Nestlé pods, pal; it’s a lifetime relationship. That $500 machine is a down payment on a 400-900% tax on every cup of coffee you make with it: three cups a day and you pay for the machine again, or more, every year you own it. Next, a frying pan customized to work only with a single brand of eggs, yup.
via samefacts.com I don't understand the popularity of those pod-fed coffee machines. The pods are expensive and the coffee is bad. I much prefer my Krups machine - whole beans (my choice) and water go in, nice fresh coffee comes out.
via youtube.com Incredible compilation, very nicely done. So many movies, so little time. I haven't seen even a tenth of the movies shown here (mostly I've seen the animated ones, since go to the movies more often with the girls than without).
via boston.com I am sooooo happy to be back in Mexico where I don't have to deal with snow :)
OTOH, there are some beautiful pictures here. Snow can be beautiful, but I think you have to grow with it to really enjoy it. Not my case.
Docco is a quick-and-dirty, hundred-line-long, literate-programming-style documentation generator. It produces HTML that displays your comments alongside your code. Comments are passed through Markdown, and code is passed through Pygments syntax highlighting. via jashkenas.github.com Nice-looking tool for literate programming, with variants for several languages.
1. Deleted all msn/live/hotmail certificates in the folder
2. went to https://omega.contacts.msn.com using fire fox (https not http)
3. right click > view page INFO > Security Tab > View Certificate Button > Details Tab > Export Button
4. Saved the file to ~.purple/certificates/x509/tls_peers/omega.contacts.msn.com
5. Reconnected
6. Perfect via diarizing.com Like many people, I started getting certificate errors when connecting to my MSN account using Pidgin. The straightforward fix described (delete certificate, reconnect to fetch the new one) didn't work for me with Pidgin 2.7.5 under Windows 7, but this slightly-more-convoluted technique worked fine.
If you use Emacs as your shell you will have all the functionality that Emacs provides plus you get almost all of the advantages provided by the shell itself, but built into Emacs. This article is only a quick overview of all the shells: I plan on tackling each one, in-depth, later on. via masteringemacs.org Nice overview, I hadn't heard of several of the more advanced shell modes.
They look so delicate, probably because they make the Sun look fuzzy, like a comfy blanket… but have no doubts on the fury and scale of what you’re seeing here. See that little bright spot on the plume on the left, just above the Sun’s edge? That spot is the same size as the Earth
via feedproxy.google.com Amazing infographic. Make sure you follow the link through to the full version (the image shown here is just a small part of it).
Jaime "Kalapusa" Margary, who's given us realistic Piranha Plants, and Super Mario fungi in the past, now turns his attention to Pac-Man, presently soaking in jar of formaldehyde.
via boston.com I love the fall, even more now that I know it won't be followed by a crude winter :) Still, I miss some of the Swiss scenery and traditions. Beautiful photos from TBP, as usual.
In the standfirst I will make a fairly obvious pun about the subject matter before posing an inane question I have no intention of really answering: is this an important scientific finding?
via guardian.co.uk Brilliant. Reminds me of The Ultimately Publishable Computer Science Paper of the 90s.
Por acuerdo del Dr. José Narro Robles, Rector de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, a partir del 27 de septiembre de 2010 la Dirección General de Servicios de Cómputo Académico cambia de denominación a Dirección General de Cómputo y de Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación, y el sitio Web de esta dependencia es:
via dgsca.unam.mx El final de una era. Yo comencé mi carrera profesional en DGSCA, por lo que tengo muchos recuerdos asociados con ese nombre. Sería interesante saber qué cambios funcionales vienen asociados con el cambio de nombre.
Si hubiera que reducir a la UNAM a unas cuantas cifras esenciales, tendrían que anotarse, entre otras, las siguientes: 314 mil alumnos, 35 mil académicos, tres mil 500 investigadores, 2 mil edificios, 139 bibliotecas, 56 mil computadoras conectadas en red, 18 museos, otros tantos recintos históricos, un canal de televisión y una estación de radio, una casa editora de miles de libros y de cientos de publicaciones periódicas, así como una Ciudad Universitaria que ha sido declarada por la UNESCO Patrimonio de la Humanidad. Más allá de los activos, en la institución se imparten 85 licenciaturas y operan 40 programas de posgrado, con 83 planes de estudio para maestría y doctorado, así como 34 programas de especialización con 189 orientaciones. via jornada.unam.mx La UNAM tiene aproximadamente el mismo número de estudiantes que empresas como IBM y HP tienen de empleados a nivel mundial.
If you have a human brain, you do this all of the time. Picking out clusters of coincidence is a predictable malfunction of normal human logic. via youarenotsosmart.com We see patterns everywhere, our brain is hardwired to do it. Most of them are harmless or even beneficial. The problem is when people start assigning meaning to the patterns, as explanation of whatever they want to believe or to convince other people of (such as "vaccines cause autism", which is completely false).
Can you taste other people’s saliva, stomach acid, and tooth enamel in it? Certainly not. Will you think about it now that we’ve brought it up? Maybe. But the fact is people buy ‘em so there must be a demand. via sellout.woot.com Do I want to buy one, after reading this? Probably not.
via liveleak.com Scary video (entertaining in a schadenfreude way). I found it unsettling that the "horizon" in the video doesn't move (as it would in a movie scene, for example, to have you notice how much the boat is moving) since the camera is moving with the ship, but you can infer the violence of the swaying from the damage it caused. /via @benthemorrison on Twitter.
Effective writers ...
Separate the writing and the editing processes. Focus on the interesting. Tap into the power of metaphor. Do adequate research. Learn from the writing of others. Write in small bursts. Read their work out loud. via ragan.com Worth reading the full article. I particularly suffer from not following #1 - I always end up losing time over editing details, instead of focusing on the raw content of what I'm writing.
A person's own name is the single most important word to him/her; it is intimately tied to his/her identity as an individual. How you deal with people's names can have a profound effect on their impressions of you: Think about the times you've felt special when someone you admired addressed you by your name in a sincere tone; or think about the times when you've felt belittled when someone negligently called you by the wrong name, or worse, maliciously made fun of your name in front of you. via stanford.edu I've always been extremely bad at remembering people's names, and it's caused me my fair share of embarrassment during my life. While I lived in Switzerland, I was always amazed at how well people in general could remember names. I don't know if they train them for it, or if it's a cultural trait, but many times, for example, I was greeted by name by people I only met briefly weeks before at a party. By then, I could barely remember their faces! Lately I've been making an effort to consciously remember people's names, and it does have a positive effect, both on myself and on other people.
In this fan-edit you'll get to see the movie that I hope the studios bring to the big screen in a future Superman film. Please no more Lex Luthor centered shenanigans or kryptonite BS... let's see Superman face a real threat...Doomsday!
The basic unit of work in the Pomodoro Technique™ can be split in five simple steps: Choose a task to be accomplished Set the Pomodoro to 25 minutes (the Pomodoro is the timer) Work on the task until the Pomodoro rings, then put a check on your sheet of paper Take a short break (5 minutes is OK) Every 4 Pomodoros take a longer break via pomodorotechnique.com I'm giving the Pomodoro Technique a try today for my work. Looks like a nice way to split time, and a nice complement to GTD as a mechanism for the "doing" part of it.
cf3-findpath2.cf Actually, this is just to test what posterous does with a text attachment.
Update: so it seems it just attaches it to the page. My suggestion, which I have already emailed to the Posterous guys, is to have the option to auto-post text attachments to gist.github.com. This would make it even easier to include code in blog posts.
The US Chamber of Commerce has apparently spent too much time watching Mad Men: in a blog post this morning, Chamber blogger Brad Peck called women’s fight for pay equity to be nothing more than a “fetish for money,” and said women complaining about their pay should focus instead on “choosing the right partner at home.” via workinprogress.firedoglake.com You couldn't make up stuff like this. Wow.
In this post, I will explain how I use Github to version my code and Heroku to deploy it, with 2 different environments. You may also read this article that explains how to deploy your application on Heroku and this one that also explain how to deal with multiple environments
Here are 10 big ideas from David Allen’s Getting Things Done…
1. If your day-to-day life is out of control, it’s almost impossible to think strategically or plan effectively. 2. Define what being “done” looks like.
of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC). Drowning does not look like drowning via mariovittone.com This is an eye-opening article for me. Not having actually watched anyone drown (fortunately), I had the impression that someone drowning would trash madly as shown on TV and movies. This is knowledge that can actually save lives! I think everyone should read this, particularly parents.
On the Mac, Services are a niche. On iPhone OS they’d be nothing short of a revolution. via releasecandidateone.com Very interesting idea, would be incredibly useful. Follow the link for a full description, plus a mock-up video of how it could work.
via d8.allthingsd.com Nice video summary of Jobs' appearance at D8. Favorite quote: "we've sold an iPad every three seconds since launch, so people seem to be liking them".
I don’t have a solution, but at least I have a better understanding of the problem. Falling victim to a scam isn’t just a matter of not being wise to the ways of the world: it’s a matter of being caught out in a moment of distraction and of unlikely circumstance. via locusmag.com Good lesson to stay always alert, even if you think you know better.
Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind. via apple.com Letter from Steve Jobs about why Apple does not support Flash on their mobile devices.
via gtdtimes.com Short video of David Allen talking about the importance of the GTD tools you choose. Conclusion: the most important thing is that you choose a tool you actually use, because the moment you stop putting your stuff in it, it will stop working.
via singularityhub.com What a cool use for Segways - man-sized robots able to move in many ways like humans, act unpredictably and react to other robots, humans and the environment.
via queretaro.gob.mx Queretaro, where I live, is abundant in free WiFi hotspots, they claim they are the Mexican city with the most coverage. In any case, it's very nice, most parks and public places or government buildings have free Internet access, and in my experience it's even not too slow.
Given all this, I predict that later this year the iPad product line will be something like: $499, 16GB WiFi $599, 32GB 3G $699, 64GB, 3G Bottom line: If you are on the fence about buying a 1.0 iPad, go with the cheapest model.
Trying to install Windows XP within VMWare ESX and getting the following error message?
"Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer."
via blog.lib.umn.edu Switcher is a nice Expose clone for Windows 7. The blog post includes some ideas for customization to make it look nicer (i.e. more Mac-like :-) than the default.
via ericwhitacre.wordpress.com Beautiful video of a choir that has never met in real life. Follow the link for the story (and more videos) of how it came to be.
"Jedis are very welcome to shop in our stores," he said, "although we would ask them to remove their hoods. via loweringthebar.net Hilarious story, particularly the response from the Tesco representative. I'd say that's the only way to deal with wackos like that - make fun of them on their own terms.
My head was once filled with bits and pieces of information like phone numbers, to-do lists, and addresses. I’ve ceded that responsibility to technology.
via passiveaggressivenotes.com Great sense of humor (follow the link for more signs from the same store). Reminds me of the signs in a Shakey's Pizza place where we used to go when I was a kid. Two I remember:
"We have a deal with the bank. The bank doesn't make pizza, and we don't take checks."
"If you would like to use your plate for your cigarette ashes, please ask the waiter to serve your pizza in the ashtray"
via theoatmeal.com I've never been a big fan of Facebook, though I think it's OK to keep in touch with family and friends who use it (that's my main use for it these days). But these behaviors really drive me up the wall.
The instructions below apply to the LBD 370 & 360. via videohelp.com How to make the LG BD370 region-free (mine came set to "All regions" for Blu-Ray, but not for regular DVD). For the most complete instructions, see the post by BoriMar, February 06 2010. One change: I had to burn the contents of 6000.zip to a CD for it to recognize it, putting it in the USB drive didn't work, but the down/upgrade files worked fine from the USB drive. I burned the CD using the built-in capabilities of Windows Vista, just making sure to check the options for "mastered" format, and to close the session on ejecting the CD.
Sure, you can shorten your URLs, but that just leaves them mildly cryptic and foreboding. Use ShadyURL to make your URLs downright alarming. via wondertonic.tumblr.com My new URL shortener of choice :-)
I am not just a Linux enthusiast, I also happen to use Windows quite often. In fact, Windows is my primary desktop from which I connect to all the other boxes and do my work on. During the years of Windows usage, I have accumulated a list of must-have Windows programs that I wouldn’t be able to work without. Some of them are commercial, some are freeware, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is how productive you are with your setup. If you’re really productive on Linux with your own set of tools, it’s perfectly fine and you have done a great job of finding the best tools of trade. via catonmat.net Having recently moved to Windows as my main desktop OS (out of work requirement, not by wish), I have been trying to find good software that makes it a more pleasant environment. This list has many good recommendations.
Secretly, I suspect, we technologists quite liked the idea that Normals would be dependent on us for our technological shamanism. Those incantations that only we can perform to heal their computers, those oracular proclamations that we make over the future and the blessings we bestow on purchasing choices. via speirs.org Very interesting post about the negative reactions to the Apple iPad.
Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don't take s--- from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for — not for hours — but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, 'We're not going to do this. You're going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport. via thestar.com Very interesting article about doing airport security when you face real, constant threats, and how to do it without ridiculous and time-consuming measures that are only useful to further promote the security theater.
A booming voice is saying, 'Let there be light,' but there is already light. It is saying, 'Let the earth bring forth grass,' but I am already standing on grass. via theonion.com Hilarious!