jonmb

So would I. But why? Because I don't know anything about quantum physics, and he's supposed to have a good grasp of the truth of the subject, so I would just take his word for it (a small act of faith). But his word is not what makes it true or false.

If the most celebrated nutritionist told me that eating nothing but baked beans was the healthiest diet in the world, I wouldn't believe him 'just because' he's an expert. I know enough about the subject of nutrition to consider his Baked Beans idea demented. So, I would ask him to show some sort of evidence.

P.S. I'll be reading more of your Value of Information: 8 examples article. Very interesting!

In regards to your first paragraph: I understand your sentiments, but speaking of "argument from authority" in specific...

I always took this to mean that we can't believe something just because an expert says it. In other words, an expert should be more correct than the guy on the bus, but an argument needs to stand on its own -- it doesn't really matter who says it.

So you wouldn't be flagged for saying the Nobel physicist is more likely to be correct. You would be flagged if you said he is correct because he's a Nobel physicist.

Is my understanding correct? Disclaimer: I've never taken any Philosophy class. :)

Great job! I typically use JoesGoals.com, but it doesn't have an iPhone app. Your app looks perfect for this.

I think there's a free app called GoalMaster that will let you enter a value. It's pretty slick too.

You did a fantastic job! Two questions:

1. What resources did you use to learn PHP/MySQL/jQuery in three weeks?

2. How are you handling passwords in the database?

I like that site overall, but some of the practices are spammy and unnecessary. I make a few thousand dollars a year from a video game site I created years ago as a hobby. As an experiment to see if I could do it again, I created another site and also made money. So with enough time, it's possible to scale.

There is no guarantee of success by being an infopreneur, and it can take a long time before you start seeing real money from it. I have a friend who made $10,000 in her first year with two sites, and I think her success is far above average. She now makes $50,000 with three sites.

It's harder nowadays than ever before though, because there's more competition and there's only one #1 spot on Google. And there's no guarantee of money. Some people could spend hundreds of hours and only make a few dollars.

For a wife who may not know anything about technology and wants to get started as an infopreneur, SiteBuildIt.com is a good service. They look terribly outdated but their information is solid. I checked them out for a month and saw their information is all the same stuff I learned from experience.

Writing useful content on a web site is what matters for a real business. Not spammy link practices.

It has been used in some small studies, like this one: http://www.asdreams.org/journal/articles/laberge5-3.htm

But as far as I know, lucid dreaming in general is not something that is being studied by a very large number of scientists, so we're not likely to find a whole ton of studies like this regardless of how effective it is.

I live in Gainesville and many students are very upset about this and have shown it online and in protests.

I'm not 100% certain, but I do believe the athletics budget is separate from academics.

IMO, you are not a cog. Working a 9-5 doesn't make someone a cog. You've evaluated your options and made a conscious choice. Who can find fault in that?

Going through life on "auto-pilot" is what would someone a cog. That's how I would define it. Though, personally, I don't like describing other people with words like "cog" or "sheep".

He's 57?! Whoa.

Sorry to hear that. I hope you can find work quickly.

Ah. That sounds rather annoying!

Yeah, I'm tired of PHP bashing too -- BUT! -- this is probably the best written article on what's wrong with PHP that I've ever seen. So... kudos to the author for a good argument.

You may be able to do some fancy (i.e. useful and profitable) stuff in another language and show it to your boss. Maybe do this in your spare time while learning another language for fun. It may impress them!

There's already a couple popular ones, like W3 Total Cache: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/

I uploaded a PDF here: http://mario-kart.net/GTDForHackers.pdf

And the ePub: http://mario-kart.net/GTDForHackers.epub

(Sorry the formatting is a little weird)

Plain text: http://mario-kart.net/GTDForHackers.txt

Agreed. Splitting down tasks into micro-steps is a HUGE help.

This is cool. For me, I've found that getting into good daily habits makes the biggest difference in my life. I use JoesGoals.com to track them. I set it as my home page. 42goals.com is also good.

That's one reason why I like pure HTML pages with no database backend. They load so much faster than your average Wordpress site.

This site does seem to be dynamic though. Maybe a custom engine, or simply cached correctly.

Edit: He's using http://ikiwiki.info/

Ah, I understood that SSL encrypts the data, but I always assumed there was still a risk of it being intercepted (before encryption) if I was on an open WiFi network.

I think he's using the VPN because he's accessing the banking site through an open wireless Internet connection at his coffee shop. I don't know enough about wireless security to say if the VPN is protecting him or not, though.

Currently working towards one. I've been offered many promotions despite not having one, and I have almost 5 years of experience now in the field.

But I still feel like completing my CS degree, just because it wouldn't hurt to have it, and just because there's some personal pride involved (first person in my family to pursue a degree).

For some projects clients are billed hourly, so we must log our hours so we can do accurate billing.

It literally takes 5-10 minutes a day to log our time. SlimTimer.com makes it really easy.

Anyone who claimed to be "too busy" to log their time was just making an excuse, especially when we saw they weren't too busy to chit-chat throughout the day.

It really all depends on what you feel happy doing. There's no one-size-fits all. Some people are meant for startups, some aren't.

I think it's best to always see yourself as self-employed. You yourself are your product. You can sell your product to a company for 40 hours a week, or you can run a startup (where you still have a boss btw -- they're called "clients" or "users"). Or a mix of both, which is what I do.

Sivers, just wanted to thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience. I know it has had an effect on me. Everyone, I highly recommend you check out Derek's "Uncommon Sense" videos, available free here: http://www.appsumo.com/sivers/

Genie says, "PHENOMENAL DEVELOPMENT POWERS! ... Itty-bitty living space!"