Another Christmas and New Years Over

 

Well, another year's come and gone. What a year it's been. A new house, a big reno, and a new child.

We wanted a great Christmas for the kids this year and boy did we get it. We put the tree up in the den this year, bought new lights for the house, and had decorations everywhere. It was great. Many thanks to everyone that came over to our place for Christmas eve -- a new family first -- and to the Collins' for coming over for new years. Another new record, we made it to 10:40pm this time. The latest we've made it since having kids.

Now I'm getting ready to go back to work in the morning. I'm not dreading it by any means, I'm actually looking forward to going back and getting a few things done. However I did get used to spending all day with the family. I could get used to doing that full-time.

I feel like in many ways 2008 will be pivotal year for our little tribe. Maya will probably start preschool and Gabe will continue it. Zack will turn 1 in 2008. I'm almost afraid to see how big he might get in that time. We have a few things we'd like to do yet to the house, and I have a new career direction to begin. Change, as they say, is inevitable.

Let's get to it.

Auchentoshan 10 Year

I had forgotten completely about the Auchentoshan 10 until Jason reminded me. What a great whiskey, especially for such a young one. It is agressive, but still full of fruity notes and a low finish. Great stuff, and a good deal too. 

Nose
Scenty. Definite linseed. Lemon grass. Vanilla.
Palate
Light, soft, oily, mashmallow-like. Good flavour development. From lemony to cedary.
Finish
Rounded. Soothing, long.
Comment
At 10 years, Auchentoshan makes an expressive, eloquent claim to being the classic Lowlander.

http://www.whiskymag.com/whisky/brand/auchentoshan/whisky1957.html

Montecristo Minis

Great little cigars. Clean, mellow, and full bodied. Almost buttery.
http://www.cubanbest.com/montecristo.html

iRobots: Roomba & Scooba

After much debate, Hiyat came home with two household cleaning robots last week: the Roomba and the Scooba. You can't help but anthropomorphise these guys (we decided that they are males) and they've really helped out around the house.

 

 

 

The Roomba is a vacuuming robot and is the epitome of automation. He comes with a charging base that he finds himself, a timer, and he avoids stairs, walls, and will concentrate on areas that are dirty. He even dusts the baseboards and railings that he can reach. He will wake up at a prescribed time, wander all around the upstairs cleaning and then go and find his charging station underneath the night table when he's tired. He makes it all the way into both kids' rooms and does the bathroom floors too. You won't believe the dust and hair that he's pulled out of the carpets -- it's disgusting. If you put him on area rugs on the main floor he will stay on them and do a good job cleaning them.

 

 

The Scooba took a lot more time getting used to. He's a lot less automated than Roomba, without a timer or a base station. This becomes obvious after using him, because unlike the Roomba that only needs electricity, the Scooba needs clean water, cleaning solution, and to have the dirty water dumped out. He does a pretty good job too -- even on the slate. He vacuums, washes, and squeegees up the dirty water all in one go. It's good too, because unlike mopping it actually picks up the dirty water instead of just pushing it around.

 

 

 

Overall, I'm pretty impressed with this pair. They really help keep the house clean, which we don't always have time to do now that we have 3 kids. I'll start Scooba on the main floor and Roomba up on either the basement or the area rugs on the main floor (he would have already done the upstairs that morning) when we put the kids in the tub and by the time we're done we have clean floors througout the house. Very good labour saving devices even though there a bit on the pricy side at $5 

http://www.irobot.com/

Tea: Organic Genmaicha

A smooth, almost nutty green tea. Very deep tasting. I like it better than the biosencha but we'll have to see how much caffiene it has.
http://www.totalitea.com/offer.html

Tea: Japan Bio Sencha

This tea seems to do a good job keeping me reasonably awake at work without amping me up too much... however the first steeping is pretty dry and bitter. So I'm tempted to add sugar.
http://www.totalitea.com/offer.html

Outsourced!

 At work we've gone through something I had hoped I'd never be part of -- outsourcing. I'm one of the lucky ones, I'm staying. I see the business logic behind what's happened, but I'm still getting over the shock of dismantling a team I've spent years building.

As a leader, it's also very difficult to have your people's lives be so uncertain. They've literally gone from being at the top of their game to competing for jobs with our outsourcing supplier. Tough roll of the dice.

This is a great lesson... be ready for anything and watch out for yourself.

Torchwood

A new BBC spinoff from Doctor Who, Torchwood revolves around "Handsome" Jack Harkness, the immortal American WWII pilot from the Doctor Who series. This show has gotten some pretty bad reviews in the UK press, but after watching the first 3 episodes this weekend, I'm not sure why.

It doesn't stand up to the new Doctor Who series in terms of creativity or chemistry, but it works. It's a darker series, a paranormal crime drama set in Cardiff -- the location of a "time/space rift" that lets alien stuff leak in to the city and countryside.

The premise is that after the Doctor runs into the Queen in the 40's, she creates the Torchwood institute to study alien technology and prepare humanity for the 21st century, when "It all changes."

Worth a watch.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485301/

Good Luck Chuck

Very funny, very "lowbrow" humor, but it works. In the vein of "40 Year Old Virgin," this movie is full of very funny scenes. Good for a Sunday night.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452625/

Transformers

I watched Transformers with some trepidation... given the number of 80's themed tv shows that have been badly remade/reinterpreted in the past few years, I thought this one would suck for sure.

I was wrong. This was a fun, big, explosive movie. It was quite long at 2hrs 20minutes, but it didn't feel like it. They changed the story line quite a bit -- for the better though. Let's not forget that the original cartoon was made to sell the toys, not the other way around. They fixed the story quite a bit, and still kept to the original feel and idea.

Not a great movie, but a very good one -- a fun movie for a change. Great effects, decent acting that didn't get in the way, and a fast paced story. Looking forward to the sequels where they explore the Transformer's characters more.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418279/

Star Trek Casket

 

 

 

OK, if you have to go, this is the way to do it. Just like Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan.

I'm serious. 

http://www.eternalimage.net/st_page.html

Aikido, My Way: The Story of Kobayashi Dojos

 

Very interesting on-line Aikido book.

 

O Sensei would surprise us with how different he was from ordinary people. In his last year, he would have to be helped up the stairs and he said many times “I’m sick,” but as soon as he set foot in the practice hall, his back would straighten and he would look perfectly healthy as he gave an explanatory demonstration. But once again, as he stepped out into the hall, he would have to be helped by the deshi.

Then there were the times O Sensei would have to be helped to the toilet. We’d lift him up by his arms but it would take all our strength, it was like trying to move a giant stone.

“Sensei, we can’t move you…”

“Ah, I’m full of ki…” then he would stop extending ki and we could lift him off the bed. O Sensei was no ordinary person, that much I came to understand. He was 86.

 

http://www.cup.com/kobayashi-dojo/english/book/forward.htm

Perpetual Punching Machine

 

 

 

This is from a 1932 episode of The Little Rascals. Man, I've had jobs like that.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/23/perpetually-punching.html

Got A Wii

 

 

Finally went out and picked up a Nintendo Wii.

My god the thing is fun. Ridiculously, ludicrously fun.

Hiyat and I had to tear ourselves away from the Wii Sports Boxing, Bowling and Tennis to go to bed. What a great system -- the controls and simplicity are what make it a joy. Not one for hardcore games, it's built for those that just want some quick fun with friends.

She ended up beating me in every. Single. Game. Me, the vid kid -- I've been playing video games since the Pong home system came out. A testiment to how accessible the system is.

http://wii.nintendo.com/

Mandriva 2008

 

 

Upgraded to Mandriva 2008 this weekend.

Was a bit of a bumpy go. Tried to upgrade via the software update tool (urpmi) but it killed my box. I had heard it was a bit risky, so I had backed everything up anyway. Downloaded the Mandriva one cd and installed it.

Was completely painless (except for the fact the first cd I burned had a scratch on it). Got apache, mysql, php, and everything installed right away. Detected all my hardware out of the box no problem.

Had a bit of an issue with getting VMWare installed -- needed to download the latest gcc (4.3) c++ and cpp packages, but no problem after then.

It's pretty sweet. Very fast, has NTFS write drivers (ntfs3g) installed by default, and a bunch of new features. Very clean layout.

Give it a go if you're looking for a good distro.

http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/free

Undiscovered Curve mp3

 

One of my favorite bands ever is the now-defunct UK band Curve. For some reason I found myself at their site today and found the song Weekend there as a free download. Enjoy.

 

http://www.curve.co.uk/mp3/weekend.mp3

New Cuthulhu Movie Ad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jQtkGJMtH0

Dalek Sec Mask

How cool is this?

If you've been watching the new Doctor Who series, and you should, it's great -- you would have seen the Dalek-Human hybrid called "Dalek Sec".

Well, now you can dress up as him for Halloween, maybe next year -- it will be out by Christmas.

It will drive the rest of the family to distraction within minutes of being unwrapped, but a new Dalek mask made of flesh-pink ribbed plastic will be one of the must-have toys this Christmas, retailers predicted yesterday.

The mask, modelled on a one-eyed Dalek-human hybrid which appeared in the episode Daleks in Manhattan, changes the voice of the wearer to the metallic scream of the doctor's mortal enemies. Games based on films and TV characters will fill Santa's sack this year, according to toy manufacturers who made their annual prediction of Christmas best-sellers yesterday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/retail/story/0,,2188273,00.html

PKD, The Unicorn and Operation Mind Control

PKD, of course, was Philip K. Dick, the late great speculative fiction novelist, who believed many strange things had happened to his head during the seventies, one such event being an alien invasion with just this type of Tesla technology. Phil later came to believe this Soviet mind control experiment upon his temporal lobe had developed into something far more stranger (if that was at all possible) when an alien entity consisting of pure information skyjacked these psychotronically produced Soviet projections, using them to beam extraterrestrial messages of a benevolent nature into Phil's oft befuddled mind.

"The Unicorn"--as he was known to friends and fellow researchers--was none other than Ira Einhorn, a prominent figure in the New Age Counterculture of the late sixties and seventies. Phil and Ira became acquainted through the auspices of CoEvolution Quarterly, later renamed The Whole Earth Review, a by-product of former Merry Prankster Stewart Brand's revolutionary brainchild, The Whole Earth Catalog. Within the letter section of CoEvolution Quarterly, Dick and Einhorn initiated a dialogue on Soviet psychotronics & mind control, and it's far reaching implications. Shortly afterwards, Einhorn's girlfriend and fellow researcher, Holly Maddux's dismembered body parts were discovered in a steamer trunk in Einhorn's Philadelphia apartment, and Einhorn charged with her murder.

http://www.freedomdomain.com/articles/pkduni.htm

Fall 2007 Pics Are Up

 

 

I just put up some pictures from this fall. When you're a parent it's amazing how fast time flies. I know that sounds like a cliche but man is it real. Seems like I just became a dad yesterday, but...

Gabe has started preschool and is about to turn four. His preschool is pretty cool -- he's already had a fireman come by as well as a librarian (Gabe calls her a "librario"). He loves it. He's also currently nuts for anything Scooby-doo related, we've just had to order a new DVD from Amazon.com just to placate him.

Maya just turned two and is now talking in sentences. She loves to sing "three, four, shut the door" and whenever Zack is upset she says "Oh, no, Zach-a-ry!" and comes and gets one of us. What a sweet girl. Her big thing is Dora the Explorer -- she can sing the opening theme "d-d-d-dora" and can name most of the characters.

Zack is doing great. he's a big kid, especially next to Gabe and Maya. May is 5th percentile for bodyweight and Zack is 95th. They're wearing the same size diapers (size 3) and Zack's about to outgrow them.

We're having a great time in our new house this fall. We're surrounded by large trees and it's amazingly beautiful in the fall. We're going to start decorating the house for halloween. It should be good this year, Gabe has an astronaut costume and Maya has a princess one.

Anyway, here's the pics.

http://mitchellfamily.ca/images/Fall2007/index.html

Babel

 

 

Brutal movie. Well shot, written, directed, the whole shebang but freakin' brutal.

Why do the movies that are shooting to get awards have to leave you feeling so disturbed and distraught -- particularly if you are a parent? 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449467/

William Gibson: Spook Country

William Gibson's latest novel, Spook Country is awesome. Not as frantic or kinetic as Pattern Recognition or All Tomorrow's Parties, but Gibson sticks with the gritty textures and environments-as-characters feel while the characters themselves seem ephemeral and purposefully incomplete.

You never fully understand what's going on in a Gibson story... and this is no exception. Three characters wind their way through the novel: Hollis, a former 90's alternative rock singer. Milgrim is a homeless drug addict pulled along for the ride because he can translate an obscure dialect of Russian. Tito is part of the family that uses this dialect along with "systema," a strange mix of religion and KGB spycraft.

Not Gibson's best novel -- that would go to the brilliant Pattern Recognition in my book -- but kick ass nonetheless. And it's extremely cool that the three subplots converge in Gibson's native Vancouver, a city he describes as "how American cities look on television."

Oddly, for a sci-fi author (the guy that coined "cyberspace"), it takes place in the very recent past of 2006. Gibson once said that "The future has arrived, it's just not evenly distributed." One wonders if the future has caught up with Gibson.

Very highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/Spook-Country-William-Gibson/dp/0399154302/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7616722-5171813?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191335843&sr=8-1

Cyberman Voice Changing Helmet

Looking for a cool costume for Halloween?

Check out this voice-changing cyberman helmet... also a great assortment of other Doctor Who memorabilia there.

http://www.voga.co.uk/product-detail.php?id=103

Greenspan and Stewart on the Economy

A great watch... it's funny that the clearest explanation of the US Fed and economy is on a comedy show.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2007/09/19/greenspan-cracks-a-joke-and-breaks-it-down/?mod=fpa_blogs

The IT Crowd

If you haven't been downloading and watching this show then I pity you. If you're in IT especially.

Funniest show in years.

http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/I/itcrowd/

Painful Upgrade to PHP5

I decided to upgrade to PHP 5 because it was required by an interesting tool called activecollab.

PHP 5 nicely shuts off Register_Globals so that all your global vars go away... magically. Well just about everything I've written uses global vars. Nice. Gotta edit /etc/php.ini to turn it on again.

One more thing... $id no longer works. Must be taken over by something else in PHP 5. 

http://www.php.net/downloads.php#v5

Hiyats Birthday Wish List

Hiyat's birthday gift wish list:

• pampered chef stonewear
• Alley McBeal DVDs (any season)
• Butter holder (glass or something that matches the kitchen)
• Cookbook stand (preferrably stainless steel)
• 5 lb leg weights
• Medicine ball
• Oven mits
• Environmentally friendly cleaning supplies

You Must Enter To Die

"You must enter to die," Sensei said at the seminar this weekend. "Then match. This is koryu, from the samurai. This is how you must think."

Profound words. I believe Sensei was talking about initiating the attack, exposing a vulnerability that draws the opponent in so you can match the movement and throw or pin him. He also talked about the neccessity to understand ancient Japanese culture to understand this. He said O-Sensei talked about this frequently, but nobody understood him.

He also talked about "Shinko no ki" or the "Ki of no air" that O-Sensei personally taught him. How to throw a person if they just touch you lightly by creating a vacuum in the ki that pulls him in. You could only learn this from O-Sensei apparently.

Great, great seminar.

Bushido Of Business

I'm sure someone else has written the rules of business out in terms of the Bushido, but here's my take:

Truthfulness
You must speak and act truthfully at all times. This includes being honest with your peers, supervisors, and those under you. Even when difficult. Without truth, politeness is but a farce (kyo-rei). There are correct approaches and incorrect approaches to every problem and situation -- the correct ones being ones that work and the incorrect being ones that don't. Learn from experience and use it to your fullest. This is not to say that you should disrespect or disobey a directive from above, but polite disagreement is a must. They will learn to trust your instincts and judgment.

This includes speaking truthfully about commitments. The samurai felt that oaths or contracts were beneath them because they spoke the truth at all times. Don't take this lightly -- show others around you that having you say something will get done is the same as it being done.

Courage
Respect, experience, and caution are replacements for fear. Once you have decided to act, then act. Nothing more.

As a leader, showing courage in the face of adversity is paramount. How can they follow your charge into difficult projects and tasks without it?

As a subordinate, showing courage when given difficult assignments is required to have you move forward.

Benevolence
Help those around you succeed in their given tasks when possible (when they are in your sphere of influence). Not only will they help you when you need it, but you can help guide them in directions that can be beneficial to you both. People will be more open to your ideas when you've helped them succeed. Never impede someone from reaching their goals, even if you feel like they are competing with you. Guide them instead.

If no one around you needs your help then seek them out in your spare time. Think vertically in the organization as well as laterally.

Respect
True power does not need to tear anyone down. Respect everyone, even those you mistakenly think of as your adversaries. Respect people even when you disagree with their decisions or ideas. This cannot be overstated. Disrespect in business will destroy your career.

Morality
Do not allow "dirty dealings" to go on with your awareness. Others around you may want you to become involved in fudging budgets, moving money around to hide projects that aren't succeeding, or covering up bad decisions. Don't. To the samurai, there were no shades of gray where morality was concerned. Let your conscience be your guide. Those around you will learn to trust you if they are good. Those around you will learn that you are above reproach and won't attempt to involve you in their deceit if they are bad.

Be an example. If you've made a bad decision, control the situation by announcing it and demonstrate a change that will ensure it doesn't happen again. Never let another person uncover your mistake, uncover it yourself. People will learn to stop looking for them.

Honor
A person's conscience is the judge of their honor. Is your conscience clean at the end of the day? Do not fear being fired. If you stick to these principles, only dishonorable companies will fire you. Do not allow yourself to be dishonored for the sake of a job. Your reputation spreads wider than one company.

Additionally, live up to all your commitments. If you cannot then do not make excuses. Bring the issue forward with a new commitment and do not let it slip again. Learn from your error.

This includes the fact that you must say no sometimes. Do not try to be polite by overburdening yourself and failing to live up to your commitments. Also do not commit to executing something that is beyond your control or sphere of influence. You are setting yourself up for failure.

Duty
You are bound by loyalty and duty in three directions. You have a duty to obey your superior as long as your conscience is clean. You must be loyal to your peers and especially those in your charge. Do not insult others behind their back or allow them to be spoken poorly of. Do not allow your direct reports to be overburdened with other's bad planning or decisions. Ensure those around you are set up for success. Do not blame them for your failure.

People will learn to trust you and will support you. If you are in a position of leadership, then those above and below you have placed you in a position of trust. Don't let them down.

Etiquette
Social rules are the grease that keeps the wheels of industry turning without having us get into unnecessary conflict. There is no excuse for impoliteness, even in times of severe stress. Hold the door for someone. Be on time to meetings. Smile. Treat people like people, not machines. You'll get the same in return.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido

Now That's Hands Free

 

Screw bluetooth. That's hands free.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/151811546/boing-boing-gadgets.html

300

Good movie, but not as good as the review. I know the history, and it's surprisingly true to the facts plot-wise while being completely unbelievable character-wise.

I think the movie held up because of the stunning artistic direction and choreography... and the brilliant performance by Lena Headey as the powerful but troubled Queen Gorgo served as a good counterpoint to the single-minded Gerard Butler as King Leonidas.

Just to give an idea of the visuals:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416449/

Jessica Vale: Brand New Disease

My god, this is a good album. Gothy synth-pop... introspective, intelligent, and raw. Somewhere between Curve and the Cure. I can't stop listening to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_vale

Great Work Tips From Dumb Little Man

Work rut is a vicious cycle. Your job is hard and demanding. When you get home the last thing you want to do is think about work. But without the proper planning, your career never improves.

Break the cycle by making small, solid changes on a daily basis. Here are 30 digestible bits of career advice from top blogs like 4-Hour Workweek, The Simple Dollar, Freelance Switch, Zenhabits and more. Try out a tip a day for the next month and transform your career.

Becoming more productive by working less

• Don't let coworkers ramble. Don't put up with "how's it going?" when someone calls you. Force the other person to stick to the point by consistently asking them "what's
  up?" Read More.
  

• Multi-tasking makes projects 30% late. Because your brain has to mentally reset itself which results in a loss of efficiency. Read More.
  

• Meetings that end without action steps. They are a waste of time. Forget notes.
  Writing down concrete action steps is 95% of the battle. Read More.
  

• Construct the perfect email subject line. Tip: label with keywords. Keep short. Read More.
  

• Achieve greatness in 15 minutes. Do all your tasks in fifteen minute chunks. Use a simple kitchen timer. When you know every unpleasant task will end in fifteen minutes, there is no excuse for procrastination or distractions. Read More.
  

• Firewall your attention. Make ‘no’ the default answer for new project. New things should earn their way into your attention field. Read More.
  

• Do only big tasks with big returns. Start with tasks with the greatest positive impact. Everything else is just busy work. Read More.
  

• Turn Facebook into a killer app. Use its calendars and schedules to take care of both your personal and professional interactions in one place. Like it or not, many of your friends are probably also your co-workers. Read More.
  

Don't just tolerate your boss, outsmart him

• How to connect with a boss you hate. It’s easy to come up with a list of all the ways your boss could change to be less annoying, domineering, passive-aggressive, arrogant, etc. But fact is, you can’t change anyone but yourself. Read More.
  

• Earn more money by negotiating without fear. It doesn't matter how much money you make right now. The key is how much you are worth, and how much you want to make. Read More.

• Say no at work by offering an alternative. Think of other people or approaches that will allow your boss to get the job done without your involvement. Offer your boss solutions, not excuses. Read More.

• Control your next performance review. Don't be passive. Develop a game plan, be specific about your needs, and visualize your meeting in advance. Read More.
  

Pimp your workspace

• Is your workspace driving you crazy? Are you being driven mad at work by misplaced walls or the wrong kinds of noise? Take this quiz to see how your office measures up. Read More.
  

• Setting up action areas. Isolate a portion of your desk as an "action area" -- a physical inbox for things that needs doing. The concept: When you walk by, everything you see requires action. If you have a minute, take action. Read More.

• Decorate your workspace with progress. Don't throw your to-do lists away. Save them as trophies of your achievement and an inspiring monument to a job well done. Read More.
  

• Clean up the power cords maze. Transform your workspace with a drill, duct tape, and a monster 12 outlet power strip. Read More.
  

• Need a change of scene? Set up an offsite office. It can be a local café, a favorite park, a pizza place, the library, a shared office space, anywhere that you can go on a regular basis to get out of the office, but still be productive. Read More.
  

• Make your office look like an iPod. Divide up each project into file folders. Since you can only work on one thing at a time, only pull out the one folder you need. Read More.
  

Stop feeling crappy at work

• Recognize that all jobs suck. All companies are dysfunctional. The thing is, they're all dysfunctional in different ways. The secret to happiness is to pick an employer with dysfunctions that will bug you less than the others. Read More.
  

• Take care of yourself when working long hours. Invest in a proper ergonomic chair, exercise your eyeballs, stretch your neck and shoulders, and spend time with humans. Read More.
  

• How to thrive in a job you hate. When something comes up in your job that you hate, feel that. Let yourself feel whatever emotion comes over you. Don't try to hide it inside, or it will just blow out later. Read More.

• Give your resume a facelift. Improve any resume by picking a better typeface (ditch Times for Georgia), removing extra indentations, making it more scannable, and applying typographic detailing. Read More.

How not to get fired

• Stay on top of your game. With time, most of us will lose some of our thirst for knowledge. The more this happens, the more important it becomes to fuel that passion externally to keep driving yourself forward. Read More.
  

• When loyalty gets misinterpreted as incompetence. Working at one company for more than 15 years may actually be a red flag to corporate employers. Long-standing employees are seen as unwilling or even unable to make a move. Read More.
  

• 14 essential tips for meeting a deadline. You have to be serious about meeting deadlines. Make breaking a deadline a cardinal sin. Once you've done this step, the other 13 are just logistics. Read More.
  

• 20 signs that a pink-slip is coming. If you can answer yes to THREE or more of these questions, you may want to think about sprucing up your resume and dry-cleaning your best interview attire. Read More.
  

• 15 things you can do right now to help your career. To get ahead you need to start small and look at immediate steps you can take to help out your situation. Read More.
  

Reinvent your idea of work

• Prioritize your career as your biggest investment. Your annual investment returns are seldom as great as your annual salary. Yet many people spend more time picking stocks than planning their careers. Read More.
  

• Continuous 8 hour work day is an unnatural relic of the past. Productivity levels generally peak twice a day — first thing in the morning and shortly after lunch. Why not switch to a 3-4 hour workday that focuses on the productive times? Read More.
  

• 7 ways to bridge the talent gap. Talent has very little to do with the success of someone who’s just starting out. More important factors are your productivity, attention to detail, versatility, openness to new ideas, and attitude. Read More.

• Detailed road map to self-employment. With a well-considered plan based on some realistic assumptions and some work ethic and willpower, almost anyone can make it happen. Read More.

Of course, life isn't all about moleskine notebooks and GTD lists. Soak in this final tip from the No Impact Man and stop obsessing over the rat race:

"I try to remind myself to stop running from my insecurities and fears, to see them for what they are (illusions), and to have faith in what is. The Buddhists call it returning to the moment. The Christian’s call it trusting in God’s will. The shrinks might call it getting rid of anxiety. The Tao te Ching just says that a man who knows that enough is enough will always have enough."

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DumbLittleMan/~3/147180404/30-ways-to-transform-your-career.html

Interpol: Our Love To Admire

Deep, dark, disturbing and melodic -- this is Interpol's latest album. Great work.

Moving up to a major label has hardly lifted Interpol's spirits. This is a good thing. Even with the twisted Wild Kingdom album cover and bassist Carlos Dengler's unexpected Wild West makeover, on its third studio album the black-clad New York quartet still sounds inflexibly menacing, grasping tighter than ever to its doomy post-punk influences and delving further into frontman Paul Banks's emotional unrest. Everything sounds a little bigger and brighter, sure, but at their core songs like "Rest My Chemistry" and "Wrecking Ball" are heroically sinister, goaded on by prickly riffs and slow-bleeding rhythms. The group briefly jumps to life on the buzzing "Heinrich Manouver" and exhibits an unexpected dash of humor on "No I in Threesome," but it's the closing "Lighthouse" that best defines the set--a late-night lament that simply steals away into the dark. --Aidin Vaziri

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Love-Admire-Interpol/dp/B000PY32CO/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-9689825-1597230?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1187723753&sr=8-1

NIN: Year Zero

I was pretty skeptical of this disc. I didn't get it for several months after it's release, which is odd for me for a Nine Inch Nails disc. Trent's time was over, I thought.

I was wrong. This disc rocks. Total concept album through and through which you don't see much of anymore. Nine Nails Out Of Nine.

This record began as an experiment with noise on a laptop in a bus on tour somewhere. That sound led to a daydream about the end of the world. That daydream stuck with me and over time revealed itself to be much more. I believe sometimes you have a choice in what inspiration you choose to follow and other times you really don't. This record is the latter. Once I tuned into it, everything fell into place... as if it were meant to be. With a framework established, the songs were very easy to write. Things started happening in my "real" life that blurred the lines of what was fiction and what wasn't. The record turned out to be more than a just a record in scale, as you will see over time.

Part one is year zero. Concept record. Sixteen tracks. All written and performed by me, produced / programmed by me and Atticus Ross, mixed by Alan Moulder, mastered by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner. Release date: April 17, 2007.

What's it about? Well, it takes place about fifteen years in the future. Things are not good. If you imagine a world where greed and power continue to run their likely course, you'll have an idea of the backdrop. The world has reached the breaking point - politically, spiritually and ecologically. Written from various perspectives of people in this world, "year zero" examines various viewpoints set against an impending moment of truth. How does it sound? You will hear for yourself soon enough, but given the point of this document is to provide information...

This record is much more of a "sound collage" than recent efforts from me.

A lot of it was improvised. It is very tedious describing your own music. It's not just music. It's probably too long, but it felt like the right thing to do to paint the complete picture. It will sound different after a few listens. You can think about it and it will reveal more than you were expecting. You can dance to a lot of it. You can f*** to a lot of it (maybe all of it depending on what you're into).

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Year-Zero-Nine-Inch-Nails/dp/B000O178BY/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-9689825-1597230?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1187723209&sr=8-1

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

 

 

 

I'm so freakin' bored of these movies... This movie's climactic battle scene is a blatent rip of of Star Wars: A New Hope. Potter/Skywalker watches as Dumbledore/Obiwan fights Valdemort/Vader. Even the color of the magic lighting bolts match the colors of the light sabers used.

Yet, in the end, nothing happens. It feels like I'm watching a stretched out sitcom. Everything's resolved at the end and nothing changes, except Potter has a bit of six o'clock shadow.

Yawn. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373889/

10 Commandments For New Linux Users

1. Thou shalt not log in as root.
   Use “sudo” or “su -” for administrative tasks.
2. Thou shalt use the package manager when possible.
   Sometimes installing from source code can’t be avoided, but when you use your distro’s package manager to install software, you can also use it to update and remove it. This is one of the main strengths of Linux.
3. Thou shalt be a part of the community.
   Freely give what you have received for free. Offer help and advice whenever you can.
4. Thou shalt read documentation and man pages.
   Always read the documentation. The people who wrote the software tried to anticipate your questions, and provided answers before you asked.
5. Thou shalt use the available support system.
   Switching to Linux can be tough. It can be frustrating, but there are a lot of people out there who want to help you. Let them.
6. Thou shalt search.
   In most cases, your question or problem has already been addressed. Try to find the answers that are already out there before asking someone to provide a new one.
   
7. Thou shalt explore.
   Linux opens a whole new world of options and possibilities. Try everything you can.
8. Thou shalt use the command line.
   Especially when it comes to configuration, use the GUI tools to get your system working, but get to know the command line versions as well. In many cases, the command line is the only way to use some of the more advanced features.
9. Thou shalt not try to recreate Windows.
   Linux is not meant to be a clone of Windows. It’s different. Embrace and appreciate the differences.
   
10. Thou shalt not give up.
    I tried several distributions before I found one I liked. I still try other distros from time to time. I also tried several different programs to serve one purpose before settling on what I use now (amarok, xmms, beep, exaile for music - azureus, ktorrent, deluge for bittorrents). If you don’t like the defaults, remember that you can change almost everything to suit you.

http://linuxbraindump.org/2007/08/13/the-10-commandments-for-new-linux-users/

The Jesus Papers

I don't know why I'm attracted to this Da Vinci code stuff. I guess it's my general interest in history and religion... but this Christian mystery stuff is getting out of hand.

Good book though. Micheal Biagent Delves deep into the Egyptian and Mesopotamian linkages with early Christianity and Judaism. The central thesis, and one pretty well put forward (without a shred of real evidence however) is that Jesus didn't die on the cross, he was married to Mary (of course) and interestingly that the raising of Lazarus from the dead wasn't a resurrection --- it was an initiation into Jesus' mystery school. If you look at both ancient Egyptian mystery school and current Masonic initiations, you see a symbolic resurrection from the dead. Very interesting and worth a read. I picked mine up because it was in the sale bin.

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Papers-Exposing-Greatest-Cover-Up/dp/0061146609/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-9689825-1597230?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187533870&sr=8-1

Mr. Bean's Holiday

 

 

 

Very dull and routine for the most part... but when it's funny, it's beer coming out your nose funny.

In a way I'm glad Rowin Atkinson isn't making any more Bean movies. I don't think they work in movie format. If you want to watch Bean at his best, watch his old BBC stuff, like Mr. Bean to the beach.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0453451/

A Scanner Darkly

Mind blowing. I've been a fan of Philip K. Dick for, well, forever. At least since Blade Runner came out.

I was a little hesitant seeing this movie given the hatchet job that Reeves did to William Gibson's Neromancer (Johnny Mnemonic) but I shouldn't have been. This movie is cut straight from the story, the dialog reads right from the pages. It's complex, gritty, self-referential and self-conflicted... and heavily paranoid just like Dick. The fact that it was animated over the movie images (see pic above) makes it work. Must see.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405296/

Jodo Shu

Jodo Shu Buddhism... sounds interesting.
http://www.jodo.org/index.html

Adiago Tea Store

Supposed to be a good on-line store for green tea.
http://www.adagio.com/

The Trouble With Enterprise Software

It's like someone's reading my mind:

According to a multiyear study of over 400 companies by MIT researchers Jeanne Ross, Peter Weill and David Robertson,³ IT departments tend not to be innovative leaders within organizations, but rather conservative forces, viewed by business executives as cost sinks and liabilities. In many companies, it takes the IT department one to two years to implement a new strategic initiative — hardly the agility companies are striving for. The research shows the typical IT structure is so dense and extensive that it’s often a miracle that it works at all. The researchers observe: “Legacy systems cobbled together to respond to each new business initiative create rigidity and excessive costs. Every change becomes a risky, expensive venture.”

The Proliferation of Complexity

How did this happen? James Cordata, who has written extensively about the information economy, points out that as work became more complex and specialized over the 20th century, the use of data — numbers and facts — as fodder for more and more analysis and fact-based decision making intensified. And digital technology “was perfect for this kind of world.”⁴ Of course, digital technology not only supported that complexity but also played a large part in actually creating it, weaving a continuous web of unending data. “More computers are better than fewer” remains a key belief of American business, Cordata says. “There are no limits to how much is good.” Management became accustomed to the idea that buying more computers and more software would continue to cut costs and improve operations.

 

http://evora.mit.edu/smr/issue/2007/fall/01/

The Black Dahlia

 

 

Watched this movie with some hesitation because it sounded dull but had great names in it.

Well, it was dull. And confusing. And apathetic. An uninteresting attempt to ressurect film-noir. Perhaps the book was good, but the movie wasn't.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387877/

Working Mobile

I've become frustrated lately with the inability to work from home. Don't get me wrong, work is great in this regard -- you can Citrix in or VPN. Great... but I want to work anywhere. And I want my data from anywhere. And I want to access whatever tool or site I want.

I know, I'm spoiled, but I've managed to achieve about 99% of what I want now through the following mechanisms:

Webdav

I've enabled a webdav folder on my web server. Webdav stands for web documents and versions and works via http. It would be a very cool protocol if Microsoft hadn't have fucked up the implementation so bad over XP and Vista but I digress. I'm already running Apache on my Linux box so I downloaded and installed Apache Mod_Dav. You turn it on very simply in your httpd.conf file ...

Dav On

You also have to configure a lock db (read the docs for this one), just make sure it's a folder that's writable by your http daemon and make sure the mod_dav modules are loaded.

Next, under XP (from work) go into My Network Places and add a network place, pointing to your server and folder. That's it, it's now mounted like a drive. 

I've transferred all the documents I need out of my "My Documents" folder at work into this folder at my home machine. Now it's accessible anywhere by any windows, Linux, or mac box. Very cool.

PHPProxy

Tired of getting websensed at work? Download PHPProxy and install it (assuming you're running Apache and PHP). It's not a true proxy but will fetch and render pages from your remote server beyond the touch of websense.

XRDP 

Work doesn't allow VNC traffic but does allow RDP (Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol). XRDP builds a bridge between a VNC server on your Linux box and RDP. Plus, almost any machine you touch will be a windows box and have Remote Desktop installed.

Now you can RDP into your home Linux box and use any tool you want.

Google Reader

I'm in love with Google Reader. I had built a php feed aggregator myself but Google Reader just rocks. Very easy to use -- I can go through 300 or so news items every morning in 20 minutes. Very cool.

But the best part is that it's running off of Google's servers, which means that it doesn't matter if I hit it from work, home, my blackberry, or cell phone. It keeps track of my feeds and my unread items. Sweet.

It's annoying that I had to work so hard to be able to work the way that I wanted to -- anywhere, any time, from any device. But now that I've got the above set up, my work aggrevation has dropped and my productivity skyrocketed. 

Ghost Rider

I'll admit, I'm a Ghost Rider fan from way back. My uncle was kind of a hippie biker type when he was young, and I thought he was very cool. And so I read the odd Ghost Rider when I could hide them from my mom. This was back in the day when he looked like this:

 

He was very cool... the "spirit of vengeance" posessed by a demon that took out guys that spilt innocent's blood. How cool is that?

Now we have this Ghost Rider:

Cage's character was actually a pretty good take on Johnny Blaze, the one I grew up with. This wasn't a great movie. Eva Mendez did not do a great job and was not a very memorable or believable love interest. I think they just should've kept her out of it, it made the plot too cumbersome and silly.

 

The villains were stupid. There, I said it. Mephestopholes (the devil) was boring, not evil, and his "son" was the main enemy fought by GR during the movie. He was just a punky kid with some loser friends... and you didn't care when he won, when he lost, or how he died. 

 

 

 

 This movie wasn't bad. Worth a watch if you're a fan. The effects were cool, and Cage was good... really funny actually.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0259324/

Douglas Adams Interview: Is there an Artificial God?

 

In honour of Douglas' memory, Biota.org presents the transcript of his speech at Digital Biota 2, held at Magdelene College Cambridge, in September 1998. I would like to thank Steve Grand for providing this to us. Douglas presented this ''off the cuff'' which only magnifies his true genius in our eyes. -- Bruce Damer

This was originally billed as a debate only because I was a bit anxious coming here. I didn't think I was going to have time to prepare anything and also, in a room full of such luminaries, I thought 'what could I, as an amateur, possibly have to say'? So I thought I would settle for a debate. But after having been here for a couple of days, I realised you're just a bunch of guys! It's been rife with ideas and I've had so many myself through talking with and listening to people that I'd thought what I'd do was stand up and have an argument and debate with myself. I'll talk for a while and hope sufficiently to provoke and inflame opinion that there'll be an outburst of chair- throwing at the end.

Before I embark on what I want to try and tackle, may I warn you that things may get a little bit lost from time to time, because there's a lot of stuff that's just come in from what we've been hearing today, so if I occasionally sort of go… I was telling somebody earlier today that I have a four-year-old daughter and was very, very interested watching her face when she was in her first 2 or 3 weeks of life and suddenly realising what nobody would have realised in previous ages - she was rebooting!

I just want to mention one thing, which is completely meaningless, but I am terribly proud of - I was born in Cambridge in 1952 and my initials are D N A!

http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/

Water Found In Extrasolar Planet's Atmosphere

Amazing... SETI's going to get a real kick in the ass from the planet hunters soon.

Scientists have, for the first time, conclusively discovered the presence of water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet beyond our Solar System, according to an article appearing in Nature.

They made the discovery by analysing the transit of the gas giant HD 189733b across its star, in the Infrared using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

Giovanna Tinetti, ESA fellow at the Institute d’Astrophysique de Paris, and colleagues from around the world, targeted planet HD 189733b, 63 light-years away, in the constellation Vulpecula.

The planet was discovered in 2005 as it dimmed the light of its parent star by some three percent when transiting in front of it.

Using Spitzer, Tinetti and the team observed the star, which is slightly fainter than the Sun, as its starlight dim at two infrared bands (3.6 and 5.8 micrometres).

Had the planet been a rocky body devoid of atmosphere, both these bands and a third one (8 micrometres), recently measured by a team at Harvard, would have shown the same behaviour.

Instead, as the atmosphere absorbed less infrared radiation at 3.6 micrometres than at the other two wavelengths indicating the presence of water vapour.

“Water is the only molecule that can explain that behaviour,” says Tinetti.

 

http://pressesc.com/01184180642_water_extrasolar

Spook Country

William Gibson's got a new book coming out... "Spook Country." I can't wait.

Tito is in his early twenties. Born in Cuba, he speaks fluent Russian, lives in one room in a NoLita warehouse, and does delicate jobs involving information transfer.

Hollis Henry is an investigative journalist, on assignment from a magazine called Node. Node doesn't exist yet, which is fine; she's used to that. But it seems to be actively blocking the kind of buzz that magazines normally cultivate before they start up. Really actively blocking it. It's odd, even a little scary, if Hollis lets herself think about it much. Which she doesn't; she can't afford to.

Milgrim is a junkie. A high-end junkie, hooked on prescription antianxiety drugs. Milgrim figures he wouldn't survive twenty-four hours if Brown, the mystery man who saved him from a misunderstanding with his dealer, ever stopped supplying those little bubble packs. What exactly Brown is up to Milgrim can't say, but it seems to be military in nature. At least, Milgrim's very nuanced Russian would seem to be a big part of it, as would breaking into locked rooms.

Bobby Chombo is a "producer," and an enigma. In his day job, Bobby is a troubleshooter for manufacturers of military navigation equipment. He refuses to sleep in the same place twice. He meets no one. Hollis Henry has been told to find him.

http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/books/spook.asp

10 Essential Habits for Freelance Workers

Great advice written especially for contractors but equally good for employees too. I try to think of myself as self employed even though I'm happily employed full-time. Keeps you disciplined and is a constant reminder that your employment status can change any time.

Here they are — 10 essential habits for freelance workers:

Market yourself. When you first start out, no one knows you. You can hang your sign above your door, or on your website, but don’t expect people to knock down your door the first day. Instead, you’ll need to constantly market yourself — something that can seem distasteful to many of us, I know. But it’s the only way to survive and thrive. Email people (don’t spam), call potential clients, go to events where you might meet potential clients, advertise if you have the money, network. Make this a regular part of your day or work week. See the 10 essential marketing skills for freelancers for more.

Be persistent. It’s not enough to send out a single email or make a single call and then forget about it if you don’t get a response. Unless the person flat out says no, you need to follow up and remind them, set up a meeting, send a sample of your work. Again, don’t be spammy, and don’t be annoying, but learn to follow things up politely so that you’re not forgotten. It’s easy for a potential client to forget you in the rush of all the things they have to do. It’s your responsibility to make sure they don’t.

Be professional. No one likes a spammer, no one wants to hire a slacker, and no one is looking to give money to an amateur. In all communications with clients or potential clients, be as professional as possible. Be prompt, be responsible, be credible. Don’t come across as someone who is “just trying things out” or “would like a shot” — act confident, as if you sell this service every day, for years now, and are looking for just one more client (although don’t lie about it). If people think you are a professional, they are more likely to give you a shot.

Set and meet deadlines. If you are given work, be sure to get the scope of the work, any necessary details, and especially a deadline that you agree upon and that you can meet. If not, the client might expect it sooner than you think, or even worse, the client might not care, and you could drag the work on forever. Best to have a deadline, to give you the pressure of having to get the work done. And when you have a deadline, do your utmost best to meet it, even if it means staying up all night to do so. Constantly missing deadlines looks very unprofessional. If you start to miss deadlines, re-evaluate your workload, and your estimate for how long it takes to complete an assignment. And if you are going to miss a deadline, be sure to communicate with your client as often as possible, letting them know that you are running longer than you thought, apologizing and explaining why, and when you will have it. Then meet that new timeline.

Find focus. Being a freelancer means that you can work on whatever you want, whenever you want to. You don’t have a boss to push you. So you have to be your own boss. Concentrate on your current task or project, and eliminate distractions so that you can focus on this one task. Get everything else out of the way, and really focus. Otherwise, you’ll never get it done.

Find time. Again, you can work any time of the day. Which can mean that you don’t work at all, or as little as possible. Instead, have a set time when you work, or a couple of set periods, and stick to that schedule. If you don’t have a schedule, you’ll likely wander all over the place and get little done.

Awesome quality. This should probably go without saying, but you shouldn’t turn in shoddy work. Take pride in the quality of your work, and have the client respond with a “Wow!” There is no better way of generating future business than doing remarkable work with your current client. When you’re done with an assignment, go over it again, and look for mistakes, and ways you can improve.

Follow up. Don’t just turn in an assignment and forget about it. Make it a habit to do follow-up communication with the client, so that you are sure that they are happy with the service. Find out what they liked, what they’d like to see improved next time, if there are ways to improve the process and communication. And see if they have future assignments. Continue to build that relationship.

Billing. Many of us don’t really like to deal with billing issues, but it’s a necessity for freelancers. I’ve only recently learned the habit of tracking my work, along with dates, so that I can have an accurate invoice. It’s good to log your work as you go, or as soon as you’re done, so that you don’t forget later. And set up email or calendar reminders so that you send out invoices on time, and follow up on the invoices if they’re not paid immediately.

Building a rep. Actually, all of the above habits contribute to this one, but it’s so important that it deserves a little focus. It should be your long-term strategy to build a credible reputation as someone who is professional, gets work done on time, and does an awesome job on every assignment. If you do this, and follow up with clients, they will be highly impressed with you, and not only use you in the future, but recommend you to others. Over time, your reputation will increase, and so will your assignments, and revenues.

 

 

http://freelanceswitch.com/freelancing-essentials/10-essential-habits-for-freelance-workers/

7 Practical Steps to Turn Around a Bad Experience

Everybody has a crappy day at work or says something really stupid to the wife or kids at home. Everybody blows it sometimes, but here's some great advice -- especially for the workplace -- to grow from it. I especially like #7:

7) Stop Analyzing and Start Doing Something New

There is a maximum limit to how much you can learn from an experience. That limit is actually fairly small with an isolated incident. If you give one speech and it fails, you might be able to learn one or two points of improvement. That’s it. Anything you “learn” after this threshold is just speculation which is often incorrect.

I’ve seen people in failed relationships, goals that went sour or broken commitments, try to learn everything from just one failure. Unfortunately, the only way you can learn isn’t just to fail once but to fail dozens of times. Trying to scoop up too much information on a bad situation just leaves you feeling miserable with the false sensation that you are accomplishing something useful.

After you’ve gathered a couple learning points, stop. Start doing something new. Pick out a new goal and move forward. After all, isn’t that what failures are for? To give you a small learning point and direct you towards bigger and better things?

 

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/management/7-practical-steps-to-turn-around-a-bad-experience.html

The Omen (2006)

 

 

 

A servicable horror movie, but adds nothing to the original, which is way better. Watchable, but not much more.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0466909/

Cool Active Electrical Research Stations In Russia

Gotta see these to believe it...

Russian countryside yields sometimes most improbable sights - abandoned artifacts and installations from bizarre military/scientific research, strangely futuristic forms left to rust and decay - to be found by a curious photographer. "Master" stumbled upon this installation close to Russian city of Istra (50 km from Moscow) quite by chance, and these mysterious shots were percolating for a while around the web, until the answer was found. According to this little, cryptic, and quite secretive website, the weird alien-like towers are the Experimental Grounds for High-Voltage Generation, the only open-air kind in the world. Amazingly, it's still in use... as the powerful lightnings rip through the night and the darkened forest - much like in "The Prestige" movie.

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/07/creepy-high-voltage-installations.html

New Baby

 

 

Wow, what a crazy time. Baby Zack is our third son and was born at 7 minutes to 1:00 AM on July 30, 2007. He was 7lbs, 13oz and 21 inches long, our longest baby by two inches. Third time's a charm, and he was no exception. The birthing was very fast, Hiyat pushed for maybe 15 minutes. It was so fast that his face was brused from the speed of the delivery.

If it wasn't for the fact that she didn't get the epidural until the very last second it would've been the easiest birth by far. The staff at the hospital were very busy that night, many, many babies came then. It was a full moon and they always say more babies come then.

It was a very cool experience. This time, only Hiyat and I were in the room (with the doctor and nurse of course). It was really mellow and calm, with flashes of lightning coming in through the window.

Zack, like our other kids, is a very mellow baby. In fact, as soon as we brought him home, he folded his hands together just like Gabe did -- something I've never seen any other babies do.

Welcome to the world, Zack. We love you.

 

http://mitchellfamily.ca/Zack.php

A Simple Guide To Setting Goals

Good entry on goal setting -- something I'm not very good at.

I’ve finally realized that I need to put together a 5-year plan to continue my personal development and reach goals. I’ve found your post, Think About Your Life Goals , and it’s started me in the right direction, but left a lot of open questions. To start, I really don’t know what questions I should ask myself to get to the items I really want (if I even know what I really want in the first place). Is there some sort of personal plan worksheet that you know of that would cover the complete realm of development? I feel that I would be more successful if I could easily view my goals and track my progress within one main document.

http://zenhabits.net/2007/06/a-simple-guide-to-setting-and-achieving-your-life-goals/

Human Civilization 400000 Years Old?

Human civilization could be 400000 years old.

Our earliest ancestors gave up hunter-gathering and took to a settled life up to 400,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to controversial research.

The accepted timescale of Man’s evolution is being challenged by a German archaeologist who claims to have found evidence that Homo erectus — mankind’s early ancestor, who migrated from Africa to Asia and Europe — began living in settled communities long before the accepted time of 10,000 years ago.

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1980396.ece

Terraforming Mars and Venus

How to terraform Mars and Venus

As distinguished from previous proposals for large-scale planetary engineering projects employing passive, explosive, orbital mechanical or biological agents to terraform various planets of the Solar System, the present paper offers an alternative means: Machine self-replicating systems (SRS). Terraforming via SRS involves the deposition of a small "seed" unit near the surface of the body to be altered, which then self-replicates into a giant factory complex capable of undertaking permanent modification of the target environment. SRS terraforming methods are suggested for Mars and Venus.

http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/TerraformSRS1983.htm

Shift Happens

Cool...

 

http://www.slideshare.net/jbrenman/shift-happens-33834/

Asshole Driven Development

Forget Test Driven Development, XP, or Agile, I'm a fan of Asshole Driven Development. And guess who the Asshole is.

Asshole Driven development (ADD) - Any team where the biggest jerk makes all the big decisions is asshole driven development. All wisdom, logic or process goes out the window when Mr. Asshole is in the room, doing whatever idiotic, selfish thing he thinks is best. There may rules and processes, but Mr. A breaks them and people follow anyway.

Cognitive Dissonance development (CDD) - In any organization where there are two or more divergent beliefs on how software should be made. The tension between those beliefs, as it’s fought out in various meetings and individual decisions by players on both sides, defines the project more than any individual belief itself.

Cover Your Ass Engineering (CYAE) - The driving force behind most individual efforts is to make sure than when the shit hits the fan, they are not to blame.

Development By Denial (DBD) - Everybody pretends there is a method for what’s being done, and that things are going ok, when in reality, things are a mess and the process is on the floor. The worse things get, the more people depend on their denial of what’s really happening, or their isolation in their own small part of the project, to survive.

Get Me Promoted Methodology (GMPM) - People write code and design things to increase their visibility, satisfy their boss’s whims, and accelerate their path to a raise or the corner office no matter how far outside of stated goals their efforts go. This includes allowing disasters to happen so people can be heroes, writing hacks that look great in the short term but crumble after the individual has moved on, and focusing more on the surface of work than its value.

 

http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2007/asshole-driven-development/

Top 5 Amarok Tips

If you're an Amarok user, you'll dig this...

A part of the KDE suite of applications, Amarok has been around for a while. It continues to be one of the most widely used audio players in Linux, partly in thanks to the fact that it's included in many distros. It was originally developed as a means to replace and outperform XMMS, and oddly enough it was those goals that made me first give it a try. Despite the fact that I've been using Amarok for a few years now, I continue to stumble on features I didn't know existed, and also easier ways of handling simple tasks.

In this short article, I will be relaying a few of my favorite features of Amarok that you just may not know about. I have to mention that depending on your distro or method or installation, some features may not be automatically available to you. Also, some of these features are more obvious than others, but might be largely ignored for those lacking investigative motivation ;-)

 

http://techgage.com/article/top_five_amarok_tips

Mandriva: No Deal Microsoft

Excellent...

Novell, Xandros and Linspire have signed well publicized agreements with Microsoft.

Rumors on the Web have hinted that we might be next on the list. So we would like to clarify our position.

At Mandriva, we believe working in heterogeneous environments is essential to our customers. So, interoperability between the Windows and Linux world is important and must be dealt with, and anything that helps this interoperability is a good thing.

We also believe the best way to deal with interoperability is open standards, such as ODF which we support strongly and we are ready to cooperate with everyone on these topics.

As far as IP is concerned, we are, to say the least, not great fans of software patents and of the current patent system, which we consider as counter productive for the industry as a whole.

We also believe what we see, and up to now, there has been absolutely no hard evidence from any of the FUD propagators that Linux and open source applications are in breach of any patents. So we think that, as in any democracy, people are innocent unless proven guilty and we can continue working in good faith.

So we don’t believe it is necessary for us to get protection from Microsoft to do our job or to pay protection money to anyone.

We plan to keep developing and distributing innovative and exciting products and making them available to the largest number in the true spirit of open source.

François Bancilhon

 

http://corp.mandriva.com/webteam/2007/06/19/we-will-not-go-to-canossa/

Brilliant Star Wars Robot Chicken

http://www.superdeluxe.com/sd/contentDetail.do?id=D81F2344BF5AC7BBFC30C8F3869BC6466EB49C7FC9D9D87A

Pic of the Outer Universe -- Thousands Of Galaxies

We are nothing... wow.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/96664main_galaxy_string_4.jpg

Star Trek The Animated Series: Beyond The Farthest Star

This was one of the coolest shows I saw as a kid... and it was a short story too.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4ud9rkz9hs

Brilliant Commentary On Paris Hilton

From Stephen Colbert and Tommy Chong... 

More Evidence For A Wet Mars

 

 

 

More and more evidence of past, and perhaps present, water on Mars.

The new findings by the joint research team provide strong evidence that ragged, kilometre-high features on the planet's surface are actually the shorelines of the ancient seas.

Experts have debated the issue since the 1970s, when the Viking spacecraft located the features which seemed much like coastal formations on Earth...

On Earth, by comparison, similar shorelines remain relatively flat in comparison to sea level, casting doubt on the theory that the features marked the borders of an ancient ocean.

But Mitrovica argues that those dramatic topographical differences can be explained by the theory that the planet's spin axis shifted sometime in the past 2 to 3 billion years, deforming the shorelines and causing the geographic ups and downs.

A major shift of mass, possibly triggered by a volcanic eruption, caused the pole to wander about 50 degrees towards its current location, dramatically warping the topography and the ancient shorelines, he told CTV.ca.

 

 

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070613/mars_study_070613/20070613?hub=TopStories

Good vibrations? Bad? None at all?

Interesting... ever think your cell phone is vibrating and you go to answer it, but nobody's calling you? Happens to me all the time, and I'm not alone.

"When we learn to respond to a cellphone, we're setting perceptual filters so that we can pick out that (ring or vibration), even under noisy conditions," Lleras says. "As the filter is created, it is imperfect, and false alarms will occur. Random noise is interpreted as a real signal, when in fact, it isn't."

Phantom cellphone vibrations also can be explained by neuroplasticity — the brain's ability to form new connections in response to changes in the environment.

When cellphone users regularly experience sensations, such as vibrating, their brains become wired to those sensations, Janata says.

"Neurological connections that have been used or formed by the sensation of vibrating are easily activated," he says. "They're over-solidified, and similar sensations are incorporated into that template. They become a habit of the brain."

 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-06-12-cellphones_N.htm?csp=34

The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

 

 

I'm always surprised at how down to earth the Dalai Lama seems. I'm sure this book has gone through tons of editing and translating, but the simplicity, humbleness, and wisdom comes through.

Buddhism is one of the few religions that really speaks to me, partly because of it's empirical falsifiability... testing the techniques and processes is encouraged and required for progress. Just like with Aikido.

The Dalai Lama's position is interesting too -- he has said that if science refutes something completely (like reincarnation) that Buddhists must change their position. Truth is truth.

A recommended read.

As the Dalai Lama observes in this wise and humble book, dialog between scientists and those interested in spirituality is important because science is not neutral; it can be used for good or ill, and we must approach scientific inquiry with compassion and empathy. Similarly, a spirituality that ignores science can quickly become a rigid fundamentalism. Sometimes the Dalai Lama discovers similarities between the two fields. For example, Einstein's idea that time is relative dovetails neatly with Buddhist philosophical understandings of time. Still, His Holiness does not accept all scientific thinking as holy writ: though he is intrigued by scientific stories of origins, like the Big Bang theory, Buddhism holds that the universe is "infinite and beginningless." The penultimate chapter brings ethical considerations to bear on technological advancements in genetics. The Dalai Lama gently suggests that although parents who select certain genetic traits for their children may intend to give their children a leg up, they may in fact simply be capitulating to a social pressure that favors, say, boys over girls or tall people over short. He also cautions that we do not know the long-term consequences of genetically modifying our crops. In fact, it is disappointing that the Dalai Lama devotes only 18 pages to these urgent and complex topics. Perhaps this prolific author has a sequel in the works.

http://www.amazon.com/s/002-0594972-1093624?ie=UTF8&tag=mozilla-20&index=blended&link%5Fcode=qs&field-keywords=universe%20in%20a%20single%20atom&sourceid=Mozilla-search