Getting Things Done! :: MarkTAW.com: "Don't 'Live' At The Office
When I was doing the 9 - 5 thing, I installed Instant Messenger on my computer because I was looking for a distraction from work. I surfed the web and browsed forums. Now that I leave when I want to, I don't bother with this stuff. I have my cell phone, and it has Instant Messenger & SMS/Text Messaging on it, so you can reach me if you want to just about any way you choose - IM or phone - but I'm not encouraged to sit there and chat away all day. The faster I work, the sooner I get to go home, or see my friends, so I don't want to be distracted from work."

Getting Things Done! :: MarkTAW.com: "Perhaps that same pressure causes you to focus only on things you can do, and not make the item some sort of pie in the sky item that you may eventually cross off. There's a big difference between 'Redesign Main Site' and 'Download All Files For Main Site' in terms of which is an action I can take now, and which is a goal that has quite a few steps that need to be taken to finish. Somehow, writing it down makes me distinguish between the two more than typing it out. Probably because I know I can't add sub-bullets or edit it. What I write down I have to be able to check off.
You also can't carry your computer to the meeting, and re-typing notes from the meeting is just a waste. Data entry into a PDA is too limited, you're always trying to find shortcuts to writing things and that's just not right, you need to be verbose at times. You can also draw pictures as needed to clarify things, using your notebook for things other than just to-do list."

Getting Things Done! :: MarkTAW.com: "When I was young there were a few blizzards. Real snow storms with 3 or more feet of snow. I didn't go to school, and I played in the snow occasionally, but mostly I stayed in. There was no where to go. It was bliss. It's hard to describe the feeling, but the joy of knowing that you're exactly where you should be is very soothing.
Normally at work we're distracted, fidgeting and looking for something to do. You could go to the snack machine, bathroom, for a cigarette, talk to your coworker, etc. It's these infinite little possibilities that strangle our productivity. Our sense of place. Knowing that you are where you're supposed to be, and there's nowhere else to be is a powerful thing.
Write Everything Down. In One Notebook.
This is a practice I picked up at my first job. I was responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars of production at the factory, and making sure everything was there in time install in major building projects. Needless to say, I had to keep meticulous notes, and I had to be sure everything I said would be done actually got done."

Adium X(tras) :: Sound Sets :: Tokyo Train Station: "A soundset released to commemorate 2000 downloads for C Major and it's long-standing position as #1 Most Popular! Thank you all so much.

Tokyo Train Station is a remake of Electric Dream, designed for users who enjoy the simplicity of Electric Dream but dislike its dreamy and uncanny capability of lulling them to sleep.

This is a collection of 5 mutated synthesizer runs for the following events: Buddy LogOn, Buddy LogOff, New Message Received, Message Sent, Message Received.

Though the sounds play the same musical notes, they have all been remade so that they are less mellow and 'dreamy.' The 'log-on' and 'log-off' sounds have been significantly redesigned so they are much shorter and much less dreamier than it's predecessor, Electric Dream."

Replacing A Toilet Wax Bowl Ring: "The last step for a toilet installation is to apply a bead of Kitchen-and-Bath silicone caulk between the toilet and the floor. This will help hold the toilet from moving. But... I don't caulk at the back of the toilet. If a leak ever develops, water will have a chance of leaking out and being detected."

cheap soundproofing materials?: "One material I've heard of automotive people using to quiet and insulate the cockpit of their car is the stuff you can find at Home Depot in the roofing department that comes in rolls, is adhesive-backed and looks like tar paper. It seems to me that if it can keep a big-block V8's noise under control it should be able to work in a budget studio application."

Sound Proofing: "Sound Proofing starts with some means of damping. A number of products are available for this, and they all have various degrees of effectiveness. The best results are always obtained from using a combination of these products. There are mats, sprays, foams, and insulation available from a number of manufacturers

Mats are usually either Styrene-Butyadine-Rubber or asphaltic sheets backed with an adhesive of some type (although other materials are used in some cases). Installing mats in your vehicle is a simple way to reduce vibration, and is effective as well. The way mats work is that they are used to cover panels. The material they are made of absorbs vibrations in the panels, and turns them into heat, or it may simply lower the resonant frequency of the panel. Mats can also be placed between panels to reduce the amount of vibration between the two panels when they are in close contact. Many times, the mats will also have a metal foil backing to improve the heat resistance of the matting (thus allowing you to use it in an engine compartment). The matting also adds weight to a panel, reducing it's tendency to vibrate in the first place. Some of the more popular mats are Dynamat and Road Kill, but there are alternatives. One of those alternatives is a material known as Ice-Guard. Ice Guard is normally used as a roofing material, but is essentially the same material as commercial mats, except that it incorporates an asphalt material for water proofing. Ice-Guard is much cheaper than the other commercial mats, up to 80% less. It has to be bought in large amounts, however, and minimum purchases are usually 80 to 100 dollars for an entire car, compared to $400 using Dynamat or Road Kill. Ice-Guard also has to be aired out for a couple of days after installation before you can put your interior back in, and it is recommended that"

43 Folders: A Year of Getting Things Done: Part 1, The Good Stuff: "GTD has helped me develop my own idea of what a project really is:
It has more than one physical action.
Its projected outcome is valuable, desirable, and well articulated (even if it needs to change or adapt as the project?s constraints evolve).
Everyone involved in the project understands and agrees on the project?s value and desirable outcome (or, failing at that, they at least understand what their role in its envisionable success must be).
It?s something to which I?ve made some kind of commitment?either a public commitment to others or even just a mental obligation I?ve made with myself. This is something in the world that I agree deserves my time and attention to the exclusion of other things"

Development of the Handlebar Stem Clamp: "www.eBiciBikes.com). In this case study I would like to indicate how we have been using a combination of these various design methods to develop one small component of the eBici bike - the clamp that connects the handlebar stem to the steer tube of the front fork. The bike is being built in eCycle in PA, and its current hardware"

: "Usernamecraniac
Customer ID132807
First NameMark
Last NameCrane
OrganizationUtah Valley State College
Address2172 white pine road
Cityeagle mountain
Stateut
Zip/Postal Code84043-4290
CountryUSA"

Cracked block, anybody seen this before?[200/85]: "Cracked block....JB Weld type....If you can get to the damaged area...there are two products I have used on industrial engines very successfully...each is a cold paste applied polymeric type poduct...not cheap but it works when done correctly..look for THORTEX (try www.thortex.com) or BELZONA ( not sure of their web)...cost several hundred dollars for the kit....but well worth it...in any repair (weld, filling, etc.) the crack must be terminated (drill a hole at each end of crack as well as each turn or split off of crack) to prevent 'crack creep'...'V' out crack between drilled holes...clean and decrease the repair area with a good decreaser (usually comes with kit) which leaves no residue...the secret here is CLEAN...mix the two part paste, wet out the area with the paste and smear it on.....let cure or help it along with a hair dryer....if you get the kit follow instruction to a 'T'...I have done off road vehicle engines as well as large truck engines (diesel and gas) and auto engines...either product is not for use in high heat areas (exhaust flanges, pipes, headers, combustion chambers, etc.) Takes a good days work (and then some) to do the job. Hope this helps...and have a Merry !!"

Fixing Common Telescope Problems: "Improving a Department Store Telescope"

Excelsis Ratings/Reviews: "The best way to orient yourself is to start memorizing constellations. Constellations are your landmarks of the sky and will allow you to readily find things. Start with easily recognizable ones like the Big Dipper and move outward from there. In the northern hemisphere, one of the most useful constellations to know is the Little Dipper, located right next to the Big Dipper, because it contains the north star (aka. Polaris). Unforunately, the southern hemisphere doesn't have a 'south star' convenient. The location of these 'celestial poles' is important, not only to get your bearings straight, but it is also a very common process to point your telescope at them in a process called 'polar alignment'. Once you get your bearings straight (which ways are North, South, East and West), you're ready to begin using your star map."

Scientifics? 60mm Telescope - Science Gifts - Edmund Scientifics

The New Yorker Prada's top saleswoman.

How to construct a tornado generator from The Encyclopedia of free energy,energy21.org,energy 21 org Geoff Egel

Nerd-Out.com :: View topic - AD-1110W/1010W basic, preliminary FAQ: "Q) Does the 1110W play VCDs?
A) The data we have so far indicates that all 1110W's do play VCDs. "

Merry Christmas From James!!!

Graphing Calculator Downloads

The Graphing Calculator Story: "I asked my friend Greg Robbins to help me. His contract in another division at Apple had just ended, so he told his manager that he would start reporting to me. She didn't ask who I was and let him keep his office and badge. In turn, I told people that I was reporting to him. Since that left no managers in the loop, we had no meetings and could be extremely productive. We worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week. Greg had unlimited energy and a perfectionist's attention to detail. He usually stayed behind closed doors programming all day, while I spent much of my time talking with other engineers. Since I had asked him to help as a personal favor, I had to keep pace with him. Thanks to an uncurtained east-facing window in my bedroom, I woke with the dawn and usually arrived ten minutes before Greg did. He would think I had been working for hours and feel obliged to work late to stay on par. I in turn felt obliged to stay as late as he did. This feedback loop created an ever-increasing spiral of productivity."

Af fatal :: The Daily Herald, Provo Utah: "Phillips had a history of seizures, police learned, but they won't know for sure if Phillips suffered a seizure prior to the accident until extensive medical testing is completed. Drugs and alcohol were not a factor in the accident.

As a commercial vehicle operator, Phillips had to be seizure-free for 12 months. Phillips had been seizure-free for a long enough time that he qualified for the necessary medical card and was cleared to drive. To obtain a class D operator's license, the license used by regular drivers, one must be seizure free for six months."

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?

Fast Company | The Accidental Guru: "Gladwell's real gift is packaging these ideas in a way that makes them palatable. '[He] acts almost like a translator between the scholarly world and the practical world,' says Frank Flynn, an associate professor of organizational behavior at Columbia Business School, who uses many of Gladwell's articles in his MBA classes. Gladwell deflects the charge that he's just a savvy marketer of ideas, standing by his earnest intentions to help frame people's thinking. 'When I was writing The Tipping Point , I realized that in order for people to talk about something . . . they need some way to describe and name things,' he says. 'So I always like to try to come up with simple, sort of catchy ways of capturing complex ideas.'"

How to fix a dim iMac CRT: "2. Badly Adjusted Cathode Ray Tube: The second major cause of unsatisfactory screen performance is a maladjusted CRT. Symptoms are usually less severe than with bad firmware, but are highly annoying nonetheless. They include fuzzy, out of focus areas on the screen (sometimes the at center but not the sides, or vice versa), excessively dark screens, or excessively bright, washed out screens. You may notice, while watching a DVD, that parts of a scene that should be in shadow, but still clear, are instead completely black. Or you may notice that even with the monitor brightness set to the max, digital photos appear dark and underexposed on the iMac screen, but not on other computers. Brightness (voltage) and focus are adjusted via two screws on the high voltage flyback transformer on the left side of the iMac, just below the edge of the upper plastic shell. The adjustment is not difficult, but should be performed with extreme caution. Even when the monitor is powered off and unplugged, it still holds enough charge to kill you instantly. IF YOU ARE UNCLEAR OR UNCERTAIN OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING, STOP! TAKE IT TO A CERTIFIED APPLE REPAIR TECHNICIAN."

The New York Times > National > A.C.L.U.'s Search for Data on Donors Stirs Privacy Fears

Ask MetaFilter | Community Weblog: "Without knowing your exact figures it is hard to say.

You may want to consider the fees associated with refinancing- Lenders policy, Title search, origination, underwriting, tax service, recording, etc. (These can add up quick.) If you paid your principal down by what it will cost to refinance, you may have the 20%.

Depending on how long you have had your current loan and what property values are doing in your area, it may be better to just get a new appraisal reflecting 20% equity. If the 'comps' in your area have gone up since your last appraisal or if the appraiser can find some better comps then you may have the equity you need. One of the best ways to make your appraisal go up is by adding heated and cooled square footage to your house. You can close in a garage or porch or sun room for more living space and add the value you need."

eBay item 7121676423 (Ends Dec-21-04 17:38:29 PST) - NEW 14ft Trampoline Enclosure Safety Net

:: rogerebert.com :: (xhtml): "Then I spoke with Alison Kitch, Daryl's law professor at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., who said: 'He got thrown out for doing what the honors book says you will be thrown out for: He lied. If he had only told his professor he missed class because he met a young woman on a train and spent two days with her in Atlanta, he might have gotten a bad grade, but he wouldn't have been thrown out of school.'"

:: rogerebert.com :: reviews: "Perhaps tragedy is in the family tree; I assume they are descended from the French poet Charles Baudelaire, whose poems about sex and death 'became a by-word for unwholesomeness,' according to Wikipedia.com."

:: rogerebert.com :: essays: "She agreed with Rosenberg about Eastwood's discipline as a director. 'He gets everything he wants, and doesn't waste one additional moment. Our longest day was 12 hours, and that included moving the company to another location. Sometimes we would finish the day's shots before lunch and he'd tell us to go home and he'd see us tomorrow. He was like one of the crew. He stood in line for lunch like everybody else. He'd never think of cutting in, which is the director's right. He was always on the set, never in his trailer."

:: rogerebert.com :: essays: "As for Eastwood: 'There is a quiet presence about him that's not arrogant or egotistical, it's just that he's been around and knows what he wants. His belief in you makes you believe in yourself, which makes you follow your instincts. Then you watch the finished film and you realize his fingerprints are all over it. You were being guided so subtly and simply, you never felt like anything was being forced on you. You felt like everything was your idea. It was the best experience I've had in my career so far.'"

Smell and Taste Disorders: A Primary Care Approach - January 15, 2000 - American Academy of Family Physicians: "Selected Medications that Reportedly Alter Smell and Taste "

Walmart.com - JumpKing 14-foot Trampoline: "More springs mean higher bounces. This 14-foot Jumpking trampoline features a grand total of 96 springs -- giving you the best bounce for your buck. Heavy-duty, polypropylene Permatron trampoline fabric resists fading. And the sturdy, 16-gauge galvanized steel frame sustains years of wear and tear. "

eBay item 6730581430 (Ends Dec-23-04 15:40:29 PST) - NEW INTEL *Very QUIET 1U CPU Fan Heatsink 370 7 A: "It also fits Other CPUs and Processors for Socket 7, 370, and A / 462."

X-CD-Roast port on MacOS 10.3

A reply to FARMS

cars.com: 1991 Toyota Supra Turbo: "Additional Selling Points: My dad owned the car for 10 years, keeping the car covered and in the garage. He would take it out in good weather for infrequent rides. He put 37,000 miles on it in 10 years. I have had it for 2 years, putting on about 19,000 miles. It has had regular oil changes and is in great condition."

Salt Lake Tribune - Salt Lake Tribune Home Page: "UVSC lost roughly $200,000 in donations - and a promised million-dollar art collection - since Moore's appearance. Garcia says that should not surprise anyone.
'Grambling University would not invite David Duke to speak without having donors pull away,' he said.
Before he graduates at the end of the school year, Garcia vows to work with regents, school administrators and the community to make UVSC's student government more open and accountable."

The Prophet of Immortality - Popular Science

ABC News: Doctors: Yushchenko Poisoned With Dioxin: " Dioxin poisoning caused the mysterious illness of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, doctors said Saturday.

Tests run over the past 24 hours provided conclusive evidence of the poisoning, Dr. Michael Zimpfer, director of Vienna's private Rudolfinerhaus clinic said.

'There is no doubt about the fact that Mr. Yushchenko's disease has been caused by a case of poisoning by dioxin,' Zimpfer said."

Low Intro APR Cards : Credit Card Center - Yahoo! Finance

Will The TV Guardian Work With My DVD Player?: "Will The TV Guardian Work With My DVD Player?
"

FARK.com: (1219854) Man convicted of rigging his car to spray chemicals from the trunk. Claims it was for de-icing the wheels: "I've found at night that if I cycle the ignition on my Harley, the flames out the pipes generally work well to repel any BMWs tailgating me.

If you're in a stick shift car, downshifting to slow down's fun with tailgater's too, cause they get really close, panic, mash the brakes. Or tap you, which startles them too.

Other fun things include filling the rear wiper tank with brake fluid and aiming it out back, to nail tailgating cars. paint remover, acetone, etc is useful here too, but brake fluid has the 'I didn't know where it went' factor helping it.

A friend of mine had a Jeep Grand (? It's a tiny shiatbox) Cherokee that was one better - the rear window tended to pop out really easy. That sure worked on tailgaters. Though you had to then stop, fetch the window, and punch it back in..."

RedbackSystems - MozNGW: Cross Platform Client for GroupWise: "Mozilla for GroupWise will finally be released on the 20th December 2004. Those of you who have already subscribed to the beta list will receive a mail a week or so before. It is now also the first application to have begun implementing our XULU Framework. Many thanks to the hundreds and hundreds of you that have been sending us emails of encouragement, we hope you'll find the wait worth it.
"

growabrain: Shooting an Elephant

Zen and the Art of Motorcycling Librarians

Graphics from the command line: "charcoal"

USA Linux Users Group :: Using Image Magick - scripts: "What is it?

DBP (David's Batch Processor) is a simple batch processor for the Gimp. I got tired of people asking on Gimp newsgroups and mailing lists, 'How can I resize a directory full of images', and even more tired of the standard reply, 'Use ImageMagick'. DBP allows users to do common processing tasks on multiple images, without leaving Gimp or having to learn a scripting language. DBP is licensed under the GPL. "

Slashdot | Portable Firefox and Thunderbird

Forbes.com:: "'These findings are expected,' said Gerald McEwen, vice president for science at the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association. 'MIT is a biocide. The purpose of it is to kill bacteria. You would expect it to be detrimental to any type of cells.'

McEwen said that direct exposure to high concentrations of MIT will be irritating to the skin, because it can damage skin cells. However, he doesn't believe that MIT poses any dangers to consumers in the low concentrations found in household products.

'The ability of MIT to cause neurotoxicity has been studied,' McEwen said. In animals exposed to MIT, there has been no hint of neuro-damage, because MIT affects only the cells it touches and there is no way for it to get into the bloodstream and go to the brain, he said."

Forbes.com:: "Whether long-term exposure to products containing MIT is dangerous is not known, Aizenman said. 'Can I say that these products are safe to use? No,' he said. 'Can I say that these products are unsafe to use? No.'"

Batch Processing in Adobe Photoshop

Headline news from Sky News - Witness the event: "CHICKMOBILE CONCEPT CAR"

VideoHelp.com Forum Archive - Video Capturing in Linux: "here my command for capturing with streamer to svcd:

streamer -n ntsc -b 24 -p 2 -j 90 -t 65:00 -s 480x480 -r 25 -o stargate.avi -f mjpeg -C /dev/dsp -F stereo -c /dev/video0
"

VideoHelp.com Forum Archive - Video Capturing in Linux: "To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection.
"

LinuxQuestions.org - capture video for linux - where Linux users come for help: "To capture the stream:

code:
mencoder -tv driver=v4l:device=/dev/video1:width=352:height=288 -vf pp=li -oac=lavc -ovc=lavc -o ~/capture.avi tv://"

General FAQ: "Why is the text on your site so narrow? It wastes screen space.

The aim of web design is not to use all available screen space. It is legibility. Text is most legible with at most 60-70 characters per line. On computer screens, you don't want to go much over 60."

What You Can't Say: "In 1989 some clever researchers tracked the eye movements of radiologists as they scanned chest images for signs of lung cancer. [3] They found that even when the radiologists missed a cancerous lesion, their eyes had usually paused at the site of it. Part of their brain knew there was something there; it just didn't percolate all the way up into conscious knowledge. I think many interesting heretical thoughts are already mostly formed in our minds. If we turn off our self-censorship temporarily, those will be the first to emerge."

What the Bubble Got Right: "And what would be wrong would be that how one presented oneself counted more than the quality of one's ideas. That's the problem with formality. Dressing up is not so much bad in itself. The problem is the receptor it binds to: dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as 'suits.'

Nerds don't just happen to dress informally. They do it too consistently. Consciously or not, they dress informally as a prophylactic measure against stupidity."

Essays

Knife Outlet: Dovo Klipette: "Innovative tool for cutting ear and nose hair quickly and easily. Just insert and twist."

Ask MetaFilter | Community Weblog: "There go my plans to ever move to the the UK. If corndogs are wrong, then I never want to be right."

Walmart.com - Bushnell 16 x 50mm Powerview Wide-Angle Binoculars: "Bushnell 16 x 50mm Powerview Wide-Angle Binoculars"

Walmart.com - Bushnell 16 x 50mm Powerview Wide-Angle Binoculars: "Bushnell 16 x 50mm Powerview Wide-Angle Binoculars"

Amazon.com: Camera & Photo: Bushnell Powerview 16x50 Wide Angle Binocular: "Bushnell Powerview 16x50 Wide Angle Binocular"

Cloudy Nights Binoculars star counts

Citi

Our credit card company gave us our minimum monthly payment. Disturbingly, they gave us the wrong amount, so that our debt was slightly increasing each month. They need to change their name from Zion's Bank to Satan's Bank.

ImageMagick Win2K Binaries

Image Manipulation and batch conversion using ImageMagick for Linux: "In this case only one image will be resized. To repeat this operation to all other images I will use a 'for' loop (bash):

$ for i in *; do convert -sample 60% '$i' 'new_$i'; done



Next, we will 'paste' these images in a 128x128pixel canvas, using composite.


First, we will need a image with this dimensions. We can use the convert itself to create it, like this:

$ convert -size 128x128 xc:white canvas.png
"

defective yeti: "America's Next Couch Potato

I'm going to make a million dollars selling mirrors to idiots and telling them they are ultra-thin flatscreen TVs that only receive reality shows about lazy people."

Image Manipulation and batch conversion using ImageMagick for Linux: "convert -transparent white image.gif image-transparent.gif"

Google Groups : rec.audio.car: ">Dynamat is probably about as cost
>effective as you can get for sound deadening material,
"

Tactical Gear | Covert | Law Enforcement | Military | Anti-Terrorist | Self Defense

Black Star Ops was conceived in the first few months following the terrorist attacks on 9-11.

Urban Tactical Gear products were developed through our research into what is available in tactical clothing options, and particularly that most tactical gear looked like tactical gear. We added the perfect twist for government, police and security agencies … the ability to wear tactical gear while blending into the crowd.

Wheeeee!

Barking in Dogs

Warrants and Missing Premises: "Background Premises and Warrants"

Tom's Hardware Guide PCs & HowTo: Supersize Your TV for $300: Build Your Own XGA Projector! - Step By Step: Removing The TFT Panel