Wisdom is the prime thing

In part I and part II of this series, we’ve discussed the two major components of building a program to developing laser-like concentration: progressively and purposefully sharpening focus and training our minds to avoid distraction. How do we put all this together into a useful program?

» Read the rest of this entry

In the first post of this series, we discussed ways to improve concentration on external objects and avoiding the distractions of external stimuli that threaten to hijack our focus.

But how do we improve our focus on the internal objects of consciousness – the ephemeral thoughts and emotions of the moment — and avoid the pitfalls of distraction in the inner workings of our minds? » Read the rest of this entry

Today I wanted to mount a USB drive from Windows. But when I did and tried to ls the directory, all I got was “????” for the filenames, lots and lots of question marks. After some searching around, I found out that you have to provide a vfat drive with a character set to convert long filenames.

mount -t vfat -o iocharset=utf8 /dev/sdb1 /mnt/drive

According to the mount man page:

   iocharset=value
       Character set to use for converting between 8 bit characters and
       16 bit Unicode characters. The default is iso8859-1.  Long file-
       names are stored on disk in Unicode format.

After a few iterations of various time and life management solutions, I finally decided on a paper-based solution. Let me share with you some pictures and explanations of my very own Hipster PDA.

» Read the rest of this entry

We live in a society of constant distraction. It molds our minds into a state of continuously splintered attention. For instance, while doing some reading, the phone rings. As you get off the phone, your cell phone beeps to alert you to a text message. To answer it you get online to look something up, and in the process remember something else you needed to look for. You go to send an email, but a more pressing email demands to be read and answered. Now you’re back to your reading and are besieged by various thoughts. By the end of the chapter, you have trouble remembering anything you read.

What can be done to reclaim consciousness, hone concentration, and sharpen focus? » Read the rest of this entry

Is it more cost-effective to own an inkjet printer or a laser printer for home printing? Here is my breakdown of the overall cost of ownership.

» Read the rest of this entry

Here are two of the best Firefox extensions. They make my web browsing experience much smoother. They are:

• Hide Menubar

• Sage

  » Read the rest of this entry