I was just catching up on tweets and learned, via Captain Marrrk, that Mac Tonnies has passed away. I’m in shock. This is just so sad:
Nick just called to tell me that our friend and colleague Mac Tonnies was found in his apartment this (Thursday) afternoon, apparently dead of natural causes. There was no evidence of foul play or suicide according to a close friend.
It is hard to find the right words to describe my feelings at this moment.
The last time we talked was just after his appearance on Coast To Coast on September 28th. He asked if I thought he had done a good job. I said he hit one over the fence. Tentatively, I asked if he would consider collaborating on a fiction project, and he liked the idea. Now, I don’t really know what to do or say.
The manuscript of Mac’s last book was apparently complete and ready to be delivered to the publisher.
Nick will have his feelings and more details to follow, but Mac’s family have been informed, and we wanted to get the news out to people who either knew Mac, or were inspired by his original and highly intelligent contributions to the study of UFOs and other anomalies, as well as many aspects of leading-edge science and technology.
Just an indescribable loss. In the next day or so, perhaps I’ll have more to say.
From: UFO Mystic: Mac Tonnies Gone
Update: Some info about Mac’s heart problems
In an incident here on this site I’d rather not revisit, but must, I lost my temper with Danny during an argument about various rights to EsoZone and hurled some personal insults at him that were unfair, hypocritical, had no place in a public conversation.
The EsoZone rights questions were eventually resolved, and in fact Danny is once again doing design work for EsoZone (some volunteer, some paid), but I feel this apology is long overdue and necessary. I can’t take back the things that I said, but I can apologize for them.
Danny – I’m sorry.
Thought I’d let everyone know why it’s been quiet here lately: Jillian and I are in Wyoming visiting family and friends – and just got legally married. We’ll be having a proper ceremony next summer, though.
I’m now available for pro-bono SEO consulting for non-profits. E-mail me at seo at klintfinley dot com for more info.
For the curious, I consider myself the following:
Atheist
Existentialist
Secular Humanist
Social Liberal
I’m going to be in the LA area weekend next weekend. If anyone would like to get together on Friday, March 6th let me know.
Todo list
Borrowed from the “Getting Things Done” crowd, I keep a plain text “todo” list separated into “Next Actions” “Projects” and “Someday/Maybe”. Next actions are then broken down by context, mine are currently @home and @anywhere but many people have many more (@phone @errands @chores etc.). Currently, I keep my todo file in Google Docs so I can access it anywhere.
I try to keep my inbox at “zero,” but my “todo” and “follow-up” folders became black holes. So my inbox ends up being a secondary todo list – nothing goes out of the inbox until it’s been dealt with, and nothing stays in the inbox that has been dealt with.
Calendar
Also from GTD, I have a calendar (Google Calendar) that I use only for the “hard landscape.” The calendar should not be a todo list, it should be used only to put reminders and information for particular days.
On the go
When on the go, I don’t find that I need access to my full todo list, but sometimes I want to add stuff to it. So I just e-mail notes to myself with my Blackberry. I do sync my BB calendar with Google Calendar.
Brainstorming/Notes
I love taking notes and brainstorming on yellow legal pads, but a lot of this goes in Google Docs as well.
I’ve been considering installing FCK Editor on my own server if I can’t find a simlple way to backup my Google Docs (this is just about the only automated method I’ve found). But for right now having something easy exportable or copy and paste-able is good enough.
Agenda
GTD doesn’t encourage having a list of stuff to do for a particular day. I don’t like this. One common hack I’ve seen a lot of places and works well for me: get a pile of index cards. Before bed or first thing in the morning, list things you want to get done. Complete projects or a particular milestones in projects, chores, etc. Leave some space to add stuff throughout the day. If you get something done that wasn’t on the list, write it down and cross it off. Carry over unfinished items to the next card in the stack. An index card has just enough lines to put about one day’s worth of “stuff” on , so it works out.
That’s it. Fairly simple. It’s taken me years to distill things down to this.
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