Great Scott! It’s February already. We even managed to get the Christmas decorations down. Granted, it was a just two days ago. But we got ’em put away, by thunder. Now, it is on to the, uh, cat days of winter? That stretch of time where my part of the world usual gets a least one or two polar vortices of insanely cold air. The year also usually starts to take shape with the various irons in my various fires. My way of keeping all that proverbial metal hot involves a whole lot of to-do notes to myself. In the case of the latest work in progress, The Game War, I just write a sticky note with the page number goal that I intend to reach by the beginning of the next week. I’m sure I’ll falter during some weeks. But so far, I’m doing pretty decent for my usual output. I’m up to page 56 with about 15,500 words. I’m sure others have more copious output, but these incremental weekly goals help me to keep my head in the game. What kind of techniques do you use to keep on task? Or if procrastinating is your thing, what’s your favorite way of wasting time? Mine is watching educational Youtube videos or playing indie video games. All things in moderation, right? Right? |
Recommendation Corner |
Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive By Philipp Dettmer This book is thoroughly interesting. It goes in detail, but not too much detail, on the inner workings of the immune system from the innate system (first responders), the complement systems (a bunch of bio chemicals that get activated like a security system), and the adaptive system (the parts that either studies the infection and puts together a tailored immune response with antibodies, or gets a massive assist from a vaccine doing all of the hard work first). Most everyone has heard of the spleen, but how about the thymus? It’s the organ in your chest that makes T cells, among many other things, and slowly withers as you age, which is why elderly folks are more prone to disease. This book really illustrates the unbelievable complexity of how a bunch of mindless immune system cells act quite smart in concert. I didn’t even touch on how stuff can go wrong with parasites, cancers, bacteria, and viruses. Highly recommended. Spider-Man: No Way Home My wife and I braved the theater a few weeks back to catch the new Spidey flick after the crowds had thinned a bit. I won’t spoil anything on this, but this had everything I hoped to see, and few surprises too. It’s the best Spidey movie so far, even better than Into the Spider Verse. Totally catch it in the theater if that’s right for you. And for the record: Dr. Strange was right. |
That’s all for this time. Stay smart. Stay safe. Jim |