Validate Your Life

I originally had far too much on my plate trying to simultaneously Triple-Boot, sync calendars, email, and personal data across three operating systems.  The poorly written (but highly extensive) post to that insanity can be found here, as a previous post.  I never got the triple boot going in that post; this time, however, I DID!

July 18, 2010 — 1:43 PM  I’m really proud of this post.  I put a lot of time and effort and troubleshooting into it.  But most of all it’s rewarding and a project that was (on the rare occasion) an actual great use of my time, and congruent with my career, interests, and passions, and definitely aligned with computer science.  Plus, it’s essential to my interest and studies in operating systems.  So, jolly good!

First off, acknowledgements…Invaluable or at least moderately helpful sites for accomplishing the triple boost:

• MacBook TripleBoot Instructions
• Triple Boot Mac OS, XP, and Linux on a Mac – Wired How-To Wiki
• Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx)
• How to install Ubuntu Linux on a Mac
• How to Triple-Boot Your Mac with Windows and Linux, No Boot Camp Required

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…and not watching movies. (This is in reference to non-fiction books, btw — and quality reads, not crap).

1. Movies leave you under a spell; an illusory haze so you cannot see. Books give control of the haze others are under.
2. Movies manufacture illusion without you knowing it, while books allow you to choose experience illusion, without decoupling awareness from experience.
3. Books enable to you to explain and teach about illusions and reality, placing you at “cause” instead of at “effect” where you are a victim of illusion. You’re in the driver’s seat reading and writing books.
4. Books clarify and provide understandings. Movies merely create suspence and foreshadowing. Movies are hollow, they foreshadow and build suspense, but they leave you empty with no treasure, no gem. Books have the gem. Books, sure, create suspense, intrigue, and connection. I remember countless “on the edge of my seat” reads of Sherlock Holmes and bawling at the end of Where the Read Fern Grows in early elementary school. And just in 2008, I was completely engaged and in awe of the adventure created by Jules Verne in around the world in 80 days. Those fiction reads provided massive suspense, BUT BUT BUT, unlike movies, the books also provided incredible value and understanding!! I learned so many lessons from those books above. For example, inductive observational skill from Doyle’s book (Sherlock Holmes), the touching experience of pet comraderie (from Where the Red Fern Grows), and the necessity of time, precision, and the cool collected travel making things happen skills of Mr. Fogg from Around the World in 80 days. Because I READ those experiences as books as opposed to watch what was blasted at me with pixels from a movie, I experienced them more wholistically and I acquired the lesson and understanding, with the entertainment and fun of a very absorbing and exciting read!
5. You think more clearly with a book because your brain gets neurological activity firing that is congruent with the logic of the book. Kind of like a “mental-cerebral” version of “if you smile, you’ll feel happy”. If you read a smart book, you’ll think more intelligently. Movies trick and obfuscate intelligence.
6. Books, you have total control over the pace, and “order you read”, movies (unless you fumble with FF and RW buttons, you do not have the same control.
7. Books, your vision is the movie and you are the director; movies lack that customization.
8. Books teach and entertain and create more cohesive thinking; movies, merely entertain with an inkling of “teaching”.
9. Both movies and books inspire, but books provide an inspiration that is more enduring beacuse it is “your own version” of the inspiration.
10. Finally, books don’t need electrical outlets, high-tech dvd players, surround sound and the like. Books are portable; you can bring them anywhere. Laptops are fixing that with movies, but with a book, you use your “built-in” surround sound, imax, widescreen mental imagery vision, which is infinitely more crisp, alive, and exciting than a movie screen.

I’m a former movie junkie (thousands and reruns) and have rediscovered the joy of reading!

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I am not you, and you are not me.  That is the way things are.  I like that.  As you ponder that, let me explain to you why I find tremendous value in that distinction.

Distinctions create boundaries.  Without distinctions, everything would be porous and absorbing this information or that information would generate confusion.  But that confusion is instantly absolved when we utilize distinctions.

There’s a tendency for people with whom I communicate to think that we have some connection, as-if they “know me”.  The way they communicate and the advice they give comes from the perspective of “I know this person in every dimension and in every aspect”.  But then I mention something that I have done that the person with porous distinctions has not done, like ran multiple marathons,  the person shirks back and immediately says “Oh, I couldn’t do that!”.  Instantly their slurring and blurring of our distinctions of you being me, and me being you –gets mutilated when an element of capacity enters the conversation.

You see, as you listen to this closely and intently you realize that intention should govern our behavior (and often it does when we are not being persuaded, manipulated, or under a hypnotic trance by the media), but  many times our perception of capacity limits our behavior.  When I mention to someone actions I have taken that they deem outside of their capacity (for example having written 4 books, or ran multiple marathons, or any other task of which people are incredibly capable of doing, but don’t believe they have that capacity to do so) who has a ruptured their perception of boundaries, what happens in their mind?  First they recoil.  They instantaneously have a thought process of “this person is not whom I thought they were and there exists a distinction in our capacity”.  Such distinctions are good.  Because in many ways, what makes you you, and me me, is our logical levels, which of course, include beliefs, identity, capabilities, and behavior.  If I am talking to you in person, we share the same environment.  That is it.  I’d say environment is roughly 3% of “who I am” and “who you are” at best.   Without logical levels, we are all practically identical twins because our only differences would be blemishes on our epidermal layer of our skin, hair coloration, simple, trivial distinctions bound into the same sequences of deoxyribonucleic acid.  So it’s truly our logical levels that spark this kind of Lamarakian

For awhile in my junior year in college I engaged this belief that we were all this spiritual, interconnected, “Universal One” person.  I enjoyed entertaining that belief because of many reasons.  Reasons for entertaining the “universal one” delusion: (more…)

Thank the Google God, the Yahoo Yogi, and the Live Leader that this site exists.

It’s truly awesome and has answered many of my SEO questions.

Useful Jargon
~”Bishop pair”= You possess two bishops and your opponent does not.
Cliffs Notes
Detailed Guidelines
Anywhere
1. Calculate the value of each piece for you and your style of play. If you use a lot of back-rank mating combinations frequently, for example, a rook might be worth 5.75 or 6 to you. If you thrive with end game and passed pawns, then a pawn could be worth as much as 2 points for you in endgame. Q=9.25
R=5.25
B= 3
N=3.25
P=1
Bishop Pair = 0.5
Grandmasters have given slightly different values to their pieces. While the rook and knight have remained constant, value fluctuations have occurred with the queen, bishop, and pawns. Modern evaluations of pawns can be as high as 1.5 in the end-game as well. Some notable alternatives:
Howard Staunton
Q=9.94
R=5.48
N=3.05
B=3.5
P=1
Bishop Pair = 0.5
or
Q=9.5
R=5.25
B= 3.25
N=3.25
P=1.25
Bishop Pair = 0.75
2. Visualize and ask Questions about your moves. Take time to visualize the board and pick the best possible move. Before performing a check or move always scrutinize the move from all angles. Ask questions such as

“What lines will open up after this move?”
“How is my development? How can I enhance it? What are my weaknesses?” Example answer: “My pawn structure is strong but I need to bring my knight to control the center.”

“Will there be any discovered attacks?” “How does this move support my development, attack my opponent, and/or defend my pieces?” Example Answer: This move will support my knight’s advancement to the g-file, protect my rook, and it set’s up a mating skewer”.

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Astronomy: The Phoenix craft of the “Mars Scout Program” to mars is a $475 million mission to launch and land the Phoenix spacecraft on the surface of Mars and explore it. When you consider the massive undertaking of such a project, NASA’s slim budget of $475 million is extremely frugal, pennies really, but despite it’s relatively slim budget, it’s been an incredible success. The Phoenix lander was set to explore Mars for 90 “sols” (Martian days, or about 92 earth days). But instead of lasting a mere 3 months, it lasted almost 5, and only lost transmission to the approaching harsh Martian winter. Phoenix broke the barrier setting a lot of discoveries in previously uncharted territory.
The Phoenix included a set of ovens to heat minerals and materials it picked up as well as an electronic “wet chemistry lab” to run various experiments on the substances it sampled. Phoenix was the first spacecraft to ever “break the surface” (pun somewhat intended) and dig beneath the ice of another planet. This technological advancement revealed that the northern plains of Mars are more habitable for life than expected. Instead discovering inhospibility soil acids, Phoenix discovered alkaline soils, which could be actually conducive to potential plant life!!! It may not be green aliens with three heads and phasers, and rather possible microbes, but the Phoenix has come the closest mankind ever has to discovering life on another planet!

The Future of the Mars Scout Program will include an exciting “SUV-sized” Mars Science Lab (MSL — and yes, and actual “laboratory”) hehe. Like its predecessors Spirit  (January 4, 2004 landing) and Opportunity, (January 25, 2004 landing)  the MSL will have vehicular mobility.

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.

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Legal Crap and Frightening News: There’s a lot of lame crap going on in the legal world. The attorney general of California sued three small trucking companies for violating labors to avoid paying payroll taxes. Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was convicted on 7 counts of corruption and should serve 5 years for each count, but apparently may serve much less. On a much scarier note, the Alchohol, Tobacco, Firearms bureau successful stopped anotehr school killing spree before it started. Some idiot neo-nazis had some heinously inhuman plan to decapitate African Americans and assassinate Barrack Obama. Wow. It’s times like these where corruption, illegal earning, and racist brutality seem to clog the news that you feel pretty pathetic calling yourself American. At the very least it certainly doesn’t make you feel safe! In fact, the news in America has gotten so foul and disturbing (I can’t believe there’s still racist neo-nacist hate group buffoons still around), there’s really no point in continuing to cover it. But just the fact that dangerous hate-group racism still exists in America really causes you to scrutinize that irrationality. The opinions on slavery from the Civil War really might have left a scar and some racist people remain dangerously confused and primitive, but this chunk of news just reeks of a lot of fear. Jeez, just the thought that if Obama gets elected he could be under the threat of a racist assassination is, well, a sad sign that maybe some haven’t evolved as much as they should have. Fortunately, tomatoes have evolved!

Bottom-line: Sometimes current events are so atrocious, at times it’s good just to not pay attention to the news.

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Athletics: Roger Bannister, born almost 80 years ago, in 1929, was the first human ever to run a mile in under four-minutes. He accomplished this amazing feat in 1954 during a track meet in Oxford, UK. The winds were high at first, died down, Bannister ran, and when the announcer announced his time of “3…” the crowd went mad. His official time was 3:59.4.
That’s a great achievement but what was even more fascinating that the psychological barrier was shattered. Instantly after Bannister did a sub-4, other runners believed it was possible and consequentially more and more sub-4 miles were accomplished. John Walker went on to run 129 sub-4 miles, alone, and Daniel Komen of Kenya, in 1997, doubled up Bannister’s original record to run a sub-8 minute 2-mile (two sub-4 miles back to back). So all this “breaking the barrier” business in athletics — or any arena of accomplishment — has a big emphasis.

Certainly, three sub-4 miles back to back resulting in a sub-12 minute 3-mile race is certainly a goal for some, but an even more prominent goal is the sub-2-hour marathon barrier. People have gotten close, but no one has ever run a marathon in an amount of time that begins with “1-hour”…x minutes, x seconds. Right now, the person to do that most likely is Gebrselassie, an amazing Ethiopian runner. You can read the full article, but basically prior to Haile Gebrselassie’s race in Berlin about 2 weeks ago a 2-hour 4-minute marathon was a barrier. Gebrselassie went on to break that with a 4:44 mile pace to get 2:03:59. There are skeptics and optimists of the 2-hour marathon barrier, but if anything, Gebrselassie brought the world a whole lot closer to the accomplishment of shattering such an outstanding barrier.

Bottom-line: Gebrselassie pushes the sub-2-hour marathon record.

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Welcome back to the Productivity and Organizational Progress (POP) Suite. Today we’re talking about Email Organization.

Here’s my two cents on email productivity.

THEGoogle’s Recommendations for IMAP Settings”> source for clarity on [Gmail]

Transportation: Interestingly enough, local Californians and many other commuters have grown a liking to the public transportation method of commuting they adopted to deal with outrageous gas prices not too long ago. Now that gas prices have dropped, many commuters still prefer the public transportation method. Hey, better for the environment, less pollution, and cheaper; they just have to make sure they get a good bus driver!

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As a closer note…here’s the best collection of old school cheesy computer nerds possible ever created: I think keywords for this vid are “pascal” and “floppy disk” serve as a blurb.

This also serves as a testament to how outrageously lax television production rights were back in the 90s. haha! But that blonde nerd chick…total hottie.

Very impressed with the diverse collaboration of so many well known people for this humorous anecdote of Billy boy’s last day. Also, it’s always amusing and cool to see so many well-known people just casually operating in their down time modes out of the limelight (albeit a humorous glimpse). Magnifico.

Here’s another interesting sequence of videos showing alternative angles from the technological leaders of Microsoft and Apple, twists you would wouldn’t expect like:

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Woz. He’s so brilliant. But he just appears so gypped in the business world. Trampled on by cutthroat business sharks. But ironically he’s the smartest person with apple. The mind behind the first apple computer.

Jobs definitely always pushed the sales. Woz is just a curious. He just looks so uncomfortable these days! Like uncomfortable with his body. One interesting pattern you’ll notice here is that Woz is continually talking about the past. “That’s the way it worked back in the day.” “Back in the old days…”. That’s great, but I think Steve Jobs’s prescience and vision and Bill Gates’s ability to always stay on top of new market trends makes for better business leadership.
Here he is reaffirming that the tech business (unfortunately) became about programming and actual “tech” work and instead, more about business, wearing the right suit, and sales.