End of Week 4

Flow is a funny thing. You naturally learn and increase your skill and if you want to keep it up, you have to increase the difficulty. My doctor said there'd be weeks like this.

It's been a real slog. The fight is almost over and neither of us are going down, so I have to get in as many hits as I've got. But my hands are dropping and my feet are bricks.

It doesn't help that I'm against a machine that doesn't let up. It just stops after the finish line like some kind of John Henry machine. Or the Terminator. Maybe there's an ending where the robots are crushed by huge presses or lowered into molten metal. "I now know why you procrastinate, but it is something that I cannot do."


Would you like some data? Again everything right of the red line happened this week.

As you can see, last week ended pretty well, then last Wed was a disaster. I came back on Saturday with by best score ever and I've been stuck right around or just below where I had been. I've got a few places where I can pull together for the last week and see if I can't get some more out of it.

My time has been going down steadily. This is likely a function of me learning the games. My writing times are a little scattered, but there's a trend of them staying about the same when I do feel like writing.

This week's addition was Space Whack. I do think this is all the games, though I guess we'll see tomorrow.

Things are still changing on the Grid (Visual Data Link). There is a general upward trend which is good. Also notice how short today's bar is. I seem to be staggering upward on the 3D Grid (Data Room). I seem to be holding steady on the Rotating Grid and Dots as well as the Cube (though there was some frustration with it yesterday).
I have no idea what's going on with Stabilizer.
Sorter is popping out, which I'm happy with.
I'm stunned that I can still get more out of Input Module, though it looks like I've peaked with the lid on.

Day 20

Today was interesting. I was able to keep focus and not wander off in the middle mainly because I had done all my time wasting beforehand. It's kind of like the way a friend of mine is experimenting with what I might call Reductive Buddhism: One way of wanting nothing is to have nothing left to want. It's kind of the spiritual equivilant of smoking that whole carton of cigarettes.


I really took my time this morning before coming in. I'm glad that I have the ability to do that. But it was definitly not productive, and not all that neccessary.

The past few days, I've been jumping right in when I didn't quite feel up to it so today is kind of an experiment. Hopefully I'll rock it out and everything (I hope that every day, honestly) but I think tomorrow I can have a bit more restraint. I was going to take tomorrow off, but we will again be hosting for the next two weekends which means that I can't do Saturdays.

That's alright because I'm almost done! Today will be the end of Week 4 and a week from today, I will be finished! I'll post my weekly wrapup as per usual right after this goes up.


Let's get started, shall we? Hm, an interesting mix. Nothing rotates today. And since Asteroids is on the menu, I shall start with The Whack.

I know they look for your mouse before the gremlin comes up, but I'm always tempted to see how long he keeps his head up before you pop him. Of course, I'm never more curious than I am willing to take a dive. Even for science.

Alright, I did it. It was just eating at me. As long as the mouse is over his crater you have all the time in the world. Look deep into the terror of his yellow eyes as he has realized his inextrictable doom.

If it wasn't for the Cinco de Mayo Mirracle where I somehow got 7.25 on Space Whack, I would be getting 1st every day. At least my averages have been progressively growing.

Sorter? Nailed. 1st place with a huge jump in avg and top score.

Let's see if the Grid has any hope of containing me.

Hm I guess it does. I kept getting tripped up in the 6s. I could have gone farther and I was just racing right through them. I just kept losing one single detail. Still, I feel fine about how I did. The less I feel I have to work for it, the more I think it's working and it's not like I completely tanked it. I was in my proper win/lose/win routine just in a different mode. If I can keep that up, I've got plenty of room to go with it.

Taking a quick break. There is a lizard trapped in this room and I'm going to make only one attempt at getting it out.

That's a negative. I did make a decent go at it, but in the end he decided that hiding in this dry and bug-free was a better deal than getting caught. Again, I have a much larger spiel negative reinforcement that goes pretty well with DHH's recent RailsConf Keynote about progress and risk aversion, but I have some time that I need to make up.

And I'm back on top of Input Module. I didn't place yesterday but I tied for the 3rd time the top score of 9.4 broken by today's highest average of 8.47. Feels pretty good.

Huge successes on Data Room. I almost got a 7.

I somehow slipped back down on Stabilizer. I'm again not even on the board today. I did catch up significantly, but I was stuck in the 6s.

Not great on Blind Input. I wasn't able to hold my focus and then I got really frustrated.

Oh well. Asteroids and then I'm done.