Super memo returns

So, I managed to graduate from high school with honors (surprisingly) . The coffee experiment failed when I realized that I crash approximately 30 minutes after drinking a cup. I usually feel like trash for the next six hours afterwards. I decided to find a more healthy hobby. Music is my life, So I can't really count that as a hobby. At the very beginning of the semester I remembered a program That I had played with in high school called SuperMemo. It is a program that is supposed to help you remember things. This article is really cool. I wound up with a really hardcore religion class my first semester of college. The professor would stand in front of the class and just dump information on us for fifty minutes straight. It was downright annoying. The bible is something that I am interested in, so I was able to pay attention. In my quest for young and stupid ways to live life I decided to try supermemo out. I generally wrote two to four pages of notes every day. When I had the chance, I would insert the notes into supermemo. I used Supermemo on the notecard principle. I would put a question on one part of the note card and the answer on the other. This is called formulating knowledge. There are very specific instructions on how to do this on the supermemo website. I did this before every test and managed to make an A on each of them. You might ask how this is different from just make standard notecards. To tell you the truth, the way i did it was not much different. However, reviewing the notecards is where supermemo really shines. Supermemo uses an algorthym to calculate when you will forget your notecards. supermemo only reviews the notecards just as you are forgetting them. This is a bit more efficient than reviewing all of your notecards everyday. The downside of this is that you have to study every day. By the end of the semester, I had 1050 notecards in the program. However, towards the end of the semester I only was reviewing about 16 notecards per day. Supermemo was only this took me about 8 minutes. The night before the final I decided to randomly review my entire collection. To my surprise, I knew around 95% of my cards. Supermemo had worked. I still remembered cards that i had made at the beginning of the semester because supermemo had been systematically reviewing them. I ended up making an A for the semester in the hardest class that I had ever taken. Supermemo is a good product. But it is not super intuitive. In order to be able to use it most efficiently, you have to read the instructions and use it every day.

Brazillian

the Brazillian coffee was bland and mild. I made it according to the directions on my french press. It was a medium roast. I have read that medium roasts are supposed to highlight acidity and cultural distinction (you can tell where it is from). This particular coffee didn't show much of either. It was still better than what I have tried from the super market. My dad loves bland weak coffee. He loved this stuff. Now, in hindsight, I think that maybe it was stale when I bought it. I give this coffee a C for being palatable and unoffensive.

Coffee

I am starting my articles on coffee. I first became seriously interested in coffee at a little cafe in Avila, Spain. I ordered a cappuccino. It was magnificent. I decided right then that I would look into coffee. I went to borders when I got back and picked up a copy of The Joy of Coffee by Corby Kummer. This is an excellent book covering the various aspects of coffee by a writer from the Atlantic Monthly. I learned about growing, roasting, grinding, and brewing coffee. It also has a section on coffee from different countries and the characteristics of each.
After reading the book, I decided that i wanted to get a french press. A french press a device for brewing coffee. It consists of a cup and a filter on a stick. You throw coffee in the bottom and then pour hot water over it. After 4 minutes, you push the coffee to the bottom with the filter. I went around town until I found a little gourmet shop back inside a shopping center. I strolled in and asked for a french press. The ancient woman at the front didn't know what I was talking about. But, a large, deep, rumbly, voiced called me to the back. It belonged to a man almost seven feet tall. I thought maybe I was in for trouble because he looked like a motorcycle rider (I cut one off the other day on my bicycle.) I timidly walked back, ready to run. When I got to the back, he proudly showed me his selection of french Presses. I bought a "3 cup" maker along with some Costa Rican and Brazilian coffee.

I had a lot of fun with the french press when I got home. A french press make really good coffee. I made the Brazilian first. It tasted like. . .

I'm Back

Wow! I haven't updated the blog in a long time. Well, I managed to get out of a high school in one piece. I am officially a high school graduate. My most recent adventure was in Spain. I went with my youth orchestra. It was kind of grueling. On the left is a view of the country side. I took this picture at the monastery of Montserrat. It is in Catalonia near Barcelona. It was a really neat place full of monks and tourists. They also had a really good boy's choir and a black virgin. Unfortunately, the monks were allowed to talk. Otherwise, I would have stayed to become a silent monk.

Spain is a very cool place to visit. I went all over the place. Some of my highlights include: The Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid (home of Picasso's Guernica), the Prado Museum, the Palau de la Musica Catalana, and the sword shops of Toledo.

I also enjoyed the food. Ordering food in Spain is an adventure for a tourist. I only speak English. A lot of the places I went only had Spanish menus. However, I had my spanish phrase book. This was invaluable. I was able to avoid the raw ham thanks to this. I also got to throw phrases around. I was able to order what I wanted and pay my bill thanks to my 1 year of Spanish and Phrase book. I recommend trying the local cuisine in Spain. Don't go to american fast food restaurants. I had several favorites. Bocaddillos are nice. A boccadillo is a sandwich on a baguette. I usually got one with fried calamari on it. A tortilla is good too. If you order a tortilla in Spain, you get a frittata or potato omelet. I also liked the paella. It is a dish of yellow rice, chicken and seafood. Coffee in Spain is excellent. I had two different kinds. Cafe con leche (coffee with milk) and cappuccino. Cafe con leche is basically steamed and foamed milk on coffee. It is very similar to a cafe au lait. cappuccino is an Italian espresso drink. it is basically the same thing as a cafe con leche except made with espresso.

I also played three concerts while I was there. The first was a children's concert. I loved it. Little kids get really excited when they hear an orchestra for the first time. the second concert was in a community center. when we first arrived there were a lot of little bitties doing ballet. It was great. The concert looked like it was not going to be well attended. To drum up an audience, the conductor had the brass section go outside and play a fanfair. This got about five more people. The last concert was kind of a bust. We went to a music conservatory in the middle of their final exams. No one came except the parents and conservatory administration.

I'll leave you with a picture of the dancing fountains of Barcelona

Sleep

I am currently putting the polyphasic sleep thing on hold. It was giving me problems. I recently analyzed why.
I think that I went into it on an enormous sleep debt from school. I am currently sleeping on a pattern designed so that I can eliminate sleep debt. It mainly involves not using an alarm clock and going to sleep when I am tired. I next went into my general health. I have a resting heart rate of about 88 bpm. Wikipedia says that a normal heart rate is between 60 and 100 bpm. I also have a body mass index of 24.4. A healthy adult should have a bmi between 19 and 25. As you can see, I am on the upper end of normal. My goal is to get myself into excellent shape before I try again. Hopefully, I can get myself to the point of being able to drink two cups of coffee without feeling like I am going to die.
My plan is to get in better shape by running. My theory is that someone in better shape would have a better chance of adapting to a difficult sleep schedule. I think that by Christmas break I can be ready to try again. In the meantime, I will come up with more topics for my readers. Feel free to send suggestions.

sleep

Here is an update on the sleep experiment. My schedule basically caused me to fail at life. It consisted of sleeping from 3-6 am and pm I operated at a 4 on the Stanford Sleepiness Scale.
Basically, I made it through the week. Then during the weekend I crashed continually. I would wake up for five hours and then sleep for 4.5. I ended up getting a little over twelve hours sleep every twenty four hour period. Next I am going to try the Everyman sleep schedule. I think that I can do it. My last attempt wasn't well thought out. I also have a healthy dose of panic to keep me awake as well as a good record of Sousa Marches. My favorite is "The Gallant Seventh." Get the one on "Sousa II." Anyway, right now I am at a three on the Sleepy scale. My next nap is in about 100 minutes. My schedule will look like this.

• 3pm-6m Core Nap
• 11:00pm - 11:30pm nap
• 5:15am - 5:40- nap
• 11:00 - 11:25am nap with deviation for late tuesday
  
• repeat

Laters!

sleep

My topic for this post is sleep, and ways I have found to cheat it. About a week ago I had a panic attack and realized I had way more work to do than is possible for normal Chip. So I turned into super Chip. I did some research to help me in my endeavor. I found a whole online community of people who don't like to sleep and try to find ways around it. The first thing I discovered is polyphasic sleep. Polyphasic sleep is a schedule in which you get your sleep in several small doses. Most humans sleep on a schedule called monophasic sleep. That is, they just sleep in one large chunk. There are several different styles of polyphasic sleep. The first one I discovered is called Dymaxion Sleep. It was invented by Buckminster Fuller. He's the same guy that did the big ball at EPCOT center. Baically, on this schedule, you sleep about 30 minutes every six hours. Refer to this link for more info http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,774680,00.html.
This looked pretty cool. Bucky did it for two years and then quit because it was inconvenient for working with other humans. However, after a little bit more research I discovered that there is no known person other than Bucky who has ever been able to do this. You can look on Youtube and find video logs of people who have tried this. They eventually just sort of die.
Next, I discovered the Uberman sleep cycle. This seems slightly more hardcore than Dymaxion, but it works out to about the same. On this schedule, you sleep 20 minutes every 4 hours. This actually looks doable. Here are some links. {questionable source was deleted here to protect you} Another really good blog is written by Puredoxyk. This article is an overview of all of them. She is very experienced with polyphasic sleep. and actually has been able to do it. I don't feel like going into the medical theory behind these but, you can find it in articles on the above sites.
The next one I discovered is called the everyman sleep schedule. This is basically what I do during exams. Except, I never get past the adjustment period. This one requires you to sleep a "core" chunk of sleep of about three hours. Then you take little twenty minute naps during the day. I might actually do this one after exams are over. You can look at the puredoxyk article for more details. I finally settled on a biphasic sleep patern. I kind of stumbled onto this one accidentally. I got home from school monday and I was completely exhausted. I proceeded to sleep three hours. I then woke up and ate dinner and started my homework. I noticed that I just didn't seem to get tired. I kept chugging along with it till about two. I then read the wiki on polyphasic sleep. It mentioned biphasic sleep. Without research, i decided to do it. I decided to sleep from 3-6 am and pm. This was just fine because it turns out that sleeps cycles are 90 minutes in length. i'd get two at a time. I did this for a week. Unfortunately I didn't really adjust. I was more functional and got more work done than usual. I will continue until I panic during exams and switch to everyman like I do every year. After a week i have discovered that some tweaking is needed to accomplish this pattern. People generally like to bother me starting at five. five is about a third of the way through my second sleep cycle. So, I have decided to sleep just one cycle in the afternoon and perhaps three at night. One variation recommends this. This will prevent people from interrupting my naps and suffering my wrath. I will say that week one worked. However, Last night I went to bed at three and woke up at noon. We'll see how week two goes. Here's a fun link to chew on http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/cat_steve_dont_eat_it.php

cell phone fun

Have you ever been out on the town and had a hankering for calligraphy supplies. Well, I have and I also found a solution to the problem. google's 411 service. It's like an auditory google search. Simply call 800 goog 411 and follow their directions. I happened to be in memphis when the hankering hit. I simply called them and did an auditory google search for arts and crafts stores. They gave me a list of ten stores that I could satisfy my hankering at. I chose hobby lobby. They will give you a map if your phone is set up for such things. Mine isn't, so I simply got them to connect me free of charge and got directions from an area native. It is very useful to know that in an emergency, one can simply call google and satisfy a hankering for calligraphy supplies.

ahh!

I recently returned from my yearly band trip. This year we went to florida theme parks. The theme parks were great. I had fun and didn't get sunburned. The bus ride there proved interesting. When you're stuck on a bus for 14 hours interesting things start to happen. I came up with some new recipes. I will share them for your culinary enjoyment.
Popsicles for little Kids
Olive Popsicle
1 jar of olives
a blender
a popsicle mold

1. Put olives and olive juice in blender and blend well
2. pour mixture into popsicle mold
3. freeze
4. enjoy

Mayonnaise Popsicle
Mayo
popsicle mold
food coloring

1. put mayo in bowl and mix with food coloring
2. pour into popsicle mold
3. freeze
4. enjoy

Chinese popsicle
a chinese noodle dish
knife
popsicle mold

1. Chop up chinese noodle dish roughly with knife
2. stick it into popsicle mold
3. freeze
4. enjoy

That is all I have to share for now. Try the recipes and let me know who you feed them to. I should probably avoid them.

Itunes

I finally convinced myself to buy something from the itunes store. I decided to search for something obscure to see if they had it. I picked Espana Waltz by Waldteufel. I had never heard the name before I had to play it. However, I did recognize the melody once I played it with the orchestra. I recognize a lot of classical music. I am not exactly sure how. I often find myself humming along with pieces I never remember having heard before.
Well, I searched it and to my surprise Itunes had it. They had four different recordings. I picked the most Austrian sounding orchestra they had. I Chose the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg & Theodore Guschlbauer. It sounds great and it was easy. While I was at it I decided to check and see if they had Hungarian Dance #6. The most famous one is number 5. They also had #6. This is just my initial experience with Itunes. I will keep the readers updated on further discoveries.

Bibles

Multiple Hello's to my "multiple" readers!
In the past year or so I was reading my bible and realized that I didn't have a clue what I was reading. So, I started looking at different translations. Here is the process that I use to read the Bible. It seems to be working for me for now.
I usually follow a devotional or research a specific problem. I believe that you don't really accomplish a whole lot just reading randomly. Once I have a plan, I generally grab my thought for thought translation of the Bible. I use the New Living Translation. Now, to my mind, there are two main types of Bible translations . Thought for thought translations and literal translations. I like thought for thought because they are usually very clear on what the bible is saying. You spend less time trying to figure out what it is saying and more time applying it to yourself. Sometimes, in trying to be clear the Bible will lose clarity. Remember, you are only reading a translation. They have different strengths and weaknesses. When my thought for thought translation suffers a crash and burn I switch to a word for word. For example

Proverbs 26: 4-5 New Living Translation

4 Don’t answer the foolish arguments of fools,
or you will become as foolish as they are.

5 Be sure to answer the foolish arguments of fools,
or they will become wise in their own estimation.

If this isn't a problem, I don't know what is. My thought for thought just crashed and burned. They appear to contradict each other in the thought for thought translation. Let's switch to the word for word.

Proverbs 26: 4-5 New American Standard Version
4^(A)Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
Or you will also be like him.
5^(B)Answer a fool as his folly deserves,
That he not be ^(C)wise in his own eyes.

Maybe it makes more sense. I think that it means to not answer fools using their own arguments. If you play their game by their rules, they will win every time. Instead, step outside the argument and expose it as foolish. Turn the issue away from what they are trying to force and expose their folly.
for example
Steve: "My car door won't open."

Steve: "I can either force the door open or call the Police to get into the car."

The Chip: "I don't think that you should. let's try to force the door (wrong answer. don't answer within his own argument. The police would show up and arrest you for trying to break into a car.
The Chip: " call the police." (Wrong answer. you are both foolish. the police would show up and think you were retarded.

The Chip: "Did you know that the key to the car's ignition will also unlock the door?" (correct answer. you get out with your non-foolishness temporarily intact.)

Steve: "Oh, I hadn't thought of that." Steve then unlocks the car and feels foolish.

This is an unbelievable example but I think that it works. Both translations basically say the same thing. You sometimes get more clarity in an awkwardly worded translation I use both
Here is the mathematical version
Steve: Problem

Steve proposes solution A or B

The chip: Knows that solution A and B are wrong but they will work. He can't say that steve's solution is retarded because Steve will just work his solution. Steve will then think that The Chip is foolish because steve's solution obviously worked.

The Chip: Proposes solution C. Steve (hopefully) realizes that both of his solutions were retarded because The Chip's worked better.

When I read my Bible I will often read different translations to hopefully get a better understanding of what the Bible is saying. My closing Statement:

Thought is critical to successful Bible Reading.

An update on Bach Rescue Remedy

A further Update.

I used the remedy when a situation occured that I thought would allow it to prove itself. I lost a piece of music and had become quite upset. this is just the situation that the concoction was designed for. I took some and in about 5 minutes found myself concerned but no longer extremely agitated. About ten minutes later I found the music.
15 minutes later, when I was practicing, something fell on the floor. like before, a trivial thing scared the crap out of me. However, this time I calmed down really fast. I guess it was somehow triggered and came into play. It is weird feeling scared out of your mind and then suddenly being just fine. This is a major disadvantage. What if you use it before a performance and then someone drops a baby while you are playing. This would cause you to lose control of your cool and maybe even your bladder.
There are different things in the remedy to help agitated and extremely nervous people. One of the things in it is supposed to help you focus. I believe this is what cause the extremely volatile emotional state. I think if someone achieves a high level of focus they won't come out of it gently. I came out of it quite rough.

I give this product a B. It works well and doesn't slow down your mind. I would recommend it to anybody. As long as no one drops anything you'll be ok.

All-West Orchestra

There is nothing like missing school for no other reason than music. It is great. For me it would be similar to getting a day to play video games.
You never know what to expect with all-west orchestra. A lot of the best string players are home schooled. Not being impeded by regular school allows them to practice 28 hours a day. This year turned out decent. It wasn't too far below some other orchestras that I have played with. The low brass kicked some serious ass. The rest of the brass section did ok too. The strings were better than last year.
The conductor reminded me of a horn player that I met over the summer. He was a big Texan. He was pretty cool. He didn't bitch from the podium or single people out to kill. Everyone likes blood free rehearsals.
The repertoire included: "A Night On bald Mountain," Pavane, and Procession of the Nobles.

A night on bald mountain was very nice. 3/4 of the low brass section made all-state last year. It was extremely loud.
Pavane sucked. It was just for strings. The poor string players didn't have the brass to cover them up.
Procession of the nobles went ok. It is a very trumpety song. I rather enjoyed it.

Overall I give this all west experience a C+
The reason for the rating includes: the ease of the music and the non charismatic performance.
Once I hear the recording I will give a further update.

Bach Rescue Remedy

I had a performance over the holidays with a great trumpeter. Before the performance he pulled a bottle out of his pocket and put some of its contents in his mouth. He explained to me that it was Bach Rescue Remedy. He said that it helps with performance anxiety problems. I don't blame him for taking it. The performance was quite hair raising. He also played incredibly well. I went to the health food store and picked some of the remedy up the next chance I got. It was kind of expensive. It cost me around twenty dollars. It comes in a small spray bottle. It looks kind of like it might contain breath freshener. The instructions on the bottle say 'Can help relieve every day stress.' I did some research on the Internet and found several sites devoted to it. Most of them say that it is for relief of acute stress. It also listed quite a few famous people who use it. I found one website that said it was for emergency use only.

I got some and decided to try it. Being the careful person that I am, I decided not to try it before a performance. I tried some Sunday night. I noticed an effect within about three minutes. I felt more relaxed and less tense. Within about ten minutes the perpetually tight muscles of my jaw relaxed. This was a rather big deal for me because I have consciously been working on this problem. I found myself relaxed but not collapsed. I found it to be a rather idyllic state. However, I still found my mind to be quite sharp. I played some reflex demanding video games and found my response to be normal to a little above normal. I took it around 5:00pm. At 7pm I was completely exhausted and went to sleep. I had not slept well at all the night before. I am not sure if exhaustion was a side effect of the remedy or not.

At 10pm the covers flew off my bed. They really flew. Like some one grabbed them and ripped them off the bed. It absolutely scared the crap out of me. My pulse raced and my stomach muscles constricted. I guess terror would be a good description. I believe that they slowly fell off while I was asleep and then quickly dragged themselves the rest of the way off the bed. I felt a sudden terror again a little later. I fought it off and it didn't cause the same physical effects. While I was fighting it off, I had the sensation of pushing off a weight. I knew that if I let it fall on me I would be terrified again. A little later this happened again and I wasn't able to fight it off. The covers hadn't fallen off my bed but I had about the same sensation of terror. I believe that this may have been an aftershock of the original incident. Just remembering it, I am starting to have adrenaline problems. I slept fine the rest of the night.

I woke up at 4:30 the next morning. I felt rested and I didn't feel any lingering effects from the night before. I did some homework, ate breakfast and went to school. I went to the knowledge bowl practice and was noticeably sharper than usual. My reaction time was much faster and I had more confidence. First period was the same as it ever was. During second period I made it through a tedious task less painfully than usual. Third I began to get spacey. It got worse as the day went on. During 5th period I was called on and had no idea what number we were on or the instructions for how to do it. Sixth period I just listened to an autobiography of a substitute teacher. Seventh period band went fine. However, I have trained myself to really focus while making music. I am not sure if band would be a good indication of whether or not I am losing focus. After school I was mindlessly doodling in the high range and hit a high e flat. That is the highest note that I have played in over a year. I am sure I told everyone who was still there in the band room. I believe I hit it due to my complete lack of thought or focus.
I got home from school around 4. I mindlessly surfed the Internet until around 5:30. My mom came home and asked me why I wasn't at my trombone lesson. I had looked at my schedule about an hour earlier and just missed it completely. I now feel like a bump on a log. I have done nothing productive since 2nd period.

My conclusion: I believe Bach Rescue Remedy is for emergency use only. It works rather well. I might use it before auditions. The terrifying feelings I had at night brought me back to my childhood. I used to have those problems almost every night. They stopped after a certain age. I learned that it wouldn't happen if I slept on my stomach. I believe also that as I became more tense the feelings of terror at night went away. I guess the rescue remedy brought me back to a state similar to that of childhood. It got rid of the stress that was causing me to tense up. This release of tension may have caused the ill effects. I don't believe that it brought back my visual perception problem.

I believe that although it works, I need to test it more. The effects that may or may not have been caused by the remedy may have been pure coincidence. I intend to use it next Sunday. I will report on my findings.

Humanized Enso launcher

I was randomly surfing the web when I came across this neat program. It is called Enso Launcher. It was designed to be as humane as possible. This means they tried to make it very intuitive to use. The programmers believe that people spend too much time hunting for programs. They came up with a good solution. To use it you simply hold caps lock and then type. The commands are simple and easy to remember. To open a program you simply hold caps lock then type "open whatever program." For example, to open FireFox I would simply type "open FireFox" The program quickly opens and I didn't have to take my hands off the keyboard. You can quickly switch between open programs as well. Simply type go. A list of open programs comes up. you can either select with the arrow keys or type the name of the program. I believe that the company may be on to something with this program. Better try it before they decide they can charge hundreds for it.
http://www.humanized.com/