Essentially the trick is to use a stab-blender for 20 seconds to aerate the wine very quickly. It's definitely something I'll run a double-blind test on over Christmas!

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Before the negotiation

Firstly, try and build information profile about your counter-party. You are interested in working out what their utility function (or value profile) is. You want to try and determine their "walk-away" number - the price at which they will walk away from the negotiation. You want to try and work out what alternatives they have to an agreement. What pressures do they have to getting an agreement?

Also, determine what your walk-away price is. What is the point at which you will walk away from the agreement? Try and come up with alternatives, this will help take the pressure off you during the negotiation. Work out what your utility profile is - what are your priorities? What points won't you compromise on?

During the negotiation

Firstly, you should set the initial price. This will help determine the expectation range that your counter-party has. The only time when you should allow the counter-party to determine the initial price is if they have a lot more information about what the item/service is worth than you do.

With your initial price, you take your estimation of the negotiating counter-party's walk-away price and offer slightly lower. Don't go too low. You want the counter-party to take your initial offer seriously.

Also, try and establish rapport before you begin the negotiation. You can reveal unimportant information about yourself to help the flow of information. Ask questions - try and determine what is important to them. Are there any pressures on them to get the deal done? Are there any time pressures involved? Do other people have any expectations on the results of the negotiations?

Sometimes some small things may give you an edge. Having the appearance of authority may help you during the negotiation. Helping to boost the attractiveness to the counter-party by making the object of the negotiation appear scarce. "Only one left, so you should get it now". Social proof - all these other people have also bought this item and been completely satisfied.

It's important during the negotiation to try and seek mutual benefit.

If someone is over-aggressive or too emotional during the negotiation, take a time-out. Don't mirror negativity. If the counter-party starts with with an insultingly low offer try a technique called "Re-Anchoring". The Re-anchoring technique involves making a counter-proposal, and then repeating it numerous times. You are trying to "anchor" your counter-proposal in their mind.

If you get stuck in a negotiation, try adding in embedded options. For example; if [some situation] happens, then you must do [this other thing].

Closing the negotiation

Create a solution "package". This is a complete solution - listing all the negotiating points and your proposal. Don't try and negotiate each point separately, seek agreement for a "package" of solutions.

Potentially try embedding options into the solution.

Also, once you have an agreement, think about shelving the agreement temporarily to try and "re-factor" it, i.e. to try get a better agreement. You can always come back to your original agreement if no better solution can be found.

Take your time during the negotiation.

Practice!

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Firstly, the wristband is pretty awesome. Mine is black and is made out of a rubbery plastic that feels really comfortable. The wristband itself is supposed to be water resistant so you can wear it in the shower. At one end of the wristband is a metal cap which, when removed, reveals a mini-jack plug for plugging the band into your iPhone. The other end is a button, that switches the band into measuring different types of activities - exercise, walking and sleeping.

To get your activity data with your iPhone, you need to plug it into the audio socket of the phone and press the button to sync. So far this hasn't been too onerous, but I can imagine it being a little bit of a pain eventually. The iPhone app allows you to track your time spent exercising, your movements and sleep patterns. You can get it to vibrate if you have been inactive for too long, or to wake you up in the morning.

Overall, I'm really excited about this technology. It's had a bit of a negative review here, but I think the Jawbone UP is going to be great to play with!

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Although the origins sound quite dodgy, apparently the exercises have been verified as a form of Tibetan Yoga. The key point for me is that the exercises can be done in 10 minutes a day.

There are 5 exercises:

1. The first is extremely lame and is essentially spinning around with your arms outstretched, turning from left to right. Lame. Ignore.

2. The second exercise is leg raises, while raising the head to the chest at the same time. Good core strength workout.

3. The third exercise seems to be stretching forward from a kneeling position to child's pose, and then back to a seated back bend.

4. The fourth exercise goes from seated staff pose, and then pushing up to bridge pose.

5. The fifth exercise goes from downward dog to cobra pose.

Apart from the first exercise, which seems quite silly and pointless, these sound like a great set of exercises for a quick workout routine.

Here are some links to THT demos on youtube:

• Sarah Kline demoing
• Maryse Moerel demoing

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In the silicon.com post "Your brain vs technology: How our wired world is changing the way we think", Baroness Susan Greenfield is quoted, professor of Synaptic Pharmacology at Lincoln College, Oxford: "If the human brain is exquisitely adapted to the environment, which it is, if the environment is changing, which it is, then it's a given the brain will change". She is concerned by how our brain changes as a result of increasingly spending our time in front of technology, that areas of the cortex may be going dark as we spend our lives immersed in Big Brother and Facebook.

It seems to me that in order to get good things out of our interactions with technology, we should focus on how we can use our screen time to exercise areas of our brain in ways that wouldn't normally happen.

A good example of this was a recent post on Scientific American called "In the mind of others - Reading fiction can strengthen your social ties and even change your personality". This article is about research that indicates how reading fiction may help social interaction by building experience on how to interact with other people, without physically interacting with other people. As people empathise with characters in the book and those characters relate to other characters in the story, they build up this mental database on how to behave. This mental database helps with later, "meat-space" interactions.

I remember reading related work on using virtual reality to overcome phobias through repeatedly experiencing a fear-inducing situation in a safe, virtual environment.

Is it just our thinking and behaviour we can affect through computer interaction? The BBC had a news story about how a virtual gym could help with weight loss which suggests that maybe our virtual experiences also affect our body. What are the limits for this? This sounds like a wonderful area to explore. How can we re-wire the brain in beneficial ways using our computers?

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London is represented very well, with 5 of the top 10 bars. 12 of the top 50 bars are based over here. For comparison, 8 of the top 50 are based in New York, and 3 of the top 50 are based in Paris. 69 Colebrooke Row came 7th, which is about 2 blocks from our flat.

Top 50 Bars in the World, 2011

1. PDT, New York

2. Connaught, London

3. Artesian, London

4. Death & Co, New York

5. Milk & Honey, London

6. American Bar at the Savoy, London

7. 69 Colebrooke Row, London

8. Drink, Boston US

9. Harry's New York Bar, Paris

10. Black Pearl, Melbourne, Australia

11. Pegu Club, New York

12. Dry Martini Bar, Barcelona

13. Eau De Vie, Sydney

14. Bramble, Edinburgh

15. Employees Only, New York

16. La Capilla Bar, Mexico

17. Merchant Hotel, Belfast

18. Nightjar, London

19. Smuggler's Cove, San Francisco

20. Buddha Bar, Paris

21. Skyview Bar, Dubai

22. The Varnish, Los Angeles

23. Tippling Club, Singapore

24. Milk & Honey, New York

25. 878 Bar, Buenos Aires

26. Der Raum, Melbourne

27. Callooh Callay, London

28. Clover Club, New York

29. Door74, Amsterdam

30. Tommy's, San Francisco

31. Floridita, Havana

32. City Space, Moscow

33. Matterhorn, Wellington, NZ

34. High Five Bar, Tokyo

35. Le Lion, Hamburg

36. LAB, London

37. Boadas, Barcelona

38. Dutch Kills, New York

39. Worship St Whistling Shop, London

40. BarAgricole, San Francisco

41. Papa Doble, Montpellier

42. Quo Vadis, London

43. Lounge Bohemia, London

44. Mayahuel, New York

45. Mutis, Barcelona

46. Ruby, Copenhagen

47. Rules, London

48. Hemingway Bar, Paris

49. Zuma, Dubai

50. Star Bar, Tokyo

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An example of a time-boxing regime is the Pomodoro Method where you work for 25 minutes and then have a break.

For me, time-boxing has some characteristics that make it fantastic for getting things done.

Firstly it forces me to focus on time, which is the scarcest resource that I have.

Secondly, it allows me to build up and manage my energy in getting my tasks crossed off. I can use smaller time-boxes to build up my momentum, and having frequest breaks allows me to maintain my stamina in completing tasks.

Micro-boxing

Today, I decided to try out an idea I've had, which I'm calling "Micro-Boxing".

The idea is to work within very small units of time - 10 minutes for each box. Instead of having a break after each time-box, I move to a new task instead.

The 10 minute work interval forces me to break tasks down into very managable chunks. This means that I am whittling away at tasks that I have been avoiding because they seem to be too big or require too much effort.
By moving to a new task, I both keep things fresh and yet keep my momentum going.

I've been keeping track of all my tasks using Emacs in org-mode. This allows me to easily break down tasks that are too big into smaller chunks. It also makes it easy to add new things to the list as I think of them.

I'm pleased to say that today has been an enormously productive day! It will be interesting to see whether this technique will scale out for the rest of the week, or whether my productivity today has just been the result of the novelty of the technique.

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If he is right and the world is becoming a more addictive place, then there are obviously many interesting implications for society as a whole. What will happen if most people are too addicted to the many pleasurable activities available to actually contribute to society? How can we make economically productive activities have the same level of addiction as those that consume economic capital? Definitely food for thought.

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