My Kickstarter Project has been FUNDED!!
Tue, May 15 2012 09:39
With the incredible graphic by my friend Brian Manning, and this quirky video I made I set out to get a Kickstarter project going to write a short eBook on Environmentalism. Originally I titled it "Why Environmentalism Fails" in the style of the book "Environmentalism is Dead" but I realized that was not what I wanted. So I re-titled it "How Environmentalism can Succeed" and set out to promote it.
My family did an all-star job at this sending my friends and family email far and wide and almost all the founding came through their work. Incredible support! I deeply awed and very grateful to them for this.
Today I wrote an update for the project and did some research and writing. Then I spent a few hours freaking out. It's such a huge job! Or at least it suddenly seemed so. By hook or by crook I will do it.
Lately I've been working on the tone of the book. I want it to be hopeful and profound. Now to create that...
Seeking inspiration I found this touching short student film done by a 20 year old.
If a twenty-something can do that, I can write this ebook! :)
Onward into the writing jungle.
Comments
The Fallacy of Mad Max
Fri, May 11 2012 11:12
In the movie "Doomsday" a post-apocalypticfilm set in a Scotland that looks like a punk version of the 70's movie "The Warriors" crossed with the crazy Road Warriors from Mad Max a mo-hawked leader runs a group of crazy cannibals.
But this is utter non-sense. The fallacy here is that a cult of personality would develop at all. One where people would tattoo themselves and live in brutality and violence. The reality would be very different. You see this culture of personality would require mass media to be generated. In small groups you'd have a culture of character. People wouldn't care if you look great or if you're crazy, or punk or violent. People would seek leadership in character not in personality. People like Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt would be the real leaders not crazy charismatic leaders. With a lack of mass-media to celebrate this individual expression, it would be the strength of character that would rule the day.
Cult of personalty is an industrialized and post-industrialized society issue. Nobody remembers the famous actors of Lincoln's time even though they were as popular then as actors are today. The difference is today those traits are celebrated and the character of a person can ignored.
Evidence of this is how a charismatic preacher (Ted Haggard ) wailed against homosexuality and became very famous only to be found to have hired a male prostitute.
But this relies on media to carry the message. A tight-knit group of survivors at the end of the world would not likely care one whit about personality and be more interested in the kind of person they were dealing with directly. Good looking or not. Loud or quiet. Who knows? But I guarantee he or she wont look like bored teenagers.
But this is utter non-sense. The fallacy here is that a cult of personality would develop at all. One where people would tattoo themselves and live in brutality and violence. The reality would be very different. You see this culture of personality would require mass media to be generated. In small groups you'd have a culture of character. People wouldn't care if you look great or if you're crazy, or punk or violent. People would seek leadership in character not in personality. People like Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt would be the real leaders not crazy charismatic leaders. With a lack of mass-media to celebrate this individual expression, it would be the strength of character that would rule the day.
Cult of personalty is an industrialized and post-industrialized society issue. Nobody remembers the famous actors of Lincoln's time even though they were as popular then as actors are today. The difference is today those traits are celebrated and the character of a person can ignored.
Evidence of this is how a charismatic preacher (Ted Haggard ) wailed against homosexuality and became very famous only to be found to have hired a male prostitute.
But this relies on media to carry the message. A tight-knit group of survivors at the end of the world would not likely care one whit about personality and be more interested in the kind of person they were dealing with directly. Good looking or not. Loud or quiet. Who knows? But I guarantee he or she wont look like bored teenagers.
Default Audio Ubuntu 12.04
Thu, May 3 2012 05:52
My new Ubuntu 12.04 install keeps defaulting to my HDMI audio that I don't use. I looked on how to set a default audio on Ubuntu and couldn't find a solution that was simple and elegant. Weirdly I remembered having this problem before and then I saw I could disable an audio hardware in the dialog. Now it will default to the only other audio device, the one I'm using without me having to do any weird configurations.
Windows 7 Fresh Install Procedure
Tue, Apr 24 2012 03:34
| Windows
My Windows 7 computer crashed last week. It had been giving me BSOD for a few days. This gave me an opportunity to start fresh with a new Windows 7 install. In re-installing I found a few thing I hadn't found before and re-visited some cool options.
This is vitally important. I discovered this on this install that right after I had installed everything, suddenly the computer would just write and write to the disk but nothing seemed to be going on, except indexing. Indexing has some odd defaults like scanning external drives (and keeping an index on them!). First thing is removing those External Drives from being indexed, next I remove all the settings files that are in my User/username directory like .gimp2.6 and .ssh and so on. Then I add indexing to the C:\Sites directory that Rails installer creates.
Follow these tips and procedure, and you should have a system similar to mine and ready for some coolness.
Configure the BIOS
Windows 7 doesn't require any fancy BIOS setting but I would recommend that you make them Hackintosh compatible now, otherwise you wont be able in the future. There are three changes you should make: set Suspend to S3, SATA to AHCI, and HPET to 64bit.Installing Windows 7 64-bit
I don't have a wired connection to my computer so I install from a DVD, then I run through this installation procedure.- Install Wireless Driver: TP-Link (from CD)
- Run Windows Update (several hours & restarts)
- Use Ninite (ninite.com) to install Microsoft Security Essentials first.
- Then use Ninite to install other software like for example: Chrome, Opera; Skype, Pidgin, Thunderbird; iTunes, VLC, Audacity, Spotify; Silverlight, Air; Picasa, Gimp; SumatraPDF, LibreOffice; Essentials, Malwarebytes; uTorrent; Dropbox, Evernote, Steam; (avoid TeraCoy), True Crypt, Revo, InfraRecorder; 7zip; Notepad++.
- Install MS Office 2010 & .Net 4
- Run Windows Update again (several hours)
- Install Trackball Driver & Software (Logitech 64bit)
- Install Video Card driver: ATI.
- Install Printer Network driver & software: Canon.
- Configure HomeGroups (remove them)
- Install Other Software: a. Rails Installer
- Configure Dropbox, Web-browsers, copy settings from old installation (but not Chrome's!)
- Configure Windows Indexing (very important!)
- Configure Start-up scripts and do some House Cleaning.
- Configure Gimp Paint Studio (GPS) which makes Gimp awesome.
b. PDFviewer
c. Firefox Beta & Nightly (64bit)
d. node.js & coffee-script
e. Flash 64-bit
f. doPDF (print to PDF software)
g. iCloud Control panel
h. f.lux (color temp changer)
i. Console2
Configure HomeGroups (Removing them)
I don't use HomeGroups and it always bothers me that they are enabled by default and that they occupy vital space in the explorer pane. I followed the instructions on the How to Geek website. Once you leave any HomeGroups (which you don't have to do if you never created one) you run the following command: services.msc and look for two options HomeGroup Listener and HomeGroup Provider and disable both by double clicking on them and setting the Start-up type to 'Disabled.'
Configure Windows Indexing
This is vitally important. I discovered this on this install that right after I had installed everything, suddenly the computer would just write and write to the disk but nothing seemed to be going on, except indexing. Indexing has some odd defaults like scanning external drives (and keeping an index on them!). First thing is removing those External Drives from being indexed, next I remove all the settings files that are in my User/username directory like .gimp2.6 and .ssh and so on. Then I add indexing to the C:\Sites directory that Rails installer creates.
Configure Star-up Scripts and House Cleaning
- My Documents folder seems to get full of cruft like gegl folder, Saved Games folder and all sorts of other extraneous stuff that are not, in fact, documents. A little house cleaning I do is I make all those folders hidden folders. That helps guide my eyes to the important folders.
- Folder Options (Control Panel > Folder Options) are configured to hide extensions and not to show hidden files. Both of which annoy me so I change those.
- I have a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) so I configure the Power Options (Control Panel > Power Options) too.
- To configure the Star-up items run msconfig on the Start search field and go to the Starup tab and un-check the services you don't want running at start up. Here I always disable iTunes as it slows the boot time dramatically and all those scripts that check for updates.
Other Tips
- Make sure you rename your old User folder to a different name if you're reusing the same user-name on your new install. If you don't when you connect your external drive thinking of transferring all your old setting you'll run into a problem of the folder not opening. I suggest booting into Linux with a CD and changing the name on the old folder. I simply append '_OLD' to the old username to now be David_OLD and that seems to work fine.
- I used to recommend Soluto but now on my new install, the boot time is way quicker and I do more or less the same thing manually with msconfig above.
- Avoid Adobe PDF Reader. Unless you absolutely need it, the other options listed above (SumatraPDF and PDFviewer) are way quicker.
- Don't copy over your Chrome settings if you have sync active. It will erase your password fields and then sync them (no-bueno). Chrome syncs well if you don't copy over the setting from the old one and simply sync.
- TerraCopy seems to conflict with Avast Anti-virus (this conflict caused the crash in the old computer btw) at least on Windows 7 64-bit.
Follow these tips and procedure, and you should have a system similar to mine and ready for some coolness.
Top 10 Games of All Time
1. Shadow of the Colossus
It has an incredible atmosphere, challenging game play and deep pathos. It's hard to capture a mood with a game and this game captures it perfectly.
2. Silent Hill
I played this game in Japan while healing from a broken clavicle. The way it uses sirens and background noise to evoke dread in the player is unmatched. The game set a tone and kept it throughout. It was like diving in into my favorite horror stories. It was the first game that felt truly cinematic and the first that scared the shiatsu out of me.
3. Legend of Zelda
Without complication this game rewarded exploration. By eschewing experience points it created a simple mechanic of hearts that was easy to understand and powerful. I still remember burning a tree and finding the Level 8th dungeon, before my neighbor did.
4. Castlevania
The challenge of this game was incredible! The music was pulse-accelerating and you had to be precise, alert and on point. Its delay on the whip was fantastic because it rewarded intelligent playing not just mashing the controller. Not only that, but the monsters and the art were fantastic for the time.
5. Warcraft 2
This game introduced me to the cruel God that shines the sun on your face at 6:00am after spending all night gaming. The real-time strategy and the team-dynamics when you played 3 on 3 was awesome. It was the first networked game I played and one worth staying up all night to do so.
6. Team Fortress 2
This game combines cooperativeness and competition in a fast-paced fun multiplayer game that values player's individual styles of play. It's both collaborative and competitive and just plain awesome.
7. Dungeons and Dragons
I know this isn't a video game but I have to put it here because it's the first mayor cooperative game I ever played. All other games were competitive. There was always a winner and a sore looser, but not in D&D where the whole party could win, and it required teamwork. And when that team-work dynamic was working well was when the game was most effective.
8. Final Fantasy VII
This is the first game that had the balls to make you fall in love with a character and then kill it. It really made you invested in the story and the characters. The emotional hit was massive but mature, the game expected you to play like an adult. Its complex story went beyond merely good vs. evil and had compassionate enemies too. I still miss Aerith.
9. Myst
A huge hit when it came out, this game had no enemies, just a fully immersive world, great audio that pulled you in and for the time great graphics. It was the first game I played where you couldn't be killed. It truly transported you to different worlds and made you feel like you inhabited them with amazing use of audio and (at the time) beautifully rendered graphics.
ED: I just added a video tribute to Myst that's beautiful and I realized something: Myst is one of the origins of 'steam punk.' For that in itself it belongs in a top ten list.
ED: I just added a video tribute to Myst that's beautiful and I realized something: Myst is one of the origins of 'steam punk.' For that in itself it belongs in a top ten list.
10. (Insert game here)
I don't have a 10th one yet.... comments are open for suggestions though. What do you think? Civilization? Poker? Strip-poker! If I didn't get your favorite put it below. Maybe I haven't played it yet.
However, the hardest game to play is real life. And that game for sheer enjoyment should be in the top ten games of all time.
The Scary Man
A black man was shot in Florida. A kid really. Wearing a hoodie, buying skittles not to far from his home. Unarmed. The man who shot him was Hispanic. Everybody is crying racism.
I doubt it.
Race had something to do with it I'm sure, but I don't think it's as simple as racism. I think it's from a different way of looking at the other man, a way where the man is suddenly a threat before anything else, a kind of Anton's blindness that prevents people from seeing what's in front of them. A teenager with skittles becomes a threat. A danger. A terror that has to be stopped, lethal. I, of course, don't know for sure if this is what happened in Florida a few weeks ago, since few details have come out. But I doubt the calls for racism and wonder if it is this other thing.
I'll call it the Scary Man syndrome, which is distinct from racism.
I've seen it before. My roommate in college told me an experience so bizarre at first I thought he was pulling my leg, but after walking the world a bit, I'm inclined to believe him.
His freshman year my roommate was clean cut, his facial hair had not come out totally yet and he was sporting a kid n' play afro. He looked extremely young so at one point later, he shaved his head and grew a beard. But before this transformation and still during his first year, he befriended a fellow female classmate, with whom he lost contact as was common in those pre-facebook, pre-mobile phone days. Three years later, coming back from either his night job or the 'Wa, he happened upon her again. So he approached her to say hi, and got promptly maced in the face. Ouch.
When I was 16 years old I spent a summer studying in Harvard. Being my first time living away from home I found it exhilarating and challenging on many levels. One night I decided to volunteer at the homeless shelter. I looked where the shelter was, in a Church on the outside of Cambridge and not judging the distance from the map well, I decided to walk there rather than taking the bus. It was a bit farther than I though, and a bit colder than I thought so I zipped up my hand-me down leather jacket form Tito and sped up my pace.
About halfway through I hit a very desolate patch of street. Far enough from Harvard square to be completely still at night, I was the only one walking and I started feeling a bit scared about it. Then I saw an old black woman way ahead of me and wanting the company I walked a bit faster to reach her. Then she looked behind her and started walking faster. My senses got alerted I looked behind me. Nobody there. Look ahead and she looks behind her again and starts walking fast in a bit of a panic toward the bus stop. Now I'm sincerely frightened. Maybe I looked so quick I didn't see anybody and now looking back would make me look like a target, someone afraid. So I sped up even more, walking about as fast as my Boy Scout hiking-trained legs could take me and steeling myself for the worse. I turned to my already learned technique of using car's mirrors and store window panes to catch glimpses behind me. Again I saw nothing but an empty street. So I hazard a look. Nobody there. Empty. And then it dawned on me: She was scared of me! Me, a skinny sixteen year old, thousands of miles away from anyone I knew. The woman reached the well-lit bus stop and stayed nervous. The bus arrived and she got in like a mad woman, as I passed in complete amazement at what had just happened. I didn't realize how tense I'd gotten. My hands un-clenched inside my jacket. I smiled and shook my head and continued towards the church.
Lately something similar happened again when an old female friend said I was "scary" all of a sudden for repeatedly trying to get in contact with her. And it made me think of these instances, particularly my college roommate's.
How can someone go from friend to threat in the eyes of another person?
Surprisingly it may have nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the other person. And as when I got scared from the lady in front of me scared of me, scared people look even more suspicious. I know I would be scared if a guy was following me around, especially if I thought he had a gun. Would I feel threatened? I don't know.
But it all starts with that scary man syndrome where what's in-front of you: your old college buddy, a scared sixteen-year old, or a friend trying to get a hold of you, all become something else in your mind.
Race got nothing to do with it. My roommate's friend didn't see what was in-front of her, and the old lady didn't see the boy walking behind her. None of them saw what was in-front of them. Period. Their fear blinded them. And scared people can do strange things.
He could have been Chinese, if he elicited the fear, race wouldn't have mattered.
I doubt it.
Race had something to do with it I'm sure, but I don't think it's as simple as racism. I think it's from a different way of looking at the other man, a way where the man is suddenly a threat before anything else, a kind of Anton's blindness that prevents people from seeing what's in front of them. A teenager with skittles becomes a threat. A danger. A terror that has to be stopped, lethal. I, of course, don't know for sure if this is what happened in Florida a few weeks ago, since few details have come out. But I doubt the calls for racism and wonder if it is this other thing.
I'll call it the Scary Man syndrome, which is distinct from racism.
I've seen it before. My roommate in college told me an experience so bizarre at first I thought he was pulling my leg, but after walking the world a bit, I'm inclined to believe him.
His freshman year my roommate was clean cut, his facial hair had not come out totally yet and he was sporting a kid n' play afro. He looked extremely young so at one point later, he shaved his head and grew a beard. But before this transformation and still during his first year, he befriended a fellow female classmate, with whom he lost contact as was common in those pre-facebook, pre-mobile phone days. Three years later, coming back from either his night job or the 'Wa, he happened upon her again. So he approached her to say hi, and got promptly maced in the face. Ouch.
When I was 16 years old I spent a summer studying in Harvard. Being my first time living away from home I found it exhilarating and challenging on many levels. One night I decided to volunteer at the homeless shelter. I looked where the shelter was, in a Church on the outside of Cambridge and not judging the distance from the map well, I decided to walk there rather than taking the bus. It was a bit farther than I though, and a bit colder than I thought so I zipped up my hand-me down leather jacket form Tito and sped up my pace.
About halfway through I hit a very desolate patch of street. Far enough from Harvard square to be completely still at night, I was the only one walking and I started feeling a bit scared about it. Then I saw an old black woman way ahead of me and wanting the company I walked a bit faster to reach her. Then she looked behind her and started walking faster. My senses got alerted I looked behind me. Nobody there. Look ahead and she looks behind her again and starts walking fast in a bit of a panic toward the bus stop. Now I'm sincerely frightened. Maybe I looked so quick I didn't see anybody and now looking back would make me look like a target, someone afraid. So I sped up even more, walking about as fast as my Boy Scout hiking-trained legs could take me and steeling myself for the worse. I turned to my already learned technique of using car's mirrors and store window panes to catch glimpses behind me. Again I saw nothing but an empty street. So I hazard a look. Nobody there. Empty. And then it dawned on me: She was scared of me! Me, a skinny sixteen year old, thousands of miles away from anyone I knew. The woman reached the well-lit bus stop and stayed nervous. The bus arrived and she got in like a mad woman, as I passed in complete amazement at what had just happened. I didn't realize how tense I'd gotten. My hands un-clenched inside my jacket. I smiled and shook my head and continued towards the church.
Lately something similar happened again when an old female friend said I was "scary" all of a sudden for repeatedly trying to get in contact with her. And it made me think of these instances, particularly my college roommate's.
How can someone go from friend to threat in the eyes of another person?
Surprisingly it may have nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the other person. And as when I got scared from the lady in front of me scared of me, scared people look even more suspicious. I know I would be scared if a guy was following me around, especially if I thought he had a gun. Would I feel threatened? I don't know.
But it all starts with that scary man syndrome where what's in-front of you: your old college buddy, a scared sixteen-year old, or a friend trying to get a hold of you, all become something else in your mind.
Race got nothing to do with it. My roommate's friend didn't see what was in-front of her, and the old lady didn't see the boy walking behind her. None of them saw what was in-front of them. Period. Their fear blinded them. And scared people can do strange things.
He could have been Chinese, if he elicited the fear, race wouldn't have mattered.
H1-B1 Visa Entrapment
I've been rather bemused by the calls to increase STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) education in this country. Mostly because I think the stress is in the wrong area. The US in my opinion doesn't need any more STEM mayors. What it needs is to have the base level of understanding in those subject areas raised across all disciplines. The fact that a simple process like global warming is misunderstood and one as complex as evolution dismissed and in danger of being taught along side creationism in many states (see teach the controversy bills) are real problems. But a shortage of engineers sounds fishy to me.
I can't put my finger on why exactly that is but I have a good intuition about this things and I'll trust it. One clue however is the H1-B1 program. In my former company we had software-engineers that were part of that program and I found something strange about it right away. The visa is owned by the company you work for not the individual: it is a hidden form of indentured servitude. Now I've worked abroad and know how precious getting a work visa can be to the country you wish to work at. But by letting the companies own them, the employees can't shop around for the best salaries nor rock the boat too much in the company. H1-B1 doesn't seem to be about a shortage of engineers or talent or anything but about a shortage at the price companies would like to pay. For who would ask for a raise if your employer controlled your visa? Now I know that there are some expenses the company has to go through to acquire an H1-B1 visa, or at least I surmise there are. However, for this expenses they get a employee that is more or less married to that company regardless of the work conditions. Now the problem with this is that it depresses salaries for Americans too. If a company can pay %20 less over 6 years to a foreign national, why pay top dollar for a local one that may leave for the competition at any time?
Unlike the H1-B1 program my work visa in Japan was owned by me. It was sponsored by my employer but I could quit and it would be valid till the end of the expiration of the visa. While it was frowned upon to leave your employer that sponsored your visa you could. And this gave you great flexibility and the ability to abrogate for your work conditions to some degree.
This article has a good take on the STEM issue and it should give pause to those that wish to simplify it to an educational initiative:
I think educational institutions respond rather well to demand, if a bit behind it. But something weird happens with technical fields. I remember that many programmers (of say COBOL) got the boot in the 80's because one ended up working for my father. I couldn't understand why a highly trained programmer wouldn't be able to find work in his field but I got it later. If the field shrinks suddenly you can't wait for it to recover. You need to find work now, you switch careers and abandon the technical field. A reason for the extreme expansion in pay for programmers during the nineties was that after the 80's contraction of programmers the Computer Science field shrank (or plateaued) , so that when the web dawned, the field was smallish and overnight in high demand.
One thing that can be done right away is to reform the H1-B1 visa so that the individual holds the visa so they can shop around. And maybe study if there really is a shortage or if it's just part of a boom-bust cycle of growth going through a trough. This 'shortage' sounds curiously like a self-created emergency.
I can't put my finger on why exactly that is but I have a good intuition about this things and I'll trust it. One clue however is the H1-B1 program. In my former company we had software-engineers that were part of that program and I found something strange about it right away. The visa is owned by the company you work for not the individual: it is a hidden form of indentured servitude. Now I've worked abroad and know how precious getting a work visa can be to the country you wish to work at. But by letting the companies own them, the employees can't shop around for the best salaries nor rock the boat too much in the company. H1-B1 doesn't seem to be about a shortage of engineers or talent or anything but about a shortage at the price companies would like to pay. For who would ask for a raise if your employer controlled your visa? Now I know that there are some expenses the company has to go through to acquire an H1-B1 visa, or at least I surmise there are. However, for this expenses they get a employee that is more or less married to that company regardless of the work conditions. Now the problem with this is that it depresses salaries for Americans too. If a company can pay %20 less over 6 years to a foreign national, why pay top dollar for a local one that may leave for the competition at any time?
Unlike the H1-B1 program my work visa in Japan was owned by me. It was sponsored by my employer but I could quit and it would be valid till the end of the expiration of the visa. While it was frowned upon to leave your employer that sponsored your visa you could. And this gave you great flexibility and the ability to abrogate for your work conditions to some degree.
This article has a good take on the STEM issue and it should give pause to those that wish to simplify it to an educational initiative:
In response to the alleged shortages of qualified American engineers and technology professionals, numerous initiatives have been launched to boost interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers and to strengthen STEM education in the United States. Unfortunately, these programs have not proven successful, and many blame the laziness of modern students, the ineptitude of their teachers, poor parenting or, when there are no more other excuses remaining, they may even jump to moral decay as a causative agent. However, the failure of STEM is due to the fact that the very policies that created the shortages continue unabated. [emphasis mine]
I think educational institutions respond rather well to demand, if a bit behind it. But something weird happens with technical fields. I remember that many programmers (of say COBOL) got the boot in the 80's because one ended up working for my father. I couldn't understand why a highly trained programmer wouldn't be able to find work in his field but I got it later. If the field shrinks suddenly you can't wait for it to recover. You need to find work now, you switch careers and abandon the technical field. A reason for the extreme expansion in pay for programmers during the nineties was that after the 80's contraction of programmers the Computer Science field shrank (or plateaued) , so that when the web dawned, the field was smallish and overnight in high demand.
One thing that can be done right away is to reform the H1-B1 visa so that the individual holds the visa so they can shop around. And maybe study if there really is a shortage or if it's just part of a boom-bust cycle of growth going through a trough. This 'shortage' sounds curiously like a self-created emergency.
Browsers I use
Opera
Opera was for the longest time my favorite browser. It had tabbed browsing when that was just an idea in the back of a Firefox developer and it had a great hiding ability in the PC which made it great for work, Ctrl+H (they changed it afterwards) and it minimized to a task-bar icon, perfect for that unexpected visit to your workstation and even better, as my job was visually intensive but I could listen to whatever, it has a voice reader built-in on Windows XP. Unfortunately, Opera has more or less dropped from my the list of browsers I use with one exception: It's my default feed reader and IRC chat client.
I also use it on my Mac laptop because it allows private tabs (as opposed to the whole browser) saving screen-real-estate. Sadly on the PC it has gone from main browser to occasional special use, which is a bit sad considering Opera pioneered a huge amount of the technologies used in other browsers like: tabbed browsing, keyword searches, persistent tabs, built-in developer tools and the speed-dial. It's got extensions now but by taking so long there, there aren't many great ones or something like Chrome's Web store.
[Edit: Mar, 23, 2012:
I just found this great extension for Opera called Ghostery that blocks trackers on the websites you visit. One of the consequences of this is that your browsing becomes faster, since it doesn't have to load a lot of other crap. I block everything except Google's services since I use those fairly often. This makes browsing on Opera way quicker and much more pleasant. ]
Chrome
This is my main browser in Windows and in Linux. It is fast, snappy and responsive and now has the ability to open mail links in gmail which is great. I worry a bit about its Google integration but its feature set is great including the ability to open PDF within the browser which I love and have downloads in a tab. However much as I like Chrome on the PC, I just can't make it work for me on the Mac. I've installed it a bunch of times but it just doesn't work for me.
One of the features that Chrome added that tipped me into using it as my main browsers is the ability to do targeted searches from the awesome bar. In Opera I can type "w river blindness" and it will automatically search Wikipedia for me for entries on that. This feature has been added to Chrome and it makes browsing for me much quicker. This was one of my favorite features of Opera I'm glad it is propagating.
Firefox
This browser has come back from the dead and is now my go-to second line browser in ALL my platforms. That is pretty impressive, because before its switch to a regular release schedule it was going fast into the night. In reality I use three browsers rather than just one. I use a Nightly 64-bit build on my Windows set up, which works stably and fast, whereas the 32-bit was slow as molasses, the Beta on the Mac and regular on Linux (simply cause I haven't been able to get the newer builds on the package manager there).
Essential add-ons: pdf.js (lets you preview PDF in browser like Chrome), HTTPS-Everywhere, Firebug, Growl/GNTP, Downloads in Tab (doesn't work in Mac for some reason), FireGestures (if you use a trackball like me) and NoScript (for security).
And if you have Firefox set to remember your tabs from the last time make sure you don't load them until selected otherwise Firefox will start up sluggishly.
Safari
This is only on my Mac and I use it for quick and fast browsing on my Mac. I love the integration with Preview and its full-featured print menu (I do a lot of print to PDFs). I also watch most YouTube videos or Hulu on Safari because it seems to work better with flash than the other browsers. Safari is great on the Mac (and on my iPhone), all serious browsing however goes on in Firefox on my Mac. In a way I used it as a replacement for Chrome which just doesn't do it for me on the Mac.
A little known feature of Safari on the Mac is that it allows you to view quick-time trailers full screen.
Internet Explorer 9
I don't use this browser really but it's 9 version is decent, it even has a 64-bit version. I still recommend Chrome or Firefox over it, but finally I can say if you're using IE9 you don't have to switch.
Opera was for the longest time my favorite browser. It had tabbed browsing when that was just an idea in the back of a Firefox developer and it had a great hiding ability in the PC which made it great for work, Ctrl+H (they changed it afterwards) and it minimized to a task-bar icon, perfect for that unexpected visit to your workstation and even better, as my job was visually intensive but I could listen to whatever, it has a voice reader built-in on Windows XP. Unfortunately, Opera has more or less dropped from my the list of browsers I use with one exception: It's my default feed reader and IRC chat client.
I also use it on my Mac laptop because it allows private tabs (as opposed to the whole browser) saving screen-real-estate. Sadly on the PC it has gone from main browser to occasional special use, which is a bit sad considering Opera pioneered a huge amount of the technologies used in other browsers like: tabbed browsing, keyword searches, persistent tabs, built-in developer tools and the speed-dial. It's got extensions now but by taking so long there, there aren't many great ones or something like Chrome's Web store.
[Edit: Mar, 23, 2012:
I just found this great extension for Opera called Ghostery that blocks trackers on the websites you visit. One of the consequences of this is that your browsing becomes faster, since it doesn't have to load a lot of other crap. I block everything except Google's services since I use those fairly often. This makes browsing on Opera way quicker and much more pleasant. ]
Chrome
This is my main browser in Windows and in Linux. It is fast, snappy and responsive and now has the ability to open mail links in gmail which is great. I worry a bit about its Google integration but its feature set is great including the ability to open PDF within the browser which I love and have downloads in a tab. However much as I like Chrome on the PC, I just can't make it work for me on the Mac. I've installed it a bunch of times but it just doesn't work for me.
One of the features that Chrome added that tipped me into using it as my main browsers is the ability to do targeted searches from the awesome bar. In Opera I can type "w river blindness" and it will automatically search Wikipedia for me for entries on that. This feature has been added to Chrome and it makes browsing for me much quicker. This was one of my favorite features of Opera I'm glad it is propagating.
Firefox
This browser has come back from the dead and is now my go-to second line browser in ALL my platforms. That is pretty impressive, because before its switch to a regular release schedule it was going fast into the night. In reality I use three browsers rather than just one. I use a Nightly 64-bit build on my Windows set up, which works stably and fast, whereas the 32-bit was slow as molasses, the Beta on the Mac and regular on Linux (simply cause I haven't been able to get the newer builds on the package manager there).
Essential add-ons: pdf.js (lets you preview PDF in browser like Chrome), HTTPS-Everywhere, Firebug, Growl/GNTP, Downloads in Tab (doesn't work in Mac for some reason), FireGestures (if you use a trackball like me) and NoScript (for security).
And if you have Firefox set to remember your tabs from the last time make sure you don't load them until selected otherwise Firefox will start up sluggishly.
Safari
This is only on my Mac and I use it for quick and fast browsing on my Mac. I love the integration with Preview and its full-featured print menu (I do a lot of print to PDFs). I also watch most YouTube videos or Hulu on Safari because it seems to work better with flash than the other browsers. Safari is great on the Mac (and on my iPhone), all serious browsing however goes on in Firefox on my Mac. In a way I used it as a replacement for Chrome which just doesn't do it for me on the Mac.
A little known feature of Safari on the Mac is that it allows you to view quick-time trailers full screen.
Internet Explorer 9
I don't use this browser really but it's 9 version is decent, it even has a 64-bit version. I still recommend Chrome or Firefox over it, but finally I can say if you're using IE9 you don't have to switch.
Yes that's me they're referring to.
Fri, Mar 2 2012 12:09
| Linux
The Christian Problem
Sat, Feb 25 2012 02:23
| Society, Environment, Truth, TinyHouse, Government, Personal
I've been researching to write a book on Truth after I finish my novel. It's slow research, one can't rush philosophy or theology. So tonight on a restless night I was reading about a person that ran into trouble with his neighbor on his tiny house. I got upset. I got sad. I went through teeth-grinding frustration reading his blog post. Only words yet they got me so upset. I've been noticing this more and more lately and paying attention to them and recording them to see why they make me so upset. Like for example one of the people in my Agile Management Class, writes in such a way that I get upset, angry and furious about it and become rather arrogant with him. I'm not sure why it pisses me off so much the way he writes but I'm beginning to think I strikes me as him "being better than me" and I just want to show him his not better than me. I should say that in his writing he doesn't say he's better than me but that's how it strikes me, presumptuous. And this is the phrase that comes to mind when I read him: "This is the way it is because it is/I say so." Oh I get so mad at that, the presumption that authority dictates truth just really riles me up. I shouldn't let it. But now I see a path that needs to be walked. I digress.
So Jonathan, the guy with the blog post build an illegal tiny house. Illegal because of a (pardon me) moronic ordinance that houses have to be a certain size (almost 1,000sq feet in this case) to be "livable." Yet somehow apartments and dorm rooms are exempt from that. My thoughts on that ordinance should be clear. However, I suspected that this may be the case as it's a common ordinance. Now what bothered me was the entitlement of his neighbor which Jonathan, I think correctly, suspects called the inspectors on him. And here we get to the Christian Problem.
Christianity is a theology unlike Islam or Judaism which are both more like Theo-practices. So in Christianity you can weirdly believe in Jesus and follow Ayn Rand and not see the contradiction in that. Christianity doesn't prescribe actions only beliefs. No need to actually act on those beliefs; just have them.
I understand why Christianity developed this way. From the pagan converts of Europe substituting one faith for another to the eager Greeks dissatisfied with philosophy and the traditional ceremonies that welcomed the Jewish God and made a new religion out of it, Christianity has been very mutable during its existence.
But today this disparity that allows you to act callously and pretend to be a good moral Christian is worrisome. People who think they are doing the right thing with no real experience of morality can do terrible things. Let us not forget that the Nazis were sanctioned by the Church. It's not coincidental. Authority can wave its hypnotic influence over many and blind them to their own immorality while accusing others of evil. Like the experiment where people in lab coats authorized torture and the unknowing participants became willing tormentors with all but the simple consent and approval from an authority figure. This is so far from the spontaneous morality of Jesus, who walked with the prostitutes, the shunned, the sinners with kindness and love. The "prosecuted" Christians of today have confused as John Stuart says getting what they want with being discriminated against. How blind are those that don't want to see...
I for one will look hard into my arrogance, and find why I get so upset when people act like this is the way things are when the reality is that they've created the way things are out of nothing, created them like a rule in a monopoly game, but now pretend they're real and immutable and I a fool for questioning them. Some of that is in my head alone yet I remember JFK's words that problems created by men can be fixed by men and think of the economy, war, and evil and think all those were created by men.
Written at 2 a.m. after the fever broke, Feb 25, 2012.
Update [I forgot to add the link to the blog I was reading, so I've added it now and italicized first paragraph.]
So Jonathan, the guy with the blog post build an illegal tiny house. Illegal because of a (pardon me) moronic ordinance that houses have to be a certain size (almost 1,000sq feet in this case) to be "livable." Yet somehow apartments and dorm rooms are exempt from that. My thoughts on that ordinance should be clear. However, I suspected that this may be the case as it's a common ordinance. Now what bothered me was the entitlement of his neighbor which Jonathan, I think correctly, suspects called the inspectors on him. And here we get to the Christian Problem.
Christianity is a theology unlike Islam or Judaism which are both more like Theo-practices. So in Christianity you can weirdly believe in Jesus and follow Ayn Rand and not see the contradiction in that. Christianity doesn't prescribe actions only beliefs. No need to actually act on those beliefs; just have them.
I understand why Christianity developed this way. From the pagan converts of Europe substituting one faith for another to the eager Greeks dissatisfied with philosophy and the traditional ceremonies that welcomed the Jewish God and made a new religion out of it, Christianity has been very mutable during its existence.
But today this disparity that allows you to act callously and pretend to be a good moral Christian is worrisome. People who think they are doing the right thing with no real experience of morality can do terrible things. Let us not forget that the Nazis were sanctioned by the Church. It's not coincidental. Authority can wave its hypnotic influence over many and blind them to their own immorality while accusing others of evil. Like the experiment where people in lab coats authorized torture and the unknowing participants became willing tormentors with all but the simple consent and approval from an authority figure. This is so far from the spontaneous morality of Jesus, who walked with the prostitutes, the shunned, the sinners with kindness and love. The "prosecuted" Christians of today have confused as John Stuart says getting what they want with being discriminated against. How blind are those that don't want to see...
I for one will look hard into my arrogance, and find why I get so upset when people act like this is the way things are when the reality is that they've created the way things are out of nothing, created them like a rule in a monopoly game, but now pretend they're real and immutable and I a fool for questioning them. Some of that is in my head alone yet I remember JFK's words that problems created by men can be fixed by men and think of the economy, war, and evil and think all those were created by men.
"Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings."
John F. Kennedy, speech at The American University, Washington, D.C., June 10, 1963 35th president of US 1961-1963 (1917 - 1963)
Written at 2 a.m. after the fever broke, Feb 25, 2012.
Update [I forgot to add the link to the blog I was reading, so I've added it now and italicized first paragraph.]
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