kinleyd

@hosh, /|\ I have nothing else to say except that I deeply appreciate your time.

Thanks for this and the follow on posts. I've been inconsistent in my meditation, and have been consistent with it only during periods of extended freedom, usually between jobs or tasks. I've not had the discipline to stick with it when my To Do lists starting flowing over... and of course that's when the procrastination and anxiety kick in. I'm going to have a stab at more consistent meditation practice, and hopefully I'll benefit with a bit of what you describe.

Miller looks very useful, and so does q. Thanks to the op and to you for the introductions.

"Rich Hickey gained fame for this because he stated an idea very clearly and compellingly, this is non-trivial and should not be so flippantly dismissed as just recyling old ideas."

+100 for this.

Add VisiCalc and TurboCalc to that list and I'll have to say "Yeah, me too!".

My thoughts as well. I figure smoking will kill a large proportion well before they hit the age range in which Parkinson's sets in

The experience described in the article is, imho, quite common. The spontaneous positive ones are of the type you experience in sports, when you are in "the zone". Priceless experience. And the negative ones occur in times of danger - you want to forget these, but that's nearly impossible. Meditation gets you there as well, and with some side-effects, I'm told drugs do too. I read a hilarious account by PJ O'Rourke of how still time stood during an ill-advised drugs and dynamite experiment with some of his buddies.

+1 for Conkeror - close enough to emacs on the browser for me!

If that is evident, plant another one. :)

@jackreichert: Thanks, I've heard that before, but it's always good to hear again.

Thanks for the link. Daniel Kish's story is inspiring.

I dropped accounting in my 10th grade largely because I made the mistake of trying to get into the "meaning" of debit and credit. Mnay wasted hours there.

Finally in grad school I got it - left and right - and accounting has never been a problem again.

I'll be 52 this November. Have been coding mostly as a hobby since '83, with peaks in programming intensity at different stages of my life: sometimes to scratch an itch and sometimes doing some contract/consulting work. Still try to hit the computer whenever I can, but my health's been letting me down lately - nothing too bad, but it's been affecting the focused time I need to do programming right.

So now when I sometimes think of my mortality, the thing I regret is the programming I can't do when I'm gone. Or maybe there is programming after death? I'm hopeful. :)

In the meanwhile, the free time that's opened up from not programming as much is being wisely invested. I'm working hard on my guitar, and before I go dammit, I'm going to shred like a pro!

That is one beautiful book. I've read it twice so far, and it remains on my read again list. I wish you much happiness in the years ahead.

    For a nation that issues citizenship based on race and origin [2] 

That's quite a leap you make there. Where exactly in the referenced article does it say that citizenship is based on race and origin?

    and "categorizes" them

I do agree the categories are clumsy at best but how else is it possible to describe aggregated information without some form of categorization?

"Large scale eviction of Bhutanese citizens" and "shady regime" are highly simplistic or one sided ways to describe a complex problem that Bhutan does indeed have. Over the course of the last 4 to 5 decades Bhutan has faced a wave of economic migration that it has been (and continues to be) ill-equipped to manage. In trying to do so, yes, unfortunately and almost certainly some Bhutanese citizens have suffered. At the same time, many claiming to be Bhutanese citizens certainly were not.

3 x 23" monitors at 1920x1080[0] is working well for me. Distractions galore, but as someone said, when you're in the zone, you're in the zone. That's when having all that real estate really pays off - it's so much more efficient having everything easily accessible.

herbstuftwm on archlinux, with everything opening up in their own designated windows - having taken a lot of time to have it just so - is what gives me joy everyday.

[0] Will upgrade to higher resolutions in the next round, but presently this was much more affordable.

My computer seems to be doing that on a random basis. I think I should worry.

+1 for The Trachtenberg Speed System of Basic Mathematics. I remember learning that system decades ago, and have always kicked myself for lending my copy of the book. I never got it back, and have stopped lending any books I value no matter who.

Funnily, after applying the Trachtenberg system for many years, I came to realize the traditional methods were pretty good too.

I knew a guy who mumbled so much you could never understand him. It was really irritating, but also the secret of his success. His job was to liaison with a number of governmental/bureaucratic organisations - involving customs clearance and things like that - and he was incredibly successful. No one knows for sure how exactly he managed it, but a leading school of thought was convinced that it was his mumbling. The bureaucrats just gave him whatever the hell he wanted as quickly as possible so that they could get him out of their offices asap.

Thanks. I did like Abiword but for that problem - it's really lightweight and has the core functionality that I need. I'm presently using LaTeX/emacs for my documents.

Yes, Calc does have pivot tables, but it is very limited. Even the number of levels (dimensions) that you can nest was inadequate the last time I checked.

I like AbiWord, but for some reason it keeps crashing on my Arch Linux system.

Between Libre Calc and Excel, I've always had to revert to Excel for its Pivot Table features. Libre Calc has thus far made a very weak stab at that for me.

Thanks for introducing me to dadgum. I read a number of his older articles and I must say his opinions resonate with me. I'm going back in for some more. :)

Interesting theory, but one which my guess is unlikely to hold up if the study is carried out it in really mountainous, high altitude areas.

As an Emacs user, switching to Conkeror was great for me. It helped me consolidate muscle memory for the two applications I most use.

We have a nice little community on G+ as well: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/10673743756791183223...

True. I don't think I'd be caught routing marjuana anywhere, so I'm going to be more devastated were I to land up in prison. Still, credit where credit is due!

I agree with you. I think the actual article lived up to the HN link title. I'm impressed by Frederick Hutson - he was sharp to the opportunities that he saw even in prison. Lesser mortals like myself would have been too devastated to even think straight, much less identify such an opportunity.

Thanks for the information. This looks pretty good, will give it a whirl - glad to find it already on the ArchLinux AUR.

Edit: I gave it a test run, and found it does the job very well. Thank you again!

Too frequent updates have been an irritant for me, largely on account of my slow internet connection. I always felt that many of the updates could have been bundled, unless it was a major fix. But no, they kept flowing in![0]

More recently my reading habits have changed and I much prefer to go directly for my books on my desktop. I've uninstalled calibre now. All I really need is a cli or a basic client (much like ncmpc for mpd) for my books. I'm looking for something along those lines, and am also planning to do a hobby project for that if the urge grows.

[0] On every Arch Linux update.

That makes sense actually, given the belief that native Americans came from central Asia before the ice melted on the Bering Straits. When you compare native Americans with Asians from around the Himalayan region, the features are strikingly similar. I wonder if native Americans also have the high altitude gene at the same level of probability as Tibetans, given their shared blue bottoms? :)