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Here are some ideas about staying fit in confined spaces.

Why do you even need a gym?

Exactly! For example: http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Your-Own-Gym/dp/0345528581/ Not that I would necessarily recommend working out at the office, but spend 30 minutes after you get off work doing some pushups or crunches at home. Then you're energetic for the rest of the night.

What the hell is this? A death star for ants? How can we be expected to deploy storm troopers to destroy planets... if they can't even fit inside the building?

That's easy, you just build it round one of these.....

If you decide to start weight training, get this book, learn how to squat correctly, and do it.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Low-Carbohydrate-Living/dp/0983490708/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358019060&sr=1-1&keywords=art+of+low+carbohydrate+living

http://www.amazon.com/Slow-Burn-Fitness-Revolution-Exercise/dp/0767913868

I pretty much do nothing but sit all day, but I continue to get fitter, and healthier, with essentially a diet based on nutritional ketosis, and 30 minutes of slow strength training a week.

Learn how the human body works, and you can optimize.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Low-Carbohydrate-Living/dp/0983490708/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358019060&sr=1-1&keywords=art+of+low+carbohydrate+living

http://www.amazon.com/Slow-Burn-Fitness-Revolution-Exercise/dp/0767913868

I pretty much do nothing but sit all day, but I continue to get fitter, and healthier, with essentially a diet based on nutritional ketosis, and 30 minutes of slow strength training a week.

Learn how the human body works, and you can optimize.

Maybe you should review RamDoubler on Amazon, where it's still for sale! here.

I second this. A stand up desk is great for your legs, back and heart. Sitting can kill you. I use a 27" monitor with this arm, suspended from an overhead shelf. I can pivot it between a standing and sitting position. But as my legs and back have strengthened, I spend less and less time sitting. Now I usually only sit for meals and meetings.

Another advantage to standing, is that when people come into my office, they want to talk to me at eye-to-eye level. So they don't sit down either. This results in short-and-to-the-point conversations.

I was in the same boat. I've never really worked out and work from home, so I was either in a chair or on the couch. Then I turned to bodyweight training, which doesn't require going to the gym or weights, so it can be done anywhere.

Currently I'm following Convict Conditioning, which only takes minutes a day, and excersizes like squats, pushups, bridges, and the early leg raise series can be done right at your desk. So now I still don't work out much, but I'm more muscular and stronger than I've ever been in my life.

Well, you know the government. They'll pay too much and probably build two of them for twice the price.

Maybe they'd buy this one, though it looks only half-built, it does appear to be fully operational.

The USA can't afford $471?

Forget Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, etc. I found it on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Star-Wars-Death-10188/dp/B002EEP3NO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358010617&sr=8-1&keywords=death+star

What the hell is this? A death star for ants? How can we be expected to deploy storm troopers to destroy planets... if they can't even fit inside the building?

I don't want to hear your excuses! It will have to be... at least three times as big.

The USA can't afford $471?

Forget Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, etc. I found it on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Star-Wars-Death-10188/dp/B002EEP3NO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358010617&sr=8-1&keywords=death+star

Erm, you mean like Zevia http://www.walmart.com/ip/21091622?adid=22222222227015569424&wmlspartner=wlpa&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=&wl3=21486607510&wl4=&wl5=pla&veh=sem, Sobe Lifewater http://www.amazon.com/Sobe-Lifewater-Variety-Pack-Bottles/dp/B003FXIUWY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357936948&sr=8-1&keywords=sobe+lifewater, Trop50 http://www.shoprite.com/pd/Tropicana-Trop50/Orange-Juice/59-fl-oz/048500020135/, etc?

Odd, been drinking some of those for years.

Required reading:

Read This Before Our Next Meeting

It costs $5 - everyone should get a copy. Seriously, this completely changed the way I work.

The GP has been reading too much Crichton. Crichton goes to great lengths to describe the plane/engine relationship in that book (page 116 or so).

I would prefer stevia

So buy some? http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=stevia

I don't know why you think it's not allowed in the US - it is allowed, and can even be found in numerous pepsi and coke soft drinks.

And the presence and prevalence of cereal fillers in just about everything imaginable is a pretty tough thing to get around too.

What the fuck are you talking about? Buy fresh fruits and vegetables, and lean meat. No cereal fillers anywhere. If you choose to buy shit-grade preservative-laden processed food, that's on you. Don't pretend that you "have no choice."

And the current price of healthcare?

Get a job with health coverage. Or take advantage of the new healthcare plans in the US, which compel you to buy coverage anyway.

You have plenty of choices in all of these matters where you've claimed you have none. The world is not obligated to order itself to your liking, or for your convenience.

Just yesterday I was working on my Lenovo which has an SSD in the mSATA slot,

Okay, so a 4.7 pound 14" screen 1.33" thick general purpose business brick with a 35W CPU and 2.5" SATA HDD.

and my co-worker was on a MacBook Air.

A 3 pound or 2.mumble pound 13" or 11" screen (you don't say which Air) 0.11" to 0.68" thick wedge ultraportable with a 17W CPU and nowhere close to enough internal space for a 2.5" HDD, much less an optical drive. In other words, a completely different class of machine. Why do I get the feeling disingenuous comparisons are coming?

The Macbook Air had much more flex, so it was harder to pass back and forth in the tiny data closet we were working in.

I've picked up the 11" airs many times. They have virtually no flex. The 13" has a bit, but it's easily managed. Grab the thick part of the machine near the hinge and it won't flex, even when held with one hand. It's easier to handle that way anyways (if you grab by the thin end of the wedge, almost all the weight is cantilevered).

Additionally, its cheap glare-type screen made the overhead fluorescent lights a real pain to share work on, so we wound up moving the task over to my anti-glare-coated screen (the more expensive manufacturing option).

You are seriously claiming that Apple went to a glossy screen to reduce cost? I laugh at you. They went to a glossy screen because consumers prefer them.

I guess it's lighter, but that comes with a lack of ports (cheaper) and not enough RAM (his isn't expandable, I stuffed another 4GB into mine - expansion slots and doors aren't free) and he has to attach all sorts of dongles to the thing to read a CD or use Ethernet. Again, all good cost-saving moves on Apple's part, but they really hamper usability.

All of these are "make the machine as thin and light as possible" design choices. If you want a MacBook Pro with a built-in CD/DVD and Ethernet jack, Apple makes that too. It's thicker and weighs more than the Air.

For this device, he paid double what I paid for mine.

Yeah, and you know what? If you bought a Lenovo ultrabook, you'd pay double too. In fact, Lenovo ultrabooks are often more expensive than comparably equipped MacBook Airs. Thin and light comes at a premium no matter who makes it. It's pretty dumb to compare basic business brick prices to ultrabook prices. Unless you have an axe to grind.

I rather suspect that when the Airs were first made they were of a higher quality, but now they just feel cheap compared to the much less expensive Lenovo. I do envy his backlit keyboard, but that's about it.

I'm so, so sure you are a 100% objective observer here. Especially with comments like this one:

Oh, and mine runs Fedora out of the box, so it's much more useful in a data closet. Lenovo pays programmers and a support staff to support Linux in addition to their primary OS, while Apple cheaps out here as well.

Are you fucking kidding me? Apple pays a complete operating system team to create and maintain OS X, an entire UNIX operating system, and furthermore authored and maintains a large suite of application software for that same OS. Lenovo pays a couple hackers to shit out trivial touch-up patches to someone else's OS, and Apple is the one cheaping out on software development costs in your mind?

(And yes, before you go all dumbass on me, I am perfectly aware Apple's OS shares some code with the BSD family

Just yesterday I was working on my Lenovo which has an SSD in the mSATA slot,

Okay, so a 4.7 pound 14" screen 1.33" thick general purpose business brick with a 35W CPU and 2.5" SATA HDD.

and my co-worker was on a MacBook Air.

A 3 pound or 2.mumble pound 13" or 11" screen (you don't say which Air) 0.11" to 0.68" thick wedge ultraportable with a 17W CPU and nowhere close to enough internal space for a 2.5" HDD, much less an optical drive. In other words, a completely different class of machine. Why do I get the feeling disingenuous comparisons are coming?

The Macbook Air had much more flex, so it was harder to pass back and forth in the tiny data closet we were working in.

I've picked up the 11" airs many times. They have virtually no flex. The 13" has a bit, but it's easily managed. Grab the thick part of the machine near the hinge and it won't flex, even when held with one hand. It's easier to handle that way anyways (if you grab by the thin end of the wedge, almost all the weight is cantilevered).

Additionally, its cheap glare-type screen made the overhead fluorescent lights a real pain to share work on, so we wound up moving the task over to my anti-glare-coated screen (the more expensive manufacturing option).

You are seriously claiming that Apple went to a glossy screen to reduce cost? I laugh at you. They went to a glossy screen because consumers prefer them.

I guess it's lighter, but that comes with a lack of ports (cheaper) and not enough RAM (his isn't expandable, I stuffed another 4GB into mine - expansion slots and doors aren't free) and he has to attach all sorts of dongles to the thing to read a CD or use Ethernet. Again, all good cost-saving moves on Apple's part, but they really hamper usability.

All of these are "make the machine as thin and light as possible" design choices. If you want a MacBook Pro with a built-in CD/DVD and Ethernet jack, Apple makes that too. It's thicker and weighs more than the Air.

For this device, he paid double what I paid for mine.

Yeah, and you know what? If you bought a Lenovo ultrabook, you'd pay double too. In fact, Lenovo ultrabooks are often more expensive than comparably equipped MacBook Airs. Thin and light comes at a premium no matter who makes it. It's pretty dumb to compare basic business brick prices to ultrabook prices. Unless you have an axe to grind.

I rather suspect that when the Airs were first made they were of a higher quality, but now they just feel cheap compared to the much less expensive Lenovo. I do envy his backlit keyboard, but that's about it.

I'm so, so sure you are a 100% objective observer here. Especially with comments like this one:

Oh, and mine runs Fedora out of the box, so it's much more useful in a data closet. Lenovo pays programmers and a support staff to support Linux in addition to their primary OS, while Apple cheaps out here as well.

Are you fucking kidding me? Apple pays a complete operating system team to create and maintain OS X, an entire UNIX operating system, and furthermore authored and maintains a large suite of application software for that same OS. Lenovo pays a couple hackers to shit out trivial touch-up patches to someone else's OS, and Apple is the one cheaping out on software development costs in your mind?

(And yes, before you go all dumbass on me, I am perfectly aware Apple's OS shares some code with the BSD family

Exactly this. If anyone wants a great read, check out :The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football

FTS: "In its infancy during the late nineteenth century, the game of football was still a work in progress that only remotely resembled the sport millions follow today. There was no common agreement about many of the game’s basic rules, and it was incredibly violent and extremely dangerous. An American version of rugby, this new game grew popular even as the number of casualties rose. Numerous young men were badly injured and dozens died playing football in highly publicized incidents, often at America’s top prep schools and colleges."

This is completely true, but nobody with a gun will believe it. That is because humans are, in general, unable to apply base rate statistics to themselves. People typically consider themselves 'above average' in all things, and so reason that base rate statistics do not apply to them. This is a well known cognitive bias. See Thinking Fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman.

...I can't think of many reasons to get that big of an SSD.
I'd much rather buy a smaller SSD and just store things that don't need the speed on something like this which is a fraction of the cost for far more space.

I think there's a reasonable medium.

I used to think this, but I believe I've learned better. To see why, let's see what imaginary property really is.

You have some paper. You have a pen. What can you do with these two things? The natural answer is that you can do anything you want, because it's your property (short of damaging somebody else's property with it).

But here's what imaginary property says: "We as a State are going to take away the real property rights of three hundred million people to arrange that ink on that paper how they see fit, for the sake of one individual, to whom we will grant a monopoly for certain arrangements. If anybody disobeys this rule we will hurt (or ultimately kill) that person for such an infraction".

People used to think we could make society better by acting this way. The original ideas were to do things like protecting writers from publishers. It was a low-information, high-scarcity, low-technology society four hundred years ago, and perhaps the idea was a decent hypothesis at that point. But it still offered immoral means, so it shouldn't be surprising that the power was ultimately corrupted. All attempts to reform that power will still fail because it's based on immoral means.

There are better options available today, and the imaginary property system is now damaging to society. Time to discard the obsolete systems. Check out Stephan Kinsella in print, online or video. He's spent a ton of time identifying the problems and developing alternate mechanisms to reward creators, but based on non-zero-sum means.

One of the reviews of Three Felonies a Day says, "I watched a Stossel episode and this author stated that the average person commits (unknowingly) three felonies a day. I was skeptical. I was right! I can not find anywhere in this book anything about 3 a day. I might have missed that section. It is not in the table of C. I skim read the whole book. If its in here it's a very small part of the book. If I am wrong will someone PLEASE let me know. TYVM Love JR."

I agree with #42542107--most people don't commit 3 felonies a day. Perhaps 3 misdemeanors, but not felonies. Perhaps you could give an example of one felony that many people commit?

Educate yourself:

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229

http://www.amazon.com/Go-Directly-Jail-Criminalization-Everything/dp/1930865635/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y

http://www.amazon.com/The-Tyranny-Good-Intentions-Constitution/dp/0307396061/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z

Educate yourself:

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229

http://www.amazon.com/Go-Directly-Jail-Criminalization-Everything/dp/1930865635/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y

http://www.amazon.com/The-Tyranny-Good-Intentions-Constitution/dp/0307396061/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z

Educate yourself:

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229

http://www.amazon.com/Go-Directly-Jail-Criminalization-Everything/dp/1930865635/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y

http://www.amazon.com/The-Tyranny-Good-Intentions-Constitution/dp/0307396061/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z

I got Fable II used for $2 only shortly after it was released. I currently see Rage for Xbox 360 on Amazon for $7.00 ($3.00 + $4.00 shipping). And I still swap and borrow games all the time for free with my friends. Can't do that with Steam.

Eh, to me, consoles just aren't the same. No user mods, no private servers, developer support is slow and cumbersome, and I can't, for instance, pick up my game and play it on my laptop while on vacation. And, despite the problem with re-selling or lending games, I still don't think there is much of a price comparison between consoles and Steam, especially if you're interested in indie games.

Microsoft/Sony might not allow it but Gamestop, Amazon, and other retailers, and friends certainly do. I got Fable II used for $2 only shortly after it was released. I currently see Rage for Xbox 360 on Amazon for $7.00 ($3.00 + $4.00 shipping). And I still swap and borrow games all the time for free with my friends. Can't do that with Steam.

Pick up ANYTHING APPLE. It does not feel like a cheap piece of shit.

Just yesterday I was working on my Lenovo which has an SSD in the mSATA slot, and my co-worker was on a MacBook Air. Capability wise, they're pretty darn close.

The Macbook Air had much more flex, so it was harder to pass back and forth in the tiny data closet we were working in. Additionally, its cheap glare-type screen made the overhead fluorescent lights a real pain to share work on, so we wound up moving the task over to my anti-glare-coated screen (the more expensive manufacturing option).

I guess it's lighter, but that comes with a lack of ports (cheaper) and not enough RAM (his isn't expandable, I stuffed another 4GB into mine - expansion slots and doors aren't free) and he has to attach all sorts of dongles to the thing to read a CD or use Ethernet. Again, all good cost-saving moves on Apple's part, but they really hamper usability. For this device, he paid double what I paid for mine. I rather suspect that when the Airs were first made they were of a higher quality, but now they just feel cheap compared to the much less expensive Lenovo. I do envy his backlit keyboard, but that's about it. Oh, and mine runs Fedora out of the box, so it's much more useful in a data closet. Lenovo pays programmers and a support staff to support Linux in addition to their primary OS, while Apple cheaps out here as well.

Pick up ANYTHING APPLE. It does not feel like a cheap piece of shit.

Just yesterday I was working on my Lenovo which has an SSD in the mSATA slot, and my co-worker was on a MacBook Air. Capability wise, they're pretty darn close.

The Macbook Air had much more flex, so it was harder to pass back and forth in the tiny data closet we were working in. Additionally, its cheap glare-type screen made the overhead fluorescent lights a real pain to share work on, so we wound up moving the task over to my anti-glare-coated screen (the more expensive manufacturing option).

I guess it's lighter, but that comes with a lack of ports (cheaper) and not enough RAM (his isn't expandable, I stuffed another 4GB into mine - expansion slots and doors aren't free) and he has to attach all sorts of dongles to the thing to read a CD or use Ethernet. Again, all good cost-saving moves on Apple's part, but they really hamper usability. For this device, he paid double what I paid for mine. I rather suspect that when the Airs were first made they were of a higher quality, but now they just feel cheap compared to the much less expensive Lenovo. I do envy his backlit keyboard, but that's about it. Oh, and mine runs Fedora out of the box, so it's much more useful in a data closet. Lenovo pays programmers and a support staff to support Linux in addition to their primary OS, while Apple cheaps out here as well.

Way over priced. Plus 55 gallons is a bit hard to handle.

http://www.amazon.com/J-Lube-Powder-Mix-Water-Lubricant/dp/B006G2S17A

Cheaper and 8 gallons should last you a while.

not the one for sale at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B002WK22TS/ref=dp_image_0/185-2815768-3876139?ie=UTF8&n=3375251&s=sporting-goods

I hate to say it, but Lenovo's CEO may be doing something right. I only hate to say that because I prefer to buy American designed products, like those from Dell or HP.

I finally got approval to purchase a new laptop for software development yesterday, so our IT guy e-mailed me, and said, "please pick any Lenovo laptop you like." Lenovo? Really? I was instrumental in shifting two of my previous companies to buy only from Dell because of their outstanding support, up until the early 2000's when Dell decided to fsck their loyal customers with less than useless, yet very expensive support. My solution was to never ever again pay for support, and just always have a spare machine laying around, which saved us tons of money and kept me from having to deal with Dell's morons. When our company was acquired, the CEO more or less banned us from buying from Dell, because his solution to the same problem was to switch to HP. Our HP server support has been fabulous, and they've never dropped the ball. So why switch vendors again? Our IT guy says, "Lenovo has had by far the best customer service." Ok... I know what that's like. I get it.

So, I'm waiting for my new $1,700 Lenovo X1 Carbon ultrabook, with a 250G SSD and 8G RAM - features I need, and which justify the new laptop. It freaks me out a bit that it will have that stupid stick in the middle of the keyboard, but I guess that's just what ThinkPads have. However, this ultrabook is curretly the #1 rated ultrabook on Amazon. It's clearly ThinkPad branded, with that black with red trim, the tiny dick in the middle of the keyboard, and the rim around the screen. I read that it's got the standard clicky ThinkPad keyboard, and in general, seems pretty much like an old IBM ThinkPad.

Is Lenovo screwing up separating it's ThinkPad brand and thinking it can take on Apple? I just paid more for a freaking Chinese designed and built laptop than a state of the art MacBook Air! The specs are similar, though the Carbon X1 is slightly slower. Also, the Lenovo laptop has no graphics accelerator, and is useless for gaming with my kids, unlike the MacBook Air.

Why would I do that?!? First, great support. If they're providing better support than HP, we have no choice but to buy from them. Second, it runs Windows. We'll actually pay more to get a good Windows laptop than for a comparable Apple device, because our customers are on Windows. Third, it's still a ThinkPad. I expected Lenovo to crap on the ThinkPad brand just like what happened to great brands like Singer sewing machines, but they didn't. From what I can tell, ThinkPads are still basically ThinkPads.

I think the TFA is way off base. I read the CEO's memo, and I think he's talking about machines like the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, which people are in fact comparing to Apple hardware left and right, and which Lenovo sells successfully for higher prices, even though they have less functionality. They must be printing money, especially when you consider that we're probably paying top dollar for support contracts. I think the Lenovo's CEO's opportunity to screw up the ThinkPad line was 8 years ago, when most would have, but he didn't. I think TFA is seriously misreading Lenovo with premature fear of changing the ThinkPad brand. What the Lenovo CEO means is they are going to make great ThinkPads which are still ThinkPads, tiny dick and all, and they'll compete with Apply by selling them to geeks like me at outrageous prices because they can. That's fine by me... so long as it comes with world class support.

LOL... only 3 left (what did it start at b4 u linked to it :P
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005MR3IVO

Never run short of lube again:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005MR3IVO

Wrote my senior thesis on Kuhn, positivism, etc nearly 10 years ago. My take away was that scientific and theoretical advances get disseminated throughout society. Ergo, a population undergoes memetic evolution. Drawing on biology, the obvious model is one of punctuated equilibrium. Once one reconciles the ideas of paradigm shifts with punctuated equilibrium, it becomes pretty evident how technology evolves, science is disseminated, differing rates of change in different fields, etc. All one has to do is look at the iPhone, iPad, and Leap to see modern paradigm changes in action. (Protip: The language we use to describe the punctuated equilibrium changes of the human species is that of stock markets, marketing, and market analysis.)

As Gibson put it, "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." I also highly recommend Hulls "Science as a Process".
http://www.amazon.com/Science-Process-Evolutionary-Development-Foundations/dp/0226360512

It would probably surprise a lot of people to learn that given the PR and pervasiveness of the flu vaccine there are no actual double-blind studies proving its effectiveness. Now there are plenty of studies "proving" it is effective. But compared to what? The drug companies don't want you to know that it is within the statical level of noise that you are protected. Without proper double-blind testing you have no idea. You're taking it on the drug company's word. If you've seen that then you haven't seen Bad Pharma (Ben Goldacre)

Pharma companies regularly hide data that is unbecoming. Where are the double blind studies? Without that level of thoroughness, you are asking them to take science on faith.

I highly recommend this book: "Thinking About Crime" by James Q. Wilson, who lectured at Harvard for 26 years. He backs up his arguments with a lot of data and makes a compelling case.

One of his observations was that crime shot up during a period of declining poverty, during the 60s, which cast doubt on the popular notion that poverty is the primary driving factor of crime. He also discussed the notion that people do in fact respond to rewards and penalties, which supported the notion that punishment can deter. This seems rather obvious to most observers but was not accepted by the sociology/criminology "orthodoxy" the 1960s and 1970s.

Why is parent modded to 0? Storing them on any number of services cloud services would be a lot cheaper than building their own system. Amazon and Google already host public datasets for researchers over 300tb. Hell, they could just agree to pay Twitter a service fee for data and keep offline tape backups. While we are at it, why not maintain a Torrent of each year?

You could buy my book. No one has complained it's not "professional-quality." I specifically requested no DRM from Amazon. It can be done. It's easy. Amazon doesn't require it, it's up to the publisher, and since the publisher is me, and I think DRM is stupid, I made it DRM-free. Just because I'm not a big name yet doesn't mean I can't produce a worthwhile piece of entertainment that stands equal to the best of what's available. If I were a big name, writing for a big publisher, I would demand DRM-free, since it doesn't matter how big you are, DRM is always stupid. Of course it's also available in paper form, for those who prefer it that way.

Links:
Amazon Kindle version of Cerberon
Printed version from Amazon
And if you prefer it from someone other than Amazon:
Lulu totally device agnostic DRM-free epub from Lulu. Wil Wheaton told me to use them.
B&N Nook version (also DRM-free, as far as I'm aware).
Apple iTunes iBook version, despite the fact that iDespise iTunes.
Createspace printed version, which is also Amazon, but gives me a better commission if people buy it here.
Straight from me, half the book as a free preview. DRM-free epub, of course.

Apologies for the advertisement, but you asked.

You could buy my book. No one has complained it's not "professional-quality." I specifically requested no DRM from Amazon. It can be done. It's easy. Amazon doesn't require it, it's up to the publisher, and since the publisher is me, and I think DRM is stupid, I made it DRM-free. Just because I'm not a big name yet doesn't mean I can't produce a worthwhile piece of entertainment that stands equal to the best of what's available. If I were a big name, writing for a big publisher, I would demand DRM-free, since it doesn't matter how big you are, DRM is always stupid. Of course it's also available in paper form, for those who prefer it that way.

Links:
Amazon Kindle version of Cerberon
Printed version from Amazon
And if you prefer it from someone other than Amazon:
Lulu totally device agnostic DRM-free epub from Lulu. Wil Wheaton told me to use them.
B&N Nook version (also DRM-free, as far as I'm aware).
Apple iTunes iBook version, despite the fact that iDespise iTunes.
Createspace printed version, which is also Amazon, but gives me a better commission if people buy it here.
Straight from me, half the book as a free preview. DRM-free epub, of course.

Apologies for the advertisement, but you asked.

JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford shows a way to write clean, conscise and predictable code in JavaScript. (It is also very short book, which I find hilarious. Even then the most important points in the book are in the first half or so.)

The most powerful idea IMHO is the use of function scopes as the main data structure instead of dictionaries. Another idea is avoiding or skipping completely some language features that behave in unusual ways and using simpler more fundamental constructs instead. I think the new-operator is the classic example of these.

I recommend this book wholeheartedly for anyone learning JavaScript and having some prior programming experience.

Learn Android programming. While this advice is well-founded in personal experience, it may also be slightly self serving.

Well, there's more here: http://www.produktinfo.conrad.com/datenblaetter/100000-124999/101316-in-01-de-VOLTCRAFT_CO20_USB_LUFTQUALITAETSFUEHLER.pdf

How's your German? Otherwise . . . ask the almighty Google . . .

I have one hooked up to a mini-router, flashed with OpenWrt: http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-Portable-802-11n-Wireless-TL-MR3020/dp/B006DEBXD0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357496964&sr=8-1&keywords=tp-link+mr3020

It sends messages with the MQTT protocol on to an IBM Intelligent Operations Center. I test it by blowing on it . . . to measure my bad breath(on topic) . . . or I just smoke a Cuban cigar . . . and I take it into meetings . . . when the LED turns red, the meeting has been going too long.

And I learned about the wonders of OpenWrt . . . on Slashdot . . .

Sounds fascinating, thanks! http://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640

For $18, I wouldn't make any bets on the reliability of this one,... It's probably much safer to just pay for a cab ride home ... And definitely cheaper than a DUI attorney,... ;-)

"The last American general to actually be fired was Maj. General James Baldwin, 1971."


-Thomas E. Ricks, The Generals

But for pleasure reading (did you ever read Dante's Inferno on a eBook? it's appalling! The printed version is so richly illustrated...)

What "printed version" of the Comedy are you referring to? There are myriad editions of Dante in English, some illustrated, most not, and there have been multiple sets of illustrations created for the text. If you are referring to Dore's illustrations, those tend to accompany translations like Longfellow's that contemporary readers would best avoid -- they are antiquated, sometimes contain misunderstandings of Dante's 13th-century Italian, and they lack a facing-page Italian text. Ironically, because those translations tend to lack a commentary, were it not for the illustrations they would actually be more readable on the Kindle and similar devices than modern editions where one would refer to endnotes.

I would say that the best all-around translation of the Comedy into contemporary English is Allen Mandelbaum's. That one does happen to contain illustrations, by Barry Moser, but they are not especially important and someone reading the text without them would miss nothing.

Where can you buy a decent RPN device today? Nowhere.

Well, nowhere except Amazon I guess. Or TigerDirect, or Best Buy, or whatever ... I have one of these and it works great. I don't have cause to do a lot of number-crunching most days anymore, though, and the AAA batteries on it tend to run out even after I haven't been using it, so more often than not I end up using an HP48 emulator on my Android phone. I do like the real buttons on the standalone calculator, though, so if I had more cause to calculate I'd use that.

Neat plots, but I find the real-time and historic plots of actual GPS tracks shown at Flightradar24 much more fascinating. Most European flights have an ADS-B transponder on board, which basically is a radio beacon that transmits a GPS position. These signals can be received by anyone with a cheap USB receiver over a few 100 km. For these planes, the position is plotted online with a delay of only 10 seconds or so. American planes seem to lagging behind with adoption of this system. I can watch this site for hours to see what airplane flies over my house, to see how airplane are holding in case of bad weather, to see when I have to pick up friends from the airport, ...