Derailments:
- N/a
New goals:
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/ehlyah - Some people might remember a discussion on the forum about whether it’s okay to have a Beeminder goal to remind you to do stuff for a spouse, instead of just remembering to do it. I strongly advocated for using Beeminder for that kind of thing, and did not agree that’s less considerate than just magically remembering somehow. I’ve never had a goal for it before (though I do have a goal to remind me to touch base with friends), but it’s something I want to work on, so now I have a goal for that – with the full knowledge and blessing of my wife, who believes exactly as I expected them to about this idea.
Changes to existing goals:
- /slackoffmore - This goal has been completely empty of interaction because just having it seems to be enough to stop me spending too much time on Slack! Since that’s the case, I could easily build up a ton of buffer on it and then get into bad habits, so I’ve added an autoratchet so I can only have +1 available at any time.
- /veggies - I was overachieving on this goal (which was set very low, at 5/week), so I’ve doubled the requirements starting a week from now.
- /fruit - I’m not upping this one as steeply, since I do want to tilt the scales so I’m getting my five a day more from veggies than from sugary fruit, so I want to scale up the veggies goal faster/more steeply… but I have upped it to 1/day, starting a week from now.
Project Bookminder:
Definitions: flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with comments describing how I’m getting along with the book!
- /elephantsonacid - For reading the book of that name by Alex Boese, a popular science book about weird experiments. I started this as soon as I created the goal, so it’s a standard reading goal.
- /le3_afatalwaltz - I managed to get hold of a paperback of this, which moved it up my reading list a bit, and turned it into a standard reading goal. I do think the flat-forever format is really helping me get round to books in time, and also keep in my face how many books I already have and long to read.
- /queerprinciples - For reading Cat Sebastian’s The Queer Principles of Kit Webb. I started this as soon as I got it (on release day!), so it’s a standard reading goal – and I’m eating it up. Nobleman in precarious position, gruff former highwayman, plans to do crime together… and of course they’re falling in love. Exactly the kind of fluff I wanted right now.
- wag5_bloodline - Has become a standard reading goal, because I’ve started on it! Even if I am feeling bogged down now because of the characters stupidly lying to each other. Gah.
- /gastrophysics - Started as a flat-forever goal earlier this week, but picked up once I’d finished Food: A History of Taste. This is by Professor Charles Spence, and it’s too chatty, badly sourced and based on anecdote to treat as science, but it’s a fun read.
- /explodingteeth - New flat-forever goal for reading The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine by Thomas Morris. The title pretty much says it all!
- /ancestors - New flat-forever goal for eventually reading Ancestors, by Alice Roberts. It’s all about seven prehistoric burials and what they can tell us – right up my street.
- /historyoftaste - All finished and archived! Rather an academic and dry book; wasn’t ever quite sure I wanted to finish it, but each essay was by a different person, so some were better than others.
- /darkmatteranddinos - Argh, this one annoyed me. Finished and archived. The dinosaurs are mentioned in maybe half a chapter near the very end of the book – the book is 99% about dark matter, with the dinosaurs roped in because the author wants dark matter to explain the alleged periodicity of comet-strikes.
- /phoenixextravagant - Finished! Not what I expected, but there was much to enjoy.
- /twowaymurder - All finished! Not E.C.R. Lorac’s best – though it may have been better if she’d edited it for publication – but enjoyable as always, and she definitely successfully distracted me from the real culprit.
- …I should make a couple more flat-forever goals for the other books purchased last week, but this seems like a long enough post already. Yikes.