Personally I find music to be incredibly distracting, especially when blogging or writing prose. I can sometimes deal with music when coding, because it actually requires a different creative mind frame. However, when writing plain English, songs usually tend to put words into my head that shouldn’t be there. Listening to anything with lyrics is about as bad as having someone talking to you while you write. I find it distracting.

Music without lyrics is slightly better, but it tends to have another undesirable effect. Usually the artists aim when they create a piece of music is to somehow evoke emotions in the listener. Song writers usually try to do it with lyrics, whereas composers do it with melodies. So a good instrumental track will still pull on your heart strings even if there is no singer whining about love or whatever they usually drone about. Being the inhuman aberration that I am I possess neither heart nor emotions, but what I do have is an overactive imagination. Play me a good melody, and my brain goes off and invents a story that goes with it. Actually it usually it starts with something of a scene – like dude fighting a dragon, or a spider shaped robot dropping from orbit onto a pre-industrial colony world to the astonishment of the natives or something like that. Then it usually rapidly works backwards to establish the context, socio-political details about the setting, important factions, side characters and etc… And then I’m like, “wait, I was supposed to be writing about password hashing, and not this shit”.

So music works for certain things, but not the others. Granted, people frequently assume that I am listening to music as I work, because I can usually be seen wearing these while I write:

Headphones

I would say 90% of the time, if you see a text editor on my screen, there is nothing coming out of these. Why are they on my head? To cancel out the some of the ambient noise. Big headphones with padding are actually pretty good at noise cancellation. They don’t cut you off completely, but soften the noise and do a good job of muffling stuff like speech to the point it is no longer distracting. You can still hear the clacking of the keyboard, the soft hum of your PC fan and the traffic noises outside the window. But someone talking on the phone or watching TV in another room is less of a distraction.

Some people say that they find it hard to get creative and remain productive in completely quiet environment. That actually might be true, but I wouldn’t know. I have actually never been in a place that was really quiet. There is always background noise wherever I go – even when I’m alone in my room at 4am in the morning there are many sources of noise I could identify: desktop PC fans hum, external drives grind, the house creaks in the wind, there are cars occasionally driving by outside the window, the pipes and radiators make noises, and of course the stupid ghost is jingling his chains in the corner trying to freak people out. Good thing I don’t believe in ghosts, otherwise he’d be pretty fucking scary.

Fortunately, none of this actually bothers me. Ambient white noise is actually something I’m perfectly OK with. I have no clue what kind of an impact would a complete “deafening” silence have on my creativity, because I tend to thrive in the white noise I do have as long as it is kept at manageable level.

So often when I want to drown out localized distractions I will try to put on automatically generated white noise. There are actually a lot of resources online for that kind of thing, and I have done some experiments with different kinds of noise. The so called “true” white noise, which is just random static tends to be very effective at drowning out environment, but also very weird to listen to. The fact it is so patternless is actually distracting, as the pattern recognition engine in your brain gets annoyed and goes on a crazy ghost hunt trying to make sense of it. Nothing in our evolutionary background has prepared our minds to listen to random static for extended periods of time so it tends to be tiring and annoying after a while. Also some people claim they end up hearing whispers of the undead after a few hours, but those people are crazy so you should pay them no heed.

There are other sources that provide you with “ambient” noise – for example birds tweeting (on Twitter I presume), waves lapping at the shore, storm sounds and etc. Recently I stumbled onto a project that aims to provide you with a “coffee shop” ambiance:

Coffitivity

At first I thought it was a bit of a joke. You know, with the hipster programmers who work out of coffee shops because it’s cool that way. But they actually seem to be serious about it. I tried listening to it for a bit, and it seems mildly distracting because you can almost catch conversation fragments. On the other hand it is a pretty decent noise track because it doesn’t have repeating patterns (like wave sounds or bird songs) or abrupt events (like thunders in storm sounds). The track retains about the same volume and intensity of noise throughout its length and said noise is rather varied and seemingly random – but also complex and recognizable, so it doesn’t send your brain on a goose chase like static noise. So all in all it is an interesting attempt and resolving the “too noisy/not noisy enough” creativity debacle.

Personally, I prefer quiet. Not complete silence mind you, but just quiet area with not much noise other than the regular environmental sound pollution. How about you? Do you listen to music? Do you use white noise tracks? What is your concentration/productivity sound-scape like? Let me know in the comments.

This would be so much better than playing with magnifying glass on a sunny day. I wish I had one of these when I was a kid. You know, we would really put it to use. It would be the ultimate tool for setting off fireworks. Yes I grew up in a big city – blowing up glass beer bottles with the biggest firecrackers or potassium-nitrate with sugar was one of our favorite past times. The fact that I have all limbs and fingers intact is something of a miracle.

Anyway, I’m really tempted to do this. I actually have a broken DVD burner lying around somewhere at work. The only problem is – I would probably get 3rd degree burns, set myself on fire or fry one of my eyes out of my head. And that’s just with a soldering iron. God only knows what damage I could cause with a functional laser. But I know it would be awesome, and quite dangerous for everyone around me.

[tags]laser, dvd burner laser, flashlight laser, burning laser[/tags]

The main idea behind this is to circumvent their troubleshooting manual by preemptively answering all the questions that they might need to ask you.

1. If they ask you about your problem without taking your name and Service Tag number, give them short, succinct one sentence answer, or just ignore the question and recite your tag number instead. They will ask you to repeat your problem in detail once they take down your data, and check the warranty information. Before they do all of that, they hardly pay any attention to what you are going to say. Also they can’t be making notes in the system before they get your info down. So if you get into specific details right away, you will likely need to repeat them later on so that they can note them down.
2. Have a good idea what is your problem. If you have no clue what is going on, there is really no way to speed this process up. You will need to sit through the bullshit troubleshooting session, reboot several times, and etc. Troubleshoot the problem yourself before you call.
3. Run the Diagnostic CD that came with your system. It usually takes a while (around an hour to run all the extended tests), and they will definitely ask you to do it. The CD is not the be-all and end-all of Dell support, and the techs know it doesn’t detect many issues. But if you get lucky it will give you an error code that you can recite back to the phone support person. If you have a good error code that indicates hardware failure, they will skip all the bullshit, and dispatch parts and/or technician to you right away. If you don’t get an error code, at least you can tell them you have run it
4. Troubleshoot the problem ahead of time. If you suspect it’s a memory, start pulling out the chips, swapping them around and etc. See if the memory runs in another computer (if possible of course). See if you can use some spare memory on your system – and etc. Try to isolate the problem. The difference between doing this, and following the troubleshooting steps over the phone is that you probably know what you are doing, while the tier 1 tech is just following a script.
5. Explain all your troubleshooting steps in details. Try to cover as many steps as possible. Essentially you want to bombard them with information so that they put down the manual. Most of the phone drones have at least remedial technical skills, and they should be able to follow your logic. So if you present them with a logical progression of facts leading to a reasonable conclusion they will probably agree with your diagnosis.
6. Do not tell them what parts need to be replaced – let them decide that. The reason is twofold. For one, they might sometimes give you more than you need. For example you just need a new memory chip, but they are willing to throw in a new mobo for a good measure. Sometimes that might be a good deal. Second, if you let them have the last word, they will feel like they are “solving” your problem. If you tell them what to do, they will be more inclined to ask follow-up questions – either to avoid appearing clueless on the tape in case they get reviewed one day, or just to spite you (no one likes a know-it-all). I usually leave them with something along the lines of “I suspect that the problem is XYZ, don’t you think?”

Of course if you have no clue what the hell are you doing, then this won’t be much help. But if you can troubleshoot on your own, it will definitely cut down on the amount of time you spend on the phone with Dell or any other similar vendor. :)

[tags]dell, dell phone support, phone support, troubleshooting[/tags]

images © axecollector.com

Interesting. I had no clue that this was how they made them.

[tags]9v, batteries, aaaa, 9 volt, 1.5v, 1.5 volt, duracell[/tags]

Metacafe vodeo link found via haha.nu

I think this could be a cool educational tool to teach kids multiplication on large numbers. I’m guessing there is some mathematical theory that proves how it works.

[tags]lifehack, multiplication, cool, drawing[/tags]

Here is how you fix it: you need to take off the faceplate and clean it up.

First locate the 2 screws under the main LCD. You can simply remove those little protective screw tops with a small screwdriver or a pen tip. They are held in place by some sort of adhesive goo and can be replaced easily

Remove the screws. You will need a very small Philips head. I was able to use PH00 from my Husky 14-in-1 Precision set.

Here is the hard part – you need to locate 4 snap-in points on each side of the LCD. They are located about an inch from the top and bottom edge of the phone. You will need a small flat head screwdriver to pry them open. They really have a tight grip, but if you manage to wedge your screwdriver in the right place they pop-off easily.

Now just gently wipe the dust off the LCD and the inside of the faceplate window. If you have compressed air this is a good time to use it.

Afterwards, the face plate should snap back into place easily. I hope this helps.

Disclaimer: the images are courtesy of thephonemall.net

[tags]phone, faceplate, samsung, samsung a670, a670, cellphone[/tags]

If the boss asks you what did you do all day yesterday, you can immediately produce a detailed hour by hour activity log. This also comes in handy when the company wants you to long your time in a very detailed way.

I vaguely remember that someone posted a VB script to do that on Lifehacker. I didn’t feel like digging out the post so I just decided to implement it myself. You can go as simple or as complicated as you want with this. I opted for simplicity. I hacked up this nice little shell script:

#!/bin/bash
echo What are you doing right now?
read -e what
echo `date` - $what >> timelog.txt

I really don’t think this can get any simpler than this. For a while I was toying with the idea of using XDialog. But then again I just wanted something quick, easy and robust. So I opted for pure bash.

Now I just needed to create a cron job. Unfortunately, by default cron will run shell scripts in the background. I actually wanted my script to pop up on the screen, get in my face and prompt me for input. So I used kstart to pop up a konsole window on all the desktops:

0,30 * * * * /usr/bin/kstart --windowclass "Konsole" --alldesktops --activate --ontop /usr/bin/konsole -e /home/lmaciak/track

I set my script to annoy me every half an hour. It gives me a better idea of how am I spending my time during the day. But if that’s to much for you, just delete “,30” from the line, and it will bother you once every hour.

One thing you have to remember is that cron daemon does not really know, or care about X environment. So you need to explicitly state which display should be used for the job. Add this somewhere in your cron file:

DISPLAY=:0

I added it above my cron jobs, but I don’t see why you couldn’t place it below them.

If you look in the timelog.txt code you will see nice grep-able output like this:

Thu Aug 10 15:00:15 EDT 2006 – responding to Bob’s email
Thu Aug 10 15:30:10 EDT 2006 – php class
Thu Aug 10 16:00:27 EDT 2006 – looking into setting up another demo
Thu Aug 10 16:30:15 EDT 2006 – php class coding
Thu Aug 10 17:00:17 EDT 2006 – coding eval.class.php
Thu Aug 10 17:30:19 EDT 2006 – replying to an email from ACE project (timesheet)

Most of these are very brief statements. For example, I can always go back and see what did I write to bob on August 10 around 3pm.

As an added benefit, that nag-window usually jolts me back to work. If I was idling, or wasting time, it forces me to concentrate on what I was supposed to do, and reminds me to get back to work. :mrgreen:

[tags]time, time tracking, time logging, bash, cron[/tags]

Here is a tip for owners of a Dell Axim X5 PocketPC. With time the screen alignment on your device may deteriorate. Especially if you are like me, and you usually carry it in your pocket without a case. Mine got so bad, that I could not operate the device properly. Taps in the middle of the screen were detected as bottom, and so I could not even reach the start menu to get to the screen alignment program.

The only thing I could do was to hard reset the machine, and then re-sync it, and re install all my programs. Unfortunately, reset did not seem to fix my problem. I was greeted by the familiar screen alignment exercise, which makes you tap on the target that appears in 4 corners of the display. Usually a single cycle is enough, but on some occasions you might need 2 or 3 runs to get straightened out.

If the PocketPC just keeps cycling, and never lets you get out of the alignment screen, here is what you do. If you are using a screen protector, take it off. Take a credit card, and run it around the edges of the display (see the picture). Try to get into the crack between the screen and the case and clean out all the dust in there. Chances are, the dirt that builds up in there is creating phantom pressure on the screen and throws off the alignment software. Finally, wipe the screen with a soft dry cloth. Turn it on, and try aligning the screen again.

This worked for me. Try it before you call tech support, decide to spend money on a display replacement, or throw the device out the window.

[tags]axim, dell axim x5, pocket pc, win ce, screen alignment[/tags]

Don’t you love when someone posts a piece of really, really bad, clueless advice on a popular blog, all the cool kids repeat it over and over again? Instructables made a silly suggestion that you should keep your pait brushes in your paint cans. Make, picked it up and reposted it on their blog. Cory Doctorow found it there and then reposted it on Boingboing. By the evening it will probably hit hundreds of other blogs.

To bad that this is a horrible advice. You will most likely completely destroy your brush like this. Here are the reasons why:

1. You should never store brushes with the bristles down. The weight of the tool will bend them and you will end up with a spoon, forked or an octopus brush that will be unusable
2. You should never allow paint to hit the base of the bristles. It will gather there and dry into small globs that are nearly impossible to get out. These globs will push your bristles appart creating gaps in the bristle edge eventually leading to forking and “crazy hair” that will simply stick out at random angles.
3. Paint left on a shelf separates. The dense pigment and adhesive substances deposit on the bottom while the semi-transparent liquid thiner floats on top. This is why painters shake the can, or mix the paint before starting to work. Otherwise you end up with a glue that is too dense to paint with, and water which has no pigment. The most important part of your brush – the bristle line will slowly be encased in that densest, most glue like paint on the bottom of the can. You will have to wash it anyway before you sart painting

So why do these alleged professional painters store brushes this way? Most likely because they will come back the next day and finish the job. Or perhaps they will toss both the can, and the chepo brush they already charged you for on their way home. Who the hell knows. I can tell you one thing – they do not do that to the good brushes.

Good brushes need to be washed with soap and water (and a paint thinner for oil based crap) and cleaned with a brush comb. How do I know this? I used to do contracor work with my dad for a long time. I painted allot of walls, and cleaned allot of brushes.

So remember kids – not everything you find on BoingBoing or Make is good advice.

Update Sat, July 01 2006, 07:32 PM

Fixed spelling and grammatical mistakes. Thanks, Henke.

What is the point of giving advice such as: when you are sleepy, don’t lie down, take a cold shower, walk around or drink coffee/tea. No shit sherlock!

The truth is – pulling an all-nighter is not difficult. Staying up should not be all difficult unless you are 5 and it’s Christmas Eve :P

What is difficult is coping with prolonged sleep deprivation and sleep debt. When you pull an-all nighter, you most likely need to go to school/work the next day. Hell, you might be forced to work late night hours the very same day. Thus you may not be able to “catch up” on sleep till the weekend or something like that.

You will likely accumulate sleep debt, and you will get progressively more exhausted and fatigued every day.

It all really depends on your natural resistance, physical condition and etc. Everyone is affected differently. A stand alone all-nighter is usually harmless, especially if you are young and fit. But when it is followed by several late night coding sessions (or another all-nighter down the road), even the toughest, meanest hard core coffe chugging hacker can start to suffer from sleep deprivation symptoms.

First, and most important tip for those who pull an all-nighter is: try not to not drive the next day. Especially in the evening. Beware of the microsleep lapses. They can be extremely dangerous when you are behind the wheel. The worst part is that you can’t control these – your brain simply switches off for a moment.

Most people are not even aware they fall asleep this way. You go from fully awake, to out cold to fully awake again in under a minute. To you it may seem like you “spaced out” for a second but most likely you just had a microsleep lapse. A minute is enough time to drive into a ditch, or hit a tree. So be careful.

Second, be aware of the “Undead” syndrome. This is where you turn into a living zombie and you sit at your desk staring at your monitor for a good hour or two. Your mind will wander, and generally work in low gear. Are sharp like a razor in the morning, chances are that by lunchtime you will turn into a barely coherent, spaced out lump of flesh. Your concentration will suffer, and getting into “the zone” will be twice or three times as difficult as usual. Every time you get interrupted you will be knocked out off the flow, and it will take you a while before you can resume work at your normal pace. This is normal.

Third, Caffeine rush is to be expected. See, you were up all night drinking coffee and soda. Now you are at work/school drinking more of it to keep yourself awake. You should expect to be unusually hyper. You may also be moody, fidgety, irritated or even anxious. And you will crash eventually. Caffeine crash may range from a total physical shutdown to a mild downer. It usually manifests itself as energy drain. At some point you just stop fidgeting, and you slump down into a near coma. You may experience extreme fatigue, muscle pains, dry mouth, headache and etc. The severity of the rush, and subsequent crash of course depend on the amount of caffeine you ingest. If you just drink coffee or soda you will likely experience only a mild crash.

If you are into Jolt Cola, energy drinks, caffeinated mints and Caffeinated soap – and you use them in excessively during your all-nighter and the day after… Well, you will feel like shit when you crash.

I recommend sticking to your regular amounts of caffeine. You really don’t need 7 coffees, and 10 Red Bull’s and a pack of coke to stay awake all night. If you don’t go overboard you may avoid the caffeine rush, and the subsequent crash.

And lastly, long term abuse of your circadian rhythms will affect your sleep patterns. If you pull many all-nighters, your body will try to adapt to all this late night activity. So once you go back to normal sleeping pattern, you may find it difficult to fall asleep even when you are very tired. You may find yourself tossing and turning till 4am for few days/weeks until your cyrcadians return to normal. This is to be expected :P

Please note that IANAD – most of this is from personal experience, and stuff that I heard from others.