Gave another invite, should have 2 beta testers soon.

I've decided to open the project up to the public, probably next Monday to give the beta testers time to find bugs.

As was mentioned on one of the HAD blog posts, it's more efficient/effective to get early feedback on projects, so it makes sense to let people in even if the project isn't finished. I'm pretty comfortable with the slideshow and at least the first 12 lesson days, so there's no sense in waiting for a polished version.

On an unrelated note, I'm personally surprised at how powerful the priming effect is.

Effectively, whenever you encounter any concept the idea bounces around in your head like an echo until it dies down. When you wake up in the morning your head is relatively clear of these, so priming can fill your head with whichever category of concepts you want to think about.

Adding a category to the project is simple - take a list of words and some images, put them in a directory in a specific place, and run a program (supplied) to link them into the web page. Javascript doesn't allow general file access, so the program just generates an array containing the file names to use for links.

So on my local machine (not in the project) I've added a category for psychology and this gets me thinking about psychology, and another one "special" that has some high energy images and words that have  meaning to me, and... Yow! It's a surprisingly powerful effect.

I *used* to wake up in the morning and read the news before getting to work, and I've noticed that this fills my head with all sorts of ideas that have to get worked out over time, and this distracts from whatever I'm working on. I have to consciously decide *not* to think about whichever click-bait outrage the MSM is oing on about that day.

Now I skip the news and fill my head with topics related to what I'm working on, and it's surprising the difference this makes. I'm thinking about psychology and writing all morning, which makes it relatively easy to have high energy for this project.

Now I'm wondering if this would have a similar effect from using porn. Or violence. Or political belief. Or personal preference.

The effect is scary-strong.