The 1 book of Louis

Hi, my name is Louis Cordier.

I am a citizen, not of Athens, or Greece, but of the world. – Socrates (5th Century B.C.)

I see myself as a citizen of the universe.
I have always believed that you are what you read, eat, think and do (consume, process and produce).

WARNING: I am a bit crazy... ;p

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. – George Bernard Shaw

To whom much is given, much is expected.

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Why write a book?

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something. – Thomas H. Huxley

If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger? – Thomas H. Huxley

Not too deep. — People who comprehend a thing to its very depths rarely stay faithful to it forever. For they have brought its depths into the light of day: and in the depths there is always much that is unpleasant to see. – Friedrich Nietzsche; Human, all too Human

What I have learned from the Bible

Seek wisdom to do the right thing and everything else will follow.

1 Kings 3:

5. In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee.
6. And Solomon said, Thou hast showed unto thy servant David my father great mercy, according as he walked before thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with thee; and thou hast kept for him this great kindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.
7. And now, O LORD my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in.
8. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude.
9. Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?
10. And the speech pleased the LORD, that Solomon had asked this thing.
11. And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment;
12. Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.
13. And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honor: so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days.
14. And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days.

1 Thessalonians 5:

21. Test everything. Hold on to the good.

Isn’t that the Scientific Method?

Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a polluted mind, suffering will follow you, as the wheels of the oxcart follow the footsteps of the ox. Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a pure mind, happiness will follow you, as a shadow clings to a form. – Buddha

Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality. – Dalai Lama XIV

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How to read a book

First we learn to read, then we read to learn.


Read Mortimer J. Adler's How To Read A Book or listen to the audio book (part1, part2)
Find a summary here.
Reading for Scatterbrained People With Neither Patience Nor Respect for Authority.

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Time Management & Organization

Time is the most precious resource we all have. The average person only gets about 2 billion seconds, so use them wisely.









Read Stephen Covey, et al's First Things First: To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy
and David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.

Strangely, the thing that least intrigued me was how they'd managed to get it all done. I suppose I sort of knew. If I'd learned one thing from traveling, it was that the way to get things done was to go ahead and do them. Don't talk about going to Borneo. Book a ticket, get a visa, pack a bag, and it just happens. – Alex Garland; The Beach

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80/20 Rule

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.plan

Have a plan, keep it short and simple (5 fingers → 5 points).
He who fails to plan, plans to fail.

Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance – British Army

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Haste

Haste is the root of all evil.


Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Never mistake a clear view for a short distance. – Paul Saffo

Remember the Tortoise and the Hare.

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Six Hats

There is nothing more sad and wasteful than a roomful of intelligent and highly paid people waiting for a chance to attack something the speaker has said. With the Six Hats method the fullest use is made of everyone's intelligence, experience and information. The Six Hats also removes all 'ego' from the discussion process. – Edward de Bono; The Six Thinking Hats

The Six Thinking Hats represent directions of thought. They are used to request thinking in a paticular direction, not as a description or label to classify your thinking afterwards. They are not used to characterize people. A person is not a black hat, but he or she might prefer to think with the black hat on. It is desirable for everyone to become skilled in the use of all the hats.

The best way to learn the Six Hats method is to read the Six Thinking Hats.

Summary of the book

  Information, Facts and Figures

• The white hat is neutral and objective.
• It focusses on facts and figures.
• Questions to ask with the white hat on:
  • What information do we have?
  • What information do we need?
  • What information is missing?
  • What questions do we need to ask?
  • How are we going to get the information we need?
• The information can range from hard verifiable facts and figures to soft information such as 3rd party opinions and feelings. Your own opinions and feelings are placed under the red hat.
• Whose fact is it?
• Is the information a fact, a likelyhood or a believe?
• How true is the fact? Frame the information appropriatly:
  • Always true
  • Usually true
  • Generally true
  • By and large
  • More often than not
  • About half the time
  • Often
  • Sometimes true
  • Occastionally true
  • Been known to happen
  • Never true
  • Cannot be true (contradictory)
• Split the facts into two groups: checked facts and believed facts.

  Feelings, Emotions and Intuition

• The red hat is subjective and generally non-rational.
• It exposes and legitimizes emotions and feelings.
• It allows people to express their opinions, hunches, intuitions and impressions. (a function of their experience)
• Resist the temptation to justify your emotions. You don't need to give a reason or a logical basis.
• If emotions and feelings are not permitted as inputs in the thinking process, they will lurk in the background and affect all the thinking in a hidden way.
• The red hat makes feelings visible so that they can become part of the thinking map and also part of the value system that chooses the route on the map.
• The red hat covers two broad types of feelings:
  1. Ordinary emotions such as fear and dislike to more subtle ones such as suspicion.
  2. Complex judgements that go into such type of feelings as a hunch, intuition, sense, taste, aesthetic feeling and other not visibly justified types of feeling.

  Critical, Cautious and Careful

• The black hat is critical and logical (negative judgements).
• It's perhaps the most important hat, the hat of survival, of caution and of being careful.
• It points out how something does not fit our experience, our resources, our policy, our stragegy, our ethics, our values, etc.
• It protects us from wasting energy and money, it seeks to avoid dangers, problems, obstacles and difficulties.
• There must be a logical basis for the criticism and reasons must be capable of standing on their own.
• It focuses on why something may not work or may not be the right thing to do.
• In order to get the full value from any suggestion or idea, it is important that the black hat be done thoroughly:
  • Be as causious and as fiercely critical as possible.
  • Point out errors or deficiencies in the thinking process.
  • Question the strength of the evidence.
  • What are the risks?
• Black hat thinking is not argument and must not be allowed to degenerate into argument.
• Caution: There are people who overuse the black hat and who spend all their time trying to find fault. The fault is not in the black hat but in the abuse, overuse or misuse of the black hat.

  Constructive, Benefits and Values

• The yellow hat is optimistic and logical (positive judgements).
• The yellow hat is concerned with:
  1. The generation of proposals.
  2. The positive assessment of proposals.
  3. Developing or 'building up' of proposals.
• Under the yellow hat a thinker deliberatly sets out to find whatever benefit there may be in a suggestion.
• It is a waste of time setting out to be creative if you are not going to recognize a good idea.
• Value and benefit are by no means always obvious.
• Since the yellow hat is logical you should give a reason for the value you put forward.
• The emphasis of yellow hat thinking is on exploration and positive speculation, oppertunity seeking.
• Yellow hat thinking is concerned with the positive attitude of getting the job done, let's make it happen.

  Creative, New and Improved

• The green hat is creative, sometimes illogical.
• The green hat is concerned with new ideas and new ways of looking at things, new perceptions.
• Under the green hat we lay out options, alternatives and 'possibilities'.
• It corrects the faults found under the black hat and find noval ways the exploit the opportunities identified under the yellow hat.
• You use the green hat to deliberately go after new ideas instead of waiting for them to come to you.
• Sometimes you may be required to put forward provocations, illogical ideas, in order to provoke new concepts.
• Under the green hat we use ideas as stepping stones, for their movement value, moving us to new ideas.
• Use random words and Po.

  Overview and Guidance

• The blue hat is for meta-thinking, thinking about thinking.
• Wearing the blue hat we are no longer thinking about the subject; instead, we are thinking about the thinking needed to explore the subject.
• The blue hat thinker is like the conductor of an orchestra.
• Generally the blue hat is worn by the facilitator, chairperson or leader of the session, it's a permanent role.
• The blue hat is for the organization and management of thinking, it also controls the process of thinking.
• The initial blue hat defines the problem, list constraints and sets the agenda, the sequence of the other hats to be used.
• Blue hat thinking stops arguments, enforces the discipline and keep people focussed on map making.
• The final blue hat is responsible for summaries, overviews and conclusions.

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Lateral Thinking

Read Edward De Bono's Thinking Course: Powerful Tools To Transform Your Thinking and How to Have Creative Ideas: 62 Games to Develop the Mind.
What really works well for lateral thinking, lots of comedy. I would recommend George Carlin.

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Processes

Keep it simple.

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Ethics

I am an engineer, a solver of problems. I am currently not a member of the IEEE but I do try to follow their code of ethics.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. – Mohandas Gandhi

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The Past

The Living Years - Mike & The Mechanics

Every generation
Blames the one before
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door

I know that I'm a prisoner
To all my father held so dear
I know that I'm a hostage
To all his hopes and fears
I just wish I could have told him
In the living years

Crumpled bits of paper
Filled with imperfect thought
Stilted conversations
I'm afraid that's all we've got

You say you just don't see it
He says it's perfect sense
You just can't get agreement
In this present tense
We all talk a different language
Talking in defence

Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It's too late when we die
To admit we don't see eye to eye

So we open up a quarrel
Between the present and the past
We only sacrifice the future
It's the bitterness that lasts

So don't yield to the fortunes
You sometimes see as fate
It may have a new perspective
On a different day
And if you don't give up,
And don't give in
You may just be OK

Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It's too late when we die
To admit we don't see eye to eye

I wasn't there that morning
When my father passed away
I didn't get to tell him
All the things I had to say.
I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year
I'm sure I heard his echo
In my baby's new born tears
I just wish I could have told him
In the living years

Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It's too late when we die
To admit we don't see eye to eye
        

The Distant Past

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Belief Systems & Religions

Read Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion to find your way in the religion matrix.

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The Law

Division of the Ten Commandments by religion/denomination

Commandment	Jewish (Talmudic)	Anglican, Reformed, and other Christian	Orthodox	Roman Catholic, Lutheran
I am the Lord your God	1	preface	1	1
You shall have no other gods before me	2	1
You shall not make for yourself an idol		2	2
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God	3	3	3	2
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy	4	4	4	3
Honor your father and mother	5	5	5	4
You shall not kill	6	6	6	5
You shall not commit adultery	7	7	7	6
You shall not steal	8	8	8	7
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor	9	9	9	8
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife	10	10	10	9
You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor				10

Do we really need more laws than this? If 9/10ths of the law is about ownersship, I would like to set the records straight. My God created everything, he owns everything, you are just stewards of Earth. Not very good ones at that...

To all laywers: Learn to re-factor.

If you need a police-state to enforce your laws, there is something seriously wrong with your laws. – Anonymous

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The Pale Blue Dot

Learn Astronomy.






See this picture in high resolution.

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Imagination

Expand your imagination, consume copious amounts of science-fiction & fantacy.

Watch: Contact, StarTrek, Stargate, Star Wars, Hyperdrive, Dr Who, Torchwood, Babylon 5, BattleStar Galactica, Earth Final Conflict, The X-Files, The Outer Limits... It is in any country's best intrest to have a free-to-air sci-fi channel. Dumb fucking idiots, who don't.

Imagination is more important than knowledge... – Albert Einstein

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WAR

If something is not worth living for, it sure isn't worth dying for either.

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. – Mohandas Gandhi

Violence is the last resort of the incompetent. – Isaac Asimov

But do read Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Miyamoto Musashi's Book of 5 Rings.
It is better to know it and not need it, than to need it and not know it.

I can imagine a planet where everyone lives in peace and there are no weapons, and then I imagine the looks on their faces as we invade their puny planet. – Anonymous

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Failure

If at first you don't succeed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. – Samuel Beckett

Read Malcolm Gladwell's The Art of Failure.

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Fear

Face your fears...

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. – Yoda

People's two biggest fears are:

1. Public speaking
2. Death

They'd rather be in the casket than preform the eulogy at a funeral. That puts terrorism (suicide-bombers) into prespective, don't you think?

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Gun Control

People with great fear, rely on guns for protection. Smart people learn how to be lethal without weapons. They rely on their brains and can turn anything into a weapon.
Learn a martial art.

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Aikido

Learn Aikdo: The way of harmonious spirit.
Aikido you cannot learn from a book, you must find a good teacher.



Morihei Ueshiba's goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury. It is an art form that requires a lifetime to master, but truely worth the time. Since the kids of today only respect great skill, Aikido is the only perpetual way for the family to honor the 5th commandment. Aikido favors the elderly. It is also a great way to dicipline the young. ;)

The art of Aikido is based on 5 principles:

1. Distance (Ma-ai)
2. Timing
3. Correctness of Technique
4. Center
5. Zanshin

Ukemi, the art of being one with the mat, is very useful to prevent general sports injuries. I recommend that every school replace Physical Training with Aikido.


Read John Stevens' The Essence of Aikido: Spiritual Techings of Morihei Ueshiba.
Read Adele Westbrook and Oscar Ratti's Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere.

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Money

Q: What is money?
A: Paper and metal, matter... Found in abundance in the earth's crust.

Q: What controls the value of money, supply and demand?
A: No, sentiment. Money is worth what people feel it is worth.

Q: What does money buy?
A: Your time. A very scares resource.




If you do want to make lots of money, don't know why you would want to, read Georges Clason's The Richest Man in Babylon (audio).

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Taxes

See taxes for what they are, your contribution to the smooth running of a technological society.
It should however not be collected as money, but rather a percentage of your time, what it really is.



The very poor and the very rich, comes off cheaply. They contribute rather little of their time, but still reap the rewards. What is up with that?

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Work

Take a job not for what you can earn but rather what you can learn. – Robert Kiyosaki; Rich Dad Poor Dad

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Why?

As soon as you learn to speak, the first question kids generally ask is "why?". Never stop asking "why?" and if you run into walls, ask "why not?".

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not? – George Bernard Shaw

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Education

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. – Mark Twain

Learn how to learn by reading Barbara Oakley's A Mind for Numbers, or take the free online course Learning How to Learn.



The student must find his/her teacher, not the other way round.
The teacher have no obligation to teach.

Free Education

Q: What happend here on Robben island?
A: Free education.
Q: Why was this lesson lost?

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Play Games

Play as many different games as you posiblly can. For a good challenge I would recommend Chess, Go and Diplomacy.

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The Lost of Objectivity

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Cause, Effect & Side-effects

This parable is false according to snopes.com but still valid to illustrate the point of cause, effect and side-effects.

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Complexity & Simplicity

Complexity is pretty, but it obscures the truth.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. – Albert Einstein

If you don't heed this warning, cause & effect will get you in the end.

Read Edward de Bono's Simplicity.

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The Great Conflict

There is a battle, lets call it a game, for control of this world. How long exatly is has been going on for I don't really know. There are three main groups, the Mathematicians, Scientists and Engineers. All other groups are mere pawns in their game.

An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence.

The engineer is first. He makes a square fence around the sheep, declaring it to be the simplest to build.

The physicist is next, and he creates a circular fence around the sheep, arguing that it offers the greatest area for the smallest amount of fence.

The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he builds a fence around himself and defines himself to be on the outside.

It looks like the mathematicians won the previous round, but hopefully this book will proof that the engineers are currently in the lead. ;p

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Mathematics

It is very important to also learn the history of mathematics. Interesting things to read about: Pythagoras, the father of numbers, (6th century B.C.) the Pythagoreans and their pentagram symbols.

The Dodecahedron has 12 sides. To the ancient Greeks, the Dodecahedron was a symbol of the universe. The Dodecahedron, was in fact kept a closely guarded secret in the Greek school of Pythagoras; he feared that this pattern could cause tremendous destruction if misused. It also symbolizes one of the 5 elements, ether.

Arithmetic

The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. – Professor Emeritus Al Bartlett

Geometry

Learn Geometry, if you don't the people that do will rule you.

Propability Theory, Chance

Chance favors only the prepared mind. – Louis Pasteur

It is remarkable that a science which began with the consideration of games of chance should have become the most important object of human knowledge. – Pierre-Simon Laplace

Probability theory is nothing but common sense reduced to calculation. – Pierre-Simon Laplace

Visualize Multiple Dimensions

A mathematician and his best friend, an engineer, attend a public lecture on geometry in thirteen-dimensional space. "How did you like it?" the mathematician wants to know after the talk.

"My head's spinning", the engineer confesses. "How can you develop any intuition for thirteen-dimensional space?"

"Well, it's not even difficult. All I do is visualize the situation in arbitrary N-dimensional space and then set N = 13."

Read Brian Clegg's A Brief History of Infinity: The Quest to Think the Unthinkable.
Read Arthur Benjamin and Michael Shermer's Think like a Maths Genius: The Art of Calculating in your Head.

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Physics

Learn Physics from Professor Walter Lewin or Physics Girl.

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Play with fire, but do it safely

Faraday's Candle

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Engineering

The Engineer's Lament:

Time, Quality, Cost – Pick two.

We live in a cynical world. A cynical world. And we work in a business of tough competitors and mutually exclusive requirements...

The only thing most engineers really care about, is doing a quality job.

Quality Control vs. Quality Assurance

Know the diffrence.

Planned Obsolescence

Any engineer who commits planned obsolescence has no ethics. If I find you, I am going to hit you with a spoon...

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Human Stupidity

Read Carlo Maria Cipolla's The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.

1. Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
2. The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. – A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. – Hanlon's razor

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. – Albert Einstein

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Politics

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. – Plato

Demoracy – A popularity contest.
Meritocracy – A system of government wherein appointments are made and responsibilities assigned to individuals based upon demonstrated talent and ability (merit).

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Wants & Needs

My definition of needs differ from that of Maslow. Only the physiological stuff, except sex, are needs. The rest are all wants. The hormonal urge to have sex might be strong, thus a very strong want but not a need. If it was truely a need, I could use it as an argument for a rape defense.

I would replace sex with love as a need. Some loved dogs, man's best friend, mourn themselves to death without their owner's love.

Wants

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Value & Worth

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Marginal Improvements

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Love & Limerence

After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true. – Spock; Amok Time

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Sex

A physicist, a mathematician and an engineer discuss what is better: a wife or a girlfriend.
The physicist: "A girlfriend. You still have freedom to experiment."
The mathematician: "A wife. You have security."
The engineer: "Both. When I'm not with my wife, she thinks I'm with my girlfriend. With my girlfriend it's vice versa. And I can be with my computer without anyone disturbing me..."

Read Sir Richard Burton et al.'s The Illustrated Kama Sutra * Ananga-Ranga * Perfumed Garden.
Read Ian Kerner's She Comes First.

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Energy

1. Energy is the ability to do Work.
2. Energy is the prime commodity.
3. All energy comes from stars, solar fusion reactors, for free.

Kiehl & Trenberth, 1997: Earth's Annual Global Mean Energy Budget
One kilojoule is about the amount of solar radiation received by one square metre of the Earth in one second.
The first free energy device patent awarded to Nikola Tesla. Remember remember, the 5th of November... ;)

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Problems

I am an engineer, a solver of problems.

People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown. – Chuck Palahniuk

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AIDS & STDs

To solve the AIDS problem is simple, only 5 words: Stop Fucking Promiscuously Without Protection.

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Obesity

You are what you read, eat, think and do.
Read Tom Venuto's Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle.

Fasting

Consult a doctor before embarking on a fasting routine...


Upton Sinclair's The Fasting Cure is old but the examples are still valid.

Starving and fasting is two differend things...



Meet Angus Barbieri, he fasted for more than a year (382 days) just living of vitamins & minerals, coffee, tea, water and soda-water.


Before and after.

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Smoking

Just listen to Alan Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking.

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Heart Disease

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How to fall asleep in 2 minutes

1. Relax the muscles in your face, including tongue, jaw and the muscles around the eyes.
2. Drop your shoulders as far down as they’ll go, followed by your upper and lower arm, one side at a time.
3. Breathe out, relaxing your chest followed by your legs, starting from the thighs and working down.
4. You should then spend 10 seconds trying to clear your mind before thinking about one of the three following images:
   • You’re lying in a canoe on a calm lake with nothing but a clear blue sky above you.
   • You’re lying in a black velvet hammock in a pitch-black room.
   • You say “don’t think, don’t think, don’t think” to yourself over and over for about 10 seconds.

The technique is said to work for 96 per cent of people after six weeks of practice.

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Light Pollution

2009 was the year of Astronomy, I couldn't even see the Milky Way.


Are all of you still afraid of the dark? Switch off the fucking lights and lets appreciate God's work of art.

I propose we install manual or passive infrared switches in all street lights, that way people don't need to die to see the night sky.

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SPAM

Read RFC-1855.
Publically shame anyone who don't follow the guidelines.

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Cleaning Products

All these stuff end up in the rivers and the oceans. Rather considder using ultra-violet light, steam and ozone.

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Traffic Jams

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Regrets

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Death

Top 5 regrets of the dying:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Don't live with regrets!

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Computers

Operating Systems

Learn an UNIX/Linux, I reccommend Ubuntu.

UNIX is simple. It just takes a genius to understand its simplicity. – Dennis Ritchie

Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. – Henry Spencer

Algorithms

Learn Bubble-sort, it is the best way to evaluate multiple companies' products.

Languages

Learn various computer languages. If you can not instruct a computer to solve your math problems, then you are not computer literate. ;p
I suggest Python, get it here.

A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. – Alan Perlis

>>> import this
The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

Touch Typing

Learn to Touch Type, typing at the speed of though. Here is why?
keybr.com and GNU Typist.

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Innocence

Are your young childern still innocent? What do they see? Dolphins.

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Vision vs. Sight

I'll believe it when I see it...

You don't see with your eyes, you see with your brain and it can be fooled.


There are no gray/black dots, its all in your mind.


If you don't believe me, use a color-picker in your favorite (Fnord, GNU) image manipulation program.


These two images are exactly the same, the right one leans at the same angle as the left one.

Test you eye sight.
Counter the effects of presbyopia.

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Doctor, Doctor!! Doctor Who?

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Population Control

If you can't have kids, adopt. If adoption is good enough for Angelina Jolie and Madonna it is good enough for you.

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Environment

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Animals

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Talent

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General Wisdom

The Four Agreements, an ancient Toltec wisdom.

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
2. Don't Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.
3. Don't Make Assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life. (Assumptions is the mother of all fuckups.)
4. Always Do Your Best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

Ladies and gentleman of the class of '97.

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.
The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists,
whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own
meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not
understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded.
But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and
recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you
and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed
your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle
Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people
who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes
you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in
doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life.
The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to
do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know
still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when
they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe
you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky
chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't
congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices
are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of
what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever
own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the
people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should
hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because
the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were
young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in
Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will
philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that
when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and
children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund.
Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one
might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past
from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and
recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

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Future

Despite all claims to the contrary, noone can predict the future and I have always resisted all attempts to label me a prophet: I prefer EXTRAPOLATOR. – Arthur C. Clarke

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Next, proceed to: The 2 Book of Louis