197 karma · joined August 28, 2009
One thing that irks me is that Firefox saves my bookmarks in "bookmarks menu" when I use ctrl-d. Then I get a monstrous "Bookmarks" menu and I have to move manually all these bookmarks with the Bookmarks manager from "bookmarks menu" to "unsorted bookmarks". Which is easy enough, but why the hell does Firefox save bookmarks in different folders when I use ctrl-d or the star icon?
Many things can be done from the "Show all bookmarks" window. But they can be very misleading.
(The following may not be very relevant nor clearly stated. Sorry if I can't convey my point.)
For instance, when you want to delete all bookmarks associated to one tag, it's not just going into the Tags menu and deleting the corresponding tag: this would only remove the given tag from the bookmarks but leave the bookmarks bookmarked (which is the right thing to do when I think of it). Instead, the only way I found is to search from "Search Bookmarks" for the bookmark name and delete from the resulting list (making sure I don't delete a bookmark that just happens to share the tag name in other fields. Sorting by tags may help a bit.)
For complex things, I once had to open bookmarks with sqlite and edit them by hand. Scary experience even though I made backups. (How would it deal with Weave, at the time, was my main concern.)
I would recommend against images. They feel helpful at first but they tend to mislead by infusing the idea that they have something to do into the meditation.
Moreover, as an aside, I didn't see anyone mentioning that you don't force yourself out of thoughts: just let thoughts come and pass without considering them intentionally. (I guess that's what westoncb meant by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11135378)
But what can I say? I felt the way you describe for some time. I can't even say if it resulted of meditation. And it vanished as it came, unexpectedly. I may have considered that I acquired satori and experienced the hard way that satori is not something you possess. But I wouldn't be surprised to hear that my advice is bullshit according to OP.
(To anyone feeling like reading about zen meditation, I would recommend Shunryu Suzuki's book Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen.)
As a layman, I try to sum it up from my memories: according to Girard, desire does not stand by itself. It only rises to meet another's desired object. Somehow: you don't desire a shiny car because of the shine of the car by itself, but only because someone already has or desires a shiny car.
This phenomenon generates conflicts when the desired object can't be shared. This leads to crises in human groups where the only escape was traditionally to take someone (anyone, actually) as culprit for this crisis and kill them, honestly pretending that they are responsible the the group disease.
I don't recall how, but Girard says that this killing cures the group. Which proves to the killers that 1) the scapegoat was indeed responsible for the trouble and 2) it was in the situation of providing the miraculous cure and is therefore some sort of goddess.
This is what Girard explains but refutes to have found by himself. According to him, denouncing this unconscious process is the very purpose of the gospel. This is what has been hidden since the creation of the world.
Developer or not, I have long waited for the possibility to: 1. Store bookmarks in "unsorted bookmarks" by default when I use ctrl-D. This option lacking, my bookmarks menu is so much cluttered that it is useless. 2. Edit bookmarks comments, with ctrl-D. 3. Query bookmarks and tags precisely (a bookmark with tags t1 and t2 which title contains regexp r).
Today, with small hacks, I manage to search bookmarks and trigger web search through the address "awesome" bar. But a bit of syntax like in w3m.el would be so much better.
I should try to prototype it in an app. These functionalities should not be very hard to implement. But it seems to be too much of a burden :(
For instance, I quite liked the specs of VAIO TZ31 and bought one. But Sony decided that depite the fact it includes a processor that implements VT I should not use it. http://blog.steelooper.com/2009/07/enabling-virtualization-o... (Resulting in the fact that to this day I can't use VirtualBox with it.)
And this is to say nothing of the cryptic hardware devices that lack a free driver (webcam, flash memory...) that made my life very hard when I installed Debian on it.
FYI, Dell XPS13 Developer edition (natively under Ubuntu) looks good to me... Caveat : it lacks an ethernet port.
This person's needs are simple: email and text editing. But going away from her Windows XP / Outlook Express failed: she felt lost. And within this technology hole, not much can be done because it's amazingly un-hackable. Everything is designed for people who see things: popups of all kinds, menus, convoluted placements. I gave her a magnifier and voice synthesis. Better than nothing but very inadequate to her needs. Even closing a window is still a pain for her.
Dream: And yet I know her computer could manage her phone book and compose numbers for her, for instance. And so many other things that could lighten her daily life can be envisioned. Even play scrabble or other games she enjoys would be better on a speaking computer, and more enjoyable with online opponents.
Much could be done, even from a startup point of view. But for now I'm running out of hope especially because it's so hard to engage old people to new things.
Actually, this book is one that I'd like to keep on the (virtual) back burner. But there is no way I store more paper on my shelves. Fortunately, I bought Practical CL before I set this rule :) But how do I thank PG for On Lisp?
In "How to start a startup" [1] Paul Graham mentions he feels like having been a bad employee. Not intending to compare to him, I wonder if reactance could explain why a competent person may feel hopeless at first.
[edit] But I realize that what I found the most interesting and what I am really commenting about is another article linked from this one: "Why Controlling Bosses Have Unproductive Employees" [2]
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html foot note 8
[2] http://blogs.hbr.org/research/2010/05/why-controlling-bosses...
Anyway. I'm 28 and I have been struggling almost forever to find something captivating. In recent years, solving useless problems helped (http://www.caesum.com/game/index.php in case you'd like it) but oddly enough I don't manage to play this more than one week a year. Generally speaking, I try to get interested in some things but I soon feel indifferent to it. (I guess I'm just describing a depression symptom.) Anyway this doesn't make a living.
I've read people around here (including PG) writing they were poor employees and it reassured for some weeks since I really am a pitiful one (to say the least). But since then I came to realize that comparing myself to this kind of people was outrageously pretentious. I may not be stupid but I can no longer do anything. I have long liked to blame school and parents for this since it was not the same in my early childhood. But blaming does not help.
The most awful thing I sometimes come to think is exactly what people suggested to you: it's what adulthood is like, you are through some age crisis. If that's how life is, I should have hanged long ago. (But that's not good karma. etc. -- Nicely put.)
I guess, like others suggested, a key point is finding something valuable to do. Anything you feel rewarding. Especially if it may have measurable success, I would say. Helping others is good provided either these people do not overlook your efforts or you are confident enough to value your efforts by yourself. Actually, do anything you can achieve now with the energy you have in store. I can testify that the more you wait the less energy you have. (But this doesn't prevent me from still waiting.)
The best would be to find a field in which your efforts can add up. Founding a startup may be captivating and hence a therapy. But how could people like me (I wouldn't ) show the needed strength? My last effort to be on topic shamefully fails. Anyway, I took for granted that your problem comes from your job which is far from being clear.
Sorry for the English (or for telling nonsense (which is almost the same in my case)).