Fred Yankowski

"letting go of the notion that somehow we own that which is in our life" - Fred Yankowski

Some interesting command line tricks for the bash shell and linux. - Fred Yankowski

"This the curse of uncertainty: it makes everything feel unappealing." - Fred Yankowski

Example of using scan-to-PDF to get rid of archival paperwork. Does OCR and can be searched using spotlight on Mac. - Fred Yankowski

"This is how a mature and healthy mind works: conducting a dialogue not so much between reason and desire as between responsible desires and irresponsible ones." - Fred Yankowski

Excellent summary of an optimistic approach to life. "Look upon the inevitable setbacks that you face as being temporary, specific and external. View the negative situation as a single event that is not connected to other potential events and that is caused largely by external factors over which you can have little control. Simply refuse to see the event as being in any way permanent, pervasive or indicative of personal incompetence of inability." - Fred Yankowski

Nice overview of flash photography setups. - Fred Yankowski

"My favorite piece of research from all the happiness research I’ve read is that self-discipline snowballs. That is, if you can work hard to have self-discipline in one, small area, you create self-discipline almost effortlessly in other areas. The most famous study about this phenomena is from Baumeister, who found that students who walked with a book on their head to fix their posture ended up eating better, studying harder, and sleeping more. Without even noticing they were making those changes. " - 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