Idiolect: The $100-lighter memory hack

womzilla told me this story, of a guy who was always losing his cigarette lighters. He carried around those cheap plastic lighters, and didn’t pay attention to where he put them, and was constantly discovering, when he wanted to light up, that he didn’t have a lighter on him.

His solution: He bought a fancy lighter for $100 (in mid-1960s money — about $500 now). And having spent that much money for a lighter, he damn well sure paid attention to what he did with it. Last Womzilla heard, he never lost it.

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Idiolect: Egyptian gun syndrome

This one comes from the early days of drcpunk’s CthulhuPunk RPG campaign. She was running us through Masks of Nyarlathotep, set in the 1920s. We were going through the Egypt part of the adventure. One player wanted his character to have a gun, and asked if he could buy one. Dr Cpunk informed him that this wasn’t a simple matter like strolling into a modern red-state Wal-Mart and picking something up off the counter. No siree, he had to establish underworld contacts and make arrangements through the black market. It’d take two days of game time. Nah, said the player, that’s too much trouble.

A couple days of game time pass. The player asks if his character has a gun now. No, Dr Cpunk replies, you said you didn’t want to go through the effort. You can start the process now, but it’ll take two more days of game time. Nah, says the player, don’t bother.

Two more days of game time pass. The player asks if his character has a gun yet....

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43 Folders and a bunch of Mac apps

New (to me) website: 43 Folders
Merlin Mann dispenses organizational tricks, software pointers, and other tips on saving time and getting your life in order.

Those of you who want to get organized but lack the money or silicon thumb for a Palm might want to see his entry on the Hipster PDA: a bunch of index cards and a binder clip. Not a bad idea. Before my first Palm, I spent some time getting organized with a cheap pad of paper I carried in my back pocket. Wins out on cost and durability, but loses on indexing, search, and notification capabilities, even discounting spiffy Palm apps like Vindigo (which I use a lot). Furthermore, if you’re a disorganized person, you’re apt to just lose track of that bundle of cards. A pricey Palm at least takes advantage of the $100-lighter memory hack. And then even if you do lose or break it, you’ve got it backed up in your main computer.

( The rest of this is only useful for MacOS X users. )