Tag: nye2016

My New years resolutions for 2016

The BBC Radio 4 Listening project

Following my review of last year… here’s my New Years Resolutions for 2016; which follows on from 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010.2009, 2008 ones.

  1. Be taken out of my comfort zone by Kate and take her out of comfort zone
    Back in September me and Kate took part in the listening project. I had hoped the recording would be on the site by now but instead I’ll say somewhere in the recording, we agreed to take each other out of comfort zone for a weekend.
  2. Host film nights and more dinner parties at mine
    I bought a projector and about to fashion a projector screen out of ikea blinds. As the TV screen is lovely but not big enough for lots of people gathered around on my hopefully new corner sofa. I already have the cinema system for it but you can’t be a projector size screen. I also want to host more dinner parties for friends at mine.
  3. Head further a field with the scooter
    Where next is a question. I feel like a weekend in Ireland would be easy and good. Although further in to Scotland would be a good move too.
  4. Improve my circus skills
    More time is needed at Manchester Quirkus I think, but I do really need to practice the vertex in the garden or park more.
  5. Stay better in touch with old friends
    Jennifer emailed me after a long while of radio silence. She was interested in meeting up for a catch up. I thought it was a great idea… We met up and had a really good and productive catch up. I was a great idea and I’m going to follow by doing a similar thing in 2016.
  6. Redecorate the flat
    Same as last year, its about time and I might need to get some professionals in to help sort out things including network conduits and shifting radiators.
  7. Ride a roller coaster in another country
    I had a great time riding rollercoasters in Japan, and since the smiler crash been thinking about looking at the amazing array of coasters in Europe. Germany, Spain and many others have some great rides which I’ve never been on.
  8. Work on the book/serialised blog
    I have written about 26 chapters and shared a few chapters with close friends. I’m thinking about just realising it as a series of blog entries because I have had interest from others about sharing their stories too. I could even ask for contributions further a field.
  9. See the Aurora (northern lights)
    I have spoken to people and Brian Suda has done a great job sending me media about the northern lights. I’m thinking about going to Iceland to see it and of course him before summer. Iceland in April sounds like a great holiday for my birthday maybe?
  10. Make some bold moves with my love life
    I got to sort it out, its been a while since I did back to back dating and got really stuck in. It time consuming but in short bursts it can work. But it starts with refreshing my online dating profiles and trying out a few of the new dating services such as Bumble.
  11. Kick start the emerging technology event
    I pretty much said most of the details here and started the meetup group already. Now its a matter of keeping my ears to the ground and put together its first event. Thinking something with the Open rights group and iot would be a good start?
  12. Think humanity
    So many things I want to explore, which I summaries under the humanity title. Data ethics, going beyond systematic thinking, emotional angles, diversity, using our other senses and deeper conversations… etc etc…
    They all deserve attention and focus in 2016 and beyond. Expect to see more focus in the future.

A review of my 2015 resolutions

Harajuku

Its that time of year when I reflect on the amazing amount of things which have happened this year, even Richard Brandson is in on this now. While I’m not going to try out quantified self Stephen wolfram; as I mentioned in last years review, but heres some bits and bobs.

 

  • 2,653,347 steps this year so far
  • 2791 floors this year so far
  • 1,98.78 km of walked distance so far
  • 449mins of sleep deficit (this is what I should have
  • Average sleep this year has been 6 hours 50mins.

Trakt.tv recently changed their interface and are still waiting on their yearly dashboard. On Last.FM I listened to 255 artists  with an average of 3 scobbles per day.

Now on with the 2015 resolutions review…

 

  1. Go to a new part of the world
    This was a big win this year.
    Not only did I make it to Tokyo, Japan at long last but I also went to Warsaw , Poland and even to Fife in Scotland; which was the 1st of 2 times in Scotland this year.  All were great and I’m sure to visit again in the near future.
  2. Improve my circus skills
    I started to learn the basics of the vertex during the early autumn months and learned quickly where I was going wrong with a visit to Manchester Quirkus. I was doing the whip with the wrong hand causing the diabolo to tilt away from me. Now I can kind of get the diabolo into a vertex but haven’t mastered any moves beyond that… yet!
  3. Scooter into another country or new area
    I  drove up to Scotland on my scooter, which isn’t bad. Yes it was only gretna green (just over the border but it’s still Scotland). I’m certainly thinking about next year driving further, as I saw signs saying Edinburgh and Glasgow less than 100 miles. I reckon I could get up to both in about 4 hours. Maybe stopping in Kate’s Yut again. I’m also thinking Ireland would be good, maybe even Northern Ireland?
  4. Explore my sapiosexual and datasexual sides
    Well thanks to Tom for the total destruction of sapiosexual term. Which I explored in the blog entry about myself. Friends and collages have commented (when asked) at the bravery of being so open about things like this. Which I sniff at because theres so much more…
  5. Quantify more and make better use of my data exports
    Didn’t do so much of this, I did less quantified self aggregation but added even more sensors to the line up including weight scales and even better sleep tracking. I also found the interest in Manchester around the Quantified Self also dropped and I had to put the Manchester QS meetup on hold, along with attending the QSEU 2015 conference. My data is still in silos but I’m certainly thinking about doing more in 2016. Especially around the homelab and media exports.
  6. Do something for other dyslexics
     This year I’ve been helping others and attending a dyslexic meetup in Manchester every first Saturday of the month. Its been good to discuss openly with others.
    As part of Mozfest 2015, I was also included a session about dyslexia and it was well attended and spawned an adhoc session with further talks with the Tate to be continued in 2016.
  7. Improve my health and alertness
    Yes things are getting better and better. Alertness is great but of course there is always room to improve. The electronic scale is useful and of course the sleep tracking is identifying patterns which contribute. Nothing scientific but interesting.
  8. Hire somebody to ironing my clothes
     Done… Just need to use her services more often I guess (only given her 3 big bags of clothes so far).
  9. Try dating younger (and progressive) but central located women
    Yeah my dating has certainly gone down this year. I’ve decided to give up on Plenty of Fish after the insane amount of Catfishing going on. OkCupid is turning up the same people all the times, so I’m thinking about redoing my profile and looking at the questions again. I also installed Bumble to see if the female pick first option was any good or not.
    As for younger, progressive and central. Well its not worked out too well, I seem to be finding older, progressive and central. Must try harder I guess. Dave says I need to try new places but I refuse to pay for dating services knowing little time I have and the way it works behind the scenes.
  10. Decorate the flat
    This is on hold till next year but I have plans since I finally got gigabit broadband from hyperoptic and a projector for the living room when watching films with friends. I also finally found a corner sofa from the new range at Ikea which is cheaper than I budgeted for, meaning more for re-decoration. Thinking about sorting out the internal network properly by getting a professional in to do it.
  11. Read more
    Well I did read more but once again I spent more time reading non-fiction not fiction. I don’t think I’ll ever really get into reading for fun but I certainly got into audiobooks more in 2015. Keep thinking about getting a subscription to Audible. But I find the Instapaper and Greader text to speech players actually good enough for generic reading. I also added a plugin to read any text from Android outloud on my bluetooth headset. This is handy and means I can close my tablet and wonder around like a audiobook.
  12. Discover more music via Djs and Podcasts
    I tried listening to youtube and mixcloud at work and its ok but pausing the music is a pain when you have it in the background somewhere over the 2 screens.
    On the other hand, podcasts certainly picked up in the later part of 2015. I’m subscribed to about 12 podcasts now and with gigabit I don’t even download them, I’m using Kodi’s built in RSS support to play directly.