapon. You think that one paradox on Star Trek 50 years ago was effective? Try an entire philisophical system that's been working on that stuff for millennia.


Oh right! Data!

I was doing great on Day 6, had a huge slump on Day 7, a malfunctioning brain on Day 8 but I'm back on track so far.

Also my Index has passed 100 and my improvement is up to 20. I'd like to push 40, but we'll see. Thing will likely taper off a bit next week, but hopefully something will break through.

My times have been a little erratic. I think the less time I take, the less I have to blog about, which is sort of a double gain for me. Sorry, but I'm going to try to write less. We'll see how that works out, though.

You can see my progress this week to the right of the red lines. They swapped in Sorter for Decoder. Tighter bars and higher lines are better, so look at what's going on with the Input Modules. I'm kind of at a wall with the dots, but I may be breaking out on the Rotating Grid. I've got 3 more weeks to get them in shape. Sort of peaked for now on Stabilizer. They give you some random dots associated with random letters, then show you a letter and you're supposed to click its dot. I'd sort of been lucky with it before since it was asking about the 1st or last letter. But now I think I can really memorize all 7 of them and I expect to improve on that next week. Sorter has been fun. They show you a random sequence and you have to sort them in your head and click where they were. It's a lot more interesting than the Simon-like dot games, but I seem to be on my way down.

Now I have to pick my treat for the week. Last week, I got Ticket to Ride on the iPad. I'm either going to do Sword & Sorcery EP or Fez this week. Either way, pixels rule.

Day 10

Today is kind of a catch up day. I was trying to do a 3-1-2-1 schedule, but I forgot that the rest of the world does things on Saturdays. Last Tuesday was the end of Week 1, and since I skipped Saturday, today is the end of Week 2. Since my parents are coming up this weekend, I'll be doing the 5-2 again next week.


So rotating dots was going ok. When it got to 6, this pattern kept coming up. It was the same pattern coming from about the same spot. On the bottom left it was center, left, right and then it would move on to the rest of the pattern. The first time I went center, right-X. It came up again like 3 times. Maybe one of them actually was CRL and I went CL instead. But then I was doing really well, but missed a few. I really thought I had it, but I dropped it and it kicked me way back down.

Something similar must have happened to Sorter yesterday since I started off at 4 and I know I can do 5 or 6.

Again, there I go making it harder than it is. Or assuming it was harder than it was and inventing complexity for no reason. Pretty sure that's an anxiety response.

I don't get easily frustrated. I'm really quite patient. It's not until my 4th failure in a row that I can really feel it. But when it happens (and it's happened twice today), this stress ball really gets a workout.

Nothing is more annoying than missing the first dot.

It's interesting how you can really feel the speed of memory. Or slowness, in this case. I've started seeing the grid in a different way for the first dot (4x2x2, see which of the 4 squares it's in, and it's trivial to see which of the dots in that square). It takes the full time (about 3/4 of a second) to really retain that and then switch to the relative motion mode.

One of the breakthroughs that I think has really been helpful is moving the clock out of sight. I still can see it when I pop open to write, but if I don't do that too much (or keep myself from looking) I'm alright.

Grid was kind of a trial. I had done a lot of writing during it and there were a number of ups and downs. But I did place 2nd, so that's a win for me. I wouldn't have felt it if they weren't tracking my score for me.

Input module. Kind of uneasy about this one. I'm up pretty high, so things could get rough.

Let's see if I can just knock em out.

That went fine. Got up to 9 again, but couldn't quite make it. Another 2nd place finish, though.

Sucked it up on Data Room. Placed at the bottom. After today, I might not even show up on the score board.

At least Stabilizer is interesting. And I did ok.

Man. I'm just getting tired of follwing dots. And let me tell you, so far that's most of this program.

It's kind of funny. I totally get constillations now. I've got the Enterprise consillation, the Sandcrawler constillation, the boomerang, the karate guy...

Well at least I crushed Rotating data link. Saw it driven before me. And heard the lamentations of its dots.

Now on to blind input panel. Which I similarly ravaged yesterday. I'm up to 7 now, about to reach 8 and we'll see how today goes. I'm feeling better after my earlier success.

So my new goal is not to enter it in chunks of 3 or 4, but to just stream out the digits on a beat. It feels amazing when I get it. <archer>WHICH IS ALL THE TIME!</archer>

Oh man. Yeah, the game made me miss one, but I still rocked.

What? Still no extra robot? Whatever. You're still going down, Svalbard.

That 3rd robot friggin' cheats. But I finally got him.