Science: The journal of Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion

Science: The journal of Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion just announced a possible breakthrough for astronauts enduring long-distance space travel. The earth is protected from meteorites, high velocity cosmic rays, and other space debris from its surrounding "magnetosphere". Cutting edge physicists aim to simulate this magnetosphere around a space craft. Scientists intelligiently merely mimicked the sophisticated protection mechanism already surrounding the earth and voila, a new breakthrough that could extend space travel incredibly.

Bottom-Line: Magnetic Force field aims to protect astronauts from space harshness.

Future astronauts could benefit from a magnetic "umbrella" that deflects harmful space radiation around their crew capsule, scientists say.
The super-fast charged particles that stream away from the Sun pose a significant threat to any long-duration mission, such as to the Moon or Mars.
But the research team says a spaceship equipped with a magnetic field generator could protect its occupants.
Lab tests are reported in the journal Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion.
The approach mimics the protective field that envelops the Earth, known as the magnetosphere.
Astronauts' risk
Our star is a constant source of charged particles, and storms that arise on the Sun's surface result in huge numbers of these particles spilling into space.
As well as this plasma, or "solar wind", high velocity particles known as cosmic rays also flood through our galaxy.
The Earth's magnetosphere deflects many of these particles that rain down on the planet, and our atmosphere absorbs most of the rest.

The first time we switched it on, it worked
Ruth Bamford
International space agencies acknowledge that astronauts face a significant risk of ill health and even death if they experience major exposure to this harsh environment.
And even the spacecraft themselves are not immune to the effects. A solar flare crippled the electronics on Japan's mission to Mars, Nozomi, in 2002, for example.
But researchers from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), the Universities of York and Strathclyde, and IST Lisbon have shown how it might be possible to create a portable mini-magnetosphere for spaceships.
People scale
In its experimental set-up, the team simulated the solar wind in the laboratory and used magnetic fields to isolate an area inside the plasma, deflecting particles around the "hole".
It was not initially clear the idea would work, said Ruth Bamford, who led the research.
"There was a belief that you couldn't make a little hole in the solar wind small enough to do this at all," Dr Bamford, from RAL, told BBC News.
"It was believed that you had to have something very large, approaching planetary scale, to work in this way."
The team has had to take into account the physics of plasmas at the comparatively tiny human scale. To create its metre-sized trial, the team used a plasma jet and a simple $20 magnet.
"The first time we switched it on, it worked," said Dr Bamford.
What is more, the trial field seems to adjust itself automatically. "It does have the capacity to be somewhat self-regulating, just like the Earth's magnetosphere is," Dr Bamford explained.
"When it gets a strong push from the solar wind, the bubble gets smaller. The video shows us increasing the pressure of the solar wind, and the shield gets smaller but brighter."
Power issues
Many more experiments are needed, Dr Bamford admits, to understand how best to harness the effect; and a practical implementation is probably 15 to 20 years away.

The approach mimics how the Earth's magnetic field deflects cosmic rays
To protect a spaceship and its crew, she said, the craft itself might carry the magnetic field generator. Alternatively, it was possible to envisage a constellation of accompanying ships dedicated to the purpose of providing the umbrella where it was needed most.
The approach will probably also work with a field that is not on constantly, but cycles on and off - conserving the power that is precious on long-term missions. The details of how to cycle the field and control its shape must be hammered out, however.
"There're a lot of things to work out, like control, reliability, weight to launch, and so on," said Dr Bamford.
"I don't think it'll come down to as little as sticking fridge magnets on the outside of the spacecraft."

Tuesday News Blip: Apple Innovations, Stocks Skyrocket, and More D

Technology: Apple's innovation cease to amaze. The cutting edge rumor is that they intend to release a special laptop known as "the brick". Doing its name justice, "the brick" is supposedly carved out of a solid "brick" of titanium, making it seamless and screwless! The price for such water-blasting crafted item sounds like it would be extraordinary. While it may not be 100% indesctructible, the durability of Apple's new laptop technology will be a practically unprecedented release sturdy portability. Here are some cool factoids about it:

Macenstein had the best prediction of its bizarre codename:

"it is likely that it is simply a name for an upcoming product (or group of products) that Apple thinks will be sexy enough to pull a huge marketshare away from Microsoft. After all, how do you break “Windows”? You throw a brick through them!"

iPhone Savior predicts it will be some kind of new mac mini:

"a re-design of the Mac Mini super-sized to reveal a Mac Mini Pro of sorts."

Whatever this new innovation will be, it officeally releases (if on schedule) today. So it will be exciting to find out.

Bottom-line: Apple's iBrick's creating a sensational quality hype.

Economy: We've heard a lot of people griping (others outright wailing) about the economic slump, specifically of the stock market. Well, good news for all. Pessimists complained that the stock market was as bad as it was during the Great Depression. Maybe, but I'm an optimist and now I recognize is as flourishing as it was during the Decade of the Glorious (but of course after the Great Depression and without the distorted Keynesian economic blunders that caused the drop nearly 6 dozen years ago). And evidence of our recently flourishing economy lies in the crisp numbers of the stock market: stocks skyrocketed 11% yesterday, which is the biggest jump since 1933. So clearly, optimism will always prevail over of the pessimists.

The cause of this? Not so reassuring. Many believe this will hurt more then help the economy, but the Bush Administration shifted into a "$250 billion of the $700 billion bailout program recently passed by Congress to purchase stock in U.S. banks, providing the banks with desperately needed money" and the FDIC will temporarily provide insurance loans for the banks as well. Why would the Bush administration do such a maneuver when he's practically no longer in office? Possibly a somewhat desperate attempt to boost the economy, or malevolent ploy to screw with the economy before it shifts into more adept hands. hehe. Probably the former.

Apple stock shot up a whopping 13.26 points yesterday, too, so apparently "the iBrick" (see above) made an impression on shareholders.

Bottom-line: Stocks sky-rocket because banks rework a bailout plan.

Health: New breakthroughs in nutritional science have shown recent significance of Vitamin D in building bones and preventing cancer. Preventing cancer, after all, is simply about creating balance in the body. Scientists don't understand the direct cause of cancer so they create all these assumptions of measures to take to indirectly prevent it. Undoubtedly taking more of a balance of Vitamins will create body balance and it's that physiological equilibrium that ultimately prevents any kind of deterioration in the body (cancer included). So in another few months scientists will have a "big breakthrough" stating that we need to be taking more Vitamin A! And then more Zinc! etc. Framing these as real breakthroughs would be impractical; they do serve a good purpose though; old-fashioned reminders to take in healthy Vitamins. People are more apt to change their habits (in this case "vitamin consumption") if it's labeled as a "new breakthrough". In any case, you can get more D in smelly fish like mackarel, tuna, and sardines, supplements, or our sun.

Bottom-line: Double your intake of Vitamin D.

News Blip: LHC

The Large Hadron Collider was such massive news that it definitely needs its own article.

LHC will reveal to us details about dark and antimatter. It's like an opportunity to replicate some never before-seen conditions, and answer millions of unknown questions; doing that, sometimes scares people! haha.

It excites me and most scientists, too, though.

Basically it gives us an inside look into how the universe was created, re-manufacturing some big-bang like instances that will answer jumbles of of scientific questions, clarify models (like the Stand Model) that were purely theoretical practically, and illuminate a lot of "shaky and uncertain" areas of science. Basically the LHC will provide is with a "Director's Cut Edition" on the making of the movie of the "Universe". haha!

Here's the breakdown of what the components will do. They basically track different things, some of which we haven't ever known about until now.

Anti-matter tracking -- LHCb is in charge of this. We've got a TON of matter in the universe, but can't seem to find the anti-matter! The big bang had equal amounts of matter and anti-matter, but all we've been able to put our fingers on is matter. LHCb will track where the anti-matter goes in the miniaturized, microscopic Big Bang replica.

Quark-Gluon Plasma tracking -- ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) will track liquid-like plasma that existed ONLy after the big bang, so that'll clear that up.

Dark Matter & Higgs Boson tracking -- CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) and ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus) both function as the core kind of general all-purpose tracking dark matter and the so-called "god particle". Understanding the Higgs Boson particle's (the only unobserved particle of the Standard Model) role in the univese could reveal how massless energy transformed into mass.

Other Dimension, Origins of Matter, and new Physics tracking -- ATLAS will scope out all of these new ground-breaking discoveries.

The Higgs Boson particle (along with quarks, leptons, photons, and gluon particles) is a key particle in the Standard Model, but unlike all the other 4, it's purely theoretical. The LHC will hopefully prove the existence of the Higgs Boson, completing a major puzzle piece to the cosmological big picture.

While the LHC Rap video


is award-winning, this debriefing



is the most ilustrative I've seen.

Finally, this video


had some great invterviews from an eclectic handful of CERN scientists and physicists.

POP Suite Part 4: Electronic Organization and "Brain Trust" Part 2

If there's one thing I have to say about electronic organization, it's this: close open loops FAST! I've surfed the net many a time and accumulated 8 open windows, and over 30 tabs in less than an hour. That's a lot to sort through. Just develop the habit of executing lightning-fast decisions to quickly archive, capture, delete, discard, dismiss, are do things that catch your interest. In fact, the general rule of thumb should be "nothing should catch your interest for too long!"

Okay, I speak a lot about soft-copy containers. Do that, that's great. I believe you should start extremely low-level so you develop patterns and experience how a structured GTD program could expedite stuff you already do. If you just jump into a program, you'll likely never learn good core GTD practices. However, after working with .txt files for awhile, the program I recommend jumping into is "Things". It's exceptional and amazing; possessing the fluidity of omnifocus but without omnifocus's cluttered, superfluous "junk" options. You'll use just about every feature in the program. The hotkeys for tags and the unstructured fluid concept of tags makes adding tasks seamless and fun. Additionally the fact that each task as a max of only 4 highly useable components (name, tags, notes, due date) makes this app intuitive and simple. No need to go into an in-depth explanation of how it works. A video demo has already been done.

A solid GTD must be simple, intuitive, and not add to clutter in your life! MANY GTD apps actually increase clutter because of the multiple annoying, superfluous, patheticall useles check boxes and extra options for each tasks (Omnifocus does the extra clutter method perfect, so don't use that). Things has the speed and extensibility to get a LOT organized quickly but it still has all the geeky awesome GTD features to shift around tasks automatically and structure them via tags. If you've used mailtags, you'll feel at home with Things, but it's far better than Mailtags. It's definitely an exceptional program where you aren't locked into "contexts" but have the freedom to tag based on context or whatever you choose. While omnifocus is rigid and annoying, Things offers dynamic flexibility with tags. I tried Actiontastic, Omnifocus, and others, and this definitely takes the entire cake. Nothing is better than Devonthink for file structuring and truly limitless database organization of todos, but nothing is better than things for Task management. Together you'll have the most potent gtd system possible. But Actiontastic is great, simple, and intuitive (and free) as well.

But starting off low-tech is best! It may be tedious, but you'll discover patterns and trends of how you structure them enabling you to fully customize a GTD app later on so it works for you instead of you working for it. One example is "watcings", "listenings", and "readings". No GTD app has those categories (yet, I may try to craft one!) and I wouldn't have had awareness that I like to structure things that way without that knowledge gained from doing low-tech GTD. You learn very useful knick-knacks of your own organizational sysytem very quickly from doing low-tech first.

SOFT-COPY CONTAINERS
Note: You'll notice all my references are to mac software. I don't even bother to describe organizational techniques for non-mac software because frankly, if you aren't using a mac already for organization, you'll be so far behind the game, any number of organizational tips couldn't possibly help you. If you want to get and stay organized, get a mac!

First off, one thing I repeatedly see with people is them saving everything. Merlin has a brilliant metaphor on this: "people save every peanut shell they use" after eating the peanut. Utterly absurd. This postmodern approach slaughters the previous modernist approach of just universally saving everything. Categorizing and saving everything like some ancient librarian is so appalling. It's not funny, it's an appaling waste of time and poor efficiency!

With Smart folders that auto-archive and sort everythign for you, put time into scrips or smart folders if you want folders, instead of acting like some ridiculous advocate for the Dewey decimal system!


The Core of Your Capturing System -- 4 Soft-Copy Text Files

~ /DESKTOP/@INBOX/

~/DESKTOP/@IDEAS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/@TASKS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/@YEARIN.TXT

The Other Stuff

~/DESKTOP/@BLOGS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/@PROJECTS.txt

~/DESKTOP/REF (ALIAS WITH ORIGINAL IN
~/REFERENCE)
*~/DESKTOP/MS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/SENDTOPAPER/

~/WORKSPACE1

~/WORKSPACE2

~/WORKSPACE3_BU

~/REFERENCE

~/DESKTOP/B_READ/

~/DESKTOP/B_WATCH/

~/DESKTOP/B_LISTEN/

~/DESKTOP/B_ACQUIRE/

XOR

~/DESKTOP/MEDIA/

~/DESKTOP/MEDIA/A

~/DESKTOP/MEDIA/B

~/DESKTOP/MEDIA/C

~/DESKTOP/MEDIA/ZACQUIRE

The logic behind this:
1. Always use .txt files. Why? Because you can manipulate those and do all kinds of fun stuff with quicksilver such as prepend and append ideas on the fly to them without even opening the file! How do you do that? Launch QS. Queue up the file, hit tab, queue up append text to, hit tab, start typing the text you want to add, hit return. Voila!
2. On the prepending letters and characters to maintain desktop consistency. I use
@
before all files I want to show up ALWAYS on the right hand side of hte desktop. Organize by name and you have the instant consistantly reliable system. "B_" I prepend for files and folders I always want after the "
@
" main files. You can substitue those for whatever variable you please, but the purpose, again, is to maintain consistecy on the desktop so the files "appear" frozen in place and are always accessible when you need them. Think of your desktop workflow like an engine, you can't have random "debris" floating around on the desktop or files mixed around or else the components with crank, clash, and you'll get confused. I can't stress how important it is to maintain maximum consistency on the desktop. Nothing should be stored on it except the above files. In fact, I'd recommend going as far as changing the permissions to the desktop so only root could change or move files on it! (Use chown and chgrp in terminal to do this). That desktop needs to have pristine consistency to it! Another key reminder: ALWAYS remember to ensure programs like Limewire or Safari don't download files to your desktop which destroys desktop consistency. Another huge reason why i'm bing such a massive stickler about desktop consitency is you'll write a lot of scripts that access those files and if they move or change their name, the the scripts will hit an error-bump, and not run.

~/DESKTOP/@PROJECTS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/@IDEAS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/@TASKS.TXT

~/DESKTOP/@YEARIN.TXT

.txt and .rtf

A decidingly big factor. Because a GREAT system is to use quicksilver's "append to file" action so that you can just call aIDEAS or aTASKS and append a bit of text. And then at the end of the day, simply go through and sort all the "todos" or "ideas" you appended!!! Problems with this: Quicksilver doesn't correctly append text to .rtf files and if the file is open it doesn't append text. If there's ways around that, that would be great!

One thing that's still extremely fuzzy is projects and project support. On this area one thing that shines is Omnifocus. The ability to siphon out available (meaning if a task requires Step 1 THEN and only then STep 2, Step 2 would not show up as an avaialble actionable) has it's value. But again, that's trumped by the lack of compatibility of the application. What if I want to update a task and put that on my iPhone instantly? You can 't do that with productivity apps, but you can with these simple text file methods.

So projects and project support. You could collect all projects on a master project's list and then underneath that list, capture the steps and planning to such a project in other places. But before you know all the necessary future steps to a project, you've got do some form of planning, it could just be a quick mental visualizing or a color-coded mind map, but anytime you envision future steps, that prescient planning has to get captured somewhere. The problem with capturing project notes in with Tasks.txt is that the Tasks.txt has to be sacred, only containing tasks that you WILL do. The vitality of keeping that list sanctified creates massive clarity alone. You don't want to clutter that list with non-actionable planning and brainstorming. So all the planning for a task should be listed under the project name under the context and that that project name should just be listed on a Projects.txt.

Treat Projects.txt like you treat Tasks.txt, with sanctified revere. Don't throw projects on that list that you know are not projects. You could optionally create a seperate MProjects context on the
@ Ideas list, but then doing two types of searches (projects and
@Contexts) would stymie the flow of idea to incoming, to ideas.txt to tasks.txt to getting it done. The flow of ideas is left to right and basically if you've moved something from INcoming notes to Ideas.txt and it's survived both of those two filters, it's probably safe to add it to projects.txt or tasks.txt respectively. I got that idea from organizing my kitchen. I had all of this stock bulk food (10 pounds of sugar, plates I never used unless guests came over, extra pasta, etc.) that I only needed to access when what I was eating ran out. So I consolidated all my "storage food" in one area. And only have 1-3 meals at most and 1-2 frequently accessed food items (like cereal) accessible in my "kitchen workspace". Do the same thing with your tasks. Projects and tasks that are unclear or muddied stay in Incoming notes. If they take more form, add them to Ideas.txt and if they become absolutely crisp add them to your tasks component where they will get done, just like anything in my "active space" component of the kitchen "gets eaten"! This way of siphoning the amount of work (or food) so that you only observe bite-sized chunks of it makes you feel less overwhelmed, more lucid, and simply more productive in getting them accomplished.

So you say, "sure I have 5 items on my task.txt list" and it feels good to remove those, and have a clean list, but then I'll just drag over more tasks from ideas.txt. Exactly! But in dragging those over, you can mull over which ones are top priority so that you by actually clearing off you "tasks.txt" list you've done the most relevant tasks. This removes the need for complex prioritzation systems and flagging. Those are idiotic. You're in a gtd app and you spend an hour deciding if your a project on your projets list is low or very low importance? That's unnecessary. And who really always does their highest priority task first and works there way down? All priorities do is provide scope of hte responsibilities and urgency inherent with each task or project. Dragging the highly urgent or necessary tasks from ideast.txt to tasks.txt does just that. This siphoning process of migrating small chunks of high-priority tasks into tasks.txt works great because then whenever you're in "do mode" you just glance at that one file to see all the top-priority, most relevant, most urgent tasks. The problem with prioritization flagging is when you're in "do mode" you still see all these low priority tasks muddled in with higher priority ones and your productivity stalls. The transferring to tasks.txt works because of its simplicity, modularity, and encapsulation of the tasks you want to focus on.

Having such high-threshold filtering protocols for your tasks or projects ensures that 1)you've thoroughly scrutinized all details of a task or project before committing to its inherent actionables and intermediary steps and 2)that you don't clutter your projects and tasks files with junk or things that would lead you astray. Just stamping an idea on a the tasks list should be considered blasphemy in productivity. Ideas go into incoming notes, and then ideas.txt. Unless something has absolute 100% certainty of being accomplished do you add to your projects.txt or tasks.txt. Sticking to that sophisticated level of filtering makes projects.txt and tasks.txt encompass all of your commitments. That's huge. If those files ever get muddied with things you "might want to do" or things that "might be cool" or things that "I'm ruminating about", your crisp, clean two document list of "commitments" will crumble. I don't want to launch off into too much of a philosophical rant here (okay, maybe a part of me does), but commitment embodies a huge concept including obligations, responsibilities, punctuality, and performance. One you "commit" to something -- all those factors -- what am I obligated to do? What responsibilities will I have and others have (waiting fors)? How will I complete said commitment on time and how can most efficiently completely accomplish said commitment -- pop up on the horizon. If you don't commit to something (if it doesn't pop up on your projects or tasks.txt list) all of those commitment factors remain dormant and irrelevant. Additionally, just think of how much more efficiently and how much more of a quality completion you'll have when you only have say 3-5 commitment projects and 5-10 commitment tasks! You'll do them with more focus and completion because you'll understand and absorb them as "commitments", embracing all the inherent responsibility, punctuality, obligatory, and performance factors intertwined with a commitment.

After having countless lists of tasks and todos marred and blemished by quasi-tasks or those "hhmmm...maybe..." projects and the amount of mental clutter that creates, I can't begin to describe the productivity increase and mental liberation of having a well-editted, clear, clean container for all projects and tasks.

First step is to Make a catalog of all the Waiting-Fors
Kinds of Waiting Fors
Yahoo! Answers
Forum Subscriptions and Questions
Specific Email Action-Related Waiting Fors
Important (non-ACtion-Related) emails that you just want or expect A response from

WF

With emails you're waiting on, forums you've posted to, or updates you want, the web, email, and computer work alone creates a huge demand for "waiting fors". This is in addition to, of course, the typical waiting fors of post mail, phone calls, and other means of communication.

Waiting Fors, again, have their own "context" and this is communication. ANY Waiting for you EVER encounter will always occur within a browser, a phone device, a mailbox (electronic or physical), or in person, but that's it. Phone Device Waiting fors go in WF.txt (or in your phone Favorites), but

Bookmarks

In regards to web surfing, there should be two distinct "piles" of sites that you "keep", "archive", "bookmark" or "store and reference" in anyway: frequently-loaded, unfrequently-loaded. For me, personally, when I'm surfing and am time crunched I can collect 10-20 articles, tidbits, items that I'll want to read and checkout for amusement or work when I have time. However, after I read those, will I want to refer to them again? About 90% of the articles I read I won't ever reread. Therefore, it makes sense to store that "one-time read only" collection it's own pile. What definese "pile" for web browsing? This could be anything from bookmark folder in safari or a folder on the desktop, but choose one so you don't have readings scattered all over your browser AND desktop. Optionally, you can prioritze those collected "one-read only" bookmarks in A,B,C priorities (c=skim, b=skim+, a=read thoroughly).

Next the freqeuntly-accessed. These links are ones that you'll frequently refer to. I'd recommend categorizing them into categories based on project or kind. Something like:
Forums
Finances
WebDevelopment
VeryCool (for readings that made the demanding "cut list" of something you might read again)
VeryFunny (same as above buy amusing)
Chess

All of those should be in the Folder FA (Frequently Accessed)
And then you have an UFA (unfrequently accessed) as a dump folder for any bookmarks you'll want to peruse. That's your "inbox" for websites. That's what's so unique about web surfing, you need an "inbox" for any site you want to process! It's true! It's important to develop a method for organizationally processing sites of interest with thoroughness.

Finally, the "everyday links". Simply put those on your bookmark toolbar. For me, they include social-networking sites (facebook), financial bank link, a few forums I frequently visit, and the like.

RSS

With notifiers you could potentially have newsflashes of articles posted up within 5 minutes of current news flashing accross your screen nonstop. While that might be a VERY cool expeirement to see the rapid communication of news, articles, and technology, set 1 or 2 modes for yourself of RSS notifications. 1 Should be for only priority notes or emergencies, 1 could be for all inbox, and then 3 could be for just any update of all feeds you have (which would be nuts)

Downloads

This encompasses a larger category than you'd think. When you think about it. You download files from emails, safari, limewire, and itunes (audio and video purchases as well as free podcast subscriptions). That covers a LOT of inflow of "stuff" and you have to keep track of not only what's currently getting downloaded, what has finished downloading, but additionally items you need to acquire and still have to find the right links to start downloading them. Clearly, downloads presents a large component of computer-based productivity. There exist numerous programs that download and track download files for you, but, again, like other GTD apps, those have modularity limitations. All downloads should be directed to
~ /DESKTOP/INBOX/ or
~/DOWNLOADS. Although it's best to store downloads in inbox for consoidating sake. That can get tricky if, for exampl,e you're downloading 7 huge files that take days and then you all of a sudden have 7 things "stuck" in your inbox. Therefore I'd store all downloads in
~/downlaods. And, although this may be difficult, write a script to automatically transfer finished downloads to your
~/DESKTOP/INBOX/ folder or just manually dump finished downloads in your INBOX/ folder.

Oh and let me assure you. It's almost certain my gtd management system will get tweaked (in the next month, year, or day!). Right now I'm loving the
"Text files+Devonthink+Things" Combo.

POP Suite Part 4: Electronic Organization and "Brain Trust" Part 1

Welcome back to the Productivity and Organizational Progress (POP) Suite. Today we're talking about electronic organization.

We're jumping straight to the nitty gritty here. In today's age, "paper-based organization" is an incredibly small percentage of the organization management we conduct; mostly all of it is electronic.

I think the best first step in structuring and organizing your electronic management first starts with "contexts" of electronic. By "context" in e-management we do not mean "store", "house", "office", etc, but rather applications! Just capture all your contexts for these types of information

Rss Feeds
Email
Web Bookmarks
New Notes
New Tasks
Projects
Reference Files

With the plethora of freeware, shareware, and quality commercial ware it's far too easy to slip into the time-consuming trap of just "application hopping". Where you download a new Gtd app or Rss reader about every month and jump around from app to app and waste a lot of your time migrating and reconfiguring preferences. Not a good usage of time! And worse, application-hopping creates a general sense of disorder and incompleteness. Remember, the backbone of Gtd revolves around having a capturing system that your brain actually trusts (trusts enough to stop repeatedly reminding you to get milk and bread at the grocery store, when you're nowhere near a grocer store). So if you application hop, that cognitive trust will deteriorate. In a way, your brain and your thought-collection system works a lot like credit bureaus and length of history! The longer length of history you have with credit, the better the credit score; the longer length of history with effective idea capturing and processing within a given program, the better the "brain trust" with that system.

There's two approaches to dealing with those above forms of information: one app per media type or a conglomerate program (like devonthink). I've been experimenting with (yes I'm still building up "brain trust")

Rss Feeds -- NetNewsWire (allows archived clippings, online syncing, great management tools)
Email -- mail.app (exceptional)
Web Bookmarks -- (VERY tricky category because of the voluminous amounts od data a short web surf can accumulate; using Devonthink, combined with many safari folders, or simply dragging links to a desktop folder management system all work, but using only one of those works works better than multiple)
New Notes -- text files or a preferred gtd app (1 of the 100s out there)
New Tasks -- "
Projects -- "
Reference Files -- Devonthink and/or finder

Can you think of any other forms of collection data that recquire certain applications?

How about actual "doing aplications" for

Spreadsheets -- numbers.app
Powerpoints -- keynote
Word processing - Neooffice, Pages, or textedit

Invest time into researching hte best app for each type of data context so you trust it and use it and develop lengthy "brain trust".

eReader iPhone App

Well, iPhone continues it's assault in knocking off numerous other electronic devices. Along with GPS devices, household-wide remotes, now it's the killer device for the Amazon Kindle Kindle.

.abbu and .icbu

It's just so cool that with the most recent software upgrade, Apple has adopted the very same -- IDENTICAL -- naming practice I personally use for a lot of my files. Naming files month-day-year is dumb because when scrolling through hundreds of date-named files (like photos) you want to see the year, then month, then day. Apple adopted that and so is now going with the "flow" I've been using just in my own personal organization with backups for apps like Address Book and iCal. Additionally, funny and icronic is it's adoption of the "bu" shorthand. Before (And still currently) I had "bu" (for back-up) everyonewhere. Three different "bu" folders. "bu" this, "bu" that. And then amazingly both iCal and Address book files are named ICalBackUp or .icbu and AddressBookBackUp, or .abbu! It's awesome to know when the OS you use extends the organizational practices you've adopted!!

iPhone: Mingling with Hollywood & Paving the way for solid Music Copyrights

Just to refute non-Iphone believers (haha!) like Richard Sprague who wrote:

"Without even mentioning that the same functionality has been available on PocketPC, Palm, Nokia, and Blackberry for years, I just have to wonder who will want one of these things (other than the religious faithful). People need this to be a phone, first and foremost. But with 5 hours of battery life? No keypad? "

There simply hasn't been a good phone on the market. If you flash back to THIS GREAT ARTICLE (when I fink the link, I'll post it), you'll recollect just how many hoops Jobs and Apple had to jump through to get the iPhone approved with a carrier. How many, no doubt, calls, meetings, and white-knuckled negotiations he had to do to get his invention into the marketplace. In many ways, iPhone is the 2nd coming o "Mac" altogether, too! Here's the insightful blurb form the article:

Apple engineers bought nearly a dozen server-sized radio-frequency simulators for millions of dollars apiece. Even Apple's experience designing screens for iPods didn't help the company design the iPhone screen, as Jobs discovered while toting a prototype in his pocket: To minimize scratching, the touchscreen needed to be made of glass, not hard plastic like on the iPod. One insider estimates that Apple spent roughly $150 million building the iPhone.

The iPhone cracked open the carrier-centric structure of the wireless industry and unlocked a host of benefits for consumers, developers, manufacturers — and potentially the carriers themselves.

Verizon and Sprint wouldn't take it, fortunately, At&T came along. But Apple even built special wireless testing towers to debug and test the cellular capacity of the iPhone. And that's just the thing, it's the first phone that offers user experience First and then cellular capacities second. All over phone manufacturers (From Black berry to Nokia to LG) simply released plastic buttons with one or two new features revolving around the wireless speeds, so the wireless companies always had the upperhand. Not so with Apple nor with the iPhone. Apple's interface (which is what counts from an "actually using the phone" point of view) by far IS the phone and the actual service stays a tertiary or secondary "supplement" to the experience. That entire relationship, with the software coming first, and the wireless carrier a far second or third, is revolutionary and a key development that makes the iPhone unique. Jobs had to do a lot of flips to get his foot in the cellular door, but he knew what he was doing and now it has completely set the trend and cutting-edge standard completely redefining our connotation of "cell phone" from some plastic gadget you flip open and speak into like a walkie-talkie with a few "add-ons" to full fledged portable operating system that by the way, has cellular capacity.

In reference to my previous post about iPhone goggling up electronic gadgets, it seems awesome monopoly spreads into other industries as well, namely Hollywood and the obvious, celluar companies:

To be sure, all the parties in the three industries involved are circling each other warily as they seek to protect their overlapping interests. But as their ambitions collide, rivals are hiring talent from disparate fields to navigate through a unsettling era.

Although the NY Times article kind of pitched the fusion of the cellular, Apple OS, and hollywood industries as something like a rivalry, the idea of coallescing Apple's technology with the movie industry sounds like the "Web 2.0" how we perceive media. In many ways, if film continues it's trend, this will make film and technology much more tangible and interactive and dynamic (like Web 2.0).

Again, this article has totaly the wrong idea. It frames apple's Fairplay copyrighting as something that "cripples" the music and phone experience, when, in reality it does the complete oppsite. Fairplay works in unison with the music business. Jobs, being a savvy and "fair" businessman has looked out for the interests of muscians, developers, and anyone who sells on the iTunes store with the Fairplay copyright (sure, the copyright also encourages use of Apple-based prouducts, but hey, that's a good thing and only secondary to the main goal of preserving the copyrights of the music, film, shows, soundbites, and apps downloaded from the store. It's astonishing how someone could deem that as "crippling" when it plugs the leak to the music (and film) industry's problem of losing sales due to pirated music and film. Apple, again, is working in unison with and in the best interests of Hollywood, the music industry, and the consumer-technology experience.

Also verifying the industry-goggling of Apple is productivity guru and esteemed blogger, podcaster, programmer (a bit of everything), Merlin Mann, who wrote:

…Apple might eat the lunches of about three different industries over the next couple years.

What I'm REALLY interested in, though, is Apple's movement on the web-based front. With Sun crunching out some amazing technologies like jMaki and WADL and RESTful technologies and the Comet architectures all create that "Ajax" Web 2.0 feel, but it's more than just a "feel", with more instantaneous user-activity, web technologies are just a means to totally unlimited communicaiton. Apple's aware of that. In choosing to emphasize Objective-C for apple dev, Jobs remarked that Java's too slow and bulky. It IS! It runs in a virtual machine, making it safe, but Objective-C has all the best assets of Java's OOP, combined with the grace and stability of C. Anyways, apple's iTunes and iTunes store is obviously the standard for cutting edge "web-based" interfaces and it's brilliant marketing in addition to it's cutting-edge programming.

Productivity Heros

This details the list of all productivity heros of which I can conjure

• David Allen -- The "Father" of modern productivity. His GTD is referenced in myriad productivity apps, resources, and books. The uber-productivity trend-setter, David coined words like "mind like water productivity" "blackbelt GTD" and other Zen-like terms. He has a martial arts background, lives in Ojai (sweet, a neighbor!), and has to have some kind of computer programming background with his references to LIFO, FIFO, and the entire "closed" loop GTD system is set up like a computer program with if-then statements. If anyone wants to know about productivity, they've got to understand or at least get the gist of Collect, Process, Organize, Review, Do. Here's David giving a stellar speech to Google:
  I suggest you subscribe to some of his RSS Feeds and checkout the DavidCo Forum.


• Merlinn Mann -- If anyone knows GTD high-tech style, it's Merlin Mann. In a way he's like David Allen 2.0. He invented an amazing program called Quicksilver for the mac. With that handy gem you can load most any program or document with the keyboard, making it an essential for keyboard jockeys. Using words like "byzantine", "email bankruptcy", and "attrition" all in the same paragraph, he really cracks me up and reminds me of a high-tech jim Carrey infused with hyper-intelligence. Check out his hyserical mockery FlockedUp site debut.
  or the more traditional presentation of his essential productivity material "Inbox Zero" with this video presentation at google or at the main Merlin Mann hub. The guy has numerous pages, blogs, and sites, so it's hard to pinpoint a central hub, but if one existed it would be 43folders.com.

• Cameron Johnson -- This may be transforming into a "leaders of business" by listing Cameron, but I had to include this guy. Cameron wouldn't typically make the productivity list because his expertise is entrepreneurialism, not productivity. But, come on...if you started 12 business by the age of 21, how could you call that NOT productive! Here's a rundown of his startups:
  TrueLoot.com 2004
  CertificateSwap 2004
  KazaaGator 2003
  AimBuddy 2003
  ChooseYourPrize.com 2002
  Zablo.com 2001
  SearchOmega 2001
  VoteStation.com 2001
  SurfingXChange 2001
  SurfingPrizes.com 2000
  EmazingSites 1999
  MyEZShop.com 1999
  MyEZMail.com 1998
  Cheers and Tears/
  Beanie Wholesale 1997
  Cheers and Tears
  Printing Co.
  His book is well-written, well-organized, and massively helpful for anyone eager to launch their own business. The best part? Cameron writes from my (Generation Y) generation, so instead of hearing some garbage about 1980s reveries at Harvard or how "back in the day we didn't have computers", you just get waves of solid, clean, lucid business advice...plus the guy's just massively intelligent. Additionally, he wrote "You Call the Shots" like an autobiography, giving it the "true novel" flavor to the prose.

Blog Update!

Restructured the blog.  This about the 4th revision since I started this blog 5 years ago 2003 in a galaxy far far away (aka London during my studies at the London School of Economics).  We're going high-tech, baby!  Ajax right-hand menu bar.  New color design. Simpler, more intuitive interface.  Best of all, more in-post links, video embeds, higher utilization of "article tags", and embedded photos for more dynamic and "colorful" posts.

Tech Medley Post

DVI and VGA
DVI is newer technology than VGA.
DVI is Digital Visual Interface so connections to your monitor, tv screen, etc are not converted, but stay digital the whole way through.
VGA converts between analog and digital making it, somewhat inferior to DVI and typically means "analog computer display".
VGA is Video Graphics display and implies analog display.
Macbooks have DVI connectors, more specifically mini-DVI connectors.

Alcohol Spirits

I Never Knew the Difference Between all these so here's the skinny on the spirits of the world.

Wine and beer are fermented, but All Hard Alcohol == Liquor == Spirits is DISTILLED, not fermented. Therefore, all the hard alcohol listed below are made through a distillation process. What is being distilled (potatoes, grains, corn, sugarcane, or plants) is what determines the hard alcohol.

Vodka comes from potatoes, grains, or sugar beets.

Whiskey is distilled from grain mash and aged in wooden casks (Irish and Scottish).

Brandy is like the distilled form of wine (but it has hard alcohol content of 40-60%). It comes from grapes, pomace, or fermented fruit.

Rum is distilled from sugarcane or sugarcane juice. Cool! Plays a large part in the west Indies and naval life and Buccaneers, Piarates . Horatio Nelson's body was preserved in a cask of rum, but drunken by sailors, and Stevenson's Treasure Island introduced rum to naval literature. In australia, Captain William Bligh (Mutiny on the Bounty) started a Rum Revolution as Governor of South Wales by banning it which caused a revolt. Spiced Rum.

Eau de Vie is a colorless French fruit brandy, fermented and then double-distilled; served cold. Sounds cool!.

Tequila is distilled from the Blue Agave plant.

Gin is distilled from a white grain and always flavored with Juniper Berries. Well used in london and if it's distilled very well, it will be "dry" meaning lacking a sweet taste.

Cellphoneology

A lot of cell phone terminology and technology has confused me recently, so this aims to clarify those essentials.

3G -- The new fastest packet data network. Verizon (which is why I like Verizon the most, in addition to it being my first carrier service) was the first to employ 3G technology in the states, long before AT&T, T-Mobile, or Sprint.

Their are two "flavors" of 3G packet data modes. They're both about the same speed, but they're just called different things depending on the carrier. Verizon and Sprint's 3G is called 1xEV-DO from CDMA technology and AT&T and T-mobile's version of 3G is UMTS and HSPDA from GSM technology.

• EV-DO:CDMA:Verizon and Sprint
• UMTS/HSPDA:GSM:AT&T and T-Mobile

3G speeds are 144kps-2.4mbs (so 3x modem to cable modem speeds).

Those are the main two 3g packet data protocols (EV-DO and UMTS/HSPDA). Hopefully, there'll be more standards in the future where all this is less confusing. It seems like a lot of carriers just tried to make their "own" technology and it ended up in this jumble of mini rarely used packet data modes, but those two 3G forms are the ones that have emerged.

Automatically Scheduled Script to Download and Backup All Your Google Notebook Pages

This is a tutorial to apply the learnings from this page to make a FULL OUT Automatically scheduled automator application that runs in the background every week, automatically quits terminal and saves all your downloaded notebooks in a seperate file. You don't have to ever put time into downloading and backing up your notebook files and also never have to put time into worrying about losing them with this auto-backup system!

Also needs:

1. Personally tweaked "wget_online_notebook_BU_script.term" file that is opened with terminal.

2. A set directory for the downloaded files to go into (detailed in the "wget_online_notebook_BU_script.term" file).

3. To export this automator workflow as a program and then assign this automator application to an iCal weekly repeated event by going to "Add Alarm" and selecting "Other..." adn then this automator program.

4. Make Public by "Sharing Options" under Google Notebooks.

The Automator Script.





This is a beautifully written automator program that you attach to an iCal event with a scheduled alarm (repeating weekly) to automatically download all of your google notebooks, and back them up in your own personal folder on a local drive! Sweet!

The applescript code is hand-crafted myself, and quite beautiful if I say so so myself. It makes the downloading of your notebooks literally invisible and unintrusive to whatever work you're currrently doing because the applescript immediately hides the Terminal application and then it it quits the program automatically after a 12 second delay. Downloading 5 notebook seperate calendars took about 5 seconds so 12 is sufficent. If you, for some insane reason, have like 500 notebooks, you'll want to change the delay 12 to a longer delay so the program won't quit while terminal is downloading those programs.

The terminal script.

Open a terminal window. Save that window as... (give it a reasonable name like, "wget_online_notebook_BU_script.term". Then open that file with a text editor.

The highlighted text (note it's location . VERY IMPORTANT. Is)
ExecutionString
HERE. Insert Your wget Commands Here

is all you need to change.

The format is

wget -k -p -erobots=off -np -N -nd -O "Path to where you want the notebooks downloaded"/"Notebook1.html" "INSERT URL of Public Notebook web page"; NEXT WGET Note book;

I learn by example, so I thought all the example screenshots would be helpful.

Here's the raw wget_online code:

WindowSettings


AutoFocus
YES
Autowrap
YES
BackgroundImagePath

Backwrap
YES
Bell
YES
BlinkCursor
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BlinkText
YES
CleanCommands
rlogin;telnet;ssh;slogin
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80
CursorShape
0
CustomTitle
Terminal
DeleteKeySendsBackspace
NO
DisableAnsiColors
NO
DoubleBold
YES
DoubleColumnsForDoubleWide
NO
DoubleWideChars
YES
EnableDragCopy
YES
ExecutionString


wget -k -p -erobots=off -np -N -nd -O /Users/john_kooz/Documents/bu_121407/archive/google_notebook_download_BU/2GTD_ActionSteps.html http://www.google.co.uk/notebook/public/04197923271425679077/BDRvqIgoQxp-NxfUi?hl=en; wget -k -p -erobots=off -np -N -nd -O /Users/john_kooz/Documents/bu_121407/archive/google_notebook_download_BU/1GTD_Inbox.html http://www.google.co.uk/notebook/public/04197923271425679077/BDQTrIgoQ4MmMxfUi?hl=en; wget -k -p -erobots=off -np -N -nd -O /Users/john_kooz/Documents/bu_121407/archive/google_notebook_download_BU/3GTD_Projects.html http://www.google.co.uk/notebook/public/04197923271425679077/BDSUCIwoQyI-PxfUi?hl=en; wget -k -p -erobots=off -np -N -nd -O /Users/john_kooz/Documents/bu_121407/archive/google_notebook_download_BU/5GTD_Research.html http://www.google.co.uk/notebook/public/04197923271425679077/BDQTrIgoQoJ-QxfUi?hl=en; wget -k -p -erobots=off -np -N -nd -O /Users/john_kooz/Documents/bu_121407/archive/google_notebook_download_BU/4GTD_Tickler.html http://www.google.co.uk/notebook/public/04197923271425679077/BDQWIIwoQhsGNxfUi?hl=enhl=en


FontAntialiasing
NO
FontHeightSpacing
1
FontWidthSpacing
1
IsMiniaturized
NO
KeyBindings

$F708
[25~
$F709
[26~
$F70A
[28~
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[29~
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[31~
$F70D
[22~
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$F729

$F72B

$F72C
[5~
$F72D
[6~
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OP
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OQ
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OR
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OS
F708
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[28~
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[31~
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[34~
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[3~
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scrollToBeginningOfDocument:
F72B
scrollToEndOfDocument:
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scrollPageUp:
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scrollPageDown:
^F702

^F703

~F704
[17~
~F705
[18~
~F706
[19~
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[20~
~F708
[21~
~F709
[23~
~F70A
[24~
~F70B
[25~
~F70C
[26~
~F70D
[28~
~F70E
[29~
~F70F
[31~
~F710
[32~
~F711
[33~
~F712
[34~

Meta
-1
NSFixedPitchFont
Monaco
NSFixedPitchFontSize
10
OptionClickToMoveCursor
NO
PadBottom
3
PadLeft
5
PadRight
3
PadTop
3
RewrapOnResize
YES
Rows
24
SaveLines
10000
ScrollRegionCompat
NO
ScrollRows
0
Scrollback
YES
Scrollbar
YES
Shell

ShellExitAction
2
StrictEmulation
NO
StringEncoding
4
TermCapString
xterm-color
TerminalOpaqueness
1
TextColors
0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.666 0.666 0.666 0.333 0.333 0.333
TitleBits
76
Translate
YES
UseCtrlVEscapes
YES
VisualBell
NO
WinLocULY
676
WinLocX
94
WinLocY
0
WindowCloseAction
1

Sites, Tutorials, and Web Aids I found invaluable in making this awesome automator:

1. Applescripts
   
2. Master WGET
   
3. Basically a tutorial to make the Terminal file (but without iCal and Automator features that this tutorial has.
   

Fundamentals rm,cp,mv to Advanced

In order to manipulate the cool (mdesg, modprobe, cat /etc/fstab) commands you must have the basic, most fundamental (the "boring":) file manipulation commands down pat. You use all the boring commands to manipulate files and dirs with the more advanced "cool" commands, so I've taken the time to lay some fundamental understanding of essential shell commands. This may seem slow, boring, and obvious, but I can't tell you how encouraging it is to be tweaking some advanced system root file and then feel "at home" with some essential commands. For example, you could be tweak /etc/fstab and be fiddling with obscure device ids you know nothing about and then then suddenly realize, "Hey, I can just COPY the file" and then whip out the reliable, trusty old cp command. You'll never learn the new exciting stuff untill you feel "at home" with atleast a few of the most fundamental commands.

These commands in GNU/Linux/Ubuntu (as well as most all other unix-like OS) offer a tremendously refreshing degree of simplicity in regards to working with files in the shell (with the case of Ubuntu, the awesome BASH shell). In other shells (like DOS) or guis you typically need the following fundamental commands to manipulate the essentials of files:

copy files
move files
rename files
delete files
delete directories

BASH (and Ubuntu), therefore, can do all the above with only the following commands

cp -- copy files
mv -- move files, rename files
rm -- delete files, delete directories

See the simplicity! Half the number of commands, same amount of accessible operations!

Specifically, here are the ways to manipulate files with the above three commands

copy files -- cp // results = 2+ filename // -r copies entire directory and sub-dir contents
move files -- mv // results = 1+ filename // -r moves entire directory and sub-dir contents
rename files -- mv // results = 2+ files //
delete files -- rm // result = 0 filename // -f delete without confirmation
delete dirs -- rm -r //results 0 directoryname // -f delete without confirmation

So, know understanding and have practiced with (ahem) these three commands (cp, mv, and rm) and their 5 specific implementations (copy, move, rename, delete files, delete dirs) you can build from this fundamental understanding to comprehend more advanced shell commands.

The theory here is the same "method" you used to understand these (boring) fundamental commands will be the same method to learn the more advanced fun commands. So the purpose with these three commands is not so much to learn the commands (although you must do that), but rather to acquaint yourself with how you learn new commands, so that adapting to and picking up more advanced commands will seem familiar!




Mounting File Systems Recipe
Ingredients for Mounting File Systems
vol_id -u /dev/devicename
gedit /etc/fstab
mount
umount
sudo mkdir /media/mountpointname



Sound Tweaking Systems Recipe
Ingredients
lspci -v
aplay -l
alsamixer
sudo gedit etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base
cat /proc/asound/card0/codec\#* -- codec informaiton and address


My info:
Codec: SigmaTel STAC9200

Default system beek Works. Only with
these parameteres

Panel Sound says "No Volume control Gstreamer plugins found"

alsamixer, aplay do not work

Sound control panel
playback: STAC92xx Analog (not connected)
playback music:STAC92xx (Not Connectioned)
audio confere playback: Autodetect
audi Capture: ALSA
Device: No options
No options

Common Denominator: PDK

Alas, I cannot speak from the "literary front lines" of PDK as I have not read Androids nor Scanner, but have seen both film interpretations (Blade Runner and linklater's). If I ever get around to reading PDK amidst the hundreds of other books on the to-read list, I think I'll like Scanner the best, it was written almost 10 years later, maybe his writing craft more honed, but I didn't realize how PDK owns (or net speack pwns!) the book-to-sci-fi-film area. He wrote minority report, too? So that's scanner, minority, blade runner, total recall, paycheck-- pretty big sci-fi selection. Sure, asimov set in motion the robot movies, but that's only really "one big movie" (just a bunch of remakes, bicentennial man and i,robot some of the most recent). PKD spawned Totally unique films from his books.

Total Recall and Blade Runner are some of THE most epic film sci-fi renditions (save 2001). I loved all those movies, and gravitated to all of them, but only just now discovered that the common vein between total recall, blade, scanner, paycheck, and yes, even screamers was PKD. I've seen all of those movied and loved all of them and only just realized the common denominator is PDK. far out! That's like doing problems over and over and then abstracting out to see a larger, framework formula. cool!

And talk about prolific. Prolific is an understatement for this guy. 121 published short stories and dozens of published books, nine of which were turned into Sci-Fi movies!!! Who else has done that? What other writer has achieved that much book to film coverage? Dickens? Not really, his works get clumped in that 18th century pile of the same flicks. It's shocking at how unique all of PKD's works are. Almost like multiple authors (or a multiple-brained single author) wrote the wide-ranging complex variety of works!

It's amazing how differently we watch movies versus read books. For example, with movies I'm doing NLP, watching the actors not the characters, reading body language. Actors cannot be ambassadors of the story because they have their own filtrations and perceptive distortions. Only when I read fiction do I actually learn the character names and get immersed in the plot! How can an actor accurately perceive my perspective of reality based on his or her own experiences. Moreso, the directly influences the audience with already a strong frame. By the time you watch the movie, there's so little room for interpretation and creating your own frame, you can't even breath! Books have MUCH more space for you to play to exert your own frame, of interpration. Then there are those who have such a strong frame, even a book feels confining, those people need a blank page. We call them authors. Authors, those who use their frame to create, beyond persuade or influence, actually create! But we can all live as authors of our homes or health or faith or "personal religion" or profession. Designing from our own frame, our own perceptive reality establishes indelible personal freedom! For that reason alone, I have written so much (5 books, 3 blogs, 1 monthly column-thingy) already!

Some more of those simulacrum illusion-over-reality references:
Linklater -- Scanner Darkly, Waking Life
PKD -- Paycheck, Scanner Darkly,
Wachowski -- The Matrix
Baudrillard -- the map is not the territory
Donnie Darko
The Illusionist
The Machinist -- severe denial causes hallucinations

Some Examples that "come close" and are still fascinating
H2G2 -- doesn't warp reality just exists IN a warped reality!
Gattaca, was control not illusion
The Usual Suspects was manipulation and deceit and seduction but not reality-distortion
Pedro Calderon de la Barca -- Life is but a dream

Great Duality Books and FilmsBlogger: Validate Your Life: Intention Exchange - Edit Post "Common Denominator: PDK"

1. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson -- RLS's classic epic masterpiece; a strange elixer-potion-tonic transforms a respectable, calculated man into a wild doppleganger of evil
1. Henry Jekyll & Edward Hyde
   
2. A Scanner Darkly, Phillip K. Dick -- two competing cerebral hemispheres "forget" each is leading a different life.
1. Fred Agent & Bob Arcter
   
3. The Machinist -- sever denial causes hallucinations
1. Trevor Reznik &Ivan
   
4. Fight Club -- schizophrenic man leads "two lives"
1. The Narrator & Tyler Durden
   
5. The Double, Fyodor Dostoevsky
   
1. Golyadkin Sr. & Golyadkin Jr.
   
6. The Number 23
1. The Protagonist and Book Author
   
7. ljlkj
8. ljk
   

In all of these examples, although both identities are from the same split-person, the second identity represents the nascent, intimidating, "abusive", usurping, "bad", typically sinister half (ex. Hyde, Durden, Goyadkin Jr. etc.)
-- John

Parralax, Retrograde, all that Visual Brew-Ha-Ha

Parralax -- okaya parralax is the "apparent" (But not actual) movement of an object visually because of the REAL movement of the observer. Most common is the STellar parralax where a very distant (millions of miles) star appears to move, but realy it's the earth orbitting annually revolving around the sun that creates the impression of the star moving, a parallax. A large parralax angle means the star is closer. the farther away a star is (or an object is )from the observer, then the smaller the parralax angle (The smaller amount of shifter that occurs on the visual spectrum. A sundial is a perfect eample of a natural parralx (the dial moves (attached to the earth taht moves) creating hte impression that hte shadow moves. Just bottom-line, the observer (earth, or dial, or whatever) moves creating the impression that a distant objects moves. The closer the object, the larger the parallax angle.

Another well known parallax is the mercury retrograde. Note: this is mercury's apparent (not real) retrograde, that said, all apparent retrograde is really just a parallax effect. Mercury or Mars does not actually move backwards in the orbit. The earth just loops back around the sun so the vision the sun casts (From the earth) makes it look like it flips back the other way, In short, whenever the earth gets horizontal with a planet(it hten goes diagonal, given different rates of revoltion), the the parralax fliparound retrograde effect occurs.

The References of the "Picard Song"

This blog - -devoted to linux and all things geekiness -- wouldn't do very well without a Star Trek post. So this is the mother of all star trek posts!

It's the episode origins of every line (all 10 of them) from the "Picard Song"! Yeah! I also, have seen all the 8 distinct episodes mentioned in the song! Uber-geekiness.

1. "Make it so”=About every episode
2. "Engage”=About every episode
3. “Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet.”=3.18Allegiance
4. "Darmok and Jelad at Tenagra”=5.02Darmok
5. "The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth! Scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based. And if you can’t find it within yourself to stand up ‘n’ tell the truth…You don’t deserve. To wear. That. Uniform.”=5.19TheFirstDury (wesley crash)
6. “Sorry, that became a speech. You're the captain, sir. You're entitled. I am not entitled to bore you with what you already know. Carry on!”=1.04Codeofhonor
7. "Hey just talking in one incredibly long unbroken sentence. It was really quite hypnotic.”=6.25Timescape
8. "You’ll have to call again! I’m just leaving. I’m uh… not dressed properly.”=1.12Biggoodbye
9. "My love is a fever, longing ‘till for that which Longer nurs the disease. Tell me more! In faith! I do not love thee! With mine eyesThey in thee A thousand errors see! But ‘tis my heart That loves, what they despise Who, in despite of view, are pleased! To dote, Shall I compare thee, to a summer’s day?!”=3.24Menageatroi_multipleshakespearean references; stewart was once a member of the royal shakespeare co.!
10. "I am locutus of Borg, I am borg...”=3.26Bestofbothworlds1

Linux Beginning Notes Compilation

In learning more about the linux kernal, platform, and OS, I had countless “key clarification” that, frankly, turned on the “light bulb” and really helped me understand what the hell is going on the linux world. This includes some of those essentials and a few not-so-essential-but-very-cool findings, as well.

Linux Installing File Formats (most to least complicated to install)

1. Source code (needs compiling and file placement, no wizard)
2. Binary (needs file placement, no wizard)
3. Package (. deb, .rpm automatically installs pre-compiled files into necessary folders, no wizard)
4. SE binary (automatically installs pre-compiled files into necessary folders, wizard)

Software Installation Dependency

Windows and macs provide huge clunky install files that already have all the system software code already installed in it. Linux files don't come with dependcy files, so to uninstall or install a program, you may need to respectively install or install dependency files. Yo u experiene dependency hell, when a package needs dependency files, which, themselves, need depency files!

Mounting Files -- Basics

Linux is so cool because you can add any harddrive and make it “normal architecture” that automatically mounts by adding to the /etc/fstab file, creating a directory for it under /media/ folder. Note: remarkable how like this is with Big Brother updates. Everything must be updated and cross-referenced if a “BB surplus reference was changed for example”. To add a constant external drive you have to change /etc/fstab, /media/ references to it! Then it shows up in Places.

Also, realized that me criticizing with evidence why some advice is wrong is very similar to showing command line errors in terminal! It's not insulting; quite informative and helpful! A person who looks at it as insults shouldn't really be using it!

Linux OS

Linux just refers to the kernel; the sensitive part of the OS that does everything. GNU provides the shell, the libraries, and the components that all a user to use the linux kernel. The shell prevents bad commands from destroying the kernel, so the shell is a necessary buffer. GNOME is a GUI shell, but typically the terminal is what is referred to as “shell”. GNU/Linux then is the whole OS – shell, libraries, AND kernel.

Shell Commands

Whenever you type a command in the shell, it is really running just a small little program (ls, cd, totem – all programs). The terminal knows where to find these programs by looking in specific folders. echo $PATH lists these folders. For me, they're /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games , seperated by a colon. If the program is found in one of those folders just typing the command will launch it, otherwise you'll have to type the direct location of the command (or add it's folder to the PATH) or if the program is in the current folder, just precede it with “./” (./ means execute it right here). So way's to run programs:

l ./ -- if program is in current folder

l “program name” if program is in PATH variable

l “location/of/program” -- exact location of program name.

Extensibility Flexibility

Linux epitomizes life because you can change and do ANYTHING to the OS – if you want a folder to pop out a certain way, a menu to be added to a menu, anything, you can change it in linux!

System Variables

These tell, among other things, where commands are located for them to be executed from the command-line prompt. You can see the code for system variables with the “set” command.

Aliases

AWESOME trick. To permanently create an alias (another shortcut for a command or sequence of commands) just append to the end of the .bashrc file (the resource file for all bash shell work terminals) the following line

alias ='linux command'

so for example to create a shortcut for sudo apt-get install, an enormously painful experience to keep typing, just add this line of code to your .bashrc file:

alias sagi='sudo apt-get install'

Awesome! (Note: you must not have any spaces between the “=” sign (That threw me off at first). Just restart the terminal window or reboot and tot download a program just type:

sago program_name

List Command – ls

Okay ls is pretty straight-forward and basic. The fun stuff happens with options.

-h – (combined with -l) produces human-readable formats, meaning instead of byte sizes, kilobyte and megabyte sizes

-l (long format, including permissions and author and modified. tons of information

-a (all files, even invisible with “.” before the name.

Copy and Move Commands –cp mv

Okay Copy, cp is again basic. It adds a new file or directory to the new path name.

cp file1 /home/kooz/file2

if you cp the same file in the same folder to that folder, you can rename it, which duplicates the file. The only special command is to copy a directory, you need the -r option.

mv.

Move is a little more interest because it is basically renaming the absolute path of a file or directory. Unlike windows or other OS, where a file is deleted and recreated, the file stays the same, but it's absolute path changes. To rename 'myfolder' to 'thefolder' do this:

mv myfolder thefolder

To move myfolder into the folder

mv myfolder/ thefolder/

Move, unlike rm or cp, you don't need the -r flag to work with directories.

Remove – rm

The other basic task.

Unlike recycle bin, it's gone baby with rm. Salvaging deleted (rm-ed) files requires special software and is not easy; best to avoid this) Some nifty flags:

-f – delete it without y/n question verification.

-r – deletes an entire folder (and all its contents) – requried to delete a folder.

to delete all files in a directory (but keep the directory) this is a nifty trick.

rm -f * (wildcard for everything!)

WildCards and Spaces

· everything after that

? that specific characteristics

“ “ -- exactly as is, can include spaces.

\ -- escape character. so you can type spaces when that precedes the space . For example consider the file my file that you want to delete. A lot of choices when working with those funky file names, but ti's best just to name_files_like_this_with_the_underscore so you don't have to go into that crazy *?*\ !

You can delete it using the four methods above:

rm my*file or rm my* (assuming nothing else begins with my that you don't want to delete!)

rm my?file

rm “my file”

rm my\ file

Make Directory – mkdir

Very obvious and basic but one nifty “thinking ahead task”

-p – makes a new folder within a new folder

So if you're in an empty folder and type

mkdir myfolder/stuff/

you'll get an error sayin “myfolder” doesn't exist, but with:

mkdir -p myfolder/stuff/

then you'll create those two folders, “myfolder”, and “stuff”, within “myfolder”.

Links

There are two types of links, symbolic and hard. Symbolic links are created with

ln -s oldfile linktooldfile

Under ls -l it then points to the old file:

linktooldfile -> oldfile

note you have to throw in the -s (or –symbolic) option, or else it will automatically create hard links. Linux is so short and nifty with the options, instead of typing out –symbolic, just type -s!

Hard links actual change the file pointer and the only difference is that it will up the number before the owner under the file information

Mounting files

When you mount a drive, a symbolic link is created drawing from the /dev folder and the the /etc/fstab (file system table) file when the mount.

mount /media/cdrom

will look up the cdrom drlive in fstab and compare it to /dev based on a uuid number,to then mount it.

Manual Mount

Step 1: create a mount point (just a directory in /media/, although the mount point could be anywhere, it's best to stay organized and ue the /media directory) to mount the external drive to.

Step 2: check the partition type with

sudo fdisk -l /dev/hdb (warning: fdisk formats hard drives! be careful with it!)

step 3: now mount the disk (this is temporary mount and /newdisk will show up in the /mnt/ directory):

sudo mount -t nfts -o umask=0222 /dev/hdb1 /media/newdisk

Okay -t refers to type (ntfs, fat32 (vfat), ext3, etc.) then -o tells it you're doing more options, then /dev/hdb1 is the virtual device location and /media/newdisk is the mount point. After that command, the file should end up in /mnt/newdisk.

To unmount the drive, just type

umount /media/newdisk (also you could specify it's location in /dev/, but that's tricky and more complicated).

So in conclusion, mounting gets information from /etc/fstab, has a mount point in /media/, shows up after mounted in /mnt/, and accesses /dev wit uuid numbers to mount it = 4 seperate directories!

File Sizes

ls -h lists file sizes in kilobytes

ls -S lists file sizes with largest to smallest

ls -Shl shows all that information.

disk usage

du shows the directory size

du -h directory size in kilobytes.

du -sh total directory size in kilobytes.

(note du and find and the like are limited by permissions, so use sudo before it).

disk free space

df -h lists free disk space in kilobytes.

df shows ALL total mounted file systems! External, var, etc. to see your root, just look under the "mounted on" column.