Where to start

I’ve been struggling through the process of re-designing my own site for quite some time now. I know it sounds strange. I can spend all the time I want, incorporate anything I desire, and have it look any way I could possibly imagine. How can I go wrong with that?!

Therein was the problem: unlimited possibility.

Examples of the issue

Pretend for a moment that you’re a talented movie producer and you’ve got an unlimited budget, a flexible schedule and all the greatest actors begging to work for you. With so much talent and potential handed to you, you might think that you’ve got a successful movie pretty much in the bag already. On the other hand, you could come up with a movie like Spiderman 3 or Pearl Harbor.

Ok, erase all that. You’re still a talented movie producer, but you’ve got almost no budget, a short timetable and one great actor. With more constraints, you’ve gotta get creative. A great movie doesn’t sound so easy all of a sudden. Primer was a very good movie made for $7,000 but some more famous examples would be the first Rocky movie, Mad Max or even The Blair Witch Project.

First steps

I soon realized that without constraints, there was no way I was ever going to get anything done. So I went about setting some up.

Identify your priorities

What do you want to have on your site? Is it going to be for work and business relations or is it for your Russian nesting doll collection? The more specific and detailed your priorities list is, the quicker you can get to finding a solution. Remember that this isn’t cast in stone. You can add features at a later date. We’re primarily interested in getting the ball rolling here.

Identify your assets

This is more about identifying what you’ve currently got in terms of media and content than it is about future planning. Again, you’re taking stock of what you got now. Leave provisions for future additions, but don’t let them stop you from getting things started.

Set a time limit

Time limits keep you from pursuing too many wild ideas and gives you a deadline to shoot for. Be reasonable with your deadline. I try to define mine in hours rather than a date in the future.

Incorporate something new

Try to incorporate one new technology, language, or principle. But only one thing. Focusing on learning one new thing will keep you focused on that task. Also, if you’ve set a time limit for yourself, you won’t have time to immerse yourself in multiple new ideas.

How I attained my goals

I’ve got a blog (which you’re reading), a twitter account and a flickr account that I wanted tied into one page that would be a sort of summary for my online presence. I knew I was going to be utilizing the RSS feeds from each of these sites, so I researched and found a PHP solution called SimplePie that allowed me to import my RSS feeds. I then gave myself two hours to sketch, mock up, and prepare the layout and another hour for the CSS. The SimplePie setup went a lot smoother than I anticipated and in no time, I had a site up and running.

Did it look exactly the way I wanted it to? No. But it was about 90% of the way there which is about 75% closer than it has ever been in the past. By giving myself some guidelines and a target, I was able to get something done.

1. Don’t Lie- Specifically to yourself. You are the most important thing in your life. It doesn’t go any other way. Telling a lie to protect the feelings of somebody else only makes it harder to live with yourself. If/when that other person finds out they have been lead along, they too will feel upset and confused as to why they were lead to believe in something that wasn’t true.
2. Speak- Start the conversation, even if you have nothing to say. Get your thoughts out so that you can analyze them. This works hand-in-hand with listening.
3. Listen- Acknowledge what others are saying. Recognize others feelings as well as beliefs. You may be surprised to find out that there are more people that feel the same way you do. Do not close the doors of the mind. Listen to yourself. Your words may be more telling than you think.
4. Respect- Yourself. The whole you. Abusing your body is nothing more than punishing yourself. What have you done wrong to deserve this self punishment? Take care of what you have. You weren’t born with spare parts. Respect others for their views and their opinions as well as their choices. Do not let opposing views get under your skin.
5. Move on- Learn from what has happened in the past. Dwelling on this will not get you anywhere. I have a quote that sums this up very succinctly:
   “The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
   Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
   Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
   Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it”-Omar Khayyam
6. Set Goals- High ones. You are more capable than you realize. It is easy to settle, but it is far more satisfying to work for something and earn it. Failure to attain lofty goals should not be seen as your downfall. Be proud of the work you put in.
7. Love- Love what you do, who you work with, your hobby, your pets, yourself.

I will be updating this and refining it as the week progresses. I hope that you get something out of it. If not, let it be a reinforcement to what you already know. Oh, and last but certainly not least, my un-official number 8. Smile.

Scientific American

40. The medical name for the part of the brain associated with teenage sulking is “superior temporal sulcus”. (The Emocampus?)

64. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666. (I think thats tougher than Honorificindinitabilius)

76. In Bhutan government policy is based on Gross National Happiness; thus most street advertising is banned, as are tobacco and plastic bags.

87. Goths, those pasty-faced teenagers who revel in black clothing, are likely to become doctors, lawyers and architects. (yikes)

Linkage below.
BBC NEWS | Magazine Monitor

Back to Bush. One of his propositions to “reduce our dependence upon foreign oil” is a substance called Ethanol. Ethanol produces less hydrocarbons while being burned, but it also has a lower energy content. About 30% less energy, and that’s not a little. This means that it takes more ethanol to go the same distance in your car. 1 gallon of gas = 1.5 gallons ethanol

Ethanol in the US is primarily made from corn and other biodegradable products and the government is giving incentives to farmers that grow corn for use as fuel. Good for the farmers, but what about the droughts over the Midwest these past years? Corn is also fed to the cows to produce our meats. Should we divert that corn to power our cars? The amount of fuel needed to harvest an acre of corn is in fact larger than the amount of energy said acre would yield. USA Today did an article about using corn as a replacement fuel for gas. They did the math, but did not take into account the energy cots associated with harvesting that amount of corn (Math is the 6th or 7th paragraph). The government initiative, Renewable Fuel Standard states that at least 4 of the roughly 150 Billion gallons of fuel this year be from renewable sources. This number is intended to increase to approximately 7.5 Billion by 2012.

Lets recap: It takes more ethanol to drive a vehicle the same distance as gasoline (Roughly 1.5 times as much fuel). Ethanol is mainly produced from corn, and it costs more in energy to harvest the corn than is produced from the harvest. We would need to harvest nearly three and a half times as much corn to make enough fuel for one day.

Should we replace fossil fuels with Ethanol? I say no, but supplementing our gas with ethanol produced from biomass and bio-diesel from cooking oil combined with a weight reduction in current automobiles… I think that we could make some good steps in the right direction, but it is clearly not enough.
In all honesty, we should have done this years ago.