5 foolproof ways to know how many options to keep open

"I want to keep my options open."

How many times have you said that? If you're like me, probably more times than you've salsa danced, but fewer times than you've tried to rub your belly and pat your head at the same time. Keeping options open nothing to be guilty about, but there's something fragile about saying it -- as if it's a sign of weakness. When people like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates say in retrospect that focus, the antithesis of options, was the single greatest contributor to their achievements, it feels even sillier to be dabbling in many things at once.

But in a certain way, it makes sense -- we humans are naturally predisposed not to burn bridges. (Unless you're these guys.) After all, focus is emotionally challenging. John Carmack, the great game programmer, once said that focus is a matter of deciding what not to do. That's hard, because the human mind inflates small probabilities -- the phrase "just in case" dominates decision-making.

Normally, college students like to keep their options open in matters such as

• personal finance
  
• jobs
• vending machine items
• graduate schools
  
• women/men

But have you ever asked yourself what's the optimal number of options to keep open?

Unlikely.

Let's fix that now -- here are five foolproof ways to know how many options to keep open, whether you're chasing the ladies, picking a retirement plan, or pursuing pre-med, pre-law, and pre-ethnologist requirements simultaneously.

1. Fate. Fate is a useful way to blame consequences on something else. Generate a random number from 1-100.
   
2. Laziness. One can always rely on one's laziness. Keep flipping coins until you don't feel like it anymore. Then use method (1), because you didn't feel like keeping count of the number of heads.
   
3. Science. Science is a popular way of solving problems. According to science, we can remember at most seven things simultaneously. You may want to take that into consideration.
   
4. Religion. Religion is a popular way of dealing with problems. Use the Bible of Options.
5. Experience. Ask yourself how many options you're keeping open right now, and how many you've kept open in the past, and what number has been most effective for you so far.

For me, a combination of these methods yields the number 86.763. Now go forth and make decisions more confidently, knowing not just which options to keep open, but how many.

How to keep all of your New Year's resolutions

Admit it. Your batting average for New Year's resolutions leaves something to be desired. (Don't worry, mine does too.)

This is a widespread phenomenon, the unfulfilled New Year's resolution, causing much stress and guilt to innocent resolution-makers everywhere. I think I've kept one New Year's resolution so far, and that was to earn an amount of money that I later I realized I already had. Everything else -- be kind, eat more, learn Hindi -- have perished like my grades after buying Starcraft.

My goal, like yours, is to keep the New Year's resolutions I make. Therefore, I hereby resolve to make resolutions that I have already accomplished. 

Start a blog named "Catechu." Check. Write posts no one reads. Check. Buy a copy of The Wicker Man (2006) for $3.30 because it has that most sublime of actors, Nicolas Cage. Check.

I feel better already. With this resolution, I'm well on my way to moral excellence.

The true hackers

To see true hackers, forget Kevin Mitnick and Albert Gonzalez and head to the Lumberjack World Championships.

Disappearing comments

Dear readers,

When legitimate but inimical comments conveniently do not appear on this blog, it means that there was a power outage that killed your comment mid-internet. If your subsequent attempts fail, it is due to solar flares.

As a reminder, the First Amendment party at my home will be tomorrow at 8pm. I will let you all know if meteor strikes force me to cancel the event.

Blog

The word blog is a funny one. Being a four-letter monosyllabic word, I expect something more crude than "to write entries in, add material to, or maintain a weblog" (Dictionary.com). Let us explore the possibilities (PG-13).

• Upon bashing one's knee. "Blog it!"
  
• Upon eating vegetable polenta from HUDS. "This tastes like blog."
  
• Upon having one's mother insulted. "Blog you!"
• Upon sinning. "We're all going to blog."
  
• Upon receiving nature's call. "Hang on, I've gotta go take a blog."

So the next time you are tempted to demonstrate your command of foul language but realize that doing so would rend the soft ears of the ladies or the children*, consider using this wonderful word.

* Apologies to men with soft ears for the rhetorical omission.

Learning how to type

When I was first learning to type, I thought, “Why would someone arrange the keys in this idiot fashion?”

This feeling became more pronounced when fifth-grade Applied Tech class whipped me into typing with a white cardboard cover over my hands. I was forced to retype phrases like “as all dads fall; as all dads fall sad” and other depressing statements about the world. Fortunately, I acquired such skill at typing this one phrase that eventually I could blaze through it at 120 words-per-minute, which made up for my dismal performance on later lessons. Forget the “lions at the circus” (23-wpm) or the frightening “read a book and try to cook” (10-wpm); my sad dads allowed me to pull off a mysteriously high 80-wpm average overall. I was content with this, but in order to pass the class I had to move away from the home row. Employers simply aren’t interested in people who can type “ask a salad” with their eyes closed.

Things changed when a new incentive was introduced: lollipops. “If you can type all the letters in a row without looking at the keyboard, I shall give you this lollipop,” our instructor said, reaching into the infinite supply in his desk.

Why a lollipop? Well, there are very few other things that you can dangle in front of a kid to make him diligent. Pre-adolescent thirst for power isn’t enough — it would be ridiculous if my instructor had said, “If you type all the letters, I shall provide you with a high public post in the state of Pennsylvania.” Nor has the quest for a high salary fully settled into our young minds — he couldn’t have said “When I see ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ on that screen, a job at Goldman Sachs is yours.” Lust might work on some of the kids, but only on certain ones, and even then you require foreknowledge. “Xavier, if you type the letters as I say, I will get Laura to kiss you. Laura, please kiss Xavier if he gets this right.” No, only the promise of artificial sweeteners can make men out of boys.

I took a new approach — what if I memorized the layout of the keyboard? Then my brain, not my fingers, would be doing all the important work. Pleased with this new insight, I lifted my cover and looked at the keyboard, and, to my delight, saw that the arrangement of the letters made perfect sense. That is, they made perfect sense from the perspective of someone who sought to cause end users as much pain as possible. I wondered about the inventors of this miserable keyboard layout. Did their teachers fail to teach them the alphabet? Unlikely. I guessed that when the first prototype keyboard was about to go to press, the inventors accidentally dropped it. The keys popped out, neatly arranged themselves into the pattern QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM, and generations of children thereafter suffered.

At any rate, I managed to successfully memorize the three rows, type out the alphabet without peeking under the cardboard cover, and secure the lollipop. Enduring months of this silliness failed to improve my typing skills beyond 20-wpm. Then a year later, a friend introduced me to the wonders of instant messaging, and before I knew it I was typing at 30, 40, 60, 80 wpm.

Moral: If you want to teach kids how to type, introduce them to instant messengers.