So, I have to admit, I'm kind of obsessed with Lifehacker. There are just so many interesting tools and tips there, I can't get enough of reading it. Interestingly, some of my favorite tips and tricks on the site are related to productivity. Using to do lists well, getting things done, setting goals, etc. are all things that are really interesting to me. Just as interestingly, I'm a terrible procrastinator, and I often spend my time procrastinating by reading productivity tips. </confession>

One thing I discovered sort of through lifehacker, and sort of through my obsessive search for cool Android apps, is the Do It (Tomorrow) to do list. When I first got it, it was an Android only app, which was neat, but not quite good enough. I don't really want to have to pull out my phone to check on my to do list throughout the day. However, they recently added a web interface with syncing to the app at Tomorrow.do. That was enough for me to really get into it. I can add tasks on either the website or my phone, and they are automagically synced.

The premise of the Do It (Tomorrow) principle is that you really can't think about getting things done beyond the next day. After that, it's just a jumble of "someday" tasks. With DIT, you can add tasks to today or tomorrow. Anything you don't finish today is automatically added to the to do list tomorrow, and anything you added to tomorrow is automatically pushed to today when tomorrow comes. If tomorrow never comes, well, you just won't get it done. </Garth Brooks>

Anyway, this is a really simple to do list that gives me pretty much exactly what I need from my list. Hopefully it will enable me to avoid so much procrastination and actually start getting some stuff done. Like a dissertation for example. Or homework. Or becoming awesome.

What tools do you use to get things done?

In my never-ending quest to keep my ears occupied while I complete the more mundane tasks I have to do at work (like matrix multiplication by hand), I have discovered Turntable.fm. For those who don't know what it is, here's a quick breakdown.

Turntable is organized into rooms. If you don't like any of the rooms, you can create your own. In each of these rooms, there are anywhere from 3-5 DJs and any number of listeners. The DJs rotated selecting the song to be played. In selecting the music to be played, you have access to a huge database of songs already uploaded, or you can upload music from your own computer. A couple of the bands obviously have restrictions on their music. For example, if you want to hear Garth Brooks, you're out of luck. You can hear Garth Brooks Tribute, though, if that's what floats your boat.

Turntable operates under similar restrictions to those of broadcast radio (apparently). This means that they can only play 2 songs from a given artist or album each hour. If you select to play too many, it will skip your turn in the DJ order.

Last but not least, there is a little bit of a "leveling up" effect in the app. Everybody in the room can vote each song as either "Awesome" or "Lame." The DJ who selected the song gets a point for each Awesome vote. No points are lost for Lame votes, fortunately. Different avatars to represent you in the room are available as you accrue more DJ points. Additionally, enough Lame votes in the room will skip the currently playing song.

So that's turntable. It's fun, it's simple, and it's a little addicting. I highly recommend it if you're looking for something different from Pandora. So far there is no mobile app, but supposedly that is under development. Hopefully it will be free, because that would be awesome.

I realized during the first week of classes this week that I will be programming more this semester than I ever have in my life. For some reason I have decided to punish myself by choosing 4 classes that each require me to program in a different language. Here's a breakdown of the classes and the programming projects required for them:

1. Computational Linguistics: This is one of the courses for my minor in Cognitive Science. For this one, I'll be working on various programming projects in Perl (and learning Perl in the process).
2. Computer Vision: Another minor class. This one will be a bunch of projects in Matlab, which I have also never used.
3. Quantitative Research: This one is a research-related class. It also turns out I have to learn linear algebra for this one. Fortunately, if the book for the class doesn't teach me everything I need, I've always got the Khan Academy to help me out. The final project for this is to write a program to play Goofspiel. The grade for the final will depend on how well your program performs in a round-robin tournament with the other students' programs. Anyway, this one has to be in C++, the third and hopefully final new programming language for me this semester.
4. Software Design and Integration: This is another class that I'm required to take for the program. It's primarily about design patterns, so hopefully it will make me a more awesome programmer. It also requires me to work with a group to write a program using the patterns we learn in class. The language for this is not specified, but I imagine it will probably be either Java or Python. I'll just have to wait and see what my as yet undetermined group members select.

As I was heading out the door this morning to start classes once again at the University of Arizona, my wife pointed out to me that, including kindergarten, this would be my 20th first day of school. That's nuts! First of all, that made me feel a little old. Second, it made me think: after this long in school, I've gotta be pretty darn good at it. And finally, it made me worry that I will never be done. In a way, that's true. When I'm a professor, I'll still have first days of school. It won't be quite the same, but my life will still revolve at least a little around a semester schedule.

In our family, we have a tradition of me cooking Sunday dinner. Sometimes it's pretty basic, like some grilled cheese or spaghetti with canned sauce. Other times I go all out and pull out a recipe. I'll start posting some of the more delicious recipe's here on the blog for all to see and enjoy. This week was Asian Chicken and Noodles from the 365 days of CrockPot cookbook.