Nope -- haven't read the Slash'em article. I've been too busy trying to kill these damned lichs that are popping up in Nethack. I've been hitting them with a +2 Stormbringer, tried polymorphing them, tried cancelling them, etc.. Nothing works. Anyone have clues on taking them out? No scrolls of genocide unfortunately.
Telocity tech: OK, what version of Windows are you running? Me: I'm not running Windows. Telocity: OK, click the Start button. Me: I'm not running Windows. Telocity: Ok, then try right clicking "Internet Explorer" then going to properties. Me: I'm not running Windows.
Situations are reversed:
Me: OK, click on the Start button. User: OK Me: Now go the "Run" menu. User: OK Me: When the box comes up, please type in cmd -- see emm dee. (Long story short -- the User's "way ahead" of me and has typed in "command" -- which works differently that "cmd" on Win2K. None of the tools will work properly, things will act differently. Took another five minutes to diagnose this because the user couldn't follow directions).
Here's the kicker -- works fine on a Win98SE box under Windows Media Player 8. The DivX player still gives the same error though. Is there any hope of copying a DLL from the 98SE to the 2KPro machine to get this to work?
divx.com was the first place I looked since it's the first hit on Google for "free Windows DIVX player". Tried the free player. Here's the error:
This file contains unknown audio data. The video file you are opening includes audio data that is not recognized by the DivX Player.
The file contains the following type of data: Audio data: Tag 85
You may need to install a new audio codec on your computer to listen to the audio. You can either stop playback now or watch the video without the audio.
Googled around for a while and they recommended downloading various codecs. I managed to install a few but still couldn't get sound to play. Someone recommended opening the file in Media Player and having it automatically download the codec. Didn't work. The file in question was ripped in drip (latest rh9 version from freshrpms.net) from a regular DVD using the default encoders for sound. The DVD itself plays fine on a console DVD player. Warez? Hardly. Just home movies of a wedding and a hospital delivery room.
I'm a Windows user who likes open source software but can't get Linux to work. I don't know how to write drivers, work the command line, or program. I guess you have to be an expert at all of these to use Linux.
What exactly are you trying to do that requires the command line? I'm looking at a RH9/KDE3 desktop right now. Dialup was configured with a GUI frontend that looks remarkably like the Windows version. My SMB shares on a Win2K box appeared in my Explorer-like konqueror file manager. It's really not that difficult. I'm sure that there are many Linux users who like to pretend that it's rocket science or at least moderately difficult to configure a network connection, install the OS, print, or whatever, but the truth is that any competent Windows user can probably do all these things with minimal experimentation. My parents use Linux. My wife uses Linux. They're by no means technical folks but have no problems doing lots of stuff.
But lets forget about Windows for a while, and talk about something "beyond the basics". Yesterday I was converting some baby movies into DivX in order to burn to CDs. I figured DivX was a pretty good format -- well supported, good quality. Then I searched for a freely available DivX reader for Windows. Guess what? Couldn't find a good one that was recent. I tried upgrading to Media Player 9. Guess what? A bunch of other stuff suddenly couldn't play. It tried repeatedly to download codecs but failed. You know what else is fun? I can't backout the upgrade. OK, fine -- I'll use mpgs and something recommended on Ars Technica's video series. Now time to burn to CD. I install a burner on the Win2K Professional machine. Prepare the ISO for burning with XCDRoast and the HP CD Writer tool. Start the burning session. On the Linux box I preview some MP3s and images to create another CD. Burning keeps on going. Try to play a *single* MP3 on Win2K while it's burning. Gasp. Error message about an underrun. CD is ejected. Coaster. It's a multi-tasking OS but it can't write a CD and listen to an MP3 at the same time. WTF?
To be fair, Win2K Professional itself never crashed. It's been the most stable Windows version I've ever used. But to claim that it's any better than Linux as far as usability is a joke. Yup, a Linux distro can have problems but at the very least the problems are predictable. I *know* what will fail and why. Windows is almost like some hideous water torture -- you don't know WHEN it will fail.
Yup, color depth is a problem. Some of the blacks aren't black enough so you lose some contrast and things could appear washed out. That's one of the problems with some of the jpeg compression. Apparently movie studios use a different, high-end format that allocates more information to the shadows.
For one, there's no Windows license cost involved. For two, the animators may already have Linux desktops. It makes a lot of sense to be able to run Photoshop directly rather than having a separate PC, dual booting, or using something like VMWare.
The Sorcerer instead chose another method entirely, which was to not really to have graphics at all. Instead they allowed the user to re-define the character set (the shapes of the letters on screen) and used these in lieu of pixel-addressable graphics.
Didn't the Atari 8-bit computers use something similar to do their graphics? Player-Missile graphics I think it was called. It allowed you to redefine characters as pseudo-sprites.
The TI99-4A also had something similar. In one of their reference books was a BASIC program to redefine a couple characters into a jumping man animation.
You can also use the program kstars, part of the KDE suite. I've only been playing with it for the past couple days but am impressed. It allows you to retrieve actual images from an observatory for any object in its database, has the obligatory constellation maps, extended info via the web for the major bodies, etc.. It doesn't allow tours through the Solar System as does Celestia, but is useful for any planetbound stargazers out there.
I happen to be reading "Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip Mining of American Culture" at this moment. One of the essayists spends several pages bemoaning the lack of breadth in the university curriculum nowadays. The problem with his idea is that there is so much to learn in any one field, and overly broad degrees being somewhat useless, that a student can't help but specialize.
One thing in which I did agree was that there is a need for discrimination between good and bad. There are things that I don't need to know, and truthfully, don't want to know. It's fine. I'll spend my energies learning about things that fascinate me. There's too much stuff in the world to do otherwise.
Completely agree. I tried Gentoo for a while, emerging an entire X11 system with KDE from stage 1. The gains I noticed turned out to be because of the improved KDE, not from the optimizations. If there was any gain in speed it was more than offset by the time it took to bring in new updates and troubleshoot the ones that didn't work correctly.
As you also mentioned, I did notice a small increase (maybe 5-10%) after recompiling my povray binaries with aggressive optimizations. I did get a vast improvement after using a demo version of the Intel compilers and a pretty good improvement after linking with specialized math libraries. Of course, these gains were also offset by the time it took to implement them. And considering that a $50 CPU upgrade gave a twofold improvement, I'm more likely to upgrade hardware now than spend time tweaking.
To be fair, I should mention that I started using more lightweight window managers (fluxbox) and made an ancient laptop usable once again.
The mathematical/physics books put out by Dover Books are decent. They give you a good overview and background of the subject. The subjects range from Number Theory, Information Theory, Magnetism, Mathematics, Physics, Probablility,etc.
The Dover books are usually inexpensive, and some are good references. As a text for the non-mathematician, they're probably inappropriate. What they do cover is usually in depth but also don't pull punches. For example, the opening chapter of "Modern Algebra" jumps directly into set theory without a good treatment of reals, naturals, integers, etc.. Yes, the whole point of the chapter is to introduce these, but talking about isomorphic and abelian groups in the initial pages to a math neophyte is perhaps not the best approach.
"Keep in mind that during the 80s-90s (I think), there was a revolution of sorts in the way calculus was taught in colleges. Professors supporting this reform movement wanted students to understand the concepts instead of memorizing the formulas."
The concept of "new math", and the resultant ill effect on thousands of mathematics students, was a corruption of some really good ideas. There's no doubt that some bureaucracy was at fault in this madness. They took the idea that mathematics students should not only think about the "how", but also the "why", and corrupted it into the notion that students really don't need to learn their multiplication tables or memorize trigonometric identities. It was tried before in the 1800's, the 1900's, and recently in the 80's and early 90's. Every single time the message of learning "why" got corrupted.
There's also another text of the same name by C. Ray Wylie and Louis C. Barrett covering differentila equations, numerical methods, oed, fourier series and intergrals, laplace transforms, etc. (I never took the second part of the class:D).
I'm looking for books that don't just tell me an equation or a concept works, but also explain *why*. Would you please list books that have helped you gain a greater understanding of the basic concepts of algebra, chemistry, calculus, physics, and other core areas of science.
This is broad. My own list that you might find useful (or not):
algebra -- a good introduction is Earl Swokowski's "Fundamentals of Algebra and Trigonometry". It's often available in used book stores, campus book sales, etc.. It is a text book, though, and you may or may not enjoy this method of learning. If you want more of an overview of math, take a look at Paulos' "Innumeracy". If you want some lighter reading, try stuff by Martin Gardner.
calculus -- builds upon algebra so you need to know your algebra, especially limits, before you tackle calc. Know the limits well because it will help in many ways. I often refer to Elliot Gootmans' "Calculus" from Barron. For fun, also try "A Tour of the Calculus". Many chapters in "A History of Pi" are interesting (and approachable) also. Stay away from the Dover books until you have a pretty good grasp. They're cheap, but their approach is sometimes a little heavy-handed.
physics -- Feynman's "Six Easy Pieces".
For general reading, also try: Godel, Escher, Bach (Douglas Hofstadter) Islands of Truth (??Ivars Peterson??)
BTW, I'm a big proponent of using mathematics software as an addition to traditional study. There are programs such as MuPAD, GnuPLOT, Octave and Maxima that are available for free that can really help in the understanding of concepts. Many people are more visual so a graph is eminently useful.
I last used an early version of blender...so my opinion may be dated...but the documentation sucked as badly as the interface. With most 3D apps, you can just look at it and know what you're seeing. With blender, screw actually manipulating objects, just figuring out what's in front of you can be a pain.
OK, have you used Maya before? Take a look at its interface and try to create a scene without the manual. Try the same thing with any non-trivial modelling program. Sure, the simple applications all let you create a metal sphere on a checkboard, some random landscapes, maybe even extruded text rotating in space, but try doing something a little more advanced and these simple ones become difficult to use. But in Maya some very complex scenes can be done in minutes by an experienced operator. Yes, the blender documentation once needed work but a lot of has been added and clarified.
Given that the poor interface is by far the biggest complaint people have about Blender, you would think that some thought would be given to fixing it.
Actually, many people praise blender for its user interface. Yes, it is difficult for someone who hasn't read the manual to use, but once you actually read the manual, you'll soon realize that the interface is pretty easy to use. You can get a lot of things done very quickly because of how the mouse and keyboard interact. No, it does not conform to most user interface guidelines, but that's a little irrelevant for a specialized app, don't you think?
Re:Irrigation threatening US water supply
on
Aral Sea Disappearing
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
It's not only the Central US. Florida, surrounded by water, is also having water supply problems. Many people blame the liberal water usage exceptions that are granted to industries such as sugar plantations. They use millions upon millions of gallons of water yet are exempt from many of the regulations to which other companies must adhere. Our aquifer is replenished by rainwater, but salt water intrusion into the aquifer (caused when the fresh water is depleted) essentially makes huge portions of the aquifer unusable.
Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink...
Okay, seriously, I have the same problem of putting stuff off until later. I work best at midnight, like you do. The best thing is to get rid of the distractions. Don't install the games, television, chat software on your work PC. As someone else suggested, go for the minimal desktop.
Clear away the accumulated detritus from around your physical desk, including swag, magazines, and all but 1 or 2 manuals. Keep dead-tree manuals around instead of browsing the net because it's too easy to get distracted.
Comfort can kill. Don't lie down in front of the computer.
This was the most painful for me -- stop drinking as much coffee. It can lead to short term productivity increases but really screws up your attention span in the long term especially if you're missing sleep like I was (I still have to force myself to get more than 5 hours a night).
I work from home and have started adhering to a task list. This is easier when your mortgage timeliness depends on getting work done:D
Many people who meditate - and I suspect most Americans who meditate - do so because they hope to get something out of it, anything from relaxation, to relief from stress, enlightment or spiritual growth. But if you are striving to better yourself through meditation, you are missing the whole point. What you must free yourself from is that very striving.
Interesting. Buddhism is one thing, meditation entirely another. You sound as if you're saying that there is only one path. Striving is a weird thing. There are many that would argue that it is striving that makes us human; it is our desire for change, for betterment in some ethereal future (ethereal in the sense that it has not happened yet) that drives us as humans. There are others who argue that aligned crystals resonate at the frequency of the human soul.
But if you choose to adhere to only all proscriptions about Buddhism then you've already broken a few by posting. There's a lesson about a student that had to follow five rules. One of them was not to offend the teacher. One was not to wear shoes in the garden. The student thought that the "shoes" rule was not too important and trod through the muddy garden. But this offended the teacher. Now I'm going to argue the texts with you, just wanted to make an argument about the whole one true path thing.
About the only thing that I would like to add is that meditation is not necessarily anything mystic or spiritual. For those who choose not to believe in the supernatural or organized religions, meditation is still valuable and accessible.
Yes, much of our current notions of meditation involve Hinduism or Buddhism or some other Eastern -isms. But you can also achieve relaxation by replacing the mystic with the scientific. For example, the notion of chi and its flow through the body can be replaced with becoming aware of the blood flowing through the vessels, the realization that some mental states evoke a rush of endorphins, etc.. If you've ever read Zelazny's _Lord of Light_ and Sam's sermon after the passing of the Lord of Illusions, you'll know exactly where I'm coming from with this need to replace the mystic with the knowable.
In my particular case, I can get into a similar by drinking coffee, lots of coffee. And I mean incredible amounts of coffee to the point that my heart becomes this little buzzing thing in my chest. But as I'm getting older this coffee rush is becoming less and less of an option anyway.
The salt is stored in the hash itself. For example, on a pre-MD5 password ystem you would call the crypt function with the salt and plaintext. It would generate a hash with the first two letters being the salt you provided to crypt(). On more recent Un*x there's a (IIRC) 8 character salt embedded in the hash.
Slashdot Mirror
"Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on FTP, and let the rest of the world mirror it."
-- Linus Torvalds
Nope -- haven't read the Slash'em article. I've been too busy trying to kill these damned lichs that are popping up in Nethack. I've been hitting them with a +2 Stormbringer, tried polymorphing them, tried cancelling them, etc.. Nothing works. Anyone have clues on taking them out? No scrolls of genocide unfortunately.
Telocity tech: OK, what version of Windows are you running?
Me: I'm not running Windows.
Telocity: OK, click the Start button.
Me: I'm not running Windows.
Telocity: Ok, then try right clicking "Internet Explorer" then going to properties.
Me: I'm not running Windows.
Situations are reversed:
Me: OK, click on the Start button.
User: OK
Me: Now go the "Run" menu.
User: OK
Me: When the box comes up, please type in cmd -- see emm dee.
(Long story short -- the User's "way ahead" of me and has typed in "command" -- which works differently that "cmd" on Win2K. None of the tools will work properly, things will act differently. Took another five minutes to diagnose this because the user couldn't follow directions).
Here's the kicker -- works fine on a Win98SE box under Windows Media Player 8. The DivX player still gives the same error though. Is there any hope of copying a DLL from the 98SE to the 2KPro machine to get this to work?
divx.com was the first place I looked since it's the first hit on Google for "free Windows DIVX player". Tried the free player. Here's the error:
This file contains unknown audio data.
The video file you are opening includes audio data that is not recognized by the DivX Player.
The file contains the following type of data:
Audio data: Tag 85
You may need to install a new audio codec on your computer to listen to the audio. You can either stop playback now or watch the video without the audio.
Googled around for a while and they recommended downloading various codecs. I managed to install a few but still couldn't get sound to play. Someone recommended opening the file in Media Player and having it automatically download the codec. Didn't work. The file in question was ripped in drip (latest rh9 version from freshrpms.net) from a regular DVD using the default encoders for sound. The DVD itself plays fine on a console DVD player. Warez? Hardly. Just home movies of a wedding and a hospital delivery room.
I'm a Windows user who likes open source software but can't get Linux to work. I don't know how to write drivers, work the command line, or program. I guess you have to be an expert at all of these to use Linux.
What exactly are you trying to do that requires the command line? I'm looking at a RH9/KDE3 desktop right now. Dialup was configured with a GUI frontend that looks remarkably like the Windows version. My SMB shares on a Win2K box appeared in my Explorer-like konqueror file manager. It's really not that difficult. I'm sure that there are many Linux users who like to pretend that it's rocket science or at least moderately difficult to configure a network connection, install the OS, print, or whatever, but the truth is that any competent Windows user can probably do all these things with minimal experimentation. My parents use Linux. My wife uses Linux. They're by no means technical folks but have no problems doing lots of stuff.
But lets forget about Windows for a while, and talk about something "beyond the basics". Yesterday I was converting some baby movies into DivX in order to burn to CDs. I figured DivX was a pretty good format -- well supported, good quality. Then I searched for a freely available DivX reader for Windows. Guess what? Couldn't find a good one that was recent. I tried upgrading to Media Player 9. Guess what? A bunch of other stuff suddenly couldn't play. It tried repeatedly to download codecs but failed. You know what else is fun? I can't backout the upgrade. OK, fine -- I'll use mpgs and something recommended on Ars Technica's video series. Now time to burn to CD. I install a burner on the Win2K Professional machine. Prepare the ISO for burning with XCDRoast and the HP CD Writer tool. Start the burning session. On the Linux box I preview some MP3s and images to create another CD. Burning keeps on going. Try to play a *single* MP3 on Win2K while it's burning. Gasp. Error message about an underrun. CD is ejected. Coaster. It's a multi-tasking OS but it can't write a CD and listen to an MP3 at the same time. WTF?
To be fair, Win2K Professional itself never crashed. It's been the most stable Windows version I've ever used. But to claim that it's any better than Linux as far as usability is a joke. Yup, a Linux distro can have problems but at the very least the problems are predictable. I *know* what will fail and why. Windows is almost like some hideous water torture -- you don't know WHEN it will fail.
What is the stupidest astronomy question you can think of? How about this: "What are those bright things in the sky?"
Hey, Ma, what's that bright thing in the sky? Aaaiiiigggghhhh! I'm blind!
Yup, color depth is a problem. Some of the blacks aren't black enough so you lose some contrast and things could appear washed out. That's one of the problems with some of the jpeg compression. Apparently movie studios use a different, high-end format that allocates more information to the shadows.
I guess this happens when corporations are making money...
Nope, it happens when someone's not making money in the marketplace. So they go to the courts to legislate some money making.
For one, there's no Windows license cost involved. For two, the animators may already have Linux desktops. It makes a lot of sense to be able to run Photoshop directly rather than having a separate PC, dual booting, or using something like VMWare.
The Sorcerer instead chose another method entirely, which was to not really to have graphics at all. Instead they allowed the user to re-define the character set (the shapes of the letters on screen) and used these in lieu of pixel-addressable graphics.
Didn't the Atari 8-bit computers use something similar to do their graphics? Player-Missile graphics I think it was called. It allowed you to redefine characters as pseudo-sprites.
The TI99-4A also had something similar. In one of their reference books was a BASIC program to redefine a couple characters into a jumping man animation.
Maybe they owe the idea to the Sorceror.
You can also use the program kstars, part of the KDE suite. I've only been playing with it for the past couple days but am impressed. It allows you to retrieve actual images from an observatory for any object in its database, has the obligatory constellation maps, extended info via the web for the major bodies, etc.. It doesn't allow tours through the Solar System as does Celestia, but is useful for any planetbound stargazers out there.
BTW, the RH8.0 sources build fine on RH9.
Is any form of ignorance good?
I happen to be reading "Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip Mining of American Culture" at this moment. One of the essayists spends several pages bemoaning the lack of breadth in the university curriculum nowadays. The problem with his idea is that there is so much to learn in any one field, and overly broad degrees being somewhat useless, that a student can't help but specialize.
One thing in which I did agree was that there is a need for discrimination between good and bad. There are things that I don't need to know, and truthfully, don't want to know. It's fine. I'll spend my energies learning about things that fascinate me. There's too much stuff in the world to do otherwise.
Completely agree. I tried Gentoo for a while, emerging an entire X11 system with KDE from stage 1. The gains I noticed turned out to be because of the improved KDE, not from the optimizations. If there was any gain in speed it was more than offset by the time it took to bring in new updates and troubleshoot the ones that didn't work correctly.
As you also mentioned, I did notice a small increase (maybe 5-10%) after recompiling my povray binaries with aggressive optimizations. I did get a vast improvement after using a demo version of the Intel compilers and a pretty good improvement after linking with specialized math libraries. Of course, these gains were also offset by the time it took to implement them. And considering that a $50 CPU upgrade gave a twofold improvement, I'm more likely to upgrade hardware now than spend time tweaking.
To be fair, I should mention that I started using more lightweight window managers (fluxbox) and made an ancient laptop usable once again.
The mathematical/physics books put out by Dover Books are decent. They give you a good overview and background of the subject. The subjects range from Number Theory, Information Theory, Magnetism, Mathematics, Physics, Probablility,etc.
The Dover books are usually inexpensive, and some are good references. As a text for the non-mathematician, they're probably inappropriate. What they do cover is usually in depth but also don't pull punches. For example, the opening chapter of "Modern Algebra" jumps directly into set theory without a good treatment of reals, naturals, integers, etc.. Yes, the whole point of the chapter is to introduce these, but talking about isomorphic and abelian groups in the initial pages to a math neophyte is perhaps not the best approach.
"Keep in mind that during the 80s-90s (I think), there was a revolution of sorts in the way calculus was taught in colleges. Professors supporting this reform movement wanted students to understand the concepts instead of memorizing the formulas."
The concept of "new math", and the resultant ill effect on thousands of mathematics students, was a corruption of some really good ideas. There's no doubt that some bureaucracy was at fault in this madness. They took the idea that mathematics students should not only think about the "how", but also the "why", and corrupted it into the notion that students really don't need to learn their multiplication tables or memorize trigonometric identities. It was tried before in the 1800's, the 1900's, and recently in the 80's and early 90's. Every single time the message of learning "why" got corrupted.
There's also another text of the same name by C. Ray Wylie and Louis C. Barrett covering differentila equations, numerical methods, oed, fourier series and intergrals, laplace transforms, etc. (I never took the second part of the class :D).
I'm looking for books that don't just tell me an equation or a concept works, but also explain *why*. Would you please list books that have helped you gain a greater understanding of the basic concepts of algebra, chemistry, calculus, physics, and other core areas of science.
This is broad. My own list that you might find useful (or not):
algebra -- a good introduction is Earl Swokowski's "Fundamentals of Algebra and Trigonometry". It's often available in used book stores, campus book sales, etc.. It is a text book, though, and you may or may not enjoy this method of learning. If you want more of an overview of math, take a look at Paulos' "Innumeracy". If you want some lighter reading, try stuff by Martin Gardner.
calculus -- builds upon algebra so you need to know your algebra, especially limits, before you tackle calc. Know the limits well because it will help in many ways. I often refer to Elliot Gootmans' "Calculus" from Barron. For fun, also try "A Tour of the Calculus". Many chapters in "A History of Pi" are interesting (and approachable) also. Stay away from the Dover books until you have a pretty good grasp. They're cheap, but their approach is sometimes a little heavy-handed.
physics -- Feynman's "Six Easy Pieces".
For general reading, also try:
Godel, Escher, Bach (Douglas Hofstadter)
Islands of Truth (??Ivars Peterson??)
BTW, I'm a big proponent of using mathematics software as an addition to traditional study. There are programs such as MuPAD, GnuPLOT, Octave and Maxima that are available for free that can really help in the understanding of concepts. Many people are more visual so a graph is eminently useful.
I last used an early version of blender...so my opinion may be dated...but the documentation sucked as badly as the interface. With most 3D apps, you can just look at it and know what you're seeing. With blender, screw actually manipulating objects, just figuring out what's in front of you can be a pain.
OK, have you used Maya before? Take a look at its interface and try to create a scene without the manual. Try the same thing with any non-trivial modelling program. Sure, the simple applications all let you create a metal sphere on a checkboard, some random landscapes, maybe even extruded text rotating in space, but try doing something a little more advanced and these simple ones become difficult to use. But in Maya some very complex scenes can be done in minutes by an experienced operator. Yes, the blender documentation once needed work but a lot of has been added and clarified.
Given that the poor interface is by far the biggest complaint people have about Blender, you would think that some thought would be given to fixing it.
Actually, many people praise blender for its user interface. Yes, it is difficult for someone who hasn't read the manual to use, but once you actually read the manual, you'll soon realize that the interface is pretty easy to use. You can get a lot of things done very quickly because of how the mouse and keyboard interact. No, it does not conform to most user interface guidelines, but that's a little irrelevant for a specialized app, don't you think?
It's not only the Central US. Florida, surrounded by water, is also having water supply problems. Many people blame the liberal water usage exceptions that are granted to industries such as sugar plantations. They use millions upon millions of gallons of water yet are exempt from many of the regulations to which other companies must adhere. Our aquifer is replenished by rainwater, but salt water intrusion into the aquifer (caused when the fresh water is depleted) essentially makes huge portions of the aquifer unusable.
Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink...
and focus on the task at hand.
:D
Okay, seriously, I have the same problem of putting stuff off until later. I work best at midnight, like you do. The best thing is to get rid of the distractions. Don't install the games, television, chat software on your work PC. As someone else suggested, go for the minimal desktop.
Clear away the accumulated detritus from around your physical desk, including swag, magazines, and all but 1 or 2 manuals. Keep dead-tree manuals around instead of browsing the net because it's too easy to get distracted.
Comfort can kill. Don't lie down in front of the computer.
This was the most painful for me -- stop drinking as much coffee. It can lead to short term productivity increases but really screws up your attention span in the long term especially if you're missing sleep like I was (I still have to force myself to get more than 5 hours a night).
I work from home and have started adhering to a task list. This is easier when your mortgage timeliness depends on getting work done
Many people who meditate - and I suspect most Americans who meditate - do so because they hope to get something out of it, anything from relaxation, to relief from stress, enlightment or spiritual growth. But if you are striving to better yourself through meditation, you are missing the whole point. What you must free yourself from is that very striving.
Interesting. Buddhism is one thing, meditation entirely another. You sound as if you're saying that there is only one path. Striving is a weird thing. There are many that would argue that it is striving that makes us human; it is our desire for change, for betterment in some ethereal future (ethereal in the sense that it has not happened yet) that drives us as humans. There are others who argue that aligned crystals resonate at the frequency of the human soul.
But if you choose to adhere to only all proscriptions about Buddhism then you've already broken a few by posting. There's a lesson about a student that had to follow five rules. One of them was not to offend the teacher. One was not to wear shoes in the garden. The student thought that the "shoes" rule was not too important and trod through the muddy garden. But this offended the teacher. Now I'm going to argue the texts with you, just wanted to make an argument about the whole one true path thing.
About the only thing that I would like to add is that meditation is not necessarily anything mystic or spiritual. For those who choose not to believe in the supernatural or organized religions, meditation is still valuable and accessible.
Yes, much of our current notions of meditation involve Hinduism or Buddhism or some other Eastern -isms. But you can also achieve relaxation by replacing the mystic with the scientific. For example, the notion of chi and its flow through the body can be replaced with becoming aware of the blood flowing through the vessels, the realization that some mental states evoke a rush of endorphins, etc.. If you've ever read Zelazny's _Lord of Light_ and Sam's sermon after the passing of the Lord of Illusions, you'll know exactly where I'm coming from with this need to replace the mystic with the knowable.
In my particular case, I can get into a similar by drinking coffee, lots of coffee. And I mean incredible amounts of coffee to the point that my heart becomes this little buzzing thing in my chest. But as I'm getting older this coffee rush is becoming less and less of an option anyway.
The salt is stored in the hash itself. For example, on a pre-MD5 password ystem you would call the crypt function with the salt and plaintext. It would generate a hash with the first two letters being the salt you provided to crypt(). On more recent Un*x there's a (IIRC) 8 character salt embedded in the hash.