When one wants to understand what the most sigificant digits are regarding courses of action, it is vital to have the appropriate time-scale. What can be done in 1 day is a much more constrained problem than one can be done in 1 year, 10 years, 1,000 years, etc. Ten million years is sufficiently large ... Read more
Paypal Sucks Paypal sucks, as everyone knows. It has one benefit for the consumer (those buying with paypal) and that is their dispute resolution, which I've used perhaps ten times and have never lost. Dispute resolution with credit cards and banks is much, much more difficult and harder to win. For the seller, however, Paypal ... Read more
The saddest part of the discussion of construction innovation as defined by making buildings more efficiently, is just that. Missing are: Making housing more sustainable (see Earthships) Making housing more affordable (see tiny homes in Kristen Dirksen's channel) Mainstream Media Housing Innovation Coverage NYTimes - Piece by Piece, a Factory-Made Answer for a Housing Squeeze ... Read more
This is meant to be a reminder of important issues/decisions that already have some thought put in them (usually by others). Automatic categorization of text is a core tool now Instead of offering advice, rank priorities Build a website first (before an app), some forgotten article but the point is: faster, and desktop users expect ... Read more
Apparently, a reverse sear is the best way to cook a steak, and the basic principle is used to cook everything. Essentially, the idea boils down to cooking at two temperatures: Low and slow (cook throughout) High and fast (sear) In addition, reducing the moisture on the outside of the meat should also be done ... Read more
For those not in Cambodia, Laos or Thailand, 2562 is the Buddhist Era (BE) date, which is 543 years ahead of the Common Era calendar. New Year, The Last Before 2020 Ah yes, the end of a year and beginning of another. A time to reflect, etc., etc. Well, this year much was accomplished and ... Read more
On January 1, 2009 CNN published an article on memory. Now would be a good time to review and expand on that article, in the hopes of improving our own memory. It may be useful to conceive of the Art of Memory as having four broad application areas, a set of techniques (often called mnemonic ... Read more
Necessity being the mother of invention, what if a densely populated, but small (~10m) country were to have zero access to petroleum for fertilizer and agriculture in general? Sustailable Agriculture would be a result (or starvation). What if Sustainable Agriculture Weren't Theoretical? The Case of Cuba Cuba's Agrifood System in Transition How to make prosperous ... Read more
By Amazon Canada, I am referring to the Amazon Advantage Canada operation. Pure, unadulterated incompetence. Support requests go something like this: - Me: Here is my problem, with detail - AC: Request for information (which is already in the detail) - Me: Submission of requested info, again - AC: Thank you, please wait - AC: ... Read more
In this post I outline what I would consider a compelling form factor, one which existed for a while, but which may be is returning for certain niche uses. Usability and Useful Form Factors While the term notebook has been taken over to mean a laptop computer that is much larger on average than a ... Read more