12.28
All right. It’s that time of the season when we’re supposed to reflect upon the last year of our lives and make well thought out resolutions that will hopefully put us in a better place right in time for the end of the world.
About.com offers up what it purports to be the top ten New Year’s Resolutions. If you’re stuck for your own, feel free to borrow from theirs.
First on the list?
1) Spend more time with family and friends.
That’s right. Get them on Google Plus. Or get them into Arduino. Or get them to a Geek Gathering or Hacker Space Open House. We do have a Geek Gathering coming up on the sixth of January, so why not pick a resolution that you can knock out of the park?
The number two spot?
2) Exercise
Exercise your political muscle by sounding off against things like SOPA and other transgressions against good engineering and common sense. You can do this by emailing or calling your political representative from the comfort of your couch.
3) Lose Weight
Drop the heavy laptop and go lighter. NetBook and tablets anchor the inexpensive end with things like the MacBook air ocupying the rarified atmosphere at the top.
4) Quit Smoking
Or at least, quit smoking electronics. Learn to read the power adapters for various gadgets around the house and then make sure you’ve got the right match before connecting them to any expensive appliances. The three things you want to look for are Amps, Volts and Polarity,
which is either Center Positive or Center Negative, depending upon whether the center dot in the three dot illustration on all AC/DC power adapters is connected to the plus or the minus.
5) Enjoy Life More
I think what they’re getting at here is to earn more in-game achievements and complete more side quests. Or, if you’re not into that style of gaming, just stopping to smell the roses in Simville or even planting some in Farmville. Or fry up some bacon, then stop to smell it
while playing Angry Birds. Your options are limitless.
6) Quit Drinking
Given that our bodies are nearly 75% water, I think that this is horrid advice. If anything, you should be trying to drink about 64 ounces of water per day, though this can vary with factors such as the altitude at which you live, the relative humidity, the amount of exercise
you get, your weight and how much alcohol you regularly consume. A quick and easy calculation is to take two thirds of your weight in pounds, and drink that many ounces of water per day. Then throw in a pint or porter or a sip of Scotch for good measure.
Next on the list?
7) Get out of Debt
Since it became illegal to sell your own organs on the Internet, you’re not left with many options other than gold farming. Even Spamming doesn’t pay what it used to…
Eighth on the list is:
8) Learn Something New
This one is pretty easy. Just surf to http://www.hal-pc.org or visit http://www.txrxlabs.org and randomly pick something from their calendar. If you already know it, rinse and repeat. Or even better: All windmills turn counter-clock wise, with the exception of those in Ireland. You can scratch that one of your list, now…
9) Help Others
Since it may be construed as a little creepy for a grown man to join the Boy Scouts, you probably want to skip the organized doing of good deeds and head to Houston’s own HackerSpace instead. It is here where you can help others realize their dreams by donating talents, labor
or knowledge to fellow hackers and makers. Or it could also mean that you should run a lower level World of Warcraft player through a decent dungeon.
And lastly?
10) Get Organized
There’s no better time to organize and catalog your collections than the present. Whether you have a cube full of action figures or a library full of technical manuals, there are a number of open source programs and apps that will help you through your endeavor. At the very
least, you should go through your bags and bank in whatever online games you play. Do you really need that many brooms?
That’s it for Resolving your New Year’s Resolutions and that’s that for BarretTime.
