Nice

Computers never get old. They just become incompatible with the state-of-the-art.

Well said, sir.

This is awesome

(I hope the commenter doesn't sue me for the verbatim lift. Linky 1 and Linky 2 from a Hacker News discussion on useless Time magazine article on why exercise is useless.)

Self-restraint is a hackable psychological phenomenon in one's brain. I agree that it is not an innate moral power, but I disagree that it is a distinct human quality that can be strengthened. Self-restraint boils down to optimism. People can put themselves through anything if they have faith that it will pay off in the end. Rational knowledge doesn't help, and it isn't a matter of simply being harsh with oneself, either: harshness and pessimism just produce a paralyzed, chubby, self-loathing person. If passing up a cheeseburger leaves you with a dead feeling inside -- "I'm deprived now and screwed in the long run anyway, what a waste" -- then you won't be able to keep it up. If you have faith that passing up the cheeseburger will have a long-term payoff, then your brain gives you a down payment of happiness that cancels out the displeasure of depriving yourself.

That's why thinking about a distant, glorious end result (like a smoking hot beach body) works for some people but is counterproductive for others. It's motivational if you really believe in it. For many people, though, it's just a reminder that they're making sacrifices for something that they don't believe in at all. Those people are better of thinking of less distant payoffs that they can really believe in, even if the payoffs are trivial by comparison.

Some people think that your brain will simply not accept passing up food that your body thinks it needs, that it's completely unnatural and therefore impossible. But you do things all the time that have energetic costs and distant, uncertain payoffs. Hard work, saving money, hell, even just getting out of bed: these are things that impose immediate costs. Your brain does emotional bookkeeping to incline you to avoid costs that have no payoff. If you've ever been depressed, you know that getting out of bed is sheer misery if you believe that nothing good will come of it. Yet it's normal to get out of bed, get to work on time, and work at a job for a payoff that comes a few weeks later. (Or, for a startup, months or years later.) In the same way, it can be normal to pass up food. You just have to have faith in the payoff. You might think that food has some special status in your brain, and it might, but your brain is surprisingly abstract and adaptable. (Consider the recent article about money!) Also consider that physical labor is basically the opposite of food, but people manage to habituate themselves to physical labor despite the complaints of their body (which are, initially, totally out of proportion to the physical cost.)
Having faith isn't easy; in fact, it's really hard. But it demystifies the question of why people eat or don't eat, and why they feel good or bad when doing so. I find it much easier to deal with my "faith" than to struggle directly with my impulses.

[...]The strength of one's restraint is measured against the strength's of one's desires. You improve results by strengthening restraint and weakening appetite.
I see self-restraint as a limited amount of discretion that a person has to override his natural tendency to maximize emotional reward. As the article says, self-restraint is tiring and unnatural; it's a stopgap measure at best. The primary conflict is in your emotional brain's cost/benefit analysis of the situation. You have to hack your emotional reward system so you don't have to employ as much self-restraint. When you naturally derive satisfaction from eating well, because you have faith in the ultimate payoff, your natural tendency will not be as strongly tilted in favor of overeating.

Your subconscious/emotional/whatever brain is smarter than most people think. You aren't doomed to have an out-of-touch brain that fills you with irresistible, self-destructive impulses to overeat. We may have evolved on the savannah, but if you can stand on a subway platform, surrounded by strangers whose personal feelings about you are unknown, waiting for a huge steel structure to come whizzing by you at high speed, without feeling scared, you can learn to leave food on your plate. You just have to program your brain properly (cultivate faith) so that you feel, subconsciously, that limiting your eating leads to well-being and happiness (and, according to the highly publicized recent study, more sex if you're a man.)

Like another commenter said, made me think in a way that I've never thought before.

Do you really want those people?

Do You Really Want Those People? (Score:4, Insightful)

by John Hasler (414242) on 1:55 Monday 29 September 2008 (#25186841)

2007: "IT? That's sooo 2000! They all lost their jobs in the dot-com bust! Finance is where it's at!"

2008: "Finance? That's sooo 2007! They all lost their jobs in the Wall Street bust! IT is where it's at!"

Is Google female?

Via Slashdot (like most of my recent posts):

Let's just hope Google (and her telco partners) don't f*** it up.

Extending that thought - can brands themselves (and not the image they project) have gender?

Just not cricket!

Via Slashdot:

The recent problems at the Large Hadron Collider will now keep it idle until spring 2009. The official press release is here. [...] The total amount of time to [fix things] will spill over into CERN's scheduled winter maintenance/shutdown period, which is partly done to save money on electricity during the period of peak demand.

Nooooooooooooooooo!! I want the End Of The World to happen due to a science experiment, well before some crackpot 'world leader' decides he can't keep his grubby hands off the Big Red Button!

And also, as another commenter said:

I spent all my money over the last 6 months on alcohol and parties, secure in the knowledge that the world would come to an end this October when the LHC came up to full power.

This is unacceptable. I demand they destroy the world now.

Amen to that!

Continuing...

..the PJ-ness - even though mine is shamelessly ripped off-a Plastic.com - here goes,

Q: What should Lady Rushdie change her name to, if she ever became the President of the United Status?

A: Baberaham Lincoln.

Yes. You may die laughing shortly after you pay me for the privilege :-)

What are Western values?

Taken from this discussion:

Western values? like supporting dictatorships in Chile, central America countries, Greece, Pakistan etc?

Western values like allowing friend countries to invade and occupy foreign countries (Turkey over Cyprus) while doing the exact opposite thing with non-friend countries?

Western values like increasing the price of imported goods from Africa in order to protect domestic production?

Western values like economically supporting all the 'orange' revolutions in former soviet union countries in order to get the geopolitical advantage?

Western values like dismantling Yugoslavia because the southern part has the largest deposits of a rare metal which USA wants for replacing enhanced uranium in its weapons?

Western values like lying about WMDs in Iraq?

Western values like taking the culture of one country and arbitrarily assign it to another (yeap, I am talking about the so called country of 'Macedonia', one of the biggest thefts of cultural identity in history) ?

Western values like giving money under the table to enemies of Chaves so as that he is overthrown, even if he is legally elected?

Western values like illegally giving money to Israel under the table, as well as advanced technology that no other one has?

Western values like don't doing anything about Israel's 200 nuclear warheads, even when they openly admit it?

Western values like privatizing everything and leaving over 60 million americans in the mercy of god, without medical insurance and health care? and with private health care companies sucking everything out of their clients?

Western values like banks increasing their profits 500% each year while the average payment of an american employee has remained almost the same in the last 30 years?

Western values like stealing ancient artifacts from all around the globe and displaying them in your museums?

Western values like changing the borders of other countries (for example in the Balkans) so as you can divide and conquer, while in Africa there are thousands of slaughtered people every day in Sudan, yet you say 'it's not your problem'??? (as Angela Merkel told us a few days ago)...

Western values like not destroying the drug factories and plantations of south America, even if you have accurately mapped all the globe with your satellites?

Western values like not doing anything for the environment because it will hurt your wallet?

What western values are you talking about? all your values were invented somewhere else, and you might not know it, but almost all your habits and things you use daily come from other countries that you bash as 'non-western'. Your clothing habbits probably come from Europe. Your food from Europe and Latin America. Your language comes from Europe. Your political system comes from Europe. Your music comes from Africa. Your religion comes from Middle East. Your sports come from Europe and the Far East. The foundations of your technology come from West Germany, where almost all top scientists came to USA before and after WWII.

Get a grip on reality. The battle between USA and Russia is far from over, because Russia got the biggest natural energy resources, and USA is scared to death about Europe depending on Russia for its energy needs. That about sums it up, really.

Bounds have been overstepped

Long legitimate comments on my blog posts - I love (who doesn't??)

Not so long legitimate comments - I welcome.

Long spam comments - I tolerate.

Long spam comments that sound like they come from all the way from Jerry Falwell roasting on his spit in hell - I grit my teeth and put up with it anyway (hey, what can I say - I'll sell my soul for more visitors to the blog..)

Long spam comment that sounds like it was written by a right-wing, think-of-the-children, Dubya-fellating, homophobic, ID-loving, propaganda-spewing, wannabe neo-Nazi - ouch. Damn. Fine, I'll let it be.

But the title of this post is justified when said long spam comment messes up a perfectly nice post page (with comments from a couple of girls I don't really know! woohoo!) and then adds insult to injury by bad-mouthing BOTH Apple and The Simpsons.

Do not call Homer a bad influence! Die a slow painful death!

I still wont delete the comment, though ;-)

Ooh that Chris Rock...haha..

You know the world is going crazy
when the Best Rapper is a white guy,
the Best Golfer is a black guy;
the Tallest Guy in the NBA is Chinese,
the Swiss hold the America’s Cup,
France is accusing the USA of arrogance,
Germany doesn’t want to go to war,
and the two most powerful men in America are named Bush and Dick.

Well, That Seems Clear Enough

(Paraphrased via a Quicklink from Plastic)

Guess why the average American can't figure out the complexities of foreign policy, domestic violence or other contentious issues? Because their primary sources of news are, to put it succinctly, a bunch of numbskulls, corporate shills and just plain dumbasses. And of course, as the Hoffmanian blog says..


I'll stick to Google News, blogs and discussion forums, thankyouverymuch.

The places one ends up when reading Slashdot...

I wanted to check up on the progress of the Low Budget HDV Filipino Horror Movie in NYC (TM), where I find out that Tulsi Ramsay has made a vampire movie.

Big deal, one would think. He's always does this kind of stuff. Except, this movie is Malay/Indonesian! About a legendary Malay/Indonesian ghost thing!

From the page (which in itself is most interesting):

Penanggalan

Country: Malaysia / Indonesia
Date: 1967
Directed by Tulsi Ramsay

SUMMARY: (from IMDb): Tara (Tanny) is a village girl with extrodinary powers, capable of harvesting both black and white magick elements. However, this girl holds a dark secret that her mother and father (both are magick researchers) have been keeping from her. Tara's sister, Durgha (Suzanna), is a Penanggalan, an undead being that could remove it's head at will to swallow the living whole and has bloodthirty qualities, later turning Tara into a Penanggalan. When Tara finds this out, her family, her boyfriend Rocky and even Tara herself must watch over Durgha and monitor what she does. When the town finds out about Durgha and talks about slaying her, Durgha promises Tara to hand down her powers, so she could break Tara's Penanggalan curse and live a normal life, still having control of her extrodinary abillities.

AKA:
'Headless Terror, The' (1967) (USA)

This has to be

..one of the oddest URLs I've seen in a while. Oh well, let's see how long this blog lasts...

'Dumbing Down Our Kids' by Charles Sykes

[Hat tip: Part 1 and Part 2]

Rule 1: Life is not fair; get used to it.

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will not make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you screw up, it's not your parents' fault so don't whine about your mistakes. Learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way by paying your bills, cleaning your room, and listening to you tell how idealistic you are. So before you save the rain forest from the bloodsucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

Rule 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

Rule 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.

Rule 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You're welcome.

Hmmm..Largely targeted at Yanklanders, but interesting nevertheless..

Oh man...

This took me a while to comprehend, but once I got it, I died. Laughing, of course.

SEC could someday require [Steve] Jobs to resign

Would he then change his name to "Steve Pinkslips"?

The Yahoo! Messenger =)) emoticon multiple times over.

Step away from the chocs..

OK, that does it! (Score:4, Funny)

by Quiet_Desperation (858215) on 9:39 Tuesday 24 April 2007 (#18849929)

REVOLUTION!!!!!!

First they came for my fats, and I said nothing. Then they came for my carbs, and I said nothing. Then they came for my sugars, and I said nothing.

But NOT MY FUCKING CHOCOLATE!

(insert Star Spangled Banner here)

One nation. One struggle. One destiny.

I had a dream! A chocolatey dream!

One for the veggies

Re:EU has much higher standards for chocolate (Score:3, Funny)

by Mr2001 (90979) on 11:02 Tuesday 24 April 2007 (#18850623)

Just remember the next time you rinse with Listerine Citrus Burst that you're swishing crushed dead pregnant beetles in your mouth.

You know what's even worse... a lot of people like fruit, but don't realize fruit is basically the reproductive organs of trees. Those seeds inside are like the tree's sperm. Eating an apple is the same as chewing on a tree's balls!

Other plants aren't quite as gross as that, but even still, they all grow in dirt. Just think about that next time you're having a salad. Would you eat food off the floor? Well, everything in that salad used to be on or in the ground, and the ground is nature's filthy floor that never gets vacuumed!

MIT?! That's XLRI!

Field notes from the field in question (Score:5, Interesting)

by iabervon (1971) on 8:32 Wednesday 27 December 2006 (#17373136)

I went to MIT, so I can explain a bit about the culture in which this research was done.

First of all, there's always something you're supposed to be doing. If you have three assignments for a class due at the end of term, you'll definitely have more important things to get done all term, and then you won't have enough time at the end of term to do the assignments. Even if you didn't do anything fun all term, you'll have procrastinated by getting more of each of the assignments for other classes done than you would have had you worked on the end-of-term assignment earlier. It's really hard to give up on an assignment that's due tomorrow because you haven't started on the one due in two months. It's not just that you have a more immediate reward if you procrastinate the stuff that's not due tomorrow; the reward is calculated and reported to you in advance in percentage points, and you definitely lose those points if you don't go after them immediately.

Also, assignments are designed for maximizing the standard deviation, which gives the most detail for grading. This is achieved by having the average be 50. This, in turn, means that, if you're doing fine, you could do twice as much work and still not get everything done. And you could check over your answers if you really wanted to, and take even more effort. So it's not like you're ever done with all your upcoming assignments and have time to work on the long-range ones.

Also, the main risk isn't doing badly in classes or failing them, it's going insane. If you pass any of your classes (or even if you don't, really), you're better of than if you have to take a term off. So doing something fun and relaxing can actually be quite important. I heard claims that sleeping at night sometimes helps, too, but I didn't try that. Relaxing when you need to is always on a shorter deadline than the end of the term, so it takes precedence.

And, of course, every class has something or other due at the end of the term (or a final just after classes end). You're in trouble if you've got three things due for this class at the same time as every other class has some project or exam.

So the optimal strategy is probably to choose deadlines around when your other classes have big assignments and exams, and stick to those deadlines, but tell the professor you'll have everything in at the end of term (but then forget that you didn't specify your deadlines).

The thing I'd find most interesting is how many students chose to have the deadlines at the end of term, but then turned in the first assignment in the first half of the term.

Geek hilarity! rotfl!

http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=196462&cid=16098438

Died laughing...all thanks to dear, good old vim..sigh...how I miss working with it..

Note: Quite possible that few have a clue what's happening there - but this is a good place to ruin the joke by explaining it all..

Totally kick-ass /. sig

Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs

Just saw this..

One would've assumed a person asking a question on Slashdot would know better than to ask questions that would so OBVIOUSLY result in a vim vs. emacs flamefest.

Just so my position on this is clear, vim rules. Molenaar kicks.

:-)