Derek Parfit: Why anything? Why this? 

The great philosopher Derek Parfit died recently. At the time, many things were posted about him, including where you can find his works online. One such work is this:: Derek Parfit · Why anything? Why this? Part 1 · LRB 22 January 1998.

In it, he asks:

Why does the Universe exist? There are two questions here. First, why is there a Universe at all? It might have been true that nothing ever existed: no living beings, no stars, no atoms, not even space or time. When we think about this possibility, it can seem astonishing that anything exists. Second, why does this Universe exist? Things might have been, in countless ways, different. So why is the Universe as it is?

Worth reading, and accessible, even if you aren’t a philosopher (although we are all philosophers, from time to time).

Where the weather is not too hot, not too cold…but just right

I often wondered, especially in the bleak mid-winter, if there are places that have lovely weather all of the time. Well, someone at Buzzfeed wondered this too and came up with this list: 10 U.S. Cities Where The Weather Is Perfect Year-Round.

Some of the cities on this list (L.A., San Francisco), shouldn’t surprise anyone. Others, like Galveston, Texas (seen in the image above) might be unexpected.

If you are thinking of moving to some place in the U.S., you want to check out this list.

I’d like to see Buzzfeed do an extended list for cities worldwide. I like winter, but I’d rather visit Winter in some other city than have Winter visit me in my city. 🙂

The easiest of minestrone recipes is…

.. this: Minestrone Soup Recipe – Bon Appétit Recipe | Bon Appetit.

Purests would argue it isn’t minestrone at all. Let’s say it is in the style of a good minestrone, and it opens you up to make it with whatever you have and whatever you feel like.

This recipe calls for Sambal Oelek. If you don’t have it, but you have sriracha or chili-garlic sauce, then you are in business. (For a good run down on how each of those three sauces differ, see this.)

Enjoy!

Looking to run a marathon or half-marathon? Then you need my race schedule spreadsheets to plan out your training runs

If you are planning to run a marathon or half-marathon this year, then one of the first questions you will ask yourself is: do I have enough time to train for it? Two things that can help you answer this question are here: blm849/Bernie-s-Race-Scheduling-Spreadsheets: My Race Schedule Spreadsheets to plan out my training runs.

With my spreadsheets, you enter a date, and it will give you a 16-20 week schedule you need to follow to get ready for a marathon or a half-marathon (or a 21K, as I like to call it).

Since they are spreadsheets, you can adjust them in any way you see fit. Add weeks, change the mileage, etc. If you have any other changes you would like to see, let me know.

It’s not because most developers are white that AI has hard time with non-white faces. It’s this….

An example of a neural net topology
This piece, Most engineers are white — and so are the faces they use to train software – Recode, implies that AI software doesn’t do a good job recognizing non-white faces because most engineers (i.e. software developers) are white. I’d argue that the AI does a poor job because of this: the developers aren’t very good.

Good software developers, in particular the lead developers, take an active role in ensuring they have good test data. The success of their software when it goes live is dependent on it. Anyone using training data  (i.e. using test data) in AI projects that is not using a broad set of faces is doing a poor job. Period. Regardless of whether or not they are white.

If the AI is supposed to do something (i.e. recognize all faces) and it does not, then the AI sucks. Don’t blame it on anything but technical abilities.

 

 

Is ‘Blue Monday’ a thing


According to Snopes (snopes.com), it is not. As in, there is not a specific day that is the most depressing day of the year.

That said, if you read carefully, you can see why people accept this notion. January can be a difficult month for many reasons. You might feel that the entire month is filled with Blue Mondays. Take it easy on yourself, especially if you have challenging resolutions you are trying to complete.

Good luck. Stay healthy.

(Image, via The Sun, shows the so called formula for calculating Blue Monday)

Instragram = advertising

Each social media has an implicit purpose. The stronger ones have a purpose that is clear. Facebook: stay connected to family and friends; LinkedIn: connect with employees/employers. For Instagram, the purpose is advertising. For most people, it is advertising your life. For certain people, with many many followers, it is advertising products.

To get a sense of how much Instagram is about advertising, see this: Confessions of an Instagram Influencer – Bloomberg. While many of us are amateurs at advertising on Instagram, this article will show you how the pros go about it.

I have often looked at people Instagram proposes I follow and I have wondered why people take the photos they do. This article helps explain that. It also helps one understand why some people’s photos look nothing like yours.

Facebook shows why we need augmented intelligence (Artificial and Human Intelligence)

Because if you don’t have augmented intelligence, and if you solely depend on AI like software, you get problems like this, whereby automated software triggers an event that a trained human might have picked up on.

AI and ML (machine learning) can be highly probabilistic and limited to the information it is trained on. Having a human involved makes up for those limits. Just like AI can process much more information quicker than a limited human can.

See the link to the New York Times story to see what I mean.

Eric Holder has a new role – defending California against the Trump Regime

The State of California has a new lawyer to represent it: Eric Holder. The New York Times has the details, here. A good piece, showcasing what we can expect from that State while Trump occupies the White House.

As an aside, I found it fascinating to see how Americans perceived Holder. For a number of Americans, they saw him and his Justice Department as inhibitor of liberty due to how his department cracked down on leaks, among other things. For African Americans, they likely saw him as a provider of liberty, as his DOJ went after those looking to restrict their voting rights.

I think both those activities reflected the wishes of his boss, as well as his own goals.

I think he will be formidable in the next four years as he and his law firm defends the interests of California. It will be interesting, for certain.

A good new year’s resolution: unsubscribing to mailing lists

Unsubscribing to mailing lists you no longer read or want is a good resolution to make and keep. Here’s why it’s a good idea:

  1. It doesn’t take long.
  2. It’s not something you have to do every day.
  3. It let’s you put off getting deep into work on your first day/week back from vacation. (Assuming this is you.)
  4. It will save you much more time than you think over the next month, season, year. If you spend 5 minutes a day deleting such email, over the year, that’s over 2 days of meaningless activity.
  5. It will help you get your inbox under control. It won’t get you to Inbox Zero, but it helps.

By the way, if you’ve been wanting to do a New Year’s resolution but haven’t come up with any, this one is easy.

If you like Teju Cole, you can find some of his things here

Two pieces by Teju Cole related to Trump.

This first one he wrote about Trump was a Facebook post, captured here. It struck me at the time, for he seemed to want to pivot from Trump’s bigotry to attack something else. The attack against something else was understandable to me: the downplaying of Trump was not.

Now he has a new piece out, making parallels between Trump and Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros”, here.

If you like Cole, you might like them.

I used to follow Cole on twitter, and much of what he wrote was interesting and thought provoking.

I do not care for these pieces. Downplaying Trump was a terrible idea in the first case. In the second case, I do not believe that Trump is going to lead to widespread fascism, though many bad leaders and followers are going to stampede out from the worst places and take center stage for awhile. Unlike Ionesco, I don’t believe everyone will turn into a rhinoceros: a small minority crashing about is enough to make it feel like everyone has transformed. They will be taken down, in due time or well past due time, but never made extinct.

A better symbol than rhinos may be snakes or reptiles. The political climate is such that these cold blooded animals feel they can come out and cause havoc. It seems like others are transforming into them, but there are just more of them and less warm blooded creatures in our midst in this time of transformation. When the climate changes, they will retreat. Until then, we have to wrangle with them as they appear.

Some loose thoughts on the magic of Christmas

When you are very young, Christmas is a magical time. We all know that. But
it is magical when you have children, too, for .then you are the magician.
I realized that the hard age for Christmas is in your 20s. The magic
bypasses you then. No wonder people of that age cut up Christmas. The magic
they once held is lost.

Christmas is magic not because the day itself is magical, but because we
invest the magic that we have within us on that day. It would be better if
we brought forward that magic every day, but one day is better than no
days. We have such, well, .. Magic!..within us. We need to be reminded to
let it out.

(Originally posted on posterous, December 24 2011, 9:24 PM)

My Lessons Learned from Christmas’ past (including where to buy trees in Toronto)

Christmas for me is many things, including an annual exercise in planning. I keep a Word document that I update every year. It contains the typical list of things to do, by when. It tracks cards sent and received, presents given to whom, key dates, even what I need to buy for Christmas Day meal. One other thing I keep is a list of lessons learned. Here’s mine.

  • Christmas planning should start the day after Remembrance Day.
  • Get gifts at the end of November, if possible. It takes time to get
    them, wrap them, send them off.
  • Indigo has lots of gift ideas, not just books. Music, movies, nic nacs.
    Plus, if you shop there early, you can provide gift ideas for others
  • Winners is also good. Future shop (now Best Buy) is better than Toys R Us for electronics for the kids.
  • Get time consuming activities done asap. You have less time in December than you think.
  • Check Canada Post web site for mailing dates. It helps to keep you on track.
  • Get tree on Saturday. While it is settling, put up the lights. On Sunday bring it in and decorate it. It takes time to set it up and decorate and  it is difficult to get done during the week.
  • Get a poinsettia around the same time you get the tree (or much
    earlier). You can get some small plants at the green grocer for $2.99:
    has the same effect as a big one.
  • I used to say: get your tree at Sheridan: It is close, you don’t need a
    car, and the prices are better. But last year a 6′ tree was $60 and a 7′
    tree was $99! And we need a 7′ tree. I called after the fact and the
    Loblaws trees this year were $40 for 6-8 feet. IKEA trees are $20 and you get a coupon for $20 for a purchase of $75 or more.  After that, you can get your tree from Dominion at Bayview/Eg. It
    was better there than Loblaws. Then IKEA last.
  • Use cut off branches from the bottom of the tree to make something to hang on the door. Just add some red ribbon.
  • Plan Christmas spirit events throughout December. Start planning them in November. Besides putting up the tree and Santa, there could be: get a gift for poorer children, Swiss Chalet Festive Special Run
  • Put up decorations outside earlier than you think. Lots of people have them up in the first week of December before it gets too cold
  • Indigo is good for more than books: calendars, DVDs, music CDs,  nicnacs
  • The week before Christmas is busy. Not just with the Xmas activities, but with cleaning, etc. Don’t assume you have time to do much more
  • Playing shinny / going skating daily is a great idea over the Holidays.

(Originally posted on Posterous, December 5 2011, 7:51 AM)

The quality of darkness and the luminosity of winter nights

I like when artists emphasize darkness in photography and film. To me, it is not negative space, but an essential part of the space. Just like all colours are essential parts of a colour photograph, all tones are essential parts of a black and white image to me. If anything, the darker spaces are exciting because they challenge your eye – outer and inner – to see more, to see what is in the darkness and the shadows. What I love about a photographer such as Roy Decarava is how he uses exactly those ideas in his photographs to tell very powerful stories and convey powerful images.

One thing that I don’t like about most movies is that there is rarely any darkness. There is always some light somewhere lighting the protagonists. It’s as if there is a fear that people will complain if they have to use their ears and their imagination. I’d like to see more films where much of it is shot in near darkness such that the audience is more engaged in the film.

There is a quieting aspect to darkness or near darkness. We sleep in that state, or we watch movies or plays or concerts. We become quiet and still. We contemplate, dream, express our inner selves more than we do in the fast paced brightness of day. This is a quality of darkness too.

Looking out on the backyard tonight, what I realized, as I have before, how
it is that ‘dark’ really isn’t once your eyes get used to the light that is there. This is especially the case in winter, when the sky turns light gray with clouds and the fallen snow has a luminosity all of it’s own even without street lights or house lights. If it is snowing it can actually get quite bright, even at midnight, as the snow falls and sparkles. Some nights can be brights as days.

At this time of year in Canada there is also the luminosity of house lights and Christmas trees that shine on as the end solstice nears and Christmas is celebrated. Despite long nights, there is much light.

And as we pass through the bleak midwinter, I like to warm it up with tea
lights and roaring fires. Though it be dark, the darkness is tinged with that glow of burning logs and burning candles. And when finally when all that is spent, I can go to the window and given some time to adjust, my eyes can eventually see much that is visible, though it is very late, for in the darkness there is more light than we may have suspected, and much to see and enjoy.

These are some of the things that I thought of while I looked on the snowfall arriving tonight at midnight.

Thanks for reading this. Enjoy your night.

(Originally posted on posterous, December 15 2010, 9:53 PM)

Some thoughts on memory and winter

There are bad associations with winter. We talk of the dead of winter. Or the bleak midwinter. Plants and trees are barren. Animals hibernate, deathlike. Cold itself, winter’s prime attribute, we associate with the dead. As is the additional darkness that winter throws over us.

Yet these should not be the only associations we come to know of winter. For it is a time of joy and birth and beauty. And though light and heat are scarce, where they are concentrated, they are a treasure.

If spring is a season of rebirth and hope, summer a time of happiness and luxury, while autumn is a time of transition and abundance, then winter is a season of reflection and memory. Winter is a season of the mind. In winter we can look to the trees bare and the frozen earth and recall and imagine the fullness of leaves and grasses and flowers that will arrive in the months to come. Though they are not there yet, we can imagine them still. And in these acts of imagining, we can imagine further as we pass through the snow falling the times past and the times still to come. We can do this in other seasons too, but winter concentrates the mind.

(Originally posted on Posterous, January 18 2011, 10:25 PM)

Thoughts on automation, from the WSJ (and me, someone who specialized in automation)

Robots
Christopher Mims has a good piece here that touches on many of the recent arguments concerning automation, here: Automation Can Actually Create More Jobs (WSJ). Well worth reading.

For my own perspective, early in my career my job was automating many of the systems operations tasks in my part of IBM. In one year I automated essentially the work of 10 people. No one lost their job as result, because while it was good to have these activities automated, the activities were not valuable enough to justify hiring people to do the work. Essentially the automation improved the quality of our work. Automation using IT to improve the quality of work is a good use of automation, be that automation be a lowly shell script or very expensive robot with A.I. Quality aside, how the automation affects staff depends on the culture and the makeup of an organization.

There is talk of places like McDonald’s replacing workers with kiosks as a result of a drive by some for a higher minimum wage. First off, McDonald’s are rolling out those kiosks in Canada, too, which makes me think they are going to deploy them regardless of what the minimum wage is. Second, I have used the kiosks a number of times, and they are of a limited benefit to a McDonald’s customer. The kiosks are good if there is a long line for a person to take your order: they kiosks are bad if there is a small line or no line. They are bad because it will take you many more minutes to place your order, due to the kiosk’s user interface. (Try one and you will see.) The kiosks some time will fail to print out your receipt: if you don’t remember your order number, then you have to go in line, tell them what you ordered, and then get your number. Overall the kiosks are not bad: they are especially good if you like to special order. But if the lines aren’t long and your order is standard, skip them and go in line.

Besides that, McDonald’s will still have plenty of staff and likely will for the future. Kiosks can’t cook, can’t pack your order, and can’t clean the restaurant. If you think robots can do that and do it cheaply, you need to learn more about robotics. I can see why McDonald’s and other fast food places need automation: they are constantly trying to retain people while trying to keep costs down. But the notion they are automating to spite people looking for a higher wage is ridiculous. McDonald’s is not going to become a glorified vending machine and they should not try to be. People go to restaurants and coffee shops to socialize and to come in contact with other people, and automation will provide less of that, not more.

As well, smart fast food places will learn that human contact makes for better business (see Starbucks). There are many ways to be successful as a fast food business, and a positive experience in dealing with staff is one of those ways.

Automation changes work. However, how it changes work is complex. It is tempting to assume that it will eliminate all work, but that is too simplistic. In addition, we need to think about work, income, and why we do what we do. Automation can help us do that, and that is one clear benefit of automation.

(Image: link to image.freepik.com)

Is it possible to run a sub two hour marathon?

Nike seems to think so, based on this: Nike Wants Athletes to Run a Marathon in Under Two Hours, So It’s Rebuilding the Race. And the Runners | WIRED

While it’s a bad idea to say it can’t happen, Runner’s World has a long list of reasons why it will be a difficult thing to accomplish: What Will It Take to Run A 2-Hour Marathon

Perhaps the two hour marathon will be like the four minute mile: once insurmountable, then broken, then broken often.  If and when that happens, I think it will not be a near term event.

In the meantime, read the articles, especially the one from Runner’s World: it’s a fascinating study into biomechanics and running, as well as some fine infographics.

Zeitgeist links for December, 2016

I often come across links that capture the spirit of the time, links that I save using Pocket or Instapaper.  Here are some of them, with quick comments.

Politics, mostly American:

Culture:

Psychology, mostly links about glumness in America

Work, mainly grim or putting a good face on work.

How IBM Watson helped Time magazine narrow its search for Person of the Year 

Interesting article: How IBM Watson helped Time magazine narrow its search for Person of the Year (IT Business)

From a technology point of view, it is also interesting that the IBM partner was using IBM’s Watson and Bluemix technologies.

I am biased here, as someone who works for IBM and believes in these technology, but I do think that if you think A.I. and cognitive doesn’t have a place in your business, you should read this. In the next two years, expect all your competitors to adopt these new technologies to compete with you.

My mixed bag of IT links for December

Like previous collections of IT links, this collection reflects things I am interested in or found useful recently:

  1. If you want to get started using APIs, I recommend this: Most Popular APIs Used at Hackathons | ProgrammableWeb
  2. If you want to build that web site, consider Using Twitter Bootstrap with Node.js, Express and Jade – Andrea Grandi, and this Building a Website from Scratch with ExpressJS and Bootstrap | Codementor. Also Mastering MEAN: Introducing the MEAN stack and Bluemix Mobile, Part 1: Creating a Store Catalog application – Bluemix Blog
  3. Or develop a mobile app like this: Create Swift mobile apps with IBM Watson services – developerWorks Courses
  4. I am a fan of Bluemix and Eclipse. This article ties them nicely together: IBM Bluemix – Eclipse Package Download – Neon release.
  5. I am also a fan of IoT these days. For fellow IoT fans, these links are good: Intro to Hardware Hacking on the Arduino — Julia H Grace and $10 DIY Wifi Smart Button | SimpleIOThings.
  6. Speaking of IoT, if you have been doing some work with Arduinos, you might be interested in the ESP8266. Some good info on it here ESP8266 Thing Hookup Guide – learn.sparkfun.com and a good thing to do with it, here: SimpleIOThings | Simple Do-It-Yourself Internet-of-Things Projects
  7. More good links related to software and application development work here Migrate an app from Heroku to Bluemix and here A Concise Introduction To Prolog, plus Building without an Ounce of Code – Part 2 – Apps Without Code Blog and this Turning a form element into JSON and submiting it via jQuery – Developer Drive
  8. Some interesting links pertaining to Minecraft: Can Minecraft teach kids how to code? – Safari Blog and Minecraft and Bluemix, Part 1: Running Minecraft servers within Docker.
  9. There’s lots of talk about AI these days, the  Economist explains why artificial intelligence is enjoying a renaissance
  10. If you are interesting in working in IT, you might like this: How to Get a Job In Deep Learning or this: An Unconventional Guide for Getting a Software Engineering Job — Julia H Grace
  11. Or maybe you want start a start-up. If so, check this out: A Free Course from Y Combinator Taught at Stanford | Open Culture
  12. Finally, here are just a number of interesting but mostly unrelated links:
    1. IBM Blockchain 101: Quick-start guide for developers
    2. Building three-tier architectures with security groups | AWS Blog
    3. Performance Tuning Apache and MySQL for Drupal
    4. How to secure an Ubuntu 16.04 LTS server 
    5. Clean Your System and Free Disk Space | BleachBit
    6. Use an iPad as a Raspberry Pi display — Kano OS – YouTube
    7. (Software iSCSI) Configuring SAN boot on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or 6 series

 

In praise of the 5K and other (non-marathon) races

The marathon is great race, and if you are aiming to run your first in the new year, it is a great thing to accomplish.

That said, you can also get a great sense of accomplishment out of running races less than 42.2 kilometers. To see what I mean, I highly recommend these two articles that praise the 5K:

  1. The 5K, Not The Marathon, Is The Ideal Race | FiveThirtyEight
  2. 10 Reasons the 5K is Freaking Awesome | Runner’s World

After reading them, I had a much greater appreciation of that race. (I think the same argument could be made for the 10K.)

As for me, I am a fan of the half-marathon. The only thing I don’t like about it is the name: it implies you haven’t done something great, when you have. Perhaps it needs to get rebranded as a 20K: not half a marathon, but twice a 10K!

Regardless of the distance you run, and how often you run it, enjoy your athleticism and take pride in it.

(Chart is a link to the image from the FiveThirtyEight article)

Two additions to my github repositories: one for IBM Watson, one for monitoring Linux systems

I’ve recently added two repos to my github account:

The first one is some proof of concept code I wrote to demonstrate how to work with IBM Watson’s Tradeoff Analytics service using node.js

The second one is some sample code I have had for some time that does simple server monitoring of a Linux server.

There is no intellectual property involved in these repos: it is simple code based on documented code samples found in many places on the web.

For more details, see my Github landing page, here: blm849 (Bernie Michalik)

Is Tim Cook the Steve Ballmer of Apple?

This piece makes a strong case that he is: Why Tim Cook is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple. I’d add to it and say that people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were great people at a great time and a great place. Steve Jobs wasn’t terribly successful at NeXT: he was still great, but the timing of his ideas wasn’t and the company itself wasn’t either. Tim Cook and Steve Ballmer are very good CEOs, but they are not in the same league as Jobs and Gates, and you could argue that the time has come and gone for both Apple and Microsoft.

Apple has many good months and years ahead. We will have to wait and see if they can regain the golden era of Jobs and his new iMacs, iPods, and iPhones.

Shocked by the image of the Syrian boy in the rubble? Here’s how to help | World news | The Guardian

Syrian civil war as of 08-2016

There is much outrage over the images of dead and injured children. If you feel compelled to do something, here’s a good source of information on how: Shocked by the image of the Syrian boy in the rubble? Here’s how to help | World news | The Guardian

If you are wondering why it is so terrible, especially around the city of Aleppo, then you can read this: Lina Khatib on the Battle of Aleppo – Council on Foreign Relations Lina Khatib on the Battle of Aleppo – Council on Foreign Relations.

Khatib argue that because Aleppo is seen as crucial for success by both regime and opposition forces, much terrible fighting is occurring there. To add to that, partners and proxies are joining the fight, turning it into something that looks like a modern day Stalingrad. At this time, there does not seem to be many (or any) good diplomatic or military solutions. Hence the terribleness that is happening.

 

 

 

 

Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race

So, you might ask? Well, as ProPublica states, “Imagine if, during the Jim Crow era, a newspaper offered advertisers the option of placing ads only in copies that went to white readers. That’s basically what Facebook is doing nowadays.”

There is no end to the discrimination that can result in the features that Facebook is enabling, as described here: Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race – ProPublica. Worse, Facebook seems to be clueless as to what they are enabling.

The IT profession has too many company’s like Facebook that are developing technology that affects society in ways they are unable to process. There needs to be more focus on this. I’m glad ProPublica has done this here: more work on this has to be done.

A reminder: Soylent? Still terrible

Why? According to the LA Times, “Liquid meal maker Soylent is stopping sales of its flagship powder, warning that a handful of customers reported stomach sickness after consuming it.” This after recently having problems with their food bar causing people to become ill. So far, their blended liquid drink is not having an ill effects on people. Though, honestly, if a company keeps making food products that make you ill, why are trusting anything that comes from them.

Why people digest this stuff when simple foods are easy to eat is beyond me.  Even Boost or any existing meal supplement products seem to be better.

For more on the story, see: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick – LA Times

The Apple Car is off (for now)

According to the article below, Apple “has drastically scaled back its automotive ambitions, leading to hundreds of job cuts and a new direction that, for now, no longer includes building its own car, according to people familiar with the project.” Too bad. I expect we will see more and more car related activity from Apple, but a shiny new vehicle may not be one of those things.

For more details, see:

Source: How Apple Scaled Back Its Titanic Plan to Take on Detroit – Bloomberg

The surprisingly easy way anyone can start an art collection

If you love art, but believe you have to have tons of money or an art history degree to have an art collection, then take a few minutes and watch the above videos from the good people at art interiors (two of whom are in the video). After watching it, you’ll feel it’s something you can achieve, I’m sure.

Next step? I recommend a visit to their site and store to see what they have that suits you.

Good luck!

Sixteen ways to think about and improve your life

Over the last year or so, I’ve found these worthwhile pieces on how to think about life and how to improve it. If you find one of these worthwhile and it improves your life as a result of you reading it, then I think collecting and writing about these is worthwhile.

  1. If you are feeling lonely and want to understand and deal with it better, consider this: The Science of Loneliness: How Isolation Can Kill You – New Republic
  2. One idea you can consider: talk to strangers. Hello, Stranger – NYTimes.com
  3. If you need new ways to live a better life, courtesy of a famous person….7 Steps to Living a Bill Murray Life – Vulture
  4. Or if you like to write, try to improve your life via writing: Writing Your Way to Happiness – NYTimes.com (I am guessing some writers would not agree with it)
  5. If you struggle to be happy, this could help: Everyone wants to be happy. Almost everyone is going about it wrong. – Vox
  6. If you want to be more optimistic, consider the big picture, presented here: A Cockeyed Optimist – NYTimes.com
  7. If you think you are working too much and are often thinking of cutting back, this could help you: Keynes’ 15 Hour Work Week Is Here Right Now
  8. Lots of good ideas via a collected stream of tweets, here: Things @GhostfaceKnitta Learned in 2015 (with tweets) · valerieinto · Storify
  9. Why should you give away money and be happier: Giving money away makes us happy. Then why do so few of us do it? – Vox
  10. Don’t hesitate when it comes to improving your life. You have less time than you think. See this to see why: These graphics will make you rethink your life – Tech Insider
  11. Being laid off will happen to everyone. If that’s you now,  and you are struggling with it, consider: Advice For the Recently Laid Off – Medium
  12. Self Confidence makes for a better life. Here’s how to become that way and more so: The Truth On How To Become Self Confident
  13. Change your mind, change your life. How? One way: Rewire your brain: Why Practice Makes Perfect: How to Rewire Your Brain for Performance
  14. If you struggle with your thoughts (e.g., worry too much), read : BBC – Future – Why we should stop worrying about our wandering minds
  15. Sometimes the way to improve our lives is not to have more, but to seek less and not be caught up in the trappings of status. To live a simpler life, like this: Here’s why one of the world’s richest men wears hand-me-down clothes – The Washington Post
  16. More on how to live with less. Living With Less. A Lot Less. – The New York Times

(Image from one of the articles linked to on NYTimes.com)

40,000 home decor links to make your place more attractive

Ok, not quite 40,000, but quite a lot. Some are very practical, some are inspirational, and some may even have you building your own furniture (as I did).

First, here are a bushel of links from the Apartment Therapy web site. They have lots and lots and lots of pages filled with ideas for people who rent apartments that can be used by anyone, renter or owner. Very practical, low cost, smart ideas and approaches to home decor. Good stuff.

Not so how to oriented, but this handful of links might give you some ideas and inspiration to improve your place:

Now that you are inspired, here are some good links I found for buying furniture:

Or if you want to build vs buy furniture, you might want these links:

Finally, if you are not so much into furnishing your place but more into painting it, then consider these few links:

(The lovely entrance at the top of the post is from a link to How to Make a Small Apartment Feel Huge | A Cup of Jo)

My favorite place to go for technical tutorials is DigitalOcean

If you want tutorials that are clear and understandable and work, then I recommend the Tutorials at DigitalOcean. You might think it is obvious, but I can’t count the number of how to technical guides on the Web that don’t work are hard to understand and confusing.  All the ones I’ve used from DigitalOcean have worked well. Plus they are a pleasure to read.

Now when I am searching on for a technical topic, I put in “DigitalOcean” as part of the search terms.

Installing and configuring and using IT is hard enough: make getting started that much easier by using their tutorials.

What makes McMansions bad? The opposite of what makes other houses appealing

This piece, Worst of McMansions — McMansions 101: What Makes a McMansion Bad…, not only clearly explains why McMansions are so ugly, but it shows why other houses are appealing. A good primer for anyone interested in buildings and architecture, especially for someone looking to build a new home. I