I realize that everyone’s probably already sick to death of hearing about Chrome, but I thought I’d chime in anyway.
Here’s a memory usage shot of Chrome versus Opera.
Click the image to see the big picture
It’s not really a fair comparison, as the same things aren’t open, but I realized that with the way I have Opera configured, it couldn’t be a fair comparison anyway. I have around 50 RSS feeds, one mail account, and at least one IRC channel which all contribute to the overall memory load Opera exerts on my system. That said, this shot was taken with 3 actual web page tabs open in Opera, and 3 browser extra tabs open (IRC, details for one feed, and the transfers window), and only Gmail and the about:memory pages open in Chrome.
Opera in this instance is using less memory. (WHOOO VICTORY!) Hardly a scathing indictment of Chrome’s use of system resources, as if I had Gmail open in Opera the memory usage stats would undoubtedly be much in favor of Chrome. Which in my mind is simply a strong argument in support of the idea that browser speed is absolutely predicated by the way the browser is used. A new install of Firefox will always be faster than one with plugins added. A new install of Opera should be faster before all the extra features are configured. IE will be faster without toolbars. Etc, etc. The base speed tests and resource usage tests that browser superiority enthusiasts look to for support of their favorite browser (in theory) only indicates the speed or resource usage of the browser at its optimum settings, meaning regular users may never notice a difference between browser speeds or system burden.
The operating system certainly plays a factor as well. Having played with Opera on Ubuntu lately, I noticed that the Windows version of Opera (9.52/9.51) is more stable and less demanding than it is on Ubuntu (7.10, Gnome). If anyone has an advice on how to make Opera and Ubuntu (or more to the point, Flash, Opera and Ubuntu) play nicer together, I’m open to suggestion. I’m actually rather new to this “linux” thing.
In the very broad strokes that I have always heard, the Christian calendar period referred to as Lent is about giving up things that are bad for you, to spiritually improve yourself by ditching nasty habits, etc. A laudable goal, but for those of us who aren’t Christian, it seems redundant in the light of New Year’s Resolutions, because there simply isn’t the church-based motivations to make it worthwhile.
Thankfully, someone has come up with an alternative: Discardia.
Discardia sounds delightfully like Discordia, and feels as though it has roots there, though it is unclear from the text on the matter whether it is indeed truly Discordian in nature. Either way, it is non-denominational and is strictly for personal growth, rather than personal growth for the sake of a religious precedent.
The premise behind Discardia is very simple.
Discardia is celebrated by getting rid of stuff and ideas you no longer need. It’s about letting go, abdicating from obligation and guilt, being true to the self you are now. Discardia is the time to get rid of things that no longer add value to your life, shed bad habits, let go of emotional baggage and generally lighten your load.
As a person who has a hard time letting go of tchotchkes and knick-knacks and guilt and obligation, this is precisely the kind of regular ritual I could really get behind. It happens multiple times a year, unlike traditional religious cleansing periods, which typically only occur during one day or period of time each year. The founders of this concept were kind enough to provide a calendar by which to prepare yourself.
This provides an opportunity for more than just a “spring cleaning” or a singular religious internal cleansing. It is a chance to inject some much needed clarity into a cluttered, hectic life at multiple times during the year. It’s really like an ultimate lifehack holiday.
Today is the first day of Discardia for this portion of the year. As the moon wanes to the position of new, and as spring draws ever closer, you can shake the stagnant air from your home, the pine needles from your rugs, the catalogues from your bathrooms, and take a nice deep breath.
Let it never be said that Twitter is a useless web app. Thanks to Twitter friend doshdosh, I’ve discovered an article which may assist me in refining my goals for this website, such as they are, and increase readership and hopefully feedback as well.
The article on problogger.net is titled From 0 to 2000+ Subscribers in 120 Days. The guest author, Tina Su, writes a blog called Think Simple Now and her passion is helping people improve their lives. The article details the steps she took to make her website successful, and they are all very positive, realistic and easy to remember.
With the assistance of this well written guide, I would like to take this blog, this site, this project and really turn it into something worth visiting, bookmarking, and subscribing to within the next 120 days. I have touched upon this goal before a few months ago but never really followed up. It’s one of the challenges with A) not having concrete goals and B) maintaining a more than full time job.
Hopefully with the help of some of my other authors, and friends who desire to do creative things and use the web for distribution, this site can become a bustling hub of super fun times for all who pass by! Won’t you tag along? It will be quite the wild ride.
Woe and sadness unto you, cubicle drone. An entire blog dedicated to snapshots of tons of different companies. Mainly young, hip, internet-based companies on top of it.
Take a good look around you. Do a quick inventory of your surroundings.
Do they include any or all of the following:
A full wall, hand-painted mural
Some manner of arcade cabinet or gaming table
“Alternative” or mainly ergonomic furniture
Pets, not counting fish, rocks, or plants
As-yet-to-be-finished sections, or furniture that is not yet assembled
A large colorful logo that isn’t your neighbor’s favorite sports team banner
If you said “no” to all of the following, it is entirely possible that you work for a stuffy, old-school, dead-end company. If this is a concern, it is highly advisable that your reorganize your life goals and hop to it. That house in Bali won’t build itself, bucko.
That said, go check out some of these pictures, seriously. If that doesn’t inspire you to improve your work life, what will?
In my sphere of direct influence (translation: I watch too much TV), Food Network is running a short series called “The Next Iron Chef”. One of the challenges presented to the candidates was to spend the day in the kitchen using new food related tech and chemistry.
This was a fascinating episode because nearly all these trained professionals were intimidated and agitated by the prospect of dealing with “science” in the kitchen. I am of the school of thought that cooking really is a science, but on the other hand I couldn’t help but be encouraged by the fact that these people whose life’s passion is food weren’t comfortable adding chemicals to “real” foods. I can’t embed the episode, but there is a recap available at the Food Network site here.
With all this progress in science, and all the groups of science and philosophy trying to find the ideal balance of enjoyment, nutrition and safety in food - something we can all appreciate seeing as we all have to eat - one would think that the fast food restaurants would be VERY on board with keeping abreast of the safest, simplest, most appropriate foods to satisfy their clients.
As illustrated in the originally cited NewsTarget.com article, they are clearly NOT on board with health, safety or simplicity. The ingredient lists put forth as basic examples read quite a bit like the locked cabinet in the local school science department.
Obviously that’s a highly unsatisfactory situation. Still a lot of us appreciate the merits cheap, quick food. Namely that it’s cheap and it doesn’t soak up increasingly precious time in what feels like a massively complicated day-to-day existence.
There are solutions. I would point all my readers to the following sites, replete with lifehacks and sound advice. Get Rich Slowly - More specifically the category of the blog dedicated to food. There’s dozens of great articles about eating cheap and still eating healthy. J.D.’s solution isn’t just “eat ramen”. There are shopping comparison, cooking tips, even gardening advice. Zen Habits - This site contains a plethora of “lifehacks” - tips, tricks, and overall advice for living better. There’s no specific category for food, but plenty of overall tips for health and habits that tie into that inevitable human action of obtaining sustenance.
So, MSG, hydrogenated oils, and mystery chemicals in your mystery meat have you down? No worries! Knowledge is power! It is very possible to learn about the foods you love, and learn to love them better by taking charge of them, and your overall consumption. You don’t necessarily have to quit your favorite junk foods - burgers, fries, tacos, fried chicken - but with all the well documented, non-food additions to the fast food versions, wouldn’t you rather do it yourself?
Behold the philosophical wonders that unfold when you find everything to do but update!
G: you know what’s a funny word? “crunk” kittymcgee: agreed
why was it invented? G: as a descriptive term for being various kinds of loaded, instead of just drunk, is my assumption kittymcgee: true….but what does the c stand for?
cocaine drunk? kittymcgee: aha! G: I always assumed it was “crazy drunk”
And in a slightly more “philosophical” vein….
me: The two rules for success are:
1. Never tell them everything you know. pick007: yay!
uhm,
yay! me:http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/selfref.html pick007: before i open this, is it a link to the second rule, or is it a lnading page of icons that make fun of me etc… me: tsk tsk
would I make fun of you? pick007: ok, hold on
yes!
i am your underling, me: well that doesn’t mean I have to make fun of you pick007: well it doesnt mean you wont either! me: we’re getting into a bit of a loop here pick007: maybe im just drawing on harsh experiences, and I SHOULD BE PRAYING AND GIVIING THANKS THAT I HAVE A NEW AND MORE UNDERSTANDING (goddamn caps lock) nurturing cult leader me: Yes I’m much more forgiving and kindly than your average brainwashing group alpha pick007: yes! you must be punished! now drink that keg cup! and no sipping, take it down! me: At least until the proper initiation starts, but the best way to break free of previous imprints to make room for new imprints and ways of thoughts is through shock, and sometimes that means violence and debasement pick007: see thats what i was expecting, harsh debasement, and otherwise initiation me: I’m experimental. The traditionalist ways of fear, mystery, and sometimes bloodshed WORK, but I question their necessity pick007: …and the only way to know for sure is to practice them, and take in the effects me: Consider the zen roshi, who beats the pupil on the head with his staff, sometimes for no reason at all. it works, but is there another way? pick007: no. me: Destruction of the ego results in rebirth into a fresher mindstate, but there’s got to be a safer way pick007: i suppose one could ask: if there were another way, how would one still valiate their roshidity me: well the pupil eventually becomes the master, and despite the paradigm-breaking nature of their learning, they may still take on some prorgramming and mannerisms of those who guided them pick007: yes. for paradigm breaking itself is a structured paradigm, which is even desirable for human purposes, I mean, purposes
but without stick whacking, would they still be roshi?
or are they roshi because they whack stick?
on a related note: would investiagtion of Godel’s theorem provide more insight into how to define a self reference joke? for a minute, I would have said “i get it” but upon further reading, I question it now, as there seem to be jokes which, uhm, well, for lack of a better term, “dont reference themselves”. or the people telling them.
would possibly either of the words: ironic, or oxymoronic appear in its definition? or for that matter, any of the “…ronic” words? me: chronic? pick007: exactly me: I would say the most amusing, directly self-referential “joke” in there is the Recursive loop statement pick007: i like that one
i like them all, and i think theyre all funny.
it was just the name i questioned mostly for examples like: anyone who sees apsychiatrist… me: mm
yes pick007: yes you agree? or yes is the answer? like 42? me: yes I agree
on a somewhat side, but still related note, theoretical math is downright sexy pick007: oh my god yes!
that goes without… me: :3
I wonder if anybody’s done a shirt that says I <3 Quantum Mechanics
maybe Quantum Theory would be better pick007: yea, or, ” I 2x= y,z <{3.1} quantum theory
?
you should do it
but i want 3% royalties for giving you the encouragement and support to live your dreams
so, I cam up with 3 self reference jokes, and i want you to tell me what you think, which one's your favorite, and if any of them fits the theme better. ready? a) bob sagat
b) bob sagat is.
c) bob sagat is not. me: ahahaha
wtf pick007: dammit. i was afraid youd say that.
ok, what about, d) Bob Sagat is funny. me: well that’s just all lies
Don’t get me wrong, I love me some RSS. It allows me to read far more interesting articles per day than visiting individual blogs ever could. Yet without feedback and conversation, there’s nothing to separate someone’s blog from some kind of diary or masturbatory pontification. (Not that there aren’t some elements of both in a lot of blogs anyway, this one included.)
So let us all take a moment to break out from the comfort of our cozy feed readers, visit some of our favorite blogs, and let those jerks people know just how we feel! If there’s nothing recent that really inspires you, go back to old entries that got you really fired up and sound off. Stumble your way through tags and categories and find things that really pique your interests and speak away! Share your favorite entries with friends and get them to comment, too.
We the authors know you’re out there, and we love hearing from you. It lets us know we’re doing our job: entertaining, informing, and/or inspiring*. (*Trolling is a form of inspiration too!) Gentle readers, we love you! Share the love and leave a comment.
In two nicely done videos over at VideoJug, you can learn how to press your shirts and pants yourself. Not only does this save you tons of money in laundry services (not to mention the gas to pick them up), but it also prepares you for situations where laundry services may not be available.
Of all the garments to iron, your shirts and jackets would be the most important. In this video that’s bizzarely devoid of mouth movements on the part of the demonstrator (even though I think she may be the narrator as well), you’ll learn all the basics of shirt ironing, plus a few tips for less common situations. This one isn’t for the short-of-attention span though, it weighs in at an ADD-straining 7 minutes and 57 seconds.
After you’ve mastered making sure your upper half is in order, you can watch the video on how to keep your pants from looking like you slept in them all week (even if you have). This one is a bit shorter, and isn’t as robust in its explanation of certain oddities and tricks, but still very useful.
Be sure to visit the VideoJug site if these are helpful to you. On the video pages themselves is a complete, written out set of instructions and materials you’ll need to become an ironing master. The VideoJug site is wonderfully laid out and easy to navigate, they also have (according to them) over 26,000 “professionally-made advice” videos. I picture spending a lot of time there in the near future.
Dear Diary,
Today I was all excited because I thought I had a bunch of comments. “12 comments in moderation”, I saw on my dashboard! My goodness! It was like a dream come true. A chance to find out who - if anyone - is reading, and find out their thoughts on any one of the odd topics that have so recently gone to press. The prospect of conversation sent chills down my spine like the hot breath of an eager lover on the back of my neck…
Some kids play in the sandbox. We play in the.... litterbox??? The RKNet staff is pleased that you decided to stop by. Currently this is a multi-author project, with a rotating cast of totally kooky characters. Contact giania [at symbol] gmail [dot] com if you'd like to play here too.
