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Here is an update on the goals as of Feb. I’m kinda surprised by how difficult it is for me to read 50 books in a year. Maybe I am a slower reader then I though.
So without any further ado here are my Goals as of February:
Tags: , Goals, Sean Lavelle
The SALT Lectures (Seminars About Long-Term Thinking) are lectures put on about the future hosted by the Long Now Foundation. Long now invites some of the biggest thinkers in science, history, philosophy, and literature to talk about where they see humanity headed in the next ten thousnad years and what we can learn from the previous ten thousand.
The lectures are between an hour and an hour and a half then followed by a question and answer session. The speakers are divers and very entertaining. Francis Fukuyama, Bruce Sterling, Jared Diamond, Vernor Vinge, Sam Harris are just a few. I recently listened to a talk by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of The Black Swan) which was very informative and entertaining.
My one gripe would be that (at least some) these lectures appear to be slide shows. Most of the time this is no big deal, but I have heard at least one that was somewhat hard to follow since I could not see the slides.
If you are looking for some very intellectually stimulating material from some of todays important thinkers, check out the the Seminars About Long-Term Thinking. You’ll feel smarter for it.
Tags: future, lectures, podcastsLamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal
Christopher Moore’s Lamb is the written as a new gospel written by Levi who is called Biff, who grew up with Jesus and spent the lost years with him. The action of the book is mostly concerned with the years between Jesus’s birth and the beginning of his ministry in his early thirties. The real New Testament makes almost no mention of Jesus’s life during this time, and according to Biff it is because it was during this time that he an Jesus traveled the world.
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For about 3 weeks now I’ve been trying to post everyday (on weekdays). And the thing is, once you get writing, it seems to get easier. I’ve not had to really struggle to put out an entry (which seemed to be the case earlier, where once a week was hard for me to stick to). When I look back, there are a couple things that I changed that seemed to make all the difference.
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The other day, I was searching for some podcasts and I noticed a line under some of the Google search results that said ‘This site may harm your computer?’ If you choose to to continue onto the sight you will need to click through a page making sure you understand the warnings.
I think this is a great feature. Having a centralized place that users can be informed of before they even get to the site and need to rely on there antivirus which everyone should have installed and updated, but often do not.
For more information you can go here
Tags: google, search, Security
Links for the week of interesting stuff I’ve come across.
The Answer To The Toughest Interview Question - Penelope Trunk over at the Brazen Careerist talks about how to handle salary questions in a job interview. This is great advice and one of the questions that always worries me. Her basic answer? Never give a number.
Ultimate Guide To Packing Light - Go Green Travel Green has rounded up 45 tips for packing light when traveling. This is something I am working on. I’ve gotten down to a travel backpack for a week in India and a week in Puerto Rico, but I still find I pack lots of extraneous stuff.
How To Get A Great Deal on a New Car - A three part series over at Gather Little By Little with some great tips on who to get the your new car for the least possible money. My car is going on 7 years old, and I will probably buy used next time, but these are good tips.
2 big idea posts from my cooking hero Mark Bittman(PBUH):
Tags: , links, Sean Lavelle, Weekly LinksI was going to post this in my weekly links post this weekend, but as I started thinking about it a bit more I thought it might make a good post. So earlier this week, 43folders posted a round up of their GTD articles. Alot of these are great tips if you are using GTD or are interested in getting started with it.
About a year ago I started using GTD. And I am still using it, although nowhere near the way I started out with it. This in itself makes it the ONLY system that has ever gained any traction with me, and I think it is a testament to it’s versatility and power. The only reason I stuck with it though is that I made some changes and discoveries about how I work.
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While I was setting up Timevault, I noticed something really weird. When I added a application to start on login (System->Preferences->Sessions), it showed up as added, but was gone after I logged out and logged back in.
Tags: gnome, Linux, session, ubuntu
Since the time it was published back in 2005, I’ve been hearing good things about Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I bought the book last year at a used bookstore, but only recently got around to diving into the 800 pages.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the story of the return of magic to England during the Napoleonic Wars. During this time “theoretical magic” is a gentlemanly study that mostly involves reading a writing about magicians of the golden age of magic several hundred years before. This all changes when Mr Norrell, who can actually do magic (”a practical magician”) offers his services to the British government to help with the war effort and the cause of returning English magic to greatness.
Norrell is a stuffy little man who believes he is the only one qualified to bring back magic to England as well as the only one to direct it. During this time Jonathan Strange discovers that he can do magic and moves to London to learn under Norrell. The conflict between Strange and Norrell, as well as the repercussions from one of the earlier acts of his magic dominate the rest of the book.
I was of two minds about this book. The voice of the narration was suppose to model the time it was happening and at times it was funny. Other times it was just grating. I didn’t really find many of the characters likable or even that interesting. The pacing is slow and until the last third of the book didn’t really grab my attention. That being said, the last third of the book I found very enjoyable. But after I had finished, I questioned if wading through 600 pages previously was worth it. The “amazing” type reviews that the book got seemed to miss the mark (at least in my opinion).
It’s official. I am now a Certified Information Systems Security Professional - CISSP! Just though I would toot my own horn a little 
