I’m doing some development, where a calendar has three types of entries. It has standard appointments, recurring appointments and a special type of recurring appointment, that a user has assigned to them if they’re in a role for a period of time (think rotating roster). I have the first two types of entries sorted out, and disabled the output of these for testing purposes. This meant that the calendar was empty, and iCal hid it from the list of subscribed calendars. When I tried to add it again I got the error:

This is a duplicate calendar. This subscription calendar already exists in every account that supports subscription calendars.

If you’re having a similar issue, it might be because of this. On reflection, I can see why they’re hiding the calendar if there’s nothing there, but it made my debugging painful.

It seems that the smart folks at Microsoft are already on the case.

It’s interesting how this company went from being Geek Enemy #1 to almost the underdog in a few years. Their gaming platform really is head-and-shoulders above the competition.

You’ll see.

But for all of the increasingly available knowledge, I’m still faced with an age old problem - there’s not enough time in the day.

This got me thinking: what’s the more important component for me, the act of learning or the result of knowing?

Do I buy books (and this can be extended to any learning materials) with the hope that one day I’ll have time to read them, and that this will result in me knowing more than before, or do I buy them to one day enjoy the journey of learning the new material?

If I could instead download knowledge directly into my brain, would I do that instead? I’m thinking Neo from the Matrix, “I know kung-fu” style. Is it about the journey, or is it about the destination? Does it change for various topics? How does this relate to recreation versus necessary-but-possibly-boring subjects?

Would the value of knowledge be drastically reduced if everyone could, within a few minutes, instantly attain it? Would it level the playing field, or would it further increase the gap if this technology was available, but was priced such that access was restricted to only the wealthy?

The same might be said about genetic selection - if you can choose (and afford) to have a 6 foot tall, muscular and intelligent son, what impact might that have on societies where the wealth didn’t support these choices?

Deep shit for a Saturday night, maybe.

It was during this seminar that he presented an idea which has stuck with me, and is largely responsible for forming my view of progression with respect to jiu-jitsu. I wrote about it then, but it has further solidified in my mind over the last 5 years.

Specifically, he highlighted that the difference between a beginner and an expert (a white belt versus a black belt) is their ability to acknowledge and respond to situations faster. His example revolved around a person wading into quick sand. The white belt would be up to their neck before they realised that it was dangerous, and from here it’s much harder to escape. In contrast, a black belt would dip their toe into the quick sand and immediately detect it as being unsafe. As such, their escape is much easier (or rather, is comprised of less steps).

I think this analogy really works well with jiu-jitsu, but I’ve used it personally to represent other situations in the past 5 years to great effect - it describes software development too. I think the visual images that are conjured are very easy to absorb and relate to.

This weekend John added what I consider to be the reverse analogy to his initial point, and whilst it’s not a new concept, it seemed to really click with me.

The idea is that nobody wakes up 40kgs overweight; it’s a gradual progression which results in you one day looking in the mirror and asking yourself “how the hell did I let this happen?” (I think this is another way of phrasing the “quick sand” analogy).

When you make the conscious decision to tackle your problem, it can seem insurmountable. It’s impossible to lose 40kg in a day, no matter how hard you work out (and presuming amputation is out of the question). However, it is possible to go for a run, watch what you eat and lose a kilogram by the time you go to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat and you’ll find yourself chipping away at the problem.

Another way of thinking about it is within the realm of finance - you can’t get out of $100,000 worth of debt in one day (unless you rob a bank), but you can save $200 fairly easily. Now the problem is only $99,800 and you’re making progress.

John labeled this as being a 5% improvement (don’t do the maths - it’s just an approximation ;)

When you’re up to your neck in quick sand, imagining yourself clear and free might be impossible, but imagining yourself in a position that’s a 5% improvement is well within your reach. So make that one little adjustment, and then reassess the situation to determine what the next 5% adjustment is.

I think the power in this is even more than John highlighted, because these adjustments will potentially reveal other pathways or opportunities that you didn’t see from the start.

Consider this: as you’re backing out of the quick sand you make your 5% adjustments and then bump into a tree root, hidden below the surface. Now you have a strong escape option that you simply couldn’t have foreseen when you were up to your eyes in trouble. It was the small escapes; the small adjustments that led to this saving option, but you’d have never found it unless you started that 5% journey.

Again, whilst I don’t think any of these concepts are necessarily revolutionary, they had a revolutionary impact on me back in 2006, and then again yesterday. Considering my hard work and effort was acknowledged with the awarding of a purple belt yesterday, it felt like that story - of getting into trouble, but then getting out again - was complete.

It felt like John gave me the other bookend.

On the weekend I was asked about my religious views, with respect to how I identified myself through Facebook. Whilst I think the intention was to push my buttons and spark controversy, it’s instead had a different impact on me.

Until a few minutes ago I considered myself, according to my entry on Facebook, as being “strongly atheist.” At the time I set this, I certainly felt as though my stand was being questioned on a frequent basis (I was marrying Magdalena and her family identifies as Catholic), and the position of “atheist” didn’t summarise my feelings strongly enough.

I’m not someone who is uncertain, or simply hasn’t been exposed to the right information or a strong enough opinion to sway me. On the contrary, I’m quite certain of what I believe. Back when you could click your religious affiliation link on Facebook and find others who were similarly aligned, there was only a few dozen of us in the “strongly atheist” camp. I wasn’t in a majority; not by a long shot. But I also wasn’t alone.

So what has changed in the last few years? I think there’s been two major influences on me.

Firstly, my general day-to-day life has exposed me to more people with a greater range in religious associations. Many of the people I consider the dearest consider themselves Christian, or perhaps “strongly Christian.” These people love me for who I am (cliched, I know) and what I believe in, and funnily enough seem to care less about questioning my lack of faith than you might expect.

Secondly, I listen to the Joe Rogan Podcast quite a lot. Through this I’ve been exposed to an even greater variety of ideas and takes on religion, spirituality, and more often that not, their links to hallucinogenic drugs. I find the podcast format very interesting, in that I feel like I almost know Joe, Redban, Joey Diaz and the rest of the Death Squad crew personally. I feel like I know them as deeply as I know people I consider my friends, though the closest interaction I’ve ever had was seeing Joe from 50m, at work at the UFC in January. That’s a weird position to be in, when you’re in Perth, Western Australia, and they’re in Los Angeles, USA, and have no idea you exist.

However, I feel like I’m involved in a conversation with these people, whereby I’m not actually talking, but instead just get to listen.

I’m eavesdropping on the most captivating, relevant and applicable conversation imaginable.

Many times I feel like the podcast has been tailored just for me, as the topics discussed intersect my interests perfectly. The fact that both sides of any argument or idea are always discussed (that’s one of Joe’s awesome personal traits) means that often my perspective comes up in the discussion anyway. The fact is I respect the hell out of these guys, and admire their honesty and intent.

So yeah, for the last 6 months my religion-as-defined-on-Facebook has been “Joe Rogan” and in the same way as Christians have found a role model in Jesus, I feel like I have a role model in Joe. The main differences I see is that Joe talks one way to me, instead of me talking one way to Him…

And I can prove to you that Joe exists ;)

I had this nagging sensation that I’d already attempted to remove myself from the list before, and that it might have been a problem with me using my work email vs. my personal email, even though they end up in the same inbox. As such, I used the View > Message > Long Headers function of Apple’s Mail application to see what address the email was actually being sent to. Doing so revealed a bunch of other headers that Mailman had added to the email that I found really useful.

Of note is the the List-Unsubscribe header, which shows both a URL and an email address (and subject) that can be used to unsubscribe from the list. Hitting the URL didn’t work for me (it might not be configured to listen on that port anymore) but sending an email with the right subject to the right address worked a treat, and instigated the three-way handshake that’s commonly used to confirm I am who I say I am, and I want to leave the list.

screen /dev/ttyS0 9600

I love the simplicity and reliability of 41-year-old technology.