After reading the paypal mafia article (via GeekBaazar) and the biography of John Finkel Jonny Magic and the card shark kids I realised how positively influenced I am when reading about high achieving people. After reading these articles my mind starts rushing, ideas flow and I feel an urge to create something and achieve greatness.

In light of this observation I've got a resolution for this week:-

Start the day by reading something about a star performer, maybe an enterprenuer, a best-selling author or an influential programmer.

If anybody has any such articles please feel free to suggest. I will try to post the list of articles I read during the week on the blog.

I'm back from my first visit to Luxembourg this weekend. On Friday we went to a classical philharmonic concert and it kicked ass. It was a highly atypical classical music concert as it sounded more like a horror movie soundtrack rather than a concert. It had all these weird sounds, strange instruments, lack of a coherent melody and different sound. The "real" orchestra parts lasted only a couple of seconds throughout the whole concert. I think most of the people in the hall were taken by surprise and the look on their faces towards the end of the concert was less than satisfactory.

The pedestrian area in Luxembourg City is quite nice but very small. There are a lot of French cafés, those posh shops selling gourmet cheese and wine, delicate French pastries, loads of croissants etc. A snacking stroll in the city could is a nice way to spend half a day and most of the cash in your wallet (prices are similar to Dublin even though whisky and alcohol is very cheap in comparison).

On Saturday evening we went out for an Indian dinner. It was damn cold but throughout the whole day. My Mediterranean blood isn’t yet accustomed to those temperatures and I didn’t take any thermals with me. Talking about cold weather I got a ski suit from my potential skiing trip in Slovakia.

We also did some shopping because the flat was quite bare. I was carrying vacuum cleaners and curtain railings around, acting like a proper gentleman for a welcoming change.

Do you know Ritter sport, the chocolate? It’s uber cheap in Lux. Got some for 69 euro cents. Actually got a couple for my work mates and it's all finished. There were also loads of Italian products which are quite difficult to find here, whole shelves full of barilla, kinder chocolate etc.

In RyanLand, Philip Nolan uses the Ryanair schedule as his destination planner and travels around Europe low-cost with Ryanair. Each chapter is about a Ryanair destination (Hahn, Lubeck, Reus Salou), and the very last chapter is about nothing less than ... the dot. The prose is hilarious throughout the whole book and the last chapter is no exception. I've scanned the chapter to share it with you. This is promo for the book, and for the dot which gets quite a positive evaluation.

Scan of pg 250-251
Scan of pg 252-253
Scan of pg 254-255

I've tried tens of hiccup remedies which never really worked but today someone pointed out one that work immediately. Here's what you should do:

Bend your upper body down as far as possible (as if you were going to touch your toes) and drink a glass of water in this funny position.

It worked perfectly on my first attempt for me. If you try it and it works (or even if it doesn't) leave a reply to this post.

Put yr left hand on right shoulder, yr right hand on left shoulder, squeeze gently. U've received a do-it-yrself hug from me!even i want somebody to solace me!by!

You can say it's an emotional rollercoaster.one time i'm elated the next agonized.i'll send you my poems sometime.

Do you know the book The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe? You might start to write The Sorrows of Young J by Mike

I ate two big ricotta pies today (qassatat), i felt like I was eating a tit.

luckily you had a shorts to change your trousers at work, even though i can imagine that you're freezing. weren't you supposed to hang hot water bottles to your balls to sterilise yourself, this way you're cooling them. (see prev for original quote)

P.S. None of the emo phrases were sent by cheri.

Today is my third day secluded in my room. It's me and Hiisi, Hiisi and me. Apart from curling into a ball and sleeping I finished a book called Scent of the Night by Andrea Camilleri, started a new book called Johnny Magic and the Card Shark Kids and continued reading Fasten your seatbelt. Did I do anything else apart from reading, yes but not much.

I played a bit of an old game with my mobile phone. Sending messages to people ... you can see some replies in the inbox post of this week, there are some classics there.

Spent some time on facebook and toyed with the idea of creating a facebook app. That means that I spent most of yesterday playing with graphic libraries in Java and actionscript, not something for the non-nerds there. Still trying to decide whether it's possible to do and how feasible it is.

One of the good things of facebook ... you can discover some very very funny stuff in person's profiles. Check this video out, it's unmissable. Prank call

Felling a bit sick today so it's the perfect day to share some body hacks:-

• If your throat tickles, scratch your ear
• Cough during an injection to feel less pain
• Reduce toothache pain by rubbing ice on the v-shaped area between your thumb and index finger.
• Rock your head from side to side if your hand falls asleep

For more body hacks and explanations for the ones above check out Jimmy's site

To reflect the start of my two year research project in Information Visualization, Social Networks and the Airline Industry I'm adding 3 new categories to the blog. The first section on Information Visualisation will contain examples of interesting graphical displays of information to help communicate better (see the Information Aesthetics site for some examples).

Source: NY Times Information Graphic Examples - Matthew Ericson

The social networks section will contain posts on social relations. The essence of social networks is the focus on relationships between entities (e.g. people, countries), rather than the individual characteristics of that entity. Nowadays social networks are commonly associated with websites like Facebook and Myspace, which are examples of social network services. These services provide an accessible way for social scientists to examine the social networks of people who use these services.

The third area of this project is the airline business. Instead of starting a section on the airline business itself this section will contain general airline travel tips.

Since the contents of these sections are going to be a bit on the geeky side, posts in these sections are going to be published in the technology and travel section of mindspill.

If you've ever kept a cat you're going to identify with these very witty cartoons on the Hallmarks of felinity

Found this Chinese zodiac crap lurking around and thought it was quite coincidentally representative. The title itself, metal monkey, already has a striking similarity: metal music and monkey manners (or maybe looks), so can you find other similarities of me from the list.

His social skills & feelings are probably at the level of minus 23

I recommend you take boiling baths, wear very tight trousers, and maybe fix a hot water bottle to your balls.

F: I forgot the brand buti only discovered it yesterday
V: I don’t know the brand buti … now that you’re mentioning it I might keep an eye out for it
F: BUTI is not a brand... i meant to write but i, get it?

Obviously this was in the morning when I'm beady eyed, then in the evening I decided it was a woodpecker hammering (at my window). But this morning I found the culprits ... great tits pecking the thermometer!! poor birds, the thermometer is like a bird feeder!!

From the article, What the f***?, by Steven Pinker.
One might have thought that, in the male-dominated world of swearing, the vagina would be revered, not reviled. After all, it's been said that no sooner does a boy come out of it than he spends the rest of his life trying to get back in. This becomes less mysterious if one imagines the connotations in an age before tampons, toilet paper, regular bathing, and antifungal drugs.

Some more flash goodies, this time with the flash game Line Rider but beware this is ADDICTIVE. What you've got to do is to create a race track to guide the tobaggonist down a path. There's no hope I can explain how funny it can get. Just to give you a clue there are currently over 11,000 videos on google of Line Rider tracks.

Via The ten most addictive online flash games ever made

Check out this flash presentation by Bruno Bozzetto about life in the condominium.

This guy is very good. If you want to see more presentations and humour by him check out this list of flash animations. A highly recommended one is Europe and Italy

Found through StumbleUpon ... the perfect time sucker for when you're busy.

I haven't wrote some personal gossip in quite a while so it's time for some bla bla about some boring things. I've been working quite a bit, staying late and doing the wee odd hour here and there. Weekends aren't rollercoaster rides at the moment either but, anyway it's that time of the year. October and November two months just standing there in the way of summer and Christmas. Talking about Christmas, it's only 49 days till Christmas.

One of my friend's has her birthday tomorrow and I managed to find a 3-1 card for her. It's this year's birthday card, a wedding card for whenever she decides to get married (probably never at this rate), and a self-sympathy card for when she dies. 3 events with 1 card isn't a bad deal, even if the card cost 4.50 Euros. Cards are obscenely expensive here.

This weekend I went out for dinner to Wagamama, the International Japanese food chain. It was my first time there, and I must say I liked it. The place is informal and relaxed, and the food was very good. Thanks to Video Jug I learned that the slices of pickled ginger are there to clean your palate so I used them as such, for once. The best part of the meal was the cake part (we were celebrating a birthday party). My friend's mum had to buy a cake for her daughter, who was celebrating her birthday, but she forgot and instead got 4 last minute muffins and a packet of Maltesers from the newsagent. She asked the chef in the kitchen to squash the muffins together, add some cream and the Maltesers, and make it look like a cake. The whole idea of actually doing this was quite surreal but good fun.

The rest of the fun for the weekend amounted to watching two movies, and sleeping in a third. The first one was Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels. It was good fun with a couple of twists and funny sequences. It's a Guy Ritchie's (Snatch) first movie and I wasn't disappointed (3.5/5) Then I watched Babel. It was good and quite psychotic but way too depressive for my tastes. Definitely not a good movie to watch when you've spent the whole weekend alone, and need some cheering up. Otherwise it was quite good. (1 or 4 stars depending on the mood). Then I slept during Grosse Point Blank. Still need to watch the last party (maybe today) but again not the best film in the world.

How to learn difficult subjects quickly

• 1. Bombard yourself with information. Don't try to slowly digest material, but immerse yourself in as many sources as possible. Drown yourself in information from different sources like books, internet, professionals, organizations and magazines
• 2. Grasp the big picture. Get a good general idea of the big picture, a broad general overview of the subject, and how the different topics link together. Don’t get numbed by the details, exceptions and special cases. You'll get to these when you’re specializing in the subject at a greater depth.
• 3. Identify key concepts and make them yours. Identify with what is being said and make it as if you own the ideas. Talk about the ideas to others, try to explain what you learnt to people who aren't familiar with the subject. This will help you crystallize the ideas in your head, help you retain the information and evaluate your comprehension of the material.
• 4. Mingle with knowledgeable people in the subject. Mother used to say make friends with people who are better than you. This principle is important to learning quickly.

How to deal with too much information

• 5. Search don't browse. If you're looking for something try to look up exactly what you want and not browse through sites to get to the information. Refining your search criteria and looking for the right source is usually quicker than following links. Start with a hypothesis and try to find evidence to prove it or refute it. This helps you target your searches better and refine the purpose of your search.
• 6. Link the new information to what you already know. Relate the new information with previous information on the topic, and draw concept maps or mind maps to build a visual knowledge tree of the topic you’re learning about.
• 7. Choose what to read. Overview the material, read table of contents, scan diagrams, look for keywords, introductions, conclusions and summaries, then decide whether it's worth reading or not.
• 8. Read with a question in mind. "How can I use this?" "Does this really do what the author claims?" "What if...?" Most of the understanding is in figuring out the motivations, the choices the authors made. Reading AI

How to be creative

• 9. Creative ideas are usually a combination of other separate ideas, for example a car is an engine + wheels, a coffee machine is a heating element + water dripper. Creativity is like cooking. Getting a number of ingredients and mixing them together in the hope that something useful comes out. Like cooking you should know the rules and then carefully bend them to create something better.
• 10. Be fearless. Being creative has more to do with being fearless than intelligent. That's one of the reasons why getting a bit tipsy can help you be more creative. (This is the second time I mentioned alcohol as a benefit in a learning context ... mmm interesting).

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I know Halloween was yesterday but I think that I'm still in topic. Check out this pumpkin cat and his friends at this cat picture site.

If you're still in the mood for some horror stories, check out this list 20 classic spooky stories compiled by one of my favourite bloggers, Matthew Baldwin from defective yeti.