Daniel Ho’s Musings

This is from a HBR article.  I think that some innate ability has to be present, but the article resonates with what I believe to be true.  That of a capacity for all of us to grow both mentally and physically.

Most believe in the labels that they have been given and live a life full of “I can’t do….”, “I’m not good at…”  The reality is that it is almost never too late to acquire a new skill or improve on something that you can already do.  It just takes focused practice.

1. Pursue what you love. Passion is an incredible motivator. It fuels focus, resilience, and perseverance.

2. Do the hardest work first. We all move instinctively toward pleasure and away from pain. Most great performers, Ericsson and others have found, delay gratification and take on the difficult work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the most energy and the fewest distractions.

3. Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then take a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers practice no more than 4 ½ hours a day.

4. Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses. The simpler and more precise the feedback, the more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too much feedback, too continuously, however, can create cognitive overload, increase anxiety, and interfere with learning.

5. Take regular renewal breaks. Relaxing after intense effort not only provides an opportunity to rejuvenate, but also to metabolize and embed learning. It's also during rest that the right hemisphere becomes more dominant, which can lead to creative breakthroughs.

6. Ritualize practice. Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the researcher Roy Baumeister has found, none of us have very much of it. The best way to insure you'll take on difficult tasks is to ritualize them — build specific, inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do them without having to squander energy thinking about them.

via Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything – Tony Schwartz – The Conversation – Harvard Business Review.

This is just a note for others that may be having the same issue.  I’m not sure why, and there doesn’t seem to be a fix that consistently works, but here’s my experience with this.

Issue:  My iPhone 3GS was working fine prior to upgrading to iOS 4.  Once I did that, I couldn’t connect to the 3G network anymore even though all the apps worked while connecting via wifi.  I tried turning the Airplane Mode on and off, rebooting, etc. etc.  Nothing worked.  It was completely frustrating!

Fix:  YMMV, as I’m on the Fido network in Canada, but this what I did.  I have to do this every time there is an update as well.  I went to Settings/General/Reset/Reset Network Settings  Once I did this, the iPhone restarted, searched for a network, and everything worked again.

If you try this, you’re on your own, but it worked for me.  Good luck!

As some of you know, I love leather saddles for bikes, and I have a special fondness for Brooks B17 for long distance riding.  The Brooks saddles provide great support for your ischial tuberosities (otherwise known as “sit bones”) so that you can ride for hours at a time without any discomfort.  Also, because you’re sitting on your sit bones and not your perineum, that area doesn’t get numb from riding either.  There…that’s your tip of the day.  Ride a Brooks saddle and be a LOT more comfortable on your bike.

That said, my saddle developed a squeak that was making me a bit insane.  After looking at where the sound could be coming from, I took matters in to my own hands and tried to squelch the nasty squeak with some lube.  After looking at how the saddle was manufactured, I worked out that the squeak was coming from the tensioning bolt.  If you apply a couple drop of oil to the bolt threads (see diagram)…silence

Dots mark the spot for bicyclists to trigger traffic light – thestar.com.

You may have seen them, without knowing what they were: three white dots, each about the size of a dinner plate, painted on the road at intersections throughout the city.

The mysterious markings, dubbed “bike dots,” are one of the lesser-known and least-advertised components of the city’s ambitious bike plan.

Bike dots – or “bicycle detector pavement markings,” as they’re officially called – are traffic sensors sensitive enough to detect cyclists stopped at a red light, just like they do for cars.

When used properly, they keep cyclists from waiting forever for the right-of-way, or from having to dismount and hit the pedestrian crossing button.

“It gives cyclists a chance to trigger the light change, instead of just waiting,” said Yvonne Bambrick, spokesperson for the Toronto Cyclists Union.

The problem: Most cyclists don’t know the dots exist, much less how to use them.

“It’s the best-kept secret in the city,” said Councillor Adrian Heaps, who chairs the cycling committee.

“The dots were there all this time, but unless you know, you wouldn’t know they’re there.”

He said the bike dots are a sign of respect towards cyclists, a group whose needs are often eclipsed by those of drivers.

They’re strategically placed on the sensors’ “sweet spot,” where bikes are more easily detected, according to city documents. Cyclists can wait a long time for the light to change if they don’t stop at the right spot.

To make things easier, the city plans to paint a new symbol – most likely a bike – near the dots, Heaps said. That should start sometime next year, when work on the bike plan resumes after the winter, he said.

The city began installing the sensors in the mid-1990s, following a study by the former Metro Transportation Department. Now, about 20 per cent of the city’s 1,880 signalized intersections have bike dots, according to city staff.

The sensors are integrated at all new intersections with side streets or left-turn traffic sensors.

Tammy Thorne wrote about the bike dots in the inaugural issue of Dandyhorse, the bicycle magazine she edits. She said cyclists who know about the dots are often skeptical about their efficacy.

“A lot of people think they don’t work,” she said, recalling her own long waits at a set of College St. dots.

Coffee may help keep diabetes at bay – The Globe and Mail.

Well, as you probably know, I like coffee.  I’m skeptical of this article just because the source of the information isn’t stated and there isn’t any disclosure as to who funded the study.  That said, let’s see if this works to overcome the hereditary effects of Type II diabetes.

So far, I’m drinking coffee, eating better, exercising and crossing my fingers!