Jared McAteer’s Blag - jaredmcateer.com

Most of my friends know that I’m atheist, or at least non-religious. My religious friends tend to wonder why I am so defensive about atheism and have a distaste for religion in my tone when I speak about it. I’ve gone blue trying to explain why I feel they are irrational, and even had them admit their beliefs are irrational but they still couldn’t understand my position. I came across this article on Craigslist today and I have to say this is the most succinct, non-confrontational piece explaining my position I could even have hoped for.

Anti-atheist Backlash on R&R Date: 2008-03-05, 12:11PM PST

I’ve noticed a recent trend on Rants and Raves where certain Christian posters are attacking atheists while strangely choosing to ignore all other brands of non-Christians. Why is this? Are these armchair disciples more concerned about saving an atheist’s soul than that of a Buddhist, Hindu, Jew, or Muslim? Sounds fairly selective to me.

I think I know what’s going on here…

(more…)

Popularity: 45% [?]

I’ve created a new Greasemonkey script called “Reddit light district” it enables easy identification of NSFW links on the Reddit site. People were complaining that NSFW links were getting seeded into the main page with little distinction. I quickly created a simple solution to this problem, now when browsing links that have NSFW in their title or are part of the NSFW sub-reddit will appear are red in the list.

Technorati Tags: Greasemonkey, Reddit, NSFW

Popularity: 53% [?]

I procrastinate, a lot, I know it’s a problem and I’ve done a lot of things to try and counter this problem. There are times when I think that I must have Adult ADD because my ability to concentrate on work is extremely poor when I’m not interested in the work, I definitely have a lot of the symptoms that are listed for ADD but I always thought it this disorder was over diagnosed. It’s bad enough though to affect my work and I have been determined to find a solution (that doesn’t involve prescriptions.)

My problem is that when I run into something that interrupts my work (ie. compiling/building) I switch to reading websites, the problem is that compiling/building or whatever may only take a few moments to a couple minutes but I will spent the next 15 minutes to an hour surfing. Then I wonder where the time has gone, and my line of thought on the code I was working on is long gone.

I’ve tried using “break” timers, manually blocking websites (via hosts and greasemonkey scripts,) music, all sorts of things. Then the other day I stumbled upon a counter-intuitive solution. I was working from home, and just got season of How I Met Your Mother so I decided to watch a few episodes while I worked. Surprisingly I worked almost the whole time the show was on, I had very few urges to go surf the web, whenever there was a lull or interruption in my work I’d focus on the small video window I had open but then get right back to work when the compiler finished.

It seems strange that something that is as distracting as TV is the solution to my problem of being easily distracted, but I am pretty happy to have found it as my productivity has easily doubled.

If anyone is out there reading, feel free to post your methods of keeping focused.

Technorati Tags: Procrastination, Productivity, Work, ADD

Popularity: 48% [?]

People wonder why I give them such a hard time when I’m a passenger in their vehicle and they run a red light. They acknowledge they made a mistake and we should all just get over it. No harm no foul right?

Tuesday night my cousin was hit crossing the street by a woman that ran a red light, the doctors performed surgery on her and removed a piece of bone from her spine. The good news is that her spine wasn’t severed the bad news is she has no feeling in her legs as of yet.  She’s the type of person that if there’s chance she can walk again she will but the doctors are not so optimistic.

Please put down your cellphones, stop looking for that CD in the back seat you want and pay attention to your surroundings, it only takes a second to become a murderer.

Popularity: 71% [?]

I was reminded today of a wonderful way to instantly cure your hiccups. I first learned this method while at my first job as a stock/bag boy for a local grocery store. I had been plagued by chronic hiccups for most of the day and no matter which remedy people suggested worked (I went through the gambit of holding my breath, drinking water side down, etc, etc.) until one lady whom worked in the deli suggested, vinegar.

I was extremely skeptical and thought she might be pulling my leg. But desperation won out and I took a sip and sure enough my hiccups went away. All it took was a packet that you’d typically find in a fast food restaurant and they were gone. It’s disgusting but like Buckley’s cough syrup, it just works.

The best thing about it, is that it works so fast you can chase it with something pleasant tasting. I don’t claim to know exactly how it works but I think it causes such a shock to your system that it reset your diaphragm to behave properly.

^* Caveat: I don’t recommend trying this if you have been drinking, while it might work, from first hand experience, adding vinegar to your probably already queasy stomach is not a good idea.

Technorati Tags: hiccups, home remedies

Popularity: 83% [?]