Oxryly

Waits for the inevitable "we're switching from Lisp to Python" announcement...

Good message, good content, but that was some dry presentation.

I suppose the problem with every graduation speech is that it's some knowledgeable wise person up there talking essentially down to a bunch of life newbies down here. That is so rarely going to be interesting.

That seems right. However I think with an organization like Pixar there is an enormous energy that can potentially spew technical debt like nobody's business. If it goes off the rails, it could go off in a big way.

For that reason a manager in his position has to be hyper vigilant and really have his approach down pat, which appears to be the case.

Very cool stuff. I was expecting a lot and still I was blown away.

The article describes the basics of vipassana (insight) meditation. The same description applies to zazen, the meditation practice in Zen. I believe it is actually the basis for all meditative practice.

You can layer on certain guided thoughts (like mantras and chants), but meditative practice is more powerful the simpler it is. You must strip away as much as possible -- to just sit and bring the body, breath, and mind into sync using breath focus and an aware non-judgmental mind. There are many books written on the subject; I can personally recommend Mindfulness in Plain English (free version at http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html).

Meditation of this form is key to transforming your entire life. It is the gateway or pathway you can use to find and accept your true self and see yourself and your life for what it is. It is how you truly see that you cannot escape the present moment and that you have the full ability to choose how you relate to it. Sogyal Rinpoche says it better than I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tIBYxed16s.

I certainly hope that point isn't lost on anyone familiar with Google.

It might be kind of cool to have a little quiz style game at the end of each story, and you earn points for correct answers. I'd play... (I think)

Nice insight there; clearly spoken from direct and current experience.

I think it's just one way a consistent low level fear manifests itself in our lives. Breaking out of that secure routine is not just scary by itself -- it'll dredge up a host of un-faced fears we carry around trying to avoid. I have the luxury of pointing this out from my desk in my office as I look forward to lunch hour.

Not to pile on, but that sounds like more rationalization as well. Did the resistance to school increase the closer you got to graduation? I think the problem you're facing may be much closer to home.

She's actually describing the archetypal enlightenment experience that many world religions (Buddhism in particular) attempt to convey.

As such trying to put the experience into words is going to be unsatisfying and even absurd. It's vaguely akin to describing the taste of a hamburger to someone who's never eaten beef or bread (or pickles, cheese, etc...). Words cannot suffice.

Good post.

Today I was fortunate to have my Dad meditating right beside me for awhile. For the first time in 37+ years (i.e. exactly how old I am) I felt his presence and realized that it had always been there. Every second of every day of my life, my Dad has been present. He definitely fits the type A anxiety driven archetype, and he always struggled with working and really being with his family. His presence almost always manifested itself as a highly interested attention, which I let grate on me many atime -- especially during my teenage years. In fact I don't know if I've ever really acknowledged it as a presence rather than something else, usually unwelcome. But now I realize that in many ways its what made me who I am today. Be present indeed.

Excellent observation. I'd go a step further and say you'll wind up avoiding your own self in the process -- which in turn will make you miserable.

The Boy Scouts certainly helped me face my self directly, almost always against my preferences. Now if they (and I) had done a better job at prioritizing my time and dealing with my "atheism" I'd have made Eagle. Of course I would have felt guilty supporting an organization that essentially required a certain form of religious belief and also discriminated against gays.

Their message and practice is flawed but still contains quite a bit of wisdom.

Identify that maximum amount you'd be comfortable charging, then add 15%.

The black swan strikes again and we all know how and why only after it happens.

Except of course this should not have been a black swan to BP and regulators.

Inside Edition, Hard Copy, A Current Affair...

I've been doing mindfulness based meditation (vipassana and zazen) for several months now. I'd say that it does help in a number of ways.

For one, it is an excellent way to hone the practice of focusing your mind on your immediate activity. In Buddhist mindfulness practice you will focus your mind not just while sitting meditation, but also while walking or doing chores. Eventually you will be able to bring this focus to every activity you engage in during the day.

So in a way you move into the zone on a semi-permanent (or even permanent) basis.

The broader Buddhist philosophy is also an excellent way to eliminate distractions from your mind. In that philosophy, thoughts and feelings arise almost exclusively due to internal processes, and an important aspect of mindfulness meditation is letting those same thoughts and feelings go. So instead of distracting you like normal, the thoughts and feelings will "run their course" and dissipate much more quickly.

This is how the practice has benefited me the most. I now know that my normal distractions (e.g. checking HN compulsively) are not going to provide anything for me -- they are not a source of happiness or contentment. The mindful focus is my source of that happiness and thus preserving it is what I naturally want to do.

All that said my practice is far from perfect, as I do find myself here reading and answering questions. YMMV :)

Or that "width" ends with a "th" and "height" ends with just the "t".

Just use "sizex" and "sizey" like a Microsoft programmer from the '90s.

He seems to be telling his younger self to do an awful lot of stuff. I'm not sure that advice would have the intended effect. It'll lead to an alternate world where he advises things like:

4. Stop it with the relentless busyness -- take some time to just be, to stop and enjoy the life you have.

Would you recommend Debix's OnCall service? How does it work?

That's a crucial point. I wonder why that angle keeps getting overlooked when there are studies that support and explore it so well. Are the scientists dropping the ball? Are the writers?

I would like to nominate Mr. Norvig for the post of Internet Resident Expert please.

The lawn needs mowing and the dishes are dirty!

And I just tossed my last batch of old 3.5" floppies yesterday. Clearly they're going to be worth something now!

It's not so much that your life will get worse, but that at some point in the future everything you have now will be taken from you (ultimately by death). When these things are taken away, will you assign different value to them? Maybe you will wish you just be and experience them one more time. Well you can! Right now... right whereever you are.

It applies to everything; the people around you, the leaves on the trees, the sky, your computer, everything. If you are able to develop a strong attention on the present you can even develop "flow" around everyday things like washing the dishes or walking. Normally people require more intense experience like driving fast or listening to music to achieve this state, but it can be achieved anytime anywhere. That's what will tie it all together and hopefully leave you with no regrets as time passes.

Without a control group, or at least a group doing something other than playing games during that time, it's hard to say the games caused the effect they observed.

Maybe just staying after school with highly interested researchers had a knock-on effect on intelligence?

Just out of curiosity, is there anything particularly bad about doing this? Looking through the guidelines they do in fact encourage self posting, so I'm wondering if there's some sort of "community" discouragement of this sort of thing.

The fatal problem: the train is arriving in N minutes whether or not the car is ready. Just as car loading is to be finished (no more people allowed), the last person trips and falls, twisting an ankle. Do you have time to help them on board? How do you get them out of the way?

If the car is not ready for whatever reason there is no fallback... that car has to attach or else there will be a collision. It seems far too rigid an approach to accept regular humans as a moving part.

Although it's not as if switching to distributed revision control will eliminate politics. It just transforms them and pushes them around. Who owns the mainline of a project? Why won't s/he accept my patches? etc.. etc...

Yep, I'm using a kinesis... instant hand cramp.

The move to software control of things puts Toyota and other Japanese manufactures on a level playing field with everyone else -- no one can seem to produce bug free software.

Of course, it becomes a much more acute problems when lives are on the line.