built a desktop instead

So, I sold the old desktop and did NOT get a mac mini. Why? The mac mini is too underpowered for me at the moment. Although I do like OSX, I like power just a little bit more and windows xp is still good to me. Anyways, so I just sold my old desktop and built a better desktop. This new desktop is built from scratch so now, since it’s not a dell and doesn’t use proprietory crap, I can upgrade it over and over in the future. It took me a night to put all the pieces together because I purchased all of my parts at the same time and from the same store (microcenter). Er, I still gottah fill out my rebate forms though, … I’ll do that tonight.

My case is a p180 from antec:

The motherboard is a nforce 680i sli board -unlike the one in the picture below, my board has THREE pci-e slotz:

The processor is an intel e6750 core 2 duo at 2.66ghz - no quad core for now because games don’t care about quad; at the moment only imaging (i.e. adobe suite) tools use that stuff:

And for the video card, right now I have an 80 dollah 7600gt to hold me over, but in the near future I’ll be purchasing the 8800gts!!! The 320mb version of the gts should be down to 200 bux pretty soon, and the 640mb version should follow eventually. I’d like to get the 640mb version so that I wont have gaming problems when I upgrade my monitor(s).

edit: couldn’t wait, so I purchased the 8800gts on Friday. Now, my games play like buttuh. Oh yes.

dear vista … please sign these divorce papers

If you saw that last post (and I’m about to delete that) you’d know my hard drive got corrupted because Vista doesn’t play nice with external drives formatted in NTFS. Well VISTA plays nice with it if you’re only going to be using it on VISTA machines, but when you switch between a lot of different operating systems like I do, vista fondles something on the drive, preventing the other guys (windows xp) from being able to read it like it would normally read an NTFS drive. This page explains some of my problems, but doesn’t get too specific: NTFS vs Fat

Now, my drive comes up as corrupted and well … that’s just poop. This is the second time that this has happened -the first time I thought the drive pooped on me because I did a quick format on it. The second time i did a full time-consuming format and everything was dandy … until I tried to read the drive in XP.

I’m not so much angry as I am annoyed and angry. I know these kind of things happen from time to time, but this thing has corrupted on me twice in two weeks. Tired of it. I was already tired of vista anyway’s, but it did come with the computer and well I didn’t think it was horrible enough to be worth the time and effort that it takes to flatten and install something else on the box. Wait- That’s not exactly true, at one point I tried to install ubuntu on it because I was fed up with looking at vista and it’s silly buttons and icons, and all the silly quirks it has. But, unfortunately, the machine refused to boot the ubuntu disc. It just flat out refused! Yeah it would load up, but it would die after something got corrupted somehow. I re-tried this about five different times with three different discs and two different downloads of ubuntu. What a night of wastefulness.

Every time I think of my computer, I wish I had a mac, linux, or xp box. I’m to the piont now where it feels like vista doesn’t do anything like I’d like it to be done. It doesn’t look like I’d like it to look. It doesn’t search like I’d like it to search. It doesn’t stop corrupting my stuff like I’d like it to stop corrupting my stuff. It doesn’t want to play with any other operating system, and so on.

I. am. fed. up. with vista. Of course, if I were to format my drive to fat32, it should play nice … but I’m just tired of problems. I never did have any problems with my macbook, except that I couldn’t play the games I wanted. That’s why I got this desktop, but now that I have the games, I rarely every play them -except for fifa 07. And, Fifa 07 runs on an intel 950 64mb integrated card (mac mini) just fine.

I’m really considering replacing my pretty desktop with a nice underpowered base model mac mini when they release leopard next month. Lets look at the specs.

	my desktop	mac mini
video card	256mb gf + 128mb gf	intel 950 64mb (integrated)
os	vista	xp + osx (leopard)
ram	3gb	1gb
disc	16x dvd+/-RW	dvd rom / cd rw
size	xbox sized	teeny tiny
processor	Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 2.0ghz	1.83 intel core 2 duo
space	250 gig	80 gig

….see anything that stands out in that chart as bad? I do. It’s VISTA.

Yeah yeah, I know I could just fork out 100 bux and get xp on the desktop, or just transfer my xp serial from my old crapdesktop to the newer one, but … xp has it’s own problems. I’ve never had any problems with OSX. So now I’ve got this idea in my head to sell the desktop on craigslist for 500-600 bux, wait til october and buy the mini from the galleria for 600 bux, use bootcamp and parallels/vmware to run xp (i’ll use the license from my old crapdustin compaq desktop), format my external 500gig drive to fat 32, and finally be at peace with the world of computers once again.

Sounds like a plan.

Also… I know the mac mini isn’t a great gaming machine but it seems like the wii’s, ps3’s, and xbox 360’s are taking over the gaming market anyways so it’s not that big of a deal.

games in google earth?

Excuse me, Google earth flight simulator!?!?!?!?!?! I think I just wet myself.

Flight Simulator Keyboard Controls - Google Earth User Guide

This document describes the various keyboard combinations that you can use with the flight simulator features of Google Earth. To enter the flight simulator mode, press Ctrl + Alt + A (Command/Open Apple Key + Option + A on the Mac). Once you have entered flight simulator mode for the first time, you can re-enter the mode by choosing Tools > Enter Flight Simulator. To leave flight simulator mode, click Exit Flight Simulator in the top right corner or press Ctrl + Alt + A (Command/Open Apple Key+ Option + A on the Mac).

how to memorize a book (part 2 - Vocabulary: don’t forget that definition!)

So you’re reading your book and you come across a word whose meaning doesn’t immediately come to mind. Dangit, I know it has something to do with oscopy. You look up the word real quick and then you’re back at the book, reading away and enjoying yourself. All of a sudden, that word appears again, and you’ve forgotten the definition already! What the crap, I just looked this up, arggg …something to do with. You look the word up again, and decide to learn that word for good.

Why didn’t you memorize it the first time you looked it up!?! It’s because that word didn’t really mean anything to you, or at least not to your brain. You see, your brain handles pictures a lot better than it handles unfamiliar words that it can’t connect to. Yes, your brain needs to connect! Brain needs to relate one thing to another in order to remember it and retain more stuff. Brain acts like connect the dots: each dot is an item to remember, and each line is a relation from one item to another. Without any relationship between one item and another, BRAIN CAN’T CONNECT THE DOTS!!!

Back to the point - so how do you remember that word on the first go? Well, just make a ridiculous association between the meaning of the word and the phrase/word(s)/thought that sounds similar to the word.

Example:

Word: Emancipate

Meaning: to free from restraint, influence, or the like.

Sounds like: Man, Plate

 

*apply method*

 

Picture show for brain: Just picture a man freeing a plate from its restraints/influence.

You see how we connected the dots there? The part “eman-” in emancipate is unfamiliar, but man is familiar! And “-cipate” is unfamiliar but plate kind of sounds like it and is familiar. So when brain sees emancipate it can be reminded that eman sounds like man and cipate sounds like plate. And then… well you’ve got your relationship between man and plate (i.e. man freeing the plate) and brain remembers the story of man and plate because … well it can see the image of a man freeing a plate and it’s a pretty ridiculous image and also hard to forget. Look at those dots connect; relate the unfamiliar with the familiar to remember the unfamiliar. Brain can hold all this information, but it needs to be reminded of where it put the info sometimes.

So the trick is to create a picture show that links the meaning of the word to the words that are familiar and sound similar to the original word. Basically the familiar words (man, plate) are stars in your little mind picture show and they just act out the definition.

Sound good? Try it on a word from a language that you don’t already know. The method works there too.

How to memorize a book (part 1 - every word or certain passages)

If you want to memorize verbatim text –and I don’t know why you would want to do that, but what do I know- you can picture an exaggerated story in your head that reminds you of the text. With practice, you could do this instantaneously as you read. But for beginners, just keep practicing and you’ll get better and better with each attempt. Of course, let’s say you have an assignment or a desire to memorize one certain passage word-for-word; in that case, you can easily sit yourself down with the text and make up some ridiculous image story help you memorize the whole thing really easily and effortlessly.

Sound good? Let me show you how to start memorizing the Gettysburg address as an example. Here’s the first part of the Gettysburg address:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

• Four score - picture a scoreboard on a baseball field called “continent field” (you’ll see why in a minute) set to four
• and seven years ago - you purchased the scoreboard 7 years ago
• our fathers - picture your father on the field
• brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, - picture your father carrying a baby new nation the shape of the US that was just born from the statue of liberty (picture the statue giving birth to the US shaped “new nation”) to the middle of the field
• and dedicated to the proposition - picture the baby new nation with legs clinging to a proposition (picture a sheet of paper)
• that all men are created equal. - picture a bunch of man cloans all over the paper proposition

You can do the same thing for the rest of the Gettysburg Address if you wanted to. Go ahead and try it out for yourself! Practice makes perfect, so try this with a bunch of different stuff. It’s fun, easy, and pretty cool if you ask me.

There are other methods that help you memorize text word-for-word, but I think this one is the easiest and most fun. Also, it’s pretty hard to forget the text when you have that hilarious picture story in your head.

PS: Did someone say something about a photographic memory?

Procrastination - not laziness, but misdirection! Lets beat it *cue MJ’s hit*

In order to beat procrastination swiftly, it helps to understand the nature of the beast. But first, let me say a bit about tools. Firstly, tools are meant to assist people in being efficient! Tools are for the very best of the GTD crew. Tools are like when you upgrade your linux os to unstable just to be on the bleeding edge and for that small chance of improvement. Tools are NOT meant for people who don’t already know how to get things done - unless they’re using it to create an initial motivation I suppose, or maybe a start-up quick kit or something, I dunno. Before you upgrade to tools and tricks and crap like that, I’d like to first and foremost suggest that you learn how to GET THINGS DONE instead of developing a crutch before you can even walk. Walk, then run, then fly. Anyways - onward!

1. Tools - this section isn’t very important
As others have suggested, there are lots of tips/tools/tricks to help you stop procrastinating. Here are some additional TOOLS that might make you happy at first and create that initial spark of desire. But you need more direction than that. Still I’ll share:

-Do it for just five minutes <- tip to get started
-(10+2)*5 <- efficiency tip
- david allans gtd workflow <- book
-next action
-Tracks <- pretty fun
-Shit load of GTD software tools for PC & Mac
-blogs and other resources about getting shit done
-another long list of tools and resources for getting things done

I’ll stop there because this list could really go on forever, and some of the lists I listed go on forever already, but that alone will only give you that initial spark of interest. The interest may last awhile since there’s a whole cult/society behind getting things done. It might help you at first, but you might also get stuck in a never ending spiral of trying to find the best “tool” to use. This is a time waisting endeavor. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. But, tools are kind of fun to talk about so let me talk about mine before I get to your procrastination issue there.

Some tools (the ones with the biggest impact) I’ve used are as follows, AND THEY ALSO CHANGE from time to time:

My Life Organized - I use the free version of this to track my goals for my LIFE. Yah know, the whole thing. I have my shit sorted out as follows: Family and Home; Spiritual and Ethical; Social and Cultural; Financial and Career; Physical and Health; Mental and Educational; and Incoming Brain Bombs to be processed when I get the chance. It’s an easy setup.

Wallet - I keep a little fold out notepad in my wallet. When the notepad is opened it has a paper on the left and right sides. On the left sides is my “incoming” space and on the right side is my “to-do list”. Pretty simple.

Picasaweb Albums - I use this to visualize my goals. I have pictures in there with affirmations below it. In the mornings, I play the slideshow and read the affirmations, then look at the picture, then visualize it.

Ring Notebook - This is basically everything from incoming, to to-do lists, to goals, to everything all in one. I mix and jumble everything up and organize it whenever I feel like it, if it needs it. It’s pretty fun to embrace that kind of freedom and discover new ideas in your … lists.

I could go on with this, but I just wanted to humor the post. This stuff won’t actually help you get anything done, unless you know what you’re doing, among other things. These are tools of efficiency to help the people who know how to stop procrastination to get their shit done in a different, and possibly more efficient fashion that suits their needs.

2. Understand the nature of the beast - very important!
Here’s a formula for procrastination (see below). Look at it and think about it for a second; if you know some simple algebra, you could deduct some insight from this:

quote:

Desirability of the Task = E x V / G x D

Where E is the person’s self confidence in the task, V is the value of completing the task, G is the tasks immediacy/availability and D is the person’s sensitivity to delay.

link

Ok that equation should give you an idea of why you’re not doing shit. In addition to understanding the nature of the beast, What you need is some supreme SElf DISCIPLINE-PLINE-Plin-pli-pl-p. Military school and boot camp can give you that, but lifting weights and working out isn’t going to do anything for you here. I was suggesting military school or boot camp not because they help you physically, but because they help you mentally. They teach the morons and jerk offs and lazy asses to be good respectable citizens who can stand on their own two feet. They teach discipline most of all -and other stuff.

That’s an easy way out, but it’s rather drastic. It’s always easy when you have a teacher telling you how to do it and it’s even easier when you have some meat head barking down your neck and threatening your physical health. You, probably wont go that route, so you’ve gottah figure out how to do this without that.

This is the advice normally given to people who don’t know jack shit about what they want out of life and what they want to do -maybe this is your case, maybe not:

1. Know where you want to go
2. Create a theoretical plan to get there -this plan will change, but having the plan there gives you some comfort and assists you in believing that you can get to wherever it is you want to go
3. Decide on what the next action is that can help you get there - make sure this is something that isn’t very overwhelming. If it is too overwhelming, you’ll have to break it down into a smaller bit-sized portion that you can manage.
4. Do it.

Your problem is at the bottom. You might know all the steps and tricks and everything you could want to know about getting where you’d like to go, but you fail at “Do it”.

Why do you fail at “Do it”? The equation tells you why you fail. Basically, you don’t do it because you (the bad you) has looked at all the evidence and deducted that it’s not worth it to you. But it is worth it. No it’s not. That internet sitting right there is much more entertaining right now. That [insert something you procrastinate with] looks like it’ll be of much more value to me right now. This is all true.

Because most humans only like to look at the shit that’s pressing right into their faces, they don’t see the loooooongterm value when they’re stuck in the moment. They’re distracted by all of the things that give the short term value -kind of like cigarettes.

You need something to stand right in front of your nose and show you that it is of more value to you than anything else right now. But how do you achieve that? You could use a drill sergeant, torcher, a challenge, a dare, money incentive, reward system, etc. Of course, if you really don’t want to do that [whatever], maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe you’re pointing your nose in the wrong direction. Maybe that isn’t something that you’re passionate about in the first place. Could it be an issue with passion? YES! But, lets not get too complex here. Lets assume that you do, in fact, desire to get this [whatever task] done.

You could listen to music and jam out or you could write your paper. Remember that formula? It applies here. The paper doesn’t yield any short term benefit, and it’s not like you have a chance at finishing the whole thing right now anyway. It’s too hard you might not even be able to start. God you’re going to fail, it’s not worth it. The music however, that’s easy, it’s fun, you wont fail, and it’s worth it right now. Look at that fucking formula come into action, damn.

Now, how to tweak this formula to your advantage.

quote:

Desirability of the Task = E x V / G x D

Where E is the person’s self confidence in the task, V is the value of completing the task, G is the tasks immediacy/availability and D is the person’s sensitivity to delay.

Here’s another scene: You have a one word paper -a paper that’s only 1 word long- due in 30 seconds and it counts for 90% of your final gpa for your four year college career. You could do that, or you could listen to music. You think to yourself hmmm, the paper isn’t that long, I’ll burn through that and it’ll be easy AND I’ll raise my GPA. Definitely worth it. Damn. Problem solved.

But wait, that’s never going to happen! You’re right. Like I said -i think I said it- you’ve gottah find an alternative way to raise your desire. Here’s a method: You can find something that you’re passionate about and piggy back the tasks (shit you procrastinate on) to that. That’s what competitions are. In general people really do like to compete, and it’s easy to piggy back a task on that in the name of competition. They’ll get it done because, more than anything, they wanted to beat someone else. Also, the accountability system works like that as well. You have two people who are holding each other accountable. If one should fail, they’re going to catch shit from the other person and they’ll theoretically lose. This is how I quit binge drinking! That’s just a couple of methods to piggy back your tasks too.

Another very popular method is Goals! Uh-oh, did I hit a nerve? Sorry. Some people only do their homework, swim 30 laps a day, do 500 pushups in an hour, read all of a series of books, and other stuff because that’s the only way that they’ll reach their Goal! If your desire to reach a goal is strong enough to carry your other tasks, then you can use that as a piggy back. But lets say you have a 5 year goal. That goal, while good and all that, is FIVE YEARS AWAY. IT’s not standing in front of your face, it’s a long ass time away. But that’s a start. Now, set a short goal, then a shorter one, then a shorter one -all the little goals should lead up to the big one. This, is how you bring the goal closer and closer to your FACE.

Now that you’ve got a goal in your face, what? You probably wrote the goal down somewhere in a text file, and while it’s good to have it, that’s not in your face at all. When I say in your face, I mean you have to see the shit and know it’s there. If it’s in the back of your computer you’ll forget about it for sure. Steve Pavlina gave an example for this. He said that he used to practice some martial art, and at the door of the dojo or whatever there was a sign that said “YOUR GOAL IS TO BECOME A [NINJA]” or something. In your face, bitch. IN YOUR FACE. ALso, you know, challenges are goals, competitions are goals, tasks are goals, etc. Which brings us alll the way back to step 1.

3. How do I get this goal/task done? Here’s your answer: “aint nuthin to it but to do it”

1. Remove the distractions -set up environment to assist you, not to distract you

2. Create the desire -piggy back something you already have desire for or put yourself in a situation where a strong desire is created -maybe a desire to not get your ass beat by your drill sergeant? hurr and if you’re a real badass, you can create some desire out of no desire by just getting the ball rolling (do just a tiny bit and force yourself to stop - feel free to look up other tactics to achieve this)

3. Never forget your desire -IN YOUR FACE

4. Get that shit done, mother fucker! - You can find tips/tools to help you do 1-3 but once you’ve done 1-3, THEN you can start using “tips” and “tools” and all that kind of shit for 4.

And… that’s all there is to it.

note: I first posted this on the awful forums. Figured I’d bring it over to my blog to share with ‘er one else.

how do you memorize a book? (intro - part 0)

It’s simple …I think. I’ll explain the steps in more detail sometime down the line, right now I’d just like to scrape the surface and talk about what, in a book, you would want to memorize anyway. Out of all the memory books that I’ve read, no one really covers this topic well, if at all. I think the basics are pretty simple though. Let me elaborate with some bullet points.

There should probably be different strategies for different books though. So what types of books might we come across?

• Story books -harry potter, vince flynn, tom clancy, etc
• Educational books -dummies books, books for class, self-help books, programming books, history books, etc.

What would you memorize in a book anyway?

• Title
• Author
• Table of Contents - be able to recall a chapter heading from its number (i.e. Ch 2. How to memorize…)
• Important points in each chapter
• The sequence of important points in each chapter - be able to talk about the chapter from beginning to end
• Every page in the book - recall what each page number was about
• Lists given in the book -numbered instructions, bullet points, etc
• Vocabulary
• Every single word in the friggin book, or maybe just a few particular passages word-for word.

Hmm…. what about the self-help books where you’re assigned things to learn and do? Well that’s not stuff to be memorized. That’s stuff, as you already know, to DO! When you’re reading books like that, you’re supposed to keep a list of “next actions” and to-do’s that you get from the book - you could just fold up a sheet of paper, stick it in the book, and write them on there.

In this post, we’re not talking about actionable items. We’re talking about stuff to be memorized.

Now, where’s the fun, or desire, in memorizing all this junk if you can’t do it really quickly and easily and be able to recall it as if you had actually studied the material over and over? There no fun in that at all. If you’ve ever read any memory book worth its salt, you’d know that memorizing stuff is not as hard as our peers, grade school teachers, and college professors made it out to be. On the contrary, it’s actually really easy … and fun! Did I say fun? Yeah, it’s actually fun.

Most of the people who write the memory books are magicians with a memory show, scam artists who stole someone else’s material, self-help books that don’t know what they’re talking about, and pointless drivel that was published to turn out a cool million. While some of the methods are great and some of them are completely missing the good stuff, a lot of them are targeting the wrong audience -or so it seems to me. In my opinion, it would be great if elementary school kids learned this memory-speed-reading stuff from the get-go; imagine how kickin rad they could be if they were able to start out memorizing books at the age of 10. Think about it - when they’re like 25, they would be winners, at least in that (reading) aspect.

Also, Speed Reading. Speed reading is great and all, but going faster does not mean you’ll remember more. None - NONE - of the speed reading books that I’ve read (a lot) show you how to ACTUALLY remember that stuff that you read. They’ll just tell you to skim the chapters before you read them, then skim again, and again, then read it. You gottah read it three times before you start to remember anything.

Anyways, if the magician memory guys and the speed reading crew and the school kids would get together, they could probably make some real magic happen. And that’s why I’m here. I’d like to get the ball rolling, and show at least a few people how memorizing a book, or anything else that you read, is fairly easy.

Stay tuned for the next post in this series! For now, I’ll leave you with some reading material.

Harry Lorayne - Super Power Memory

Triple Your Reading Speed

OK, I lied

I wrote that I was updating another blog daily, well I wasn’t - er, I was intending on doing that, but that fell through the cracks as more important things came up that couldn’t be denied my full attention. And … I guess I’m back to this blog. I think I’ll delete the other one and wait until it works its way up my priority list.

[x] graduate from college

Here I am, just about a year later, a graduate from University! Hurray! I can’t say I feel a huge amount of satisfaction from this accomplishment yet, probably because my paycheck has yet to be bumped -we’ll see how that pans out. Still. This is a milestone worth posting about. I’ve been on hiatus for a good while now but I figure, a few of my friends are finally updating their blogs, it’s my turn!

First Week of School

I started school already, sortah. The first day of class, which was Tuesday, wasn’t a real productive one. What kind of crap do they teach on the first day of any class anyway? Not a damn thing. Contrary to popular belief, I actually did go to class. So nah-nah. Ahem…but don’t ask me how it went.

On Wednesday, I don’t have any classes, so I was basically up there just fooling around and attempting to get other background tasks done while I was on campus. That went alright, but yah know, I was there for a very-very long time -longer than I would’ve previously preferred.

Thursday I had my Business and Technical writing class. The professor said he didn’t give a shit if we took pictures in class, so I’ll probably end up doing that sometime in the near future if I can find my damn computer link that’s hiding underneath thin air -where the heck is that thing; I mean, I had like at least two of them!

Anyways, the business tech. prof. is pretty darn cool. From the looks of his syllabus, he’s probably one of the most lenient profs I’ve ever had. And, the cool part is, most of our assignments - wait, ALL of our assignments are online. Our job is to read the book, complete the assignment, and upload it to this webpage, before or after the due date [hehe]. This is probably going to be my jerk around class.