Uncountably Infinite

[link: How to pull an all-nighter]

This guy definitely haven’t tried anything remotely hardcore. As one of the comments stated, his method only describes a "late-nighter", not an "all-nighter". Here’s my take:

• You don’t have to plan it, especially for newbies. If you have to actually plan it, the thought of "OMG I’m gonna stay up all night" will always be weighing heavily on your mind. Just go with the flow.
• If you find your productivity drop below a certain threshold, just give in to your body’s request. The threshold is affected by the nature of the work, the urgency, caffine intake and tolerance, your surrounding environment, and your personal bio-rythym.
• Some people are better at staying up all night than waking up without sufficient sleep. When you tally the amount of sleep each person has over a longer period (say, two weeks), the latter type can usually spend less time sleeping than the former, not to mention having higher productivity average.
• If you really, really want to get "better" at pulling an all-nighter, get used to having your curtains down and lights on at all times. You can fool (or at least mute) your body’s sensitivity to natural lighting this way.

Personally, I can go about 48+ hours without sleep if I’m in front of a computer. Without physical activity, I can go on a pattern of 40 waking hours + 12 hours sleep for at least two weeks. On the other hand, I can (and regularly do) sleep for 12+ hours straight. In fact, my "best" record for sleeping was 22 hours straight, stayed up for about 2 hours for food and hygene, than sleep another 20 hours. And trust me, I didn’t force myself doing either, nor do I need to.

Blogging @ 5:30am

technorati tags: all-nighter

I don’t normally read Globe and Mail, on line or off. For some reasons, while I was actively updating my list of feeds on Bloglines last week, I ended up adding most G&M feeds. Over the next few days, I blissfully ignored the hundreds of articles, most of them are duplicates of other feeds of their own or requires (paying) subscriptions. However, one free article captured my eyes:

On Feb. 1, Ontario’s minimum hourly wage rose to $7.75 from $7.45. For reasons that now escape me, I thought the best way to tell the story of that 30-cent raise was to work — and live — at the bottom of the food chain. I would find a low-paying job, a low-rent apartment and, single-mom-like, take my boys with me for the month and see how we survived.

globeandmail.com : Maid in Canada

At the first glance, I thought the author, Jan Wong, was a first-generation immigrant getting a mainstream gig. I discovered how far I was from the truth when I checked her bio: She’s a third-generation Canadian living in the comfortable neighbourhood surrounding Bridle Path. I wouldn’t even call her "middle-class" by my books. Armed with this information, I suddenly understand why the world of minimum wage living is alien to her.

First of all, no daily allowance to the kids. Their lunches should be packed by you, so they have no reason to give them a few precious dollars a day. Tthey’ll most likely spend the money on unhealthy sweets anyway. If your 15-year-old buy starts his rebellious teenage phrase and whines about money, tell him to find a part time job. Yes, a high school student can have part time jobs. It may be a foreign concept for people associating with private schools, but is pretty darn common for public high school students. Obviously, you should still give them money occasionally (perhaps as bonuses for good grades or other outstanding performances), and you’ll have to foot the bill when they need new stationery, but that’s still a lot less than giving them daily allowance. Factoring in the extra food and material costs, you should still be able to trim about $100 off your expenses each month, assuming you’re giving each $5/day.

Also, she didn’t go to an employment agency. Had she gone there, she’d find out factory jobs are better. Sure, the work is physical; but it certainly beats having to deal with dirty toilets. There are also less loopholes (such as commission) for the employer to trim your pay cheque. And if you work overtime, you will get the government-mandated 50% extra per hour after the 44th hour in a week. Most jobs also have group health care plans covering your household, which are still nice to have even if you have to pay the premium.

Two newbie mistakes. I’m still waiting to find out how things turned out for her though.

technorati tags: minimum_wage, toronto, jan_wong

[Copied from my first attempt to start this blog.]

I have a blog on Yahoo 360. It's intended for friends and family. As such, I focus on random happenings and our common culture, but seldomly post about technology-related topics.

The problem? Well, I read almost nothing but technology online. I need a vent; an emotional outlet. (Or a dumpster, depending on you POV).

For the past two days, I've been experiementing blogging as practiced by A-list bloggers–that is, go though my RSS feeds and write my 2 cents on any vaguely interesting topics. Thanks to TiddlyWiki (via Russell Beattie Notebook), the process, despite the contents remain unpublished, was quite interesting. Hence, I decide to expand the experiment from my closet (or rather, my Mac Mini) to internet.

Why do it on Infogami, you ask? Actually, it was just the path with least resistance: I already signed up an account when it launched, yet have done anything with it. Besides, the lack of customization and configuration means I can focus on the content, as opposed to picking the "right" base theme and then edit it to suit my own taste. Been there, done that. By the time the site looks exactly like what I envisioned, I've lost all interests to write.

Let the inner chatterbox run lose!

Update 1: I've abandoned Infogami as a blog choice. Reasons are given in the second post, "Deficiency #1: Where are the Comments?" I'm still lamenting the lost of Markdown support in the move to WordPress (short of hosting my own WordPress blog anyway). (X)HTML interferes with the thinking process, and I don't trust visual editors.