yamahito

just don’t strain yourself

The possible health drawbacks of owning a wii are pointed out above… I mean, it’s all a bit obvious, though, isn’t it? The risks are exactly the same as playing any exertive sport, plus a few from playing any console game on a TV.

Also, the article doesn’t seem to understand the difference between the Wii, and Wii sports, the free game that comes with the wii.

Still, it’s probably important to do more warm-up and stretching exercises. Personally, I’d see this as an opportunity if I worked in Nintendo: a warm-up channel would be a pretty simple addition to download to the wii itself, and a great PR exercise.

I’ve been of the opinion for a long time now that ecological = economical in the long term. Unfortunately high short-term outlays mean that a lot of us can’t afford to tile our roof with energy cells and sit back watching our meters running backwards.

I’ve long been of the opinion that the government should encourage ecological improvements at home by helping with this initial outlay.

Now the Lib Dems here in the UK have come up with an idea that addresses just this point.

OK, it would be even better if they were willing to match a certain amount of that with a grant, since we’re spending money for the public good, but at least they’re willing to make a start.

The only problem is that the Lib Dems, UK’s third largest political party, haven’t been in power since 1915 (disclaimer: I am not a historian).

Still, Labour stole most of their manifesto in the 1996 elections (including, shock horror, student loans), so there’s still a chance the idea will see the light of day. I hope so, anyway.

Say No More…

I’m currently reading a book called ‘Getting Things Done’ by David Allen.

There’s a bit of psycho-babble in there, but I think that’s a bit inevitable: when dealing with something that’s essentially new (like our modern, internet-fueled lifestyles) you’ve got to develop the language to deal with it, and it’s often going to sound pretentious. Having said that, there’s a lot in there that strikes me as distinctly pragmatic and down-to-earth.

The book tends to focus on ‘next-actions’ - I like that. You don’t ‘do’ projects, you ‘do’ little steps. And as long as you’re doing them, and that they contribute to the project, you don’t have the ‘open loop’ - what I would call that feeling of something hanging over your head - that you get when you know that there’s something you’ve decided you should be doing.

Some people don’t like the idea of having a rigid framework governing your work. I understand that, because I was one of them. But then again, maybe rigid is the wrong word here. Established, ingrained… whatever. The point is that some of us need something to work within. I’m hoping that this will fulfill that need.

There are a lot of different ways GTD can be implemented: a simple paper system fulfills all of the criteria, for example. Sounds a bit cluttered to me, but my brother would love that. That level of flexibility is good; it means that there’s a lot of freedom to choose something that will fit in well with my career, my hobbies and my lifestyle (yeah, this is a whole-life kind of system). It’s also bad, because it means that before I can hit the ground running, I’m going to need to complete the sort of task I’m hoping for help with.

I want something that I can access anywhere, online or offline. But I also want it to store information from me that I can retrieve. Ideally I want something I can run for myself between work and home. I envisage this as a web-based application that performs some form of synching. That’s about as far as I’ve got, and here are the candidates so far:

43 Folders isn’t technically a candidate, but as a site it looks useful enough that I’ll link to it straight away.

Tracks is a ruby-on-rails implementation. It’s designed specifically for GTD. It’s available as a hosted solution (I think free, so there’s your demo ), and has RSS capabilities (which is always a bonus for me).

MonkeyGTD is an adaption of a Tiddlywiki. Tiddlywikis are based on single flat files, so the advantage here is that you can carry it with you, work on it offline, and upload to carry on working online. It also looks a lot more sophisticated than you would expect from a wiki.

iCommit is another bespoke GTD solution. I haven’t tried it yet, as you have to register to use it on the author’s site in the first instance to see anything. That put me off, but many people sounding off about how perfect a solution it is made me look some more. 43folders has an article and some screenshots here.

Thinking Rock looks pretty cool, but isn’t an online service. Having said that, it’s java, and based on a single file that I could either USB around with me and/or stick on a webDAV server somewhere… I’m a little concerned by the lack of a ‘tickler file’ or weekly review views, but maybe it’s unnecessary - I’ll find out when I get to that chapter I guess

GTD-PHP is a php based implementation I haven’t had much chance to look at yet - there’s a demo, too.

More to follow? Please feel free to make any suggestions in the comments.

Home Theater PC.

I’ve had a machine sitting around the flat/bedsit/flat again for years now. I always meant it to be hooked up to the telly. Having it hanging over me has been stressing me out since 2003. So (just as soon as I get my home server up and running again), I’m going to have another go at building one.

I don’t need TV functionality. I don’t want another windows box hanging around (not sure I have the license for one, either). Just a nice interface to videos and music on the fileserver. Perhaps a quick script to rip a DVD for easy access. Maybe, MAYBE a snes emulator for shits and giggles. Simpler the better.

There seem to be three contenders (in the linux space, anyway:)

MythTV - The big one.. this is the one I always figured I’d end up using. It’s so powerful and feature-rich, but it really is set up to do Tivo-like functions and TV recording; apparently its use as a simple video-over-the-network setup is a bit poor.

Freevo, which looks to be more straightforward is based on Python, and their screenshots don’t seem to work properly - maybe I need to try it out a bit. Their plugin range looks pretty impressive, too.

Geexbox looks like the one I’ll most likely start with. Installation looks much easier than either of the other two, and the idea of something small enough to run from a compact flash card… well, one less hard drive in the box will cut down on noise…

Anyone have any experience with these? Opinions welcome as always