Wakerupper and also, the Zen of Cussing

A tool that's really helped me out lately is Wakerupper.com. 

This simple, no-registration-required free service does exactly what it ought to do:  It rings your phone at a certain time.  It's very accurate and hasn't missed for me yet.  I like it much better than the other services I've found, which are either insanely full of ads, or aren't really free, or make you jump through a ton of hoops and pages to get your call set up.  This one can be done literally in the last five minutes before bed!  It makes a great backup alarm, especially if the phone gets you hustling, like it does me.

Backup alarms aren't just for adaptation, by the way.  I've been through many times–including recently–when things got crazy enough and missed naps and lost sleep were common, and a backup alarm or three can be a huge help, then.  Ones that can be set for odd times, especially, if you're having to catch up naps off-schedule.

By the way, has anybody ever read the essay On Bullshit, by Harry Frankfurt?  It's one of my favorite philosophy papers ever.  I was thinking the other day that someone should do one about the value of swearing as a nonviolent form of self-defense.  Really, I wish more people would consider and teach the valuable skill of verbal control of a pre-violent situation.  A well-placed scathing cuss can back off a surprising number and variety of people, and the technique sometimes works even better for women, children, the elderly, etc.  If you're concerned with avoiding fights, I think, you'd do well to learn how to win at confrontation. 

So anyway, someone should write that up.  It could be called On Fuck Off, yeah?  ;)

(Completely unrelated picture I happened to like courtesy of Mr. Ducke and Creative Commons.)