So I wrote this monstrosity, which I’m tickled by, today:

function gaPush(cat, action, label, value) {
    var call = ['_trackEvent'];

    (cat) ? call.push(cat) : call.push('Undefined');
    (action) ? call.push(action) : call.push('Undefined');
    (label) ? call.push(label) : false;
    (!isNaN(parseInt(value))) ? call.push(parseInt(value)) : false;

    _gaq.push(call);
}

It makes pushing custom events into Google Analytics easier. Useful for in game analytics on the cheap.

That code snippet above does two things:

1. Creates an Array of values
2. Does it using ternary operators instead of if/else statements

The nice thing about the pattern is that if label or value were not supplied in the function call it won’t be included in the call array.

People who aren’t rich are always wondering how to make more money.  This causes a lot of suffering.  When we think about our richer future selves we take what we have right now for granted. When we are not grateful we suffer.

I was lucky to have a very smart and wealthy person tell me how to do it right. I was skeptical at first but I finally made it mine to share.

This is the right order to do things:

1. Solve a problem.
2. Build credibility and respect.
3. Respect will give you power and influence.
4. Power will reward you with money.

Most people have it wrong: get money, power comes from money and respect from power. They don’t solve anybody’s problems, including their own.

Knowing the right order is just the first step. The second is to enjoy building your success.

We have six core needs for fulfillment:

1. The need for certainty
2. The need for variety
3. The need to feel significant
4. The need for love and connection
5. The need for growth
6. The need to contribute

If each step does not fulfill some of your needs it is time to make changes.

1. Solving problems – needs #2, #3 and #5.
2. Respect and Credibility -  needs #3, #4 and #6.
3. Power – needs #3 and #5.
4. Money – needs #1, #3 and #6.

Image Courtesey of Tracy O, (image)

Getting happy right now is simple, be grateful. If you think about three things you are grateful for and avoid thinking about the future you’ll be happy. For a few minutes at least.

Staying happy is the tricky part. Human beings are the only animal that thinks about the future. We spend a lot of time thinking about our happier future selves and what we need to do to become that person.

We take what we have now for granted. We choose to suffer now so we can happier later. There is a better way to live. To have happiness and spaceships, medicine and the Internet.

The first step is knowing your core needs:

1. The need for certainty
2. The need for variety
3. The need to feel significant
4. The need for love and connection
5. The need for growth
6. The need to contribute

The second step is to plan your future around your six basic needs.

Finally remember to be grateful.

—-

Photo courtesy of a4gpa (photo).

Suggested further reading:

• Stumbling on Happiness – by Daniel Gilbert
• Anthony Robbin’s Six core needs
• Man’s Search for Meaning – by Viktor E. Frankl

I’ve been working on a project called TweetLens for about four months. After a few months of programming, trying out different ideas and having hopes to turn it into a start up of some sort it’s time to face reality. That reality is that I want to build tech. companies that enrich people’s lives and makes me money. I believe that TweetLens accomplishes the first but will never accomplish the second.

So it was a bitter sweet decision to stop working on TweetLens as a possible business start up. After some thought I decided the best thing is to  open source it under the MIT license. I don’t want to see the project die and there is a lot of great work (IMHO) that went into it. Letting others have a go at it or incorporate it into their tools would be a great way to keep the value from fading.

The bitter part about the decision is having to admit that it would fail as a viable business. I still believe that most of the tools out there still suck and there is an opportunity for a real kick ass twitter web client. What I don’t regret is the time spent building it because the journey itself was very rewarding.

That is the sweet part. Building TweetLens I learned more about JavaScript than I could ever imagine. Before TweetLens I thought of JavaScript as just a tool for fancy animations and AJAX. Now I realize how amazing a language it is for delivering a high level of application usability within the browser.

Combined with jQuery’s awesome event handling I was learned about event driven programming (EDP). This lead me down a path into SOA (service-oriented architecture) and a new world of possibilities opened up to me. I love thinking about how technology can be applied to enrich people’s lives.

So while the project itself was a failure in its original purpose the new experience, skills and knowledge gained have a lot of value. Either way I don’t regret where working on TweetLens has taken me.

So this is the plan for the new open TweetLens.

1. Clean up the source code and throw it up on GitHub. I just opened up an account, now I gotta figure out how to use. I love learning new things.
2. Tweak tweetlens.com to be the project’s web and demo site. There is a lot of cool functionality that I built into TweetLens and it deserves some showcasing.
3. Continue tweaking the code. There’s some nifty new features and enhancements that would make it a bit more usable. I’ve been thinking of re-architecting the event model, making leveraging $(document) more as the communication channel, almost completely eliminating the call stack… well you know geek out! :)

So a new future for TweetLens and I’m going to focus more on my next projects. I got a few great ones in the hopper. And this time co-founders!

I’ve been using the blue light blocking glasses from lowbluelights.com for a few weeks now. I wanted to wrap up the project and these are the results I’ve seen personally:

1. The glasses don’t make me sleepy. What I’ve found is that the exposure to the intensity of light matters as much as the type. For maximum effectiveness I would turn down most of the lights in my home and wear the glasses.
2. They do help me sleep better. Before wearing the glasses I would wake up several times a night. Using the glasses I sleep through until my alarm clock wakes me up. For the record I actually use a sun-rise alarm clock. This is the one I have, a Sunrise Systems Dawn Simulator.:Basically these simulate dawn and rather than a blaring alarm to wake you up it slowly brightens the room. Thus dawn simulation. I will never use a regular alarm clock again.
3. Are they worth the money? I think so. Being able to sleep soundly for hours is worth more than the $100.00!

It’s been about two weeks wearing the lowbluelights.com blue light blocking glasses every night. The results aren’t what I expected. Initially I expected to feel really sleep around 10:00pm and wake up easily at 5:00am. Instead I fall asleep whenever I go to bed and wake up around 7:30/8:00am.

What I found is that the glasses do not make you sleepy. For me I credit the glasses for helping me sleep better and fall asleep much faster. Before the start of the experiment I would have a very difficult time falling asleep, usually tossing and turning in bed for hours. Then I would wake up every two or three hours, usually being able to fall asleep again in a minute or so.

There are several bad habits that I keep that the glasses do not fix. That is staying up late on the computer or watching tv. While I do start feeling sleepy around those times I can stay awake if I wanted. So I actually made a few changes to my lifestyle.

First starting around 8:30pm I would put the glasses on and leave them on until I go to sleep. Usually this is still around midnight or 1:00am. It kind of sucks having the world all yellow but you get used to it.

Secondly when my bed hits the pillow, I catch myself thinking about random things and I start counting sheep. Yes, counting sheep. I start at 100 and challenge myself to count down to 50 before my mind starts wandering. I’ve never made it to 50. Either because my mind drifted or I’ve fallen asleep. It’s cliche but it works for me.

Thirdly I made my room dark. There is very little ambient light in my room at night. In the morning I have a sun-rise alarm clock that wakes me up. These two things combined also helped my ability to sleep.

All of these things combined has made an improvement so far. The next step is to begin sleeping and getting up earlier. Will post another update when I have more information on how that is going.

Tonight is the 3rd night wearing the blue light blocking glasses. This is what I’ve noticed so far.

On the first night I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow @ 2:00am. I was surprised that I didn’t feel sleepy at all. I thought i would. I was surprised I fell asleep so quickly as I usually toss and turn for a couple of hours. I woke up  at about 7:30am feeling quite refreshed. This also surprised me. I wore the glasses for about 3 hours before bed.

This was a Crossfit night. I didn’t eat all that good either.

The second night I fell asleep quite quickly, thought not as quickly as the first night. Faster than normal though. I went to bed around 1:00am, wearing the glasses for about 3 hours. I woke up a bit later, around 7:30am. I still felt quite tired in the morning. This was also a Crossfit night and I had a pretty late dinner.

Tonight, another Crossfit night. Had dinner a little earlier, but I ate a lot. Friends in town. No will power. It is 11:40pm and I’m not feeling sleepy at all. I’ll try to sleep in about 30 minutes. Hopefully I can fall sleep fast as usual.

For a long time I haven’t been able to sleep normal hours. I’ve always thought it was because I was part owl

After doing some research online about the effects of  blue light and circadian rhythm I took the plunge and got a pair of blue light blocking sunglasses.

The theory is that blue light suppresses melatonin. Since we live in a pretty digital society we’re surrounded by LCDs, light bulbs, etc. and it throws off our internal hormonal clock.

Since I’m usually surfing, programming or couch potato’ing well past 8:00pm I usually have a hard time sleeping.

By wearing these glasses most of the blue light is blocked so melatonin release won’t be inhibited. That means normal sleep.

Well this is the first night so I’ll keep updating. My plan is to put these on at 8:00pm, do my normal stuff and hopefully by 10:00pm or 11:00pm I’ll be real sleepy. I’ll blog it all.

References:

1. Wikipedia entry on melatonin. In particular citations #25 / #26.
2. LowBlueLights.com – the manufacturers of these glasses.
3. The glasses I’m wearing. The Novelists series.
4. The website I ordered them from in Canada: http://mavc.com/

Reaching out for balance...

This is my current project load:

1. TweetLens.com – This is a twitter client that I am building. The clients out there currently don’t offer what I really want. That is: Web based, keyboard navigation and good data filtering. This project has almost consumed my life. I started it without knowning how to write a lick of JavaScript. Now I know jQuery, DOM manipulation, event driven programming, etc. pretty well.

   In a few weeks I should have the next alpha release out. I’m currently rebuilding the backend for better data caching which is essential when you’ve move a lot of data processing off the desktop and into the cloud. It’s coming together. Fortunately my backend development skills are still sharp.

2. Project #circadian – This is to reset my sleeping schedule so I pass out around 10:00pm and get up around 6:00am. Rise and set with the sun essentially. The steps with this is to get a pair of blue light blocking glasses and reduce my caffeine intake. There is some interesting research into the relationship between blue light and alertness. I’ll see how it works. This blog post really helped point me in the right direction too.
3. Improve my diet. Eat based on the Zone diet. Then add extra fat / protein to gain mass.
4. Get more Crossfit. I just have to show up 4 times a week.

I’ve been thinking lately that these are the pillars to leading a balanced life style:

1. Exercise for the body. Crossfit is my drug of choice.
2. Exercise for the mind. Programming for me.
3. Get enough rest. Project #circadian.
4. Get good fuel. Eat Zone, with extra fat and protein to gain mass.

Okay after talking to Boris @ boot up labs last week I realized that I’ve been killing my poor readers with my food log. It even drove poor Boris away. I created a new Blog: mmmyummy.wordpress.com for all of my food logging.

It’ll be there for now. This site will go back to being mostly geeky. :)