Ted Pavlic




I'm doing 40 things
 

Ted Pavlic's Life List

  1. 1. implement GTD
    1 cheer
    450 people
  2. 2. Spend less time fooling around on the net and more time actually working
    5,078 people
  3. 3. stop procrastinating
    22,826 people
  4. 4. finish my research
    9 people
  5. 5. publish my research
    2 cheers
    7 people
  6. 6. Get a PhD
    3 cheers
    2,337 people
  7. 7. become a professor
    244 people
  8. 8. become a lecturer
    9 people
  9. 9. become a researcher
    54 people
  10. 10. exercise three times a week
    268 people
  11. 11. Get more sleep
    2 cheers
    3,780 people
  12. 12. have better posture
    6,531 people
  13. 13. stick to a budget
    898 people
  14. 14. Save money, not waste money!
    1 cheer
    74 people
  15. 15. visit my parents
    21 people
  16. 16. Make my parents proud
    1,262 people
  17. 17. improve my writing skills
    154 people
  18. 18. Go to bed by midnight every day for a week
    33 people
  19. 19. Read more books
    9,259 people
  20. 20. Read before Bedtime Every Night
    8 people
  21. 21. Learn to cook
    6,554 people
  22. 22. Master Javascript
    47 people
  23. 23. master CSS
    781 people
  24. 24. Be a better blogger
    1,427 people
  25. 25. Get more people to read my Blog
    712 people
  26. 26. learn python
    1 cheer
    696 people
  27. 27. relearn the piano
    2 cheers
    223 people
  28. 28. elect democrats to office
    1 cheer
    5 people
  29. 29. Learn to make mom's beef and vegetable soup
    1 cheer
    1 person
  30. 30. be more social
    4,051 people
  31. 31. work because I like to, not because I have to
    3,153 people
  32. 32. write a novel
    8,037 people
  33. 33. Get people to stop using the word "zeitgeist"
    1 entry
    1 person
  34. 34. see the northern lights
    1 cheer
    14,154 people
  35. 35. jump out of a plane
    219 people
  36. 36. learn to dance
    5,220 people
  37. 37. Go to the theatre more
    55 people
  38. 38. learn to SCUBA dive
    2,203 people
  39. 39. learn how to drive stick-shift
    4,146 people
  40. 40. Learn Cocoa
    182 people
Recent entries
eat healthier
Lost 35 pounds! Spent less money! Daily routine helps stress! 11 months ago

The following is copied in from another entry that more weight oriented.

It’s all about eating more often (you should never be hungry) and eating smart. I never expected to lose weight; I just wanted to get on an eating schedule to save money while in grad school. After a couple of months, I found myself almost 40 pounds lighter and eating much healthier.

Some general rules to consider:

  • Cut out soda
  • Cut out high-fructose corn syrup.
  • Cut out PROCESSED sugars (fruits and veggies are fine; flavored juices are not)
  • Frozen fruits are fine—they’ll keep better anyway; microwave them if you can’t stand them being cold and hard.
  • Cut out orange juice; try tomato juice and grapefruit juice instead (grapefruit juice will make you feel fuller longer)
  • Cut out salad dressings except for vinigrettes (vinegars and grapefruit juices have a similar beneficial effect on keeping you full and lean)
  • Avoid bread unless it is made with whole grains. The worst part of a McDonald’s cheeseburger is the bun. Read the ingredients on most bread—it is nearly impossible to find a bread without high fructose corn syrup on it. There are simply too many empty calories in most breads (an “empty calorie” is a calorie that does not make your stomach feel full because your body has not been adapted to process it; this is much of what’s wrong with high fructose corn syrup).
  • Consider quinoa (pronounced “keen-wah”) as an alternative to rice. Lots of protein. Plus it’s LEAFY (rather than grassy) so it has amino acids in it.
  • Nuts (especially almonds) are wonderful. High protein. High fiber. Vegetable fats. However, each day try not to eat more than an Altoids-tin full of almonds and a tablespoon (or 2 MAYBE) of peanut butter. That’s all you need.
  • NATURAL peanut butters are wonderful. Unnatural ones are awful. Look at the ingredient list. Generic Meijer peanut butter is JUST peanuts and is CHEAP. This is ideal.
  • Ground flaxseed is wonderful. Add it to everything. Omega-3’s and all the benefits of nuts.
  • Proteins stay in the stomach longer and so keep you fuller longer and keep your meals small. Fish stays in the stomach the longest, but you shouldn’t eat more than 3 servings of fish a week because of all of the heavy metals found in fish.
  • Soluable fibers stay in the stomach longer and, as an added bonus, pull cholesterol out of the blood. Insoluable fibers are also filling and keep you regular. RAMP UP fiber intake though—natural selection needs to act on your GI cultures so that you are setup to process all of that fiber. This can take up to two weeks if you aren’t used to that much fiber.
  • The longer things stay in the stomach, the more calories you burn digesting them. You actually work out your body by eating proteins.
  • The colder things are in the stomach, the more calories you burn processing them.
  • The heavier your food utensils are, the fuller you’ll feel.
  • GREEN TEA is wonderful. If you didn’t like one green tea you tried, try another type. There are as many varieties of green tea as there are of black tea. Don’t group them all together. Try taking green tea supplements. Try to drink multiple cups of tea a day (maybe 4 or 5).
  • MAKE YOUR LUNCHES IN THE MORNING: This forces you to eat them rather than going out. Plus, the additional activity in the morning wakes you up and increases your calorie burn.
  • Increase physical activity: take the steps, walk, hold your arms at a right angle when carrying groceries rather than letting your arms hang, be as inefficient as possible in your locomotion, add instability to your locomotion, do chair lifts, do pushups in the morning (one set of 30 is a good goal)
  • TAKE LOTS OF VITAMIN D. There are some weight/health benefits of dairy, but they come with increased cancer risk (because human beings are only marginally well adapted for cow’s milk). Vitamin D has so many benefits and everyone needs more of it. Among those benefits, it will reduce the cancer risk of dairy intake. I take 1000 IU’s 3 times a day, plus I try to spend at least 15 minutes in the sunlight. You probably don’t want more than 15,0000-20,000 IU, but that’s hard to do.
  • MEN: Get lots of blueberries and lycopene. Lycopene is in most red fruits and vegetables, so focus on red fruits and vegetables (watermelon, TOMATOES, etc.).
  • Cinnamon can be added to most everything, and it probably should be. It has lots of benefits. Among those, it will decrease diabetes risk.
  • SPICEY THINGS increase meatabolic activity. Make your food spicey. Remember that vinegar is a great thing to have in the diet, so try hot sauces that use vinegar.
  • EAT WHEN HUNGRY. It’s okay to eat often. Eat things that stay in your stomach longer (add grapefruit juice or vinegar before the meal to help increase this time). Just try to eat smart when you eat. Eat until full and STOP. Make sure you’re actually hungry. Very often you’re THIRSTY, so keep a bottle of watter nearby. TEA (like green tea) will do wonders in keeping you feeling full.
  • COFFEE can be great (caffeine isn’t necessarily bad). However, be sure you don’t add much to it. Also consider skim milk options if you must have milk. Don’t drink as much coffee as tea, but don’t be afraid of coffee. It’s much better than pop.

Some meal ideas from my schedule:

  • Breakfast: POST Raisin Bran (Post’s has no high-fructose corn syrup and has 8g of fiber, 4g soluable and 4g insoluable) with 2g ground flaxseed added. I also add frozen strawberries, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries as well as 25g of protein powder (and as of recently 1 heaping tsp of fiber sure, which gives 5g of soluable fiber)
  • Between Breakfast and Lunch 1: 1 fiber choice chewable tablet (2g soluable fiber) (this is recent; I don’t like the sugar content of these though)
  • Lunch 1 (around noon): Slim-Rite Ultimate (Kroger version of Slim-Fast Optima; Target has a cheaper version that is just as good) shake and a red delicious (produce #4015) apple (lots of soluable fiber in the apple keeps you full; if you need more, try a #4016 apple).
  • Between Lunch 1 and Lunch 2: 1 fiber choice chewable tablet (2g soluable fiber) (this is recent; I don’t like the sugar content of these though)
  • Lunch 2 (around 3pm): 1 cup of Dannon Light and Fit yogurt (any flavor) mixed with 2g ground flaxseed and initially frozen (they melt during the day in the refrigerator) strawberries, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries. I also add a handful of almonds. Recently I’ve added 1 heaping tsp of fiber sure as well.
  • Dinner (around 6pm): Something hearty. Good protein. Lots of vegetables. Try to get 3 servings of fish per week.

I haven’t figured out how to work exercise into my schedule yet. Optimally, exercise is great for the body. However, if you can just EAT better, you’ll do wonders for yourself. (I don’t mention it here, but I also focus on healthy nutrients that have nothing to do with weight loss directly—you should find out what nutrients are best for you and adust your own diet accordingly)


use procmail recipes to filter out more spam
SpamBouncer is a good start 1 year ago

You should start with SpamBouncer. You’ll be very happy with the results.

After that, consider SpamProbe. Create a nonspam and spam folder and train spamprobe by moving true positives and true negatives into those folders. Also give it definite negative folders (like your Archive folder) for training.

Of course, be sure you’re using IMAP. Then use Mozilla Thunderbird. I have Thunderbird stamp my mail as spam/nonspam, but I do NOT have it sort it. This lets me review my IMAP spam folder and quickly spot false positives.

Also consider building textfile lists (whitelists, bulk lists, etc.) and use procmail to scan through these lists. This is much easier than building static procmail rules over and over again. Try something like this (replace STAR with *):

# Assume this message is NOT whitelisted
TEDWHITE=no

:0
STAR ? ${TEST} -f ${TEDWHITELIST}
{
:0
STAR ? ${FORMAIL} -zxCc: \
-zxDelivered-To: \
-zxFrom: \
-zxList-ID: \
-zxList-Post: \
-zxList-Unsubscribe: \
-zxMailing-List: \
-zxResent-By: \
-zxResent-From: \
-zxResent-Sender: \
-zxResent-To: \
-zxReply-To: \
-zxSender: \
-zxTo: \
-zxX-Apparently-To: \
-zxX-BeenThere: \
-zxX-List: \
-zxX-Mailing-List: \
| ${GREP} -i -f ${TEDWHITELIST}
{ TEDWHITE=yes }
}

That snippet was basically stolen from SpamBouncer. Below, in your procmail config, use something like:

:0
STAR TEDWHITE ?? yes
{
:0 f
| ${FORMAIL} -A”X-TedProcmailRC: INBOX (White listed)”

:0:
”$INBOX”
}

Of course, you’ll need to define things like $FORMAIL, $GREP, $INBOX, $TEDWHITELIST, and $TEST.

I hope that helps. I think SpamBouncer, SpamProbe, and your own blacklists, whitelists, and bulk lists will do a great job at keeping spam out of your inbox. I get thousands of spam per week, and it’s rare (only a few times a month) that any spam gets into my inbox (and false positives are also rare too).


Lose 35 pounds
From 220+ to 185 (35+ pounds) with no major exercise 1 year ago

It’s all about eating more often (you should never be hungry) and eating smart. I never expected to lose weight; I just wanted to get on an eating schedule to save money while in grad school. After a couple of months, I found myself almost 40 pounds lighter.

Some general rules:

  • Cut out soda
  • Cut out high-fructose corn syrup.
  • Cut out PROCESSED sugars (fruits and veggies are fine; flavored juices are not)
  • Frozen fruits are fine—they’ll keep better anyway; microwave them if you can’t stand them being cold and hard.
  • Cut out orange juice; try tomato juice and grapefruit juice instead (grapefruit juice will make you feel fuller longer)
  • Cut out salad dressings except for vinigrettes (vinegars and grapefruit juices have a similar beneficial effect on keeping you full and lean)
  • Avoid bread unless it is made with whole grains. The worst part of a McDonald’s cheeseburger is the bun. Read the ingredients on most bread—it is nearly impossible to find a bread without high fructose corn syrup on it. There are simply too many empty calories in most breads (an “empty calorie” is a calorie that does not make your stomach feel full because your body has not been adapted to process it; this is much of what’s wrong with high fructose corn syrup).
  • Consider quinoa (pronounced “keen-wah”) as an alternative to rice. Lots of protein. Plus it’s LEAFY (rather than grassy) so it has amino acids in it.
  • Nuts (especially almonds) are wonderful. High protein. High fiber. Vegetable fats. However, each day try not to eat more than an Altoids-tin full of almonds and a tablespoon (or 2 MAYBE) of peanut butter. That’s all you need.
  • NATURAL peanut butters are wonderful. Unnatural ones are awful. Look at the ingredient list. Generic Meijer peanut butter is JUST peanuts and is CHEAP. This is ideal.
  • Ground flaxseed is wonderful. Add it to everything. Omega-3’s and all the benefits of nuts.
  • Proteins stay in the stomach longer and so keep you fuller longer and keep your meals small. Fish stays in the stomach the longest, but you shouldn’t eat more than 3 servings of fish a week because of all of the heavy metals found in fish.
  • Soluable fibers stay in the stomach longer and, as an added bonus, pull cholesterol out of the blood. Insoluable fibers are also filling and keep you regular. RAMP UP fiber intake though—natural selection needs to act on your GI cultures so that you are setup to process all of that fiber. This can take up to two weeks if you aren’t used to that much fiber.
  • The longer things stay in the stomach, the more calories you burn digesting them. You actually work out your body by eating proteins.
  • The colder things are in the stomach, the more calories you burn processing them.
  • The heavier your food utensils are, the fuller you’ll feel.
  • GREEN TEA is wonderful. If you didn’t like one green tea you tried, try another type. There are as many varieties of green tea as there are of black tea. Don’t group them all together. Try taking green tea supplements. Try to drink multiple cups of tea a day (maybe 4 or 5).
  • MAKE YOUR LUNCHES IN THE MORNING: This forces you to eat them rather than going out. Plus, the additional activity in the morning wakes you up and increases your calorie burn.
  • Increase physical activity: take the steps, walk, hold your arms at a right angle when carrying groceries rather than letting your arms hang, be as inefficient as possible in your locomotion, add instability to your locomotion, do chair lifts, do pushups in the morning (one set of 30 is a good goal)
  • TAKE LOTS OF VITAMIN D. There are some weight/health benefits of dairy, but they come with increased cancer risk (because human beings are only marginally well adapted for cow’s milk). Vitamin D has so many benefits and everyone needs more of it. Among those benefits, it will reduce the cancer risk of dairy intake. I take 1000 IU’s 3 times a day, plus I try to spend at least 15 minutes in the sunlight. You probably don’t want more than 15,0000-20,000 IU, but that’s hard to do.
  • MEN: Get lots of blueberries and lycopene. Lycopene is in most red fruits and vegetables, so focus on red fruits and vegetables (watermelon, TOMATOES, etc.).
  • Cinnamon can be added to most everything, and it probably should be. It has lots of benefits. Among those, it will decrease diabetes risk.
  • SPICEY THINGS increase meatabolic activity. Make your food spicey. Remember that vinegar is a great thing to have in the diet, so try hot sauces that use vinegar.
  • EAT WHEN HUNGRY. It’s okay to eat often. Eat things that stay in your stomach longer (add grapefruit juice or vinegar before the meal to help increase this time). Just try to eat smart when you eat. Eat until full and STOP. Make sure you’re actually hungry. Very often you’re THIRSTY, so keep a bottle of watter nearby. TEA (like green tea) will do wonders in keeping you feeling full.
  • COFFEE can be great (caffeine isn’t necessarily bad). However, be sure you don’t add much to it. Also consider skim milk options if you must have milk. Don’t drink as much coffee as tea, but don’t be afraid of coffee. It’s much better than pop.

Some meal ideas from my schedule:

  • Breakfast: POST Raisin Bran (Post’s has no high-fructose corn syrup and has 8g of fiber, 4g soluable and 4g insoluable) with 2g ground flaxseed added. I also add frozen strawberries, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries as well as 25g of protein powder (and as of recently 1 heaping tsp of fiber sure, which gives 5g of soluable fiber)
  • Between Breakfast and Lunch 1: 1 fiber choice chewable tablet (2g soluable fiber) (this is recent; I don’t like the sugar content of these though)
  • Lunch 1 (around noon): Slim-Rite Ultimate (Kroger version of Slim-Fast Optima; Target has a cheaper version that is just as good) shake and a red delicious (produce #4015) apple (lots of soluable fiber in the apple keeps you full; if you need more, try a #4016 apple).
  • Between Lunch 1 and Lunch 2: 1 fiber choice chewable tablet (2g soluable fiber) (this is recent; I don’t like the sugar content of these though)
  • Lunch 2 (around 3pm): 1 cup of Dannon Light and Fit yogurt (any flavor) mixed with 2g ground flaxseed and initially frozen (they melt during the day in the refrigerator) strawberries, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries. I also add a handful of almonds. Recently I’ve added 1 heaping tsp of fiber sure as well.
  • Dinner (around 6pm): Something hearty. Good protein. Lots of vegetables. Try to get 3 servings of fish per week.

I haven’t figured out how to work exercise into my schedule yet. Optimally, exercise is great for the body. However, if you can just EAT better, you’ll do wonders for yourself. (I don’t mention it here, but I also focus on healthy nutrients that have nothing to do with weight loss directly—you should find out what nutrients are best for you and adust your own diet accordingly)


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