January 2012
3 posts
6 tags
Pixels v.s Focus - The Display Dilemma
It’s a question that shall be debated amongst geeks, productivityists and members of the Internet for an age before it could ever come close to being an issue put to rest. You yourself, perhaps, have felt the need to or have simply tried one answer or the other. The contest is for the title of “most productive setup component”, and the contenders are:
More displays, more work...
1 tag
Cross-post from The Blog of Dr. Robert Hume
One of my favourite lessons to teach is that of futility. That there’s a time when you should just give up. Throughout the twenty five years spanning from 1961 to 1986, logicians and tacticians ruled the defence networks of the two superpowers, and so machines such as the War Operations Planned Response were made to think like them. They believed that there are “acceptable losses”, that you can...
December 2011
5 posts
3 tags
Syncing Services - Dropbox > Simplenote
There are two syncing services in my life. Between my MacBook, my iPhone and my iPad, there are two different applications which tie together my files, despite the fact that one only really deals with text files. There is Dropbox, and then there is Simplenote (While Dropbox also stores some photos and other files, I primarily use it to sync text files between devices and apps, which is why I’m...
4 tags
The Future needs Developers, ASAP
Mobile workspaces are one of the most common in the world these days. Mobile devices seem to be all anybody wants, and for some, all anybody needs. iPads, iPhones, laptops and ultrabooks, besides the odd pro I’ve yet to hear of anybody who wanted a piece of cable-tethered technology sitting for them under their tree this year. Yet still, I find that the most mobile of setups are the least...
2 tags
New Twitter | An Opinion
Honestly, it’s nothing out of the ordinary for people to start saying “Oh, this version of [SOCIAL NETWORKING APPLICATION] is crap compared to the old one”; it comes with the territory of UI changes in the field. So I was surprised when I realised that the New Twitter UI for iOS and Android devices isn’t just *some new interface* that people are going to dislike for awhile. Whereas in the past my...
Index Cards
Why do people still laugh at me when they want my number, my address (email or otherwise), or a reminder to do something at a certain time, and I pull out an index card and start writing? In the last couple of days, I was able to:
Provide my phone number and address to a new friend when he didn’t have a phone on him or internet access for a couple of days
Remind three teachers to do three...
4 tags
Rote Learning: Bad, but there's nothing else for...
Last night I came across an article on SMH Online on the topic of rote learning, -being the memorization of the information that you need- which is often seen as being oppositional to forms of learning that allow for active understanding of the concepts. The topic of the article was, simply, “You can’t rote learn for life,” and this peaked my interest considering my senior pattern of studies.
To...
IP, Copyright, and Some Kid with a Blog
I know far too many people who publish work online and have it stolen, “reworked” and republished, earning no credit for their work, and no revenue. Others are then potentially able to cash-in on their “relatively minor crime” and it’s the reason why some really creative people don’t bother trying to be creative.
Let’s look at some examples. SMBC, XKCD...
November 2011
4 posts
Journals
I keep a journal. I know friends who keep journals. They’re private, they’re for our eyes only, and they’re generally our thoughts and opinions which we’d rather not share. I’ve often joked with people on the topic of my journal, a faux black leather affair I picked up in the city, and that if you touch it I’ll bring down upon you a swift and painful death.
I...
Smoking Etiquette
Scenario: You’re a 20-25 year old hot-shot business type, casual suit and messenger bag proving that you’re “all that”, and you’re standing at a bus stop along with two elderly ladies, three high school students and 2 toddlers who’re presumedly the grandchildren of the two elderly ladies. You decide that you’d like to have a cigarette, and so without...
4 tags
My Setup | Lachlan Harman
Who are you, and what do you do? I’m Lachlan Harman. I’m a senior high school student, aspiring journalist, writer, and serial procrastinator. Sometimes I pretend to be good at games. Occasionally I record that.
What hardware are you using? My main computer is a 13” MacBook Pro (2.3 Ghz Core i5, 4GB RAM) hooked up to a 23” Acer X243HQ Display (discontinued). This is pretty much the computer that...
3 tags
I’ve no shortage of creativity. If I really wanted to, I could sit and write anywhere between 300-3000 words a day of story, plot, hell, even if it was just character background I’d be able to do it. Writers block is rare for me, and while it does occasionally rear it’s ugly head, I usually find a way around it. Or through it.
No, my real problem is consistency. The actual...
October 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Writing is one of those things that I will always need to remind myself to do. It’s not a matter of losing the urge, or not wanting to, it’s literally about remembering how to write a lot of the time. I’ve listened to enough of Back to Work to realise that I’m not the only one who forgets how from time to time, but that doesn’t make it okay, or normal.
“It’s not the thinking that makes the...
3 tags
Basic Service
Around about three months ago, we signed a contract with the BigPond branch of Telstra, which stated among our many obligations to contract fees and early leaving fees and what not, the undeniable clause that states that we are doing all this in order to receive a basic Internet and landline service to our home, which is usable and won’t inconvenience us.
For the last week, this service...
September 2011
1 post
4 tags
Like The Rests Between The Notes...
The events of my life, and I’m assuming life in general, seem to be defined more than the pauses in between them. An event in time isn’t classified by when it is, but rather when the events before it ceased, and those after it began.
I take the depression of two years ago as an example. I don’t think I’d think of it as a real depression as it is if it weren’t for...
August 2011
7 posts
3 tags
Suicide
I’ve been reading a Great Ideas book (the Penguin series) entitled “On Suicide”, by David Hume. And I’d like to say a few things based on the questions I’ve been asked today.
No, I’m not going to kill myself.
Yes, I think that man should be free enough to decide whether or not he would like to live or die.
No, I am not encouraging suicide as a thing to do.
...
3 tags
Bi-Polar
Picture these two scenarios.
A teacher is told to do a job. Teach students, discipline wrong-doers and disruptive pupils, and treat the good kids like they deserve. When kids muck up, she gets angry and shouts at them to get them to stop. When they don’t, she acts nicely, teaches nicely, and doesn’t shout.
A teenager is sitting with his friends. He’s happy, he’s...
3 tags
Michel de Montaigne’s view on true friendship was that we often mistake our “friends” for acquaintances. He felt that true friendship was a friendship so deep that “[your] souls support each other.” He goes on to say that, in a true friendship like the one he talks of, “souls are mingled and confounded in so universal a blending that they efface the seam which...
4 tags
The Epicurean Lifestyle, and Why We Can't Have It....
Epicurus stated that as a human, he required only three things in life to be happy; friends, time to think, and enough food, shelter and clothing to accommodate the first two. I wholeheartedly believe that, if life in this day and age would allow for it, that this would be a truly wonderful way to live, and I’ve recently discovered that elements of this thinking have already pervaded my...
3 tags
On Being A Gentleman
Apparently, being a gentleman is now equal to being “whipped”. Apparently, wanting to express your love for a woman by doing nice things for her that show you want to make her happy is something which gets you called names, and causes males in your immediate area to make whipped noises.
If this is the case, then I can’t imagine a single decent person not putting their hands up...
4 tags
Socratic Method Applied - What You Should Be Doing
Truisms, personal beliefs and opinions, official political party beliefs, these are all things which exist, and which can be wrong. Many of the opinions you come across will be incorrect and poorly defended, because the people who hold them have failed to do what you really should be doing: thoroughly examining these beliefs logically, to be sure that what they think is, at least, defendable and...
4 tags
"Asking For It" - Not Necessarily.
The “common” and unpopular opinion that society is not so proudly advertising on rape is that the victims were, in some way, “asking for it.” They were alone at night, walking about, possibly drunk and wearing appealing clothing, which apparently constitutes asking for someone to come along, rip off those clothes and rape them.
I’m sorry, that doesn’t make any...