Fred Yankowski

"if we bring up opposing arguments, then shoot them down, not only is the audience more likely to be swayed, we also see a boost in our credibility." - Fred Yankowski

"As paradoxical as it sounds, we can only find this genuine happiness by first understanding that the present moment of mind and body is unsatisfactory. By progressing through the stages of insight - experiencing fear, then weariness, then dispassion when noting phenomena—we can give up attachment, the real cause of distress. The more clearly we see the lack of worth in mental and physical sensations, the less desire we'll have for them until, thoroughly disenchanted, craving will be snuffed out automatically. As soon as that occurs, pure happiness will arise by itself." - Fred Yankowski

Outlines stoic thought and compares and contrasts with Zen Buddhism. Looks very good and useful. - Fred Yankowski

Simple plan for making a shoerack and bench from Ikea units. - Fred Yankowski

Resist "treats". Be nice for someone else. Distract yourself. Seek inner peace through outer order. Tell yourself, "Well, at least I...". Exercise. Stay in contact. Go to bed early and get up after enough sleep. Remind yourself of your other identities. Keep perspective. Write it down. Be grateful. Use the emergency mood toolkit (another link). - Fred Yankowski

A list of key git commands and their SVN counterparts. Looks like a good quick-start and reference. - Fred Yankowski

"The now you may see the costs and rewards at stake when it comes time to choose studying for the test instead of going to the club, eating the salad instead of the cupcake, writing the article instead of playing the video game. The trick is to accept the now you will not be the person facing those choices, it will be the future you – a person who can’t be trusted. Future you will give in, and then you’ll go back to being now you and feel weak and ashamed. Now you must trick future you into doing what is right for both parties." - Fred Yankowski

An example branching model for development. This is for Git but it could work just as well in Mercurial, I think. - Fred Yankowski

"I propose another option: go to a cheap state school for a small amount of money, do very well, and pay full tuition at a fantastic graduate program. I believe that in most cases, these students would be better served by a bare-budget (but difficult) undergrad state-school education, and an expensive high-profile Master's degree." - Fred Yankowski

"According to the findings, today’s students are generally less likely to describe themselves as “soft-hearted” or to have “tender, concerned feelings” for others. They are more likely, meanwhile, to admit that “other people’s misfortunes” usually don’t disturb them. In other words, they might be constantly aware of their friends’ whereabouts, but all that connectedness doesn’t seem to be translating to genuine concern for the world and one another." - Fred Yankowski

A guy describes how he developed a simple python application on Google App Engine, keeping it simple and getting something working ASAP. - Fred Yankowski

Excellent summary of common security flaws in web apps, and how to fix them. This has the best description of XSS (cross site scripting) that I've seen. - Fred Yankowski

"my goal was to acclimatise myself to many shorter work chunks during the day instead of a few very large ones, while still maintaining productivity. The key to this was to learn how to get back ‘In The Zone’ in the shortest time possible" 1. Embrace interruptions 2. Maintain context outside of your head at all times. a. Maintain a running commentary on your current task. b. Ruthlessly ignore tangential issues. c. Always know what you're doing next. 3. Prioritize negatively ("what doesn't need to be done") 4. Recognize the benefit of breaks. - Fred Yankowski

1. Does this thing work? 2. Would I replace it if it were broken or lost? 3. Does it seem potentially useful--but never actually gets used? 4. Was I "saving" it? 5. Does it serve its purpose well.? 6. Has it been replaced by a better model? 7. Is it nicely put away in an out-of-the-way place? 8. Does this memento actually prompt any memories? 9. Have I ever used this thing? - Fred Yankowski

"We could solve much of the wrongness problem, Ioannidis says, if the world simply stopped expecting scientists to be right. That’s because being wrong in science is fine, and even necessary—as long as scientists recognize that they blew it, report their mistake openly instead of disguising it as a success, and then move on to the next thing, until they come up with the very occasional genuine breakthrough. But as long as careers remain contingent on producing a stream of research that’s dressed up to seem more right than it is, scientists will keep delivering exactly that." - Fred Yankowski

"Happiness is harder to get. It’s enjoyed after you’ve worked for something, or in the presence of people you love, or upon experiencing a magnificent work of art or performance — the kind of state that requires us to engage in real activities of certain sorts, to confront real objects and respond to them. And then, too, we shouldn’t ignore the modest happiness that can accompany pride in a clear-eyed engagement with even very painful circumstances." - Fred Yankowski

A charming little tale of frustration and hope. - Fred Yankowski

"If you want to make excellent stuff, you need to make a lot of stuff. If you want to make a lot of stuff, you’ll make a lot of crap. If you want to make excellent stuff, you need to make a lot of crap. And my personal opinion here - And that’s okay, because you get judged by your best work, not your bad work." - Fred Yankowski

Globalization or bust. "the subprime housing boom in the United States is not simply the result of extreme optimism about the prospects for housing, but also a reflection of the brutal fact that tens of millions are approaching retirement in an actuarially bankrupt state. In effect, the two choices are: 1) continue on the present course to certain destitution in old age; or 2) roll the dice on the housing boom as the last chance to build wealth, and hope against hope that one gets out in time. The personal and secular levels intersect, in that lives of quiet desperation paradoxically may surface as ebullient market bubbles." - Fred Yankowski

"Group intelligence depends less on how smart individuals are and more on their social sensitivity, ability to take turns speaking, and the number of women in the group." - Fred Yankowski

"Progressives must show equal determination to “take back their country” from those who would define it too narrowly. This means mounting a spirited defense of progressivism on the three fronts outlined above: to defend an expansive, populist, American understanding of political rights; to believe that government action can support both liberty and equality in all spheres; and to remain committed to improvement without pursuing unreachable goals. " - Fred Yankowski

"Wisdom sees the joke in everything. Wisdom is never upset. When you see the truth, it’s easy to laugh. You can be going through something really difficult, but when you really understand, you can laugh. People don’t want to be sad; they want to laugh." - Fred Yankowski

Getting video/TV without cable, using Mac Mini, Xbox, Hulu, and netflix. - Fred Yankowski

"All the productivity advice I've ever read preached the exact same underlying concepts and ideas. Sleep well, eat well, exercise, eliminate clutter, focus on one thing at time, get on an information diet etc. Along the way you get to learn about the the Pareto principle and Parkinson's Law." "In the end, everyone comes up with their personal little system for getting things done. And the discipline you put into following through with your plan is what actually makes it work, not the details or schematics of your plan itself. In the end, it's like Aaron Swartz once wrote, Do It Now. When you become productive, and limit the amount of things you give your attention to, you start acting immediately on whatever task is next on the queue with no second thoughts, quickly iterating between tasks from start to end. That is what some people call flow." - Fred Yankowski

"We get things wrong because we have an enduring confidence in our own minds; and we face up to that wrongness in the faith that, having learned something, we will get it right next time" - Fred Yankowski

"A few lucky men are at the top of society and enjoy the culture’s best rewards. Others, less fortunate, have their lives chewed up by it. Culture uses both men and women, but most cultures use them in somewhat different ways. Most cultures see individual men as more expendable than individual women, and this difference is probably based on nature, in whose reproductive competition some men are the big losers and other men are the biggest winners. Hence it uses men for the many risky jobs it has." "What seems to have worked best for cultures is to play off the men against each other, competing for respect and other rewards that end up distributed very unequally." "The essence of how culture uses men depends on a basic social insecurity. This insecurity is in fact social, existential, and biological. Built into the male role is the danger of not being good enough to be accepted and respected and even the danger of not being able to do well enough to create offspring." - Fred Yankowski

"WEIRD [Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic] people, the UBC researchers argue, have unusual ideas of fairness, are more individualistic and less conformist than other people. In many of these respects, Americans are the most "extreme" Westerners, especially young ones. And educated Americans are even more extremely WEIRD than uneducated ones." In the Ultimatum game, "WEIRD" people tend to offer nearly-even splits and reject uneven splits. Others are unlikely to reject even the most unbalanced splits. That is, fair splits are more important to the WEIRD. - Fred Yankowski