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

Best Essay Answers

 

http://digg.com/offbeat_news/Answers_i_wish_i_thought_of

Puddles Found On Mars?

 

 

There appears to be a little contraversy over the images, but it looks like the real thing -- you can even see ripples in the water and small stones through it.

A new analysis of pictures taken by the exploration rover Opportunity reveals what appear to be small ponds of liquid water on the surface of Mars.

The report identifies specific spots that appear to have contained liquid water two years ago, when Opportunity was exploring a crater called Endurance. It is a highly controversial claim, as many scientists believe that liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars today because of the planet’s thin atmosphere.

If confirmed, the existence of such ponds would significantly boost the odds that living organisms could survive on or near the surface of Mars, says physicist Ron Levin, the report's lead author, who works in advanced image processing at the aerospace company Lockheed Martin in Arizona.

Update: Looks like they're wrong. According to this site, it's probably just silt:

 

It's pretty easy to debunk this... just start off with a raw blue-biased 257 of the area... find a nearby rock imaged in 456'o-colour, and then use it as a baseline for balancing up the 257... do that and you get something a bit like this, not scientific, not accurate, but makes the cool clear, blue waters of Barsoom evaporate faster than Paris Hilton's hopes of another early release...

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12026-mars-rover-finds-puddles-on-the-planets-surface.html

Lost Chapter From HG Wells' Time Machine

Apparently there was a whole chapter on the Grey Man which was cut because it was too depressing... here's a snippet:

"I traversed one day and stopped again, hoping to find colossus gone and some vestige of my victim; but, I should judge, the giant centipede did not trouble itself about bones. At any rate both had vanished. The faintly human touch of these little creatures perplexed me greatly. If you come to think, there is no reason why a degenerate humanity should not come at last to differentiate into as many species as the descendants of the mud fish who fathered all the land vertebrates. I saw no more of any insect colossus, as to my thinking the segmented creature must have been. Evidently the physiological difficulty that at present keeps all the insects small had been surmounted at last, and this division of the animal kingdom had arrived at the long awaited supremacy which its enormous energy and vitality deserve. I made several attempts to kill or capture another of the greyish vermin, but none of my missiles were so successful as my first; and, after perhaps a dozen disappointing throws, that left my arm aching, I felt a gust of irritation at my folly in coming so far into futurity without weapons or equipment. I resolved to run on for one glimpse of the still remoter future—one peep into the deeper abysm of time—and then to return to you and my own epoch. Once more I remounted the machine, and once more the world grew hazy and grey.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Grey_Man

Crashes Worse Than Breakups

http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyimages/115.gif

Star Trek: Encounters

 

 

Why do Star Trek games have to suck?
Klingon Academy was good. The rest... weren't. Birth of the Federation was OK... but this one is almost unplayable.
Control is hard, the missions are long (with no save points!) and the graphics aren't very good -- all you have to do is render a couple of space ships guys!

A disappointment. But I'm a Trekkie so I'll still play it ;) 

http://startrek.bethsoft.com/games/encounters-overview.html

Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids

 

 

A very strange book and a true feat of paranoia.

It runs the gamut from really cool, breathtaking research into the Priory of Scion, the Trilateral Commission, and the US's history of economic imperialism -- but then it devolves rapidly into reporting second hand allegations from flaky authors like David Ike (the Reptilians are running the show) to Zacharia Stichin (the Annunakai created us as slaves). No proof or hard evidence is offered, this is left to the reader to decide.

Ultimately the book fails because of the more weird, purely speculative work included and this unfortunatly gives the good research in the book discredit.

For example, did you know:

In early 1963 a special study group was selected to study the hypothetical problems of peace just as government think tanks such as the and and Hudson Institutes studied war. The fifteen members of this group have never been publicly identified, but it reportedly included highly regarded historians, economists, sociologists, psychologists, scientists, and even an astronomer and industrialist. The group met about once a month at various locations around the nation.
But its principal meetings were at Iron Mountain, a huge underground corporate "nuclear hideout" near Hudson, New York, site of the Hudson institution, widely regarded as a CFR think tank. Here, in case of nuclear
attack, were housed redundant corporate offices of Rockefeller-controlled Standard Oil of New Jersey, the Morgan bank, Manufacturers Hanover Trust, and Dutch Shell Oil, then headed by Bilderberger founder Prince Bernhard...

The Iron Mountain "boys" listed hese possible substitutes for the "functions of war":
—a comprehensive social-welfare program
—a giant, open-ended space research program aimed at unreachable
targets (missions to Jupiter, etc.)
—a permanent, ritualized, ultra elaborate disarmament inspection
system (as in Iraq and Bosnia)
—an omnipresent, virtually omnipotent international police force (a
UN peacekeeping force as in the Persian Gulf War or the Balkans)
—an established and recognized extraterrestrial menace (UFOs and
alien abductions)
—massive global environmental pollution
—fictitious alternate enemies (Saddam Hussein, Muammar Quaddafi,
Slobodan Milosevic, and whoever follows them)
—programs generally derived from the Peace Corps model (the Job
Corps, Volunteers in Service to America)
—a modern, sophisticated form of slavery (addressed above)
—new religions or other mythologies (New Age theologies, cults, etc.)
—socially oriented blood games (the National Football League,
World Wrestling Federation)
—a comprehensive program of applied eugenics (abortion and birth
control)

Also, did you know that the current George "Dubya" Bush's grandfather, George Bush Sr's father, was convicted of colluding with the Nazis and profiteering during WWII? And this is where the Bush's family fortune came from?

Good stuff for the first half of the book or so. I wish Marrs would've ended there.

http://www.amazon.com/Rule-Secrecy-Trilateral-Commission-Freemasons/dp/0060931841

X-Men: The Last Stand

Not good.
Boring, choppy, full of plot holes and mistakes...

And I honestly didn't care that they were killing off main characters left, right, and center. That can't be a good sign.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376994/