#linksoftheday

Shell Style Guide

http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/shell.xml

Statistics done wrong

http://www.refsmmat.com/statistics/

The Mikado Method: a structured way to make major changes to complex code

Cool links, most popular in Twitter and Facebook:

http://radurls.com/

3D printing: design, make, sell:

http://www.ponoko.com/

3D models:

http://www.thingiverse.com/

Reddit based music playlists:

http://redditplayer.phoenixforgotten.com/

Linux/Unix cheat sheets:

Here is the text of the comment:

You can't quit. You'll come back again. It's too easy. There's no "good reason" to stay away. You find real value here. You like it.

If there's reality to your idea of being happier without reddit, your nervous system has to see it with its own eyes. Just pay attention -- notice how the world feels for you. Do small experiments of renunciation.

Notice (for example) what happens tonight, at 20 PM, when you put your phone in airplane mode, do a small bow towards your WiFi router, and unplug it for one and a half hours. Pay attention to that mental shift as your mind realizes its usual conduit for dopaminergic stimulation and social validation -- has vanished. Notice the somewhat unsettling yet beautifully spacious feeling of "huh... what now?"

Send out a scout to patrol for the feeling of having to take up some other equivalent stimulation. That feeling is actually pretty lightweight and easy to defend against. It passes quickly. Sit in your favorite armchair. Pace around your apartment. Attune yourself to unfamiliar sensations like "ease," "patience," and "boredom." Do some contemplation.

I think the deal with reddit is mostly that the mind is extremely happy to have a single, reliable source of comfort + stimulation. Even if there is a diverse set of other sources of comfort / stimulation, if there's one single source that's always available, it will make a deep warm valley in the landscape of your habits, and you won't want to leave -- even if there's a perfect calm lake just half a mile away, even if beautiful women are waiting for you up in a nearby meadow, even if your horse is ready for any journey.

The valley gets boring. As you've noticed. But it's comfortable and right there. There's really no pressing need to go anywhere else. Except some inkling of desire for something else... Some whiff of another fragrance.

There are stories about people who spend most of their lives in various states of torpor and confusion, but when destiny calls, they find some kind of reservoir of unknown energy and become heroes. This seems related to what old Joseph Campbell called "following your bliss."

It's about discovering some kind of motivation that's so deep you wouldn't even call it by a lame, ad-copy, career counselling word like "motivation." The religious people call it "faith," or "doubt," which are two sides of a coin -- what's the coin?

Once you've found the fragrance of that kind of destiny, what in the hell is the goddamned use of talking on the internet about politics, crossword puzzles, or pictures of cats and dogs?

I don't know if it is the most important video you will ever see, as they claim in the title, but it's very valuable information, nonetheless.

TL;DW*: a Colorado professor takes a look at the exponential function (describing steady growth) and the consequences of it in our daily lives