This BBQ Apron lets everyone know whose fault it really was, the flying monkeys made you do it - It's absolutely true. It's not really your fault. In fact, even though you were the one that actually did do it, it still isn't your fault at all. Of course you shouldn't take responsibility for what happened, you just couldn't help yourself. But, first and foremost when you do get blamed, make sure you point the blame in the right direction. It's not the dog's fault nor is it the fault of the voices in your head that you have been listening too, nor was it the ghost of Elvis, and the devil definitely didn't make you do it either. Certainly, that can only leave one option left, the ones that are truly behind it all, the flying monkeys. That's absolutely right. It was the flying monkeys that made you do it. Now is your chance to fianlly reveal the truth of who's really behind it all.

For Some There's Therapy, For The Rest Of Us There's Motorcycles BBQ Apron - For some there's therapy, for the rest of us there's motorcycles. Sometimes the best way escape reality a little bit to relax, unwind, think about and make sense of life is to hop on our motorcycle and head for the open road whether it's through the twisties of a canyon or mountain or the open desert highway. The freedom and peace of being at one with a machine and the open road is therapy that is almost unequalled by anything else. So, forget the shrink. Forget the counselors. Forget the psychiatrists. Forget the therapists. Relieve the stress, makes some sense out of life, grin from ear to ear. Just get on your bike and ride.

Show your support for freedom of thoughts and actions with the Legalize Freedom BBQ Apron - Left Wing, Right Wing, Conservative, Liberal, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, it just doesn't seem to matter much any more. They all are trying to pass more laws one way or another to dictate how we think, how we live, restricting how they think we should think and how they think we should live. It doesn't matter anymore if you agree with conservative or liberal ideals. Having different ideas, thoughts and attitudes is what use to make the United States terrific. We didn't use to have the politicians shoving their personal beliefs down our throats. We use to be able think and act for ourselves. We use to be able to be responsible for our own lives and our own decisions. Freedom use to be legal. Freedom of choice use to mean something. The freedom to choose anything is almost non-existent anymore. Left Wing, Right Wing, Conservative, Liberal, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, it just doesn't matter any more, all of their beliefs that they try passing laws on telling us how to think, breath and live will only lead to one thing eventually... socialism and communism... UNLESS it is stopped before it is too late. Legalize Freedom! Enough is enough already!! Stop restricting us! Stop telling us how you say we should think! Stop telling us how we should live! Stop trying to protect us from us! Let us think for ourselves! Let us act for ourselves! Let us be responsible for our own lives! Let us be responsible for our own decisions! LEGALIZE FREEDOM!!

This BBQ Apron will help you show your passion and dedication to your martial arts discipline and that it truly is better than therapy - For some there's therapy, for the rest of us there's martial arts. Who needs therapy; when the martial arts are your outlet? There can be several reasons of why you do not need therapy when you use martial arts as therapy. In martial arts, whether it is taekwondo, karate, kung fu or jujutsu, there is a physical and mental level of discipline that is achieved that overflows into every area of your life, helping you to be able to have respect for others, maintain focus to achieve other goals and also to help overcome problems and situations. Then there is the physical release that martial arts bring whether it is working on your forms, during sparing or breaking boards. Another way that martial arts helps bring tension release and peace top the mind and body is the mental preparation and focus bring a single mind to the task at hand creating self-control, self-restraint and a mental readiness to handle potentially stressful situations and diffuse them easily.

WARNING: Approach With Caution BBQ Apron - Let other people know that you need to be approached with caution with the "WARNING: Approach With Caution" 3D Industrial Metal Looking Sign Mega Cool Shirts, Sweatshirts, Clocks, Stickers, Mugs And More. Makes an excellent gift for those that are slighty tempermental too!

Recommendation on a unique phytonutrient supplement

Guide to undestanding your daily requirements and how to evaluate your supplements

Focus on answers to political, business and love issues.

i just bought KEF SPeaker Model is Q1 which is on sale now.. BOY they having promo and is just too bad they are made in China not UK!! =(

I guess they are a good speakers to start with and have been very busy lately due to hunting for a AMP which can plug into my iPod..

Review on the Q1 Spekers can be found below
http://www.hifichoice.co.uk/review_print.asp?ID=2455

Published at LXer: Similar to the ACPI CPUFreq and AMD/Intel P-State CPU frequency scaling driver and scaling governor benchmarks and power efficiency comparisons I routinely do on Phoronix, when...

Published at LXer: The HiFiBerry DAC8x and HiFiBerry Amp4 Pro are two significant upgrades for enhancing audio capabilities on the Raspberry Pi 5. These devices expand the audio options for users...

Published at LXer: qBittorrent 5.0 has been released today as a major update to this popular open-source, free, and cross-platform BitTorrent client written in Qt that introduces numerous new...

Published at LXer: As expected the Linux 6.12-rc1 kernel is out today in marking the end of the very exciting two-week Linux 6.12 merge window that saw many high profile features land. Read...

Published at LXer: With the third quarter drawing to a close, here's a look back at the most popular Linux/open-source related content for the quarter. This quarter there's been more than 730 news...

Published at LXer: There are plenty of people who do not actually understand AI and open-source (or its licensing). But, they choose to jump on using those terms to market their products somehow...

Ein Coming-Out ist für die meisten homosexuellen Jugendlichen der letzte Ausweg, um ein Leben voller Lügen aufzugeben. Für viele fangen die größten Probleme jedoch erst danach an. Jakob hat sich geoutet, weil er sich selbst nicht mehr leugnen wollte. Sechs Jahre lang versteckte er seine Gefühle, aus Angst, ausgegrenzt zu werden. Seit sein Freund über ein Outing nachdenkt, begegnet er seiner eigenen Geschichte noch einmal.

Am 25. November 2015 wurde der verbreitete Free Pascal - Compiler (FPC) in der aktualisierten Version 3.0 (Pestering Peacock) veröffentlicht. Die Vielzahl der Neuerungen hat die Entwickler zum ersten großen Versionssprung seit 10 Jahren bewogen. Version 2.0 war 2005 eingeführt worden, die letzte Hauptversion war 2.6 aus dem Jahre 2012. Version ...

There has been a lot of mud-slinging over the referendum on the Alternative Vote. The “No” campaign have been particularly bad at avoiding sensible debate and resorting to fear-mongering and smears.

The polling shows they will likely win by a significant margin. They shouldn’t. And with apparently 20%+ of people still undecided, I’d like to share some thoughts that might tip the balance in some people’s heads: please share this with anybody who is still undecided.

Here are 10 very good reasons you should vote “Yes” in the AV referendum tomorrow:

1. First Past The Post (FPTP) doesn’t work in a system with more than two parties

You might only like one of the two leading parties, but you can’t deny that we live in a society where more than two parties matter. If you live in Scotland or Wales, multi-party politics is a reality even more so.

FPTP was designed when there were only two political groups in Parliament: the Tories and the Whigs. Since the birth of Labour, the reformation of the Liberals and the rise of nationalist parties and groups like the Green Party, we live in a nation where there are multiple political voices.

You might not agree with them, but you agree under a democracy that they have a right to be heard, right? So why would you persist with a system that denies them that voice?

Right now, an MP can have support of less than 20% of the people in their constituency, and be sent to Parliament on behalf of all 100%. AV eliminates that from being possible, and forces more engaged politics.

2. AV actually weakens extremist parties

There are three parties wholly against the Alternative Vote: the Conservatives, the BNP and the Communist party.

The Tories don’t like it for a variety of reasons along with some Labour MPs (see below), but the BNP and the Communist parties don’t like it because it reduces their chances of getting a seat. How? It comes down to second preference votes.

People who are inclined to vote for extremist views typically will place them first. People who put other parties first are unlikely to offer a second preference to an extremist party. That means on the whole, parties like the BNP are likely to be eliminated quite early on.

To win, a candidate must convince at least 50% of the people who vote to give them at least a second or third preference vote. The BNP and the Communists are unlikely to achieve that whilst their views and the electorate’s are so out of kilter.

Under FPTP it’s possible to win a seat with just 20% of eligible voters agreeing with you, or around 30% of voters who actually vote - a much more achievable target for extremist parties to get.

3. AV forces consensus and a new mode of political debate

You might have noticed politicians from opposite sides don’t seem to like each other very much. Most people can’t stand watching Prime Minister’s Questions for all its Punch & Judy mechanics. FPTP requires confrontation and feeds off fear-mongering.

AV forces politicians into a very different mode. They have to talk about what they’re for, rather than what they’re against (as tactical voting disappears, see below), and they need to seek out ways to find compromise and agreement rather than just shout the other side down.

You might have strong feelings against the coalition government, but you can’t deny that the disagreements seem to have been dealt with more philosophical debate than previous disputes between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. It’s not that either side has sold out completely, but rather it’s because that’s what coalitions need to work. AV turns that progressive debate into the daily routine of politics.

4. AV doesn’t cost a penny more. The only penalty is a slightly longer election night special on the BBC

There have been some preposterous claims made about the cost of AV. One leaflet suggested it would cost us £250m, and another campaign suggested that maybe the money would be better spent on hospitals.

We could argue that democracy shouldn’t have a price put on it - particularly one so low given the size of our GDP - however that’s not the point.

AV won’t cost us anything more. The referendum will cost virtually nothing as it coincides with many local elections anyway. There are no “counting machines” that need to be bought, and the cost of explaining AV to the electorate has basically already been met by the (privately-funded) “Yes” campaign and various other groups. If you don’t currently understand how AV works, you can learn it yourself in under two minutes by reading the article on Wikipedia about it.

5. FPTP supports incompetent and lazy MPs - it provides a “job for life”, undeservedly

There are a lot of very bad MPs in Parliament. You’ve probably never heard their names, but they’ve been there for a long time, and know that they have a job for life. They are in “safe seats” where it would take a political Tsunami of epic proportions to remove them.

If you analyse which Labour members support the FPTP system over AV, you will realise they are generally unpopular figures who have held safe seats whilst resorting to “we hate the other side” politics, which would likely flounder under AV: John Prescott, Margaret Beckett, et al.

The Tory back-benches are filled with a similar breed of politician. They resent the voter, on the whole.

These MPs do not represent their constituency in Parliament. They represent their party in the constituency. With perhaps no more than 35% of the vote (and often with low turnouts, just a 10-15% approval from their constituency as a whole), they know they can do pretty much what they want. For example, on average MPs in safe seats claim more in expenses than MPs in marginals, and cost the taxpayer more.

One beauty of AV is that it pretty much eliminates the concept of a safe seat. There will be some left where there is overwhelming support for a candidate, but MPs will be more inclined to fight for the continued support of their entire constituency, and therefore act more in accordance with their wishes.

6. Under AV you can - if you wish - select just one candidate (and it’s actually easier)

At the moment under FPTP you type an X in a box. Under AV, if you only want to support one candidate and have no second preference, simply write ‘I’ instead. It’s one less line. It could be argued that under AV you’ll halve your time spent actually physically voting.

OK, I’m clearly making a small joke here, but there is nothing complicated about AV if you don’t want to think about multiple candidates, just vote for the one individual you want to see elected.

But don’t you want the option of being able to specify a second candidate if your first preference doesn’t win, just in case? Isn’t the elimination of tactical voting worth it? That brings us onto…

7. Tactical voting pretty much disappears under AV

This morning I got a “the Tories can’t win here” leaflet from the Lib Dems through my door. We’ve all seen them. Basically, if you don’t want Labour to win in this ward, there is no point in voting Conservative because of how the vote is counted.

Under AV at general elections, this would make no sense. Tory voters, instead of being told their votes are futile, would be reached out to by both parties seeking to build bridges with that community who live locally.

You would no longer need to go to the polls and vote for a party you disagree with, just to keep another party out. Campaigners would instead want to listen to views across the political spectrum in the hope of getting a second preference vote from people within those groups.

It completely changes the way we think about politics and political campaigning. For the better, and permanently.

There is a more complicated explanation of how tactical voting pretty much becomes impossible under AV in a section of the Wikipedia article.

8. We all start to count again

You might have heard the phrase “Mondeo Man”, “Windsor Woman” or the like at previous elections. These are demographic groups targeted by campaigners whose vote determines the election.

You see, at the last election, it’s thought that only 1.6% of votes actually changed the outcome. Because of the way FPTP favours jobs for life, safe seats and promotes tactical voting and negative politics, experts realised that the “swing” that would win the election would come from less than 1 voter in 50.

They identified who these people were based on where they lived. They analysed their lifestyles based on demographic information and labelled them. Experts then ran focus groups composed of this tiny demographic, and party policy and manifesto promises were crafted around what was responded to by that group.

All of those billboards, manifestos, news reports and editorials. They weren’t meant for 98.4% of the electorate - they were crafted to shape the opinion of just 1.6% of the electorate.

Does that seem a reasonable way to run a democracy to you? Under AV, we all start to count again.

9. It’s not a rubbish version of PR, and we don’t want PR anyway!

Some people have argued we should hold out for Proportional Representation because that means the number of MPs representing each party is in exact proportion to the number of votes cast for that party nationally.

We don’t want that.

Note, I said the MPs would be representing each party. They would no longer represent a constituency, and would be positioned on a list based on their loyalty to the party elders and the small Westminster clique that runs politics today.

We want and need a system that means an MP is tied to a constituency. We want and need a system that makes the MP want to represent the constituency within Parliament, rather than the other way around.

PR doesn’t do that. FPTP doesn’t do that. AV does.

10. If we vote “No”, we keep the status quo for at least a generation. 

The reality is, if we collectively vote “No” to the Alternative Vote, that’s it, we don’t get any more reform for a while - probably at least a generation. The concession prize might be a reform of the House of Lords, in order to try and keep the coalition together (it’s a very weak second prize for the Lib Dems), but I suspect if we voted “Yes”, then Lords reform would be here within no more than one more Parliament anyway - it’d be popular with voters.

We all agree that the current system is broken, but if we vote “no” we’re saying “that’s OK”. We are committing our children and possibly several generations more to the broken politics we’re so disenchanted with ourselves.

So, there we have it. 10 reasons. If you need any more, feel free to email me and I’ll try and answer your questions and answer any lingering doubts before polls open tomorrow.

In a couple of weeks time, it will be the first anniversary of a 35-year old intellectual killing himself on the steps of a church on the Harvard campus.

I discovered Mitchell Heisman’s “Suicide Note” via a concise article on responses to the story.

I’ve been reading “Suicide Note” since I found the article, on and off. Mitchell might have benefitted from an editor, but there is no doubt the work is philosophically an opus par excellence.

Nihilism is not my thing - I do not agree with his core philosophy that life is entirely without meaning - but the way he gets there, and some of the ideas he presents are wonderful. There are things to take away from it all that will likely resonate with me for the rest of my life - as works by all good philosophers have.

To this day, Wikipedia have repressed information about him based on a subjective rules that don’t recognise that the guy’s work is actually worth reading. I expect in due course academics will start to cite him, and that situation will change.

Out there is a growing movement to recognise him. There have already been calls from some - perhaps over-excited - individuals for him to be award a Nobel Prize in literature posthumously. I wouldn’t go that far, but I would encourage those who can deal with it to consider his work. 

The moment Steve Jobs’ and Apple’s work first came into my life was back in 2002. That first brush, I hated it. 

In time, I came to see him for the genius and pioneer that he was, and the work that Apple did - and does - as amongst the most extraordinary in the World today.

First some context:

In 2002, I was at the European BSD conference and Jordan Hubbard, founder of FreeBSD and then newly-employed release engineer at Apple, had secured for the “terminal room” a sponsorship from Apple which meant the room was full of the 2002 iMacs. The 2002 iMac was a little “alien” in that each machine was a dome with a flexible protruding screen. Installed on them was OS X, an operating system I had beta tested before its first release on an ancient iBook, and I had very mixed feelings about.

It was pretty. But was it really a Unix? The other developers of BSD Unix in the room needed very little convincing. The command line was Unix, but the desktop and applications on there were beautiful. It was what they dreamed a Unix should be. Many of them left that conference committed to buying Apple equipment and moving to OS X within the year.

I resented this “attack” on the community, but could see where they were coming from. It was - and remains - a key part of Apple’s renaissance: build great tools for developers and alpha-geeks, and in turn the developers will build an ecosystem that users crave. Instill in the developers an aesthetic and teach them a way to do the things they struggle with (human interface guidelines, for example), and they will reward you with loyalty.

In short: empower your customers, and they’ll empower you.

No technology firm had done this as successfully before as Apple were doing between 2002 and 2004.

By 2004, I had just about had it with the drain away from the community Apple had “caused”. On one mailing list I wrote a very angry email in response to somebody else’s request for configuration advice on their latest Apple laptop:

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-chat/2004-October/002684.html

“Yes, of course. My advice is that you sell your over-priced fashion-victim toy with it’s Fisher Price Unix installed, and use the money instead to buy yourself a top of the range Thinkpad. It will outperform it, run FreeBSD, not look out of fashion next season, has been built by a company that is truly committed to the open source movement and whose execs don’t patronise you by assuming you travel to work on a skateboard in cargo pants or worse, pander to your girlfriend’s idea of what a computer should be.”

Ashamed by my petulant anger, about six month later I decided to reconsider, step back and think about what they were doing in a wider scheme of the industry I was in. This was when I started to “get it”. It was when I could see what others lauded about Apple and its founders.

Within 14 months of writing that email I had acquired a 12” iBook. It was all I could afford at the time, and even then it was subsidised by the fact that I was working in a University faculty and so got a discount.

I immediately loved the fact I had a Unix machine with WiFi and Bluetooth that I didn’t need to spend a week configuring. I loved the software I could buy, and that all the open source tools I loved would work too. I loved the thought that had gone into developing that code underlying OS X. I loved the developer tools and Safari. I found myself thinking more and more about aesthetics and craftsmanship as part of what I do as a developer. Suddenly programming wasn’t just a dry science of mathematics and engineering: Steve’s ideas were getting to me through the product of his and Apple’s work.

Two things then happened like thunderbolts. 

First, I had found a copy of Steve’s commencement speech to Stanford in 2005.

Steve’s speech stuck with me. I had studied rhetoric, and was pleased by the simple construct he had used - a structure I would begin to notice he used in product announcements - but the content had hit me somewhere deep.

In it he talked about three things:

• Follow your intuition, because in hindsight the dots will join up. You can’t plan to be great, you just have to let the intuition guide you.
• Do what you love, and change things if you find yourself not enjoying life
• Death is inevitable. It’s coming. Deal with it as an agent of change, and don’t waste your life.

The second thing that happened around then, was that I discovered the Ruby programming language, a language that was designed to be beautiful and enjoyable for programmers to work with.

It astonished me.

I don’t think it would have done if by that point I had not started to “get” aestheticism in software, the Apple way. It’s no secret that the Ruby on Rails framework is developed almost entirely on Apple OS X machines. A Ruby conference is basically a hang-out of Apple fans. The two seem to go hand-in-hand together, just like how in 2002 it was Apple and the BSD guys.

Last night as I watched the speech again on YouTube (on my iPhone, natch), I realised I was connecting dots back, and in hindsight the impact this speech and this discovery had on me was immense.

Coupled with the discovery of Ruby, what happened next was perhaps inevitable, but still surprised me.

I went and started my own business.

I had always wanted to, but right there and then, something clicked, and I got rid of all the fear and doubt and realised that when I looked back on my life I wanted to be able to say that for a while at least I had been an “entrepreneur”.

I made the decision that I would not work on projects in that business I did not enjoy. I would only work on things that brought me joy: that is to say, I would only write code in Ruby. A brave choice in early 2006 when Rails had yet to reach v1.0 and Ruby was still considered a “toy” language by many.

I had no money, no client roster, and survived the first six months coding away on that tiny, slow little 12” iBook for friends who had piece work for me. I had never been happier.

I ate noodles and beans on toast, drank donated Guinness and chose to love my work. Working from home I would love waking late on a Monday morning, but I could never lie-in: I always wanted to just get started.

I spent the next few years helping other businesses, talking about development as a craft, not just a science.

I went into schools and told kids that learning how to write beautiful software was the most powerful skill you could cheaply acquire in this generation. Like me, they could come up with an idea and with a laptop and internet connection share it with the World in a weekend.

In the years since, I have helped dozens of start-ups, spoken to thousands of teenage children (and hopefully inspired a few to give programming with an artistic flair a go), and changed my life substantially.

I am not the same man I was in 2005. The depression and anxiety I had suffered prior to then have more or less gone. I have a brilliant relationship with an amazing girl who I consider to be my best friend, and I do work that makes me excited almost every day.

The decisions I made in those few months in 2005 and early 2006, looking back, are what made me who I am today.

I had to call time on my main business in 2010 partly because I was finding myself looking in the mirror and not looking forward to the day ahead any more - just like Steve had said, I decided I needed to change something. As sales had dried up I realised I was doing something I no longer enjoyed.

I then turned down one job offer for another on a quarter of the salary because it felt right, it felt like more interesting work and ultimately I knew it might lead to an exciting adventure I had dreamed about.

Today I work on an amazing product with brilliant people and finding myself learning new things every day.

Looking back I realise I have developed a new sense of intense curiosity. I will wander in my work, inquisitively poking whole areas I know little about. I read more, listen more and learn more. I teach where I can, I play, and I explore.

I realise that my time on this little rock is limited, and I try and make sure every day I do something that makes me smile.

In hindsight then, Steve’s words and work have had a substantial impact on who I am today professionally. Because that impact made my work more joyful, pleasant and fulfilling, in turn, his words and work have made my life better than it would have been without his impact.

“This was a very typical time. I was single. All you needed was a cup of tea, a light, and your stereo, you know, and that’s what I had.”

It’s all the more impressive because according to “the rules” society is meant to work by, he should have been another liberal arts wash-up. As I said on Facebook earlier:

“I don’t think the economically right-wing anywhere - US, UK, Eurozone, China, anywhere - would be able to deal with the idea that the largest company on the planet was founded by a Buddhist counter-culturalist of complex family origins who made decisions based on intuition, aestheticism, love and curiosity.

Yet, it makes perfect sense to me.”

I never met him, never got close to knowing him the way that his friends and family did, or even his colleagues, but in my own way I learned to love him. His impact will be with me for the rest of my life, and late last night as the news broke here in the UK, despite it being on the cards for a while, the news came as a shock and I had to hold back the tears.

His critics’ words (and there are many!), sound very much like my own before I “got it”. Right now - today - though, it is petulant, angry, juvenile scribbling, and unworthy of any mature grown-up, given it is less than 24 hours since his dying.

Some call him a fascist, others a megalomaniac. In essence all he was trying to do was produce the best - and most human-friendly - technological products humanity was capable of producing right now. He did so within the rules shareholders gave him along with their money, because after being fired once, he didn’t want to mess up and be fired again. As ever, he exceeded their expectations and produced a company larger than any other on earth in terms of market capitalisation.

When you have a vision, as long as nobody gets hurt along the way, there’s no harm in following it ruthlessly. That’s what he did.

Some point to the fact that he didn’t donate much to charity in his life time, but I’m quietly confident that is because he didn’t want the ego stroking whilst he was still alive, and in coming years and months his wealth will quietly reach parts of the World that need it. He felt that shareholders’ money was their, and he shouldn’t give it away. He felt the best way he could help the World was by empowering as many people as possible. There’s no real shame in that. And in that, he was immensely successful.

He was also a subversive, and this is a point that his critics miss - or point to - the most. Biologically he was a half-Syrian Muslim, which when acknowledged in the last decade caused the conservative right in the US a huge problem: was the leader of the hottest thing on Wall Street one of them? They needn’t have worried - he’d discovered Buddhism many years ago. Adoptively he grew up to be a counter-culture Bay Area “hippie” and counter-culture type that worried some in the establishment even more.

His critics point to the consumerist message of Apple, without realising its founding principle was to go against the grain and to help people push further than the establishment wanted them to. The fact that he was able to make a living - a good living - as reward for that vision should not be seen as a fault or flaw.

Those unfamiliar with this background with questions to ask might want to start here. It might change your mind about him.

He wasn’t perfect. Nobody is. But regardless, he was an inspiration to millions who right now are working at building the next generation of technology. He showed us what we were capable of when we tried, and his death some 20-30 years “before his time” shows what a great leveller pancreatic cancer can be. So, if you are a critic: please shut the hell up and let us deal with paying tribute to him in our own way. You’ll reap the benefits as we march forward, inspired by his vision, into giving you the technology you deserve to make the World a better place.

I genuinely believe those who hate him haven’t given him - specifically what lay beneath his vision - a chance, in the same way I hadn’t.

The moment I did though and started to use the tools he and his company produced the way they were designed, my life got better and my attitude to what I wanted to do with my life improved.

I can’t think of another businessman I could say that about. I can’t think of another businessman anybody will be able to say that about when they die.

As I watched that commencement speech another time, the words were as fresh and as poignant as ever. His final few words seem particularly appropriate to me today, and so I will leave you with them. You may love him, you may hate him, but you can’t disagree that his vision was sharp, and worth sharing.

My thoughts and condolences today are of course with his family, his friends and colleagues, and all who were impacted by Steve from a distance the way I was. Steve was an amazing man, who inspired so many and has changed the World for the better, forever.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

I love knowing what my friends and family are up to. I love finding out about the latest thoughts going on within my peer groups. I enjoy reading many blogs, newsletter and emails. I used to regularly get over 400 emails a day including group/mailing list traffic, followed over a thousand people on Twitter and was friends with more than 250 people on Facebook. I subscribed to over 200 blogs. I read all of it, all the time.

Mix in LinkedIn, reddit, Hacker News and a few other corners of the web, and we’re suddenly talking about a lot of data flowing into my head.

I’m led to believe that some even value the contributions I make myself from time to time.

However, I’m about to start dialling all that down. I’ve made a start in some places, but over time I’m going to stop reading anywhere near as much short-form (twitter, Facebook, etc.), a little less medium-long form (blogs), and use the time to start reading longer form work again (books) and creating more.

The reason is not because of burn-out, cynicism or some other excuse: I’m not arguing that it’s all pointless, and I’m not being a Luddite. I just want to create more, and there are only so many hours in the day.

This was prompted by going back over my resolutions posted here in December, and realising I’ve made little progress:

• I need to get my weight down. I’m finally prepared to do something about it.

• I want to create more, so will aim to not go more than two or three consecutive days without working on something creative in 2012. It could be writing (here, for example), it could be code for a personal project, or it could be something I’ve never really tried before (music? art? Don’t know yet). I basically want to spend less time reading/consuming and more time doing stuff. David Tate provides excellent inspirationif you want to consider doing the same. I’ll try to document as much of that as possible here.

• I’m going to try and shift from always being behind/late for almost everything going on in my life, to being early. I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but I suspect if I can pull it off, I’ll be calmer and happier as a result.

This, I am happy to report, seems to have actually happened for the most part. Public transport not withstanding - including my own self-sabotage - I tend to be where I need to be on-time (or early), far more than I was last year.

Back to the main point: by reading what’s going on out there, by trying out new apps, by listening to all these voices, I am feeling engaged and plugged in, but only as a consumer. The purpose of the Internet is not to simply consume but to create, amend, edit, destroy, vandalise and promote. Ideas, content, products, whatever.

Also, am I the only one who has noticed how exhausting this hosepipe of information can be on a daily - even hourly - basis? I’m tired of consuming. It’s worse than television - at least with television an editor or commissioner has attempted to do some curation.

So I’m not departing, I’m not shutting down accounts, I’m just going to read a great deal less online, to the point the relevant apps might disappear off my phone. In return, I should be able to produce a few new things to share. Watch this space!

A couple of lovely people I know have suggested that some of the Olympic disciplines are not “proper sports”. This sentiment is one frequently echoed by compatriots of losers, stand-up comedians and miserable bastards the World over.

It has now seeped into the social consciousness and zeitgeist to the extent that many people mistakenly think “sports” are one thing - typified by physical endurance, stamina, or skill - and “games” are things anybody can do really, probably whilst having a pint at the same time.

Let’s put to one side that “the Olympics” are actually called “the Olympic Games” (or in French, “Jeux olympiques”), and just assume the “point” of the Olympics is to promote “sporting disciplines”.

Why do I feel certain that every single one of the Olympic disciplines is worthy of the name “sport”?

Even archery, which I reckon I could have a good bash at it with the right kit despite being a perfect example of how bad Guinness can be for your waistline, or boxing which is standing around and punching people when they didn’t even borrow that DVD off you in the first place.

Yes, I’d even include dressage where the horse is the one actually doing the moving about, whilst the “competitor” sits atop in a fine hat looking more English than a teapot in a red phone box (even when the competitor is French, which must be embarrassing for them).

All of these can be - and in the context of the Olympics, most definitely are - sports.

To explain, let’s just focus on what makes something nothing more than “a game”.

Any activity can be made into a game. All you need is a way to keep score and some rules to make sure the scores actually mean something. Staring at a wall: how long for without looking away? Making a cup of tea: judges could taste-test quality, or there could be speed trials. Having a nice sit down and a biscuit: how few crumbs can be counted on your lap afterwards?

Most games are obviously a bit more involved and preferably prefer people either getting naked or putting things onto a spring-loaded donkey (or both!), but the point is I could make a game out of writing this very post if I wanted. Or even this sentence. (4 words, 0.6 seconds, 100 words/minute, if you’re interested).

“Gamification” is a major social force in the web application industry right now, to the point where sitting in your office and pressing a button in an app on your phone can make you “Mayor”, which is why I don’t use FourSquare: I might become an annoying prat who asks for a third of a Londoner’s council tax to spend on bicycles and zip lines or whatever.

Games are obviously more fun when there is a degree of competition, and therefore the scores must be fairly comparable. You and I might decide to play pooh-sticks for example, and we will have a grand old time as I crush you and claim glorious victory and then we’ll go and get an ice cream or something. The fun is in me beating you without “cheating”. Or you usurping me and claiming a surprise victory, perhaps (like that’s ever going to happen, you fool), all whilst not kicking me in the head as I sing “We are the Champions”, etc.

This is a game: any activity at which there are some established rules allowing the participants to keep score, and where the point of the rules is to make different participants scores comparable with each other.

Cheating isn’t just “naughty” - it stops it becoming a game, because the scores are no longer comparable. If I turned up to pooh-sticks with laser-guided remote-controlled precision sticks with outboard motors on them, I can’t claim a fair victory when you’ve just picked up that stick with a leaf on it next to that weird moss on that rock, no not that one, that one over there, no, there you moron… yes, the bent one! 

Providing the game is fair then, I would argue that any game can become a sport. How? Other people caring about the outcome.

If whilst I am thrashing you at pooh-sticks, a small crowd appears and starts cheering one or the other of us on (hint: I’m very charismatic, they’ll be cheering for me mostly), then we have a sport. The number of people who care about the outcome or who want to have a go themselves determines how “sporting” it is. Once we start keeping World Records, or we meet regularly to do contest on a schedule we share with non-participants, and arrange ourselves into leagues, and perhaps start making money from the gullible fools who fawn in my pooh-stick abilities, then we have a moderately successful sport.

Sport is, I think, simply any game, where non-participants care about or are interested in the scores and who wins.

If the dressage, archery or boxing events at the Olympics, it’s pretty clear there were non-participants who cared about the outcome. In some cases, they really cared to the point where they flocked to Twitter, barely able to type through their blubbering tears about how wonderful and marvellous it is that somebody they’ve never met who happens to be considered by International Law to be a citizen of the same part of the World as them despite living 3,000 miles away, beat somebody who lives 300 miles away who they do not share such a close bond with due to them suffering the genetic disadvantage of being French.

So, here’s my cut-out-and-keep guide:

1. In both games and sports, people keep score somehow
2. In both games and sports, rules ensure the scores of different participants are fairly comparable
3. In games only the participants care about the comparison, in sports there are non-participants who also care

If this still doesn’t make sense to you, think about what sports would become if nobody cared? Or even if the outcome wasn’t scored or measured? What exactly would those footballers be doing if nobody nobody cared about the score? What would the by doing if they didn’t bother keeping score? Just what is it that Usain Bolt would be proving by running really quickly if nobody was watching? Or some people were watching, but were not measuring how fast he was running?

So the next time you hear somebody say “that’s not a real sport”, despite there being a clear loyal following of non-participants, maybe point out that it might be an activity whose outcome they don’t care about, so that can mean it’s not a sport to them.

But to the participants and to their followers, and to the people around them, it is very much a sport. And what they’re saying is a smidge hurtful to all of them, even if it’s just pooh-sticks. So, you know, try not to say that. It makes you sound a little bit mean.

In recent weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about this site, and it’s sister blog p7r.io and deciding what to do next with one or both of them.

The problem with blogs is that it is so easy for them to die. A few weeks of negligence, and they lose their vibe. Also, I’ve struggled to identify what content is most suitable in both places, because whatever content I think of requires a slightly different format.

Last week as I sketched out various ideas, a phrase hit me out of the blue: “Projects not Posts”.

I don’t want to write posts. I want to work on projects. I am a developer, data miner, machine learning scripter, meta-programming type of guy with a deep interest in writing fiction, public policy, politics, technology, teaching coding, entrepreneurship, agile and lean methods and a whole load of other stuff besides.

I frequently think “I should do something around ‘x’” only to realise it doesn’t fit into a blog narrative, nor does it really suit a blog of its own, and so it gets dropped.

Why? Why not just drop the blog structure entirely? Why not go back to a traditional “personal website” structure? It might sound ridiculous to go back to some Geocities-era concept, but I’ve come to realise short-form writing doesn’t allow me to do what I actually want, and I spend more time thinking about what a blog “should” be rather than just sharing cool stuff.

Also - and here’s the killer - I want to work on much bigger projects than any blog can reasonably accomodate. I want to roll out applications, publish long-form writing, and other forms that don’t “fit” the blog format. That leads me to thinking that in this renaissance age of self-publishing I should be looking at playing with structure, and other forms of output (possibly even, dare I say it, books…)

You know what makes blogging work? RSS. However I can still maintain an RSS feed, and most people now “subscribe” to content via Twitter or Facebook if they’re interested. And everything else? For me it’s a block.

So, some 11 years after the original incarnation of iconoplex and 6 months after the first incarnation of p7r.io, I’ve decided that they will “merge” (both domains will point to the same content), and the content they hold will be… different.

I’m going to spend the next month starting a few projects and getting some content ready for “launch”, but for now it seems, blogging is over for me. Something much more exciting will follow.

नेपालमा ईन्टरनेटबाट खरिद बिक्री (Online Shopping)

नेपाल लक्ष्यीत अनलाईन बिजनेस गरी रहेका केही वेबसाईटमा गएर भुक्तानी गरे पछी पर्व अवसर
अनुसारका सामग्री वेबसाईट वालाले सम्बन्धीत कहाँ पुर्याई दिन्छन । अब भनिरहन
पर्दैन बिदेशमा बसेका छोराछोरीले माततिर्थ
औशीको दिन आमालाई सरप्राईज दिन चाहे भने मात्र पनि मनग्गे बिकल्प छन।

ढोकैमा उपहार आईपुग्न सक्छ । दशैमा घरपरिवार लाई एउटा मज्जाको कालो घोर्ले खसी किन्दीन परोस वा बाबुको मुख हेर्ने दिन
एउटा मज्जाको आईफोन दिन मन लागोस । मनमात्र गर्नु पर्छ, सात समुन्द्र
पारी बसी बसी त्यहाँको अनलाईन ट्रान्जेक्सन गर्न मिल्ने डेविट वा क्रेडिट कार्डको साहायताले घर
परिवारको लागी सामान किनि दिन सकिन्छ।

मुन्चा डट कम, ठमेल डट कम, आदी बिदेश बाट भुक्तानी गरेर नेपालमा सामान सप्लाई गर्ने वेब साईट हुन।

अमेरिका, युरोप बसेर नेपालमा उपहार पठाउन
सकिने भए पछी यदी कसैले पोखरा बसेर धरानमा केही सामान पठाउछु नि त भनि हाल्यो भने अहिलेलाई त्यो अलि सम्भव छैन वा धेरै झन्झट छ भन्नु पर्ने हुन्छ किन भने
मुख्य कुरा यस्ता अनलाईन पोर्टलहरु काठमाण्डौ केन्द्रीत बजारमा ब्यस्त छन।

धेरैमा काठमाण्डौमै पनि अतिरिक्त शुल्क तिरे पछी मात्र सामान ढुवानी हुन्छ। दुई सय देखी दश हजार रुपयाँ मा बैकं खाता खोलेर
पाईने एटिएम कार्डले ईन्टरनेटमा भुक्तानी गर्न मिल्दैन। अझ भनौ हामी सँग भएका एटीएम कार्डले पायक परेको स्थानमा रहेको मेसिन बाट पैसा निकाल्ने बाहेक केही गर्न सक्दैनन।

प्रचलनमा रहेका अनलाईन ई-कर्मस साईटहरुमा भुक्तानी गर्नको लागी डलर बाट ट्रान्जेक्सन गर्न मिल्ने कार्ड चाहीन्छ। जुन सर्वसाधरण नेपालीको लागी आकाशको फल झै
हो। डलर ट्रान्जेक्सन गर्न मिल्ने कार्ड पाउन आफ्नो आय स्रोत पनि डलर मै देखाउनु पर्छ त्यो पनि नेपाल राष्ट्र बैकको सम्पुर्ण
प्रक्रिया पुरा गरे।

सरकारी निती प्रविधीलाई आत्मसात गर्ने भन्दा पनि निति निर्माणतहमा रहेका ब्यक्तीहरुको अज्ञानतालाई कानुन बनाउने खालको छ।

त्यसैले सरकारी तहबाट नेपालमा अनलाईन बिजनेस को क्षेत्रमा केही भै हाल्ला भन्न सकिने अवश्था छैन तर नेपालका निजी बैकहरुले नेपालमै ईन्टरनेट कारोबार गर्ने सोच राखेर
काम गरी रहेका सस्था सँग मिलेर यसमा केही फड्को मार्न खोजेका छन ।

भाटभटेनि डिपार्टमेन्ट स्टोर, हरिलो डट कम, ई-सेवा आदी यसको उदारण हो ।

काठमाण्डौको प्रख्यात डिपार्टमेन्ट स्टोर भाटभटेको अनलाईन पोर्टलमा जानु भयो भने त्यस डिपार्टमेन्ट पाईने कतिपय सामान
अनलाईन किन्न सकिन्छ त्यो पनि नेपलकै बैकको अनलाईन खाता प्रयोग गरेर।

भाटभटेनिकै कुरा गर्दा सामान रोजी सकेपछी कुमारी बैकको अनलाईन बैङ्किग खाता प्रयोग गर्नु भयो भने भुक्तानी गर्न
सकिन्छ । कुमारी बैकमा खाता छैन भने पनि तपाईलाई ई-सेवा ले
त्यही बराबरको सुबिधा प्रदान गर्छ ।

लक्ष्मी बैक, बैक अफ एसिया, किष्ट बैक, एनएमबी बैक , सानिमा बैक आदीमा भएको बैक खातामा ईन्टरनेट बैङ्कीग को सुबिधा लिनु भएको छ भने घरमै बसी बसी ई-
सेवामा पैसा ट्रान्सफर गर्न सकिन्छ । ई – सेवामा पैसा ट्रान्सफर गरी सके पछी तपाईले भाटभटेनी मात्र हैन अरु केही साईटहरुमा पनि बस्तु वा सेवा खरिद
गर्न सक्नु हुन्छ।

ई- सेवा मा मात्र पैसा जम्मा गर्न सक्नु भयो भने बुद्द एयरले उडान गर्ने स्थानको लागी बुद्द एयरको टिकट
किन्न ट्राभल एजेन्टको मा पुग्नु पर्दैन । घरमै बसी बसी बसी मोबाईलको रिचार्ज कार्ड खरिद गर्ने देखी हवाई जहाजको टिकट खरिद गर्न सकिन्छ ।

सेवाग्राहीलाई सुबिधा दिने भन्दा पनि दुख
दिने खालको सरकारी नितीलाई सरलीकरण
गरेर ब्यपार
गर्नको लागि केही उत्साही युवाहरुले
नयाँ नयाँ प्रयोग पनि गरेका छन । हरिलो डट
कम यसको उदारण हो । यस साईटको साहायताले तपाईले नेपालमै बसेर
अमेजन डट कम, ईबे देखी वालमार्ट भन्ने बिश्व
प्रसिद्द अनलाईन पोर्टलमा भएका सामान
खरिद गर्न सकिन्छ । यसको लागि ईन्टरनेट
मार्फत सामानको बिक्री गर्ने
अमेरिककाको कुनै पनि वेबसाईटमा गएर
आफुलाई मन परेको सामान रोज्नु पर्छ र
त्यो सामान देखीन
वेबसाईटको ठेगाना हरिलो डट
कमको वेबसाईट मा गएर नेपाल सम्म आई
पुग्दा सो समानको मुल्य कति पर्ने
हो त्यसको कोटेशन माग्न सकिन्छ । यस
पछी तपाईले नेपाल (काठमाण्डौ)
आईपुग्दा लाग्ने मुल्य पठाउछ । हरिलो उपलब्ध
गराएको मुल्य चित्त बुझेमा नेपालकै ईन्टरनेट
ब्याङ्किगहरुको प्रयोग गरी भुक्तानी गर्न
सकिन्छ । मुल्य कै कुरा गर्नु हुन्छ भने
उदरणको लागी उनान्नसय डलर पर्ने अमेजन डट
कमले बिक्री गर्ने किन्डल टच हरिलोले लगभग
बार्ह हजारको हाराहारिमा नेपाल ल्याई
दिन्छ । अमेरिकी डलरको बिनिमय
दरको कुरा गर्ने हो भने नेपाल आई पुग्दा लगभग
चार हजार नेपाली रुपँया बढी परेको देखीन्छ
। तर अमेरिका बाट नेपाल आई पुग्दा लाग्ने
कुरीयर खर्च, नेपाल सरकारले तोकेको भन्सार, मुल्य अभिबृदी कर जोड्दा मुल्य अनुचित मानी हाल्न पर्दैन ।

"ईन्टरनेट र प्रोनोग्राफी सम्बन्धी आस्चर्यजनक तथ्य"

=> इन्टरनेट फिल्टर रिभ्युको सर्वेक्षणअनुसार विश्वमा प्रतिसेकेन्ड ३ हजार डलर भन्दा बढी रकम यस्ता साइटमा खर्च भैरहेको हुन्छ ।

=>१८ वर्षमुनिका व्यक्तिहरूले गुगल सर्च इन्जिनमा खोजी गर्ने शब्द 'सेक्स' र 'पोर्न'
सर्वाधिक ५ शब्दभित्र पर्छन् ।

=> ४३ प्रतिशत इन्टरनेट प्रयोगकर्ताले अश्लील वेबसाइट हेर्छन् । त्यसमा प्रत्येक तीन जना प्रयोगकर्तामा एक जना महिला हुन्छन् ।

=> अश्लील वेबसाइटमध्ये केवल ३ प्रतिशत साइटले मात्र उमेर सोधेर साईटमा प्रवेश गराउँछन् ।

=>
इन्टरनेटबाट डाउनलोड गरिने सामग्रीहरूमध्ये ३५ प्रतिशत अश्लील विषयसँग सम्बन्धित हुन्छन् ।

=> इन्टरनेट प्रयोगकर्ताले एकपटकमा सरदर १५ मिनेट अश्लील साइट हेर्छन् ।

=> इन्टरनेटमा अश्लील साइट हेर्नेहरूमध्ये १० प्रतिशत पोर्नोग्राफीको लतमा फसेका हुन्छन् ।

=>९० प्रतिशत अश्लील श्रव्यदृश्यको उत्पादन अमेरिकाको स्यान फर्नान्डो भ्यालीमा हुन्छ ।

=> अश्लील चलचित्रका नायिकाहरूले वर्षको १ लाख डलरदेखि २ लाख ५० हजार डलरसम्म आम्दानी गर्छन् भने नायकहरूले वाषिर्क ४० हजार डलर आम्दानी गरिरहेका छन् ।

I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned. Richard P. Feynman

Editorial on ISKCON's guru tattva.

Editorial summarizing the recent Sun Poll on Satsvarupa's "Lilamrta".

Call for debate on ISKCON changes to Srila Prabhupada's established system of management.

Srila Prabhupada's comments on the Aquarian Gospel.

Hi All, just a quick question. I have an issue with regards to my coolant in my 2009 Honda Jazz GE. The coolant in the coolant reservoir is not going back to my radiator once the engine is...

Installing the Mini Cooper rotor / ITR Caliper upgrade on my 2018 Sport. Everything bolts up nicely but the stock wheels rub the caliper bracket. I have read that the stock wheel is a +53 offset. Is...

The Mosquito Network - American Military Radio in the Solomon Islands During WWII by Martin Hadlow. "As AES-Guadalcanal continued to develop, it was joined by other new stations in The Mosquito Network. On April 3, 1944, AES-Munda (New Georgia), opened transmissions..."

Radio Centre 2LT, controlled by Lithgow Broadcasters Pty. Ltd. and an offshoot of Western Newspapers Pty. Ltd. commenced entertaining its 26,000 town listeners on June 7th, 1938. As Lithgow's "Sunshine Station," 2LT has won the confidence...

2BH, "The Barrier Miner" Broadcasting Service is the only station giving coverage to Broken Hill and West Darling districts under all transmitting conditions. Associated with 2BH is the Smilers' Club with close to 3,000 members...

Station 2MG, Mudgee, "The Voice of the Tablelands," owned and operated by the Mudgee Broadcasting Company Pty. Limited, is situated a mile from the chief commercial town of a very rich inner-western district of New South Wales...

Here you'll find a very interesting entry regarding the American usage of a radio broadcasting station in Australia....

Parkes Broadcasting Co. Pty. Ltd. is the licensee of 2PK, which came on the air on October 5th 1937...

Station 4VL is owned and controlled by the Charleville Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Alfred Street, Charleville. Studios and transmitter are situated at that address...

Image of Edward Dahl added. He was secretary and general manager of 4AY Ayr in the late 1930's.

In 1971 I had the privilege of being deployed to the Antarctic for one year and three days. The following are excerpts from my diary in regards to my involvement with the WASA radio station at McMurdo...

Five Great Voices in One - 4BC Brisbane 4SB Kingaroy 4GR Toowoomba 4RO Rockhampton 4MB...

Mackay Broadcasting Service Pty. Ltd., is a 100 per cent. Mackay organisation established firmly in a very prosperous district...

Updated: Here is a complete list of current AM and FM radio services in Christchurch...

2QN Deniliquin 'The Riverina Station'

In the first of this new series, amateur radio stations from around the world that have worked ZL2ADN Palmerston North, New Zealand, are featured...

Art of Amateur Radio Japan : A selection of amateur QSLs from the Quartz Hill Collection...