#60 How to Avoid Getting Sued Because of Your Blog -- A legal guide for bloggers.
#61 Firefox Hack -- Firefox allows you the ability to drag a URL from your bookmarks into a browser-based text area (i.e., a blog post, BBS forum, email message). You can also make a temporary folder in your bookmark toolbar to save all your links for latter 'dragging.' This can be extremely useful when you have numerous URLs to add to a blog post. (HT: Lifehacker)
#62 Writer's Toolkit -- "Unlike hammers, chisels, and rakes, writing tools never have to be returned," says Roy Peter Clark, a Senior Scholar at the Poynter Institute, "They can be cleaned, sharpened, and passed on." Clark passes on an excellent list of Fifty Writing Tools, including such useful tips as #8: Seek Original Images, #23: Place Gold Coins Along the Path, and #30: Write Endings to Lock the Box. (HT: Lifehack)
#63 Hipster Hack -- Douglas Johnston (a million monkeys typing) has released the D*I*Y Planner 2 Hipster PDA Edition which has over 30 organizational and planning templates to print out on index cards. The perfect planner for your Hipster PDA (see: YSR #3) (HT: Lifehack)
#64 A Mini-Lesson in Critical Thinking - Part 7: The Fallacy of Suppressed Evidence
#65 Household Hack -- If you need to light multiple candles but don’t have extra-long matches on hand, try using a piece of spaghetti instead. (HT: Real Simple)
#66 Faking It -- How to fake an appreciation for art.
#67 Google Hack -- To search within a certain set of numbers (i.e., a price range) use two dots (..). For example, to search for DVD players between $200 and $300 dollars use the search: DVD player $200..300
#68 The De Finetti Game -- The De Finetti Game is a method to gauge someone’s confidence in the chances of a given event occurring by measuring it against a lottery with a known probability. Say for example a friend claims he is 95% sure he aced a test. Is he really that confident? Offer him a hypothetical choice. He can either get the result of the test, and if he aced it, he wins one million dollars, or he can pick a ball out of bag. There are 90 red balls and 10 blue in the bag, and if he picks a red ball then he wins the million. Now if he doesn’t choose his test score then he is at most 90% confident.
Now tell him that there are now 70 red balls in the bag and 30 black ones. If he answers that he would rather wait on the results of the test rather than draw, then he is between 70-90% sure of the outcome. You can keep adjusting the ratio of red to blue balls until he chooses the test score to find out how confident he really is. (Source: Amir D. Aczel’s Chance; HT: Poker Words)
#69 Dowload of the Week -- Want to create PDF documents but can’t afford Adobe Acrobat? Try CutePDF Writer, a free version of commercial PDF creation software.
See also: The Yak Shaving Razor Archives
Have a useful recommendation for making life more pleasant? Send them to me at jpcarter[at]evangelicaloutpost.com.
1
A couple more google hacks:
If you want to use Google Print from the regular Google search box, just begin your search with the word "books". So if you wanted to do a google print search on Abraham Kuyper, just type "books Abraham Kuyper."
Also, if you want to find movie show times in your area just type the name of the movie followed by your zip code.
Maybe everybody already knows these, but I like them.
posted on 06.15.2005 2:37 AM2
If you need to light multiple candles . . . try using a piece of spaghetti
Dude, are you sure about this?
It sounds like one of those 60s myths about how to get high on improbable substances ("You have to freeze the oregano before you snort it!").
[Hint: If you have something to light the spaghetti with, just light one of the candles instead and use that candle to light the others. Save the spaghetti for getting high on later.]
posted on 06.15.2005 9:18 AM3
Dude, are you sure about this?
I can't vouch for it myself (I couldn't find any spaghetti in my pantry) but it's in Martha Stewart's magazine. If Martha says you can start a blaze with pasta, who am I to disagree?
...just light one of the candles instead and use that candle to light the others.
I think the tip is mainly useful for those deep votive (i.e., girly) candles that are hard to reach.
posted on 06.15.2005 9:24 AM4
I think the tip is mainly useful for those deep votive (i.e., girly) candles that are hard to reach.
I only use the tall, verticial (i.e., manly) candles - and then only in power outages.
posted on 06.15.2005 9:33 AM5
About the expense of Adobe Acrobat:
I used to work out in Silicon Valley and knew Adobe people. I used to always tell them that they would make a fortune if they did something about the price of Acrobat. Even worse, this was when they were trying to evangelize the PDF format and were thinking of ways to do it.
I kept on pointing out that Acrobat was a $250 product that was steep for the average home user to buy. Why not do a stripped-down version for $49-$79 aimed at home users? It could allow them to create PDFs and do some minor editing of them and that would be it. Adobe could get the product penetration they were desiring and could help home users out. It was win-win.
I must've talked to a dozen higher-ups at Adobe over the almost four years we lived in the Valley, and several of them were on the Acrobat project, but none ever took that advice. Really dumb.
posted on 06.15.2005 9:53 AM6
Real Simple is the main competitor of Martha Stewart's Living. Their circulation overtook Martha's mag when she was in the clink. It's HEAVILY targeted towards women, but there's a bunch of cool stuff in there, so I just skip over the "best skirts" articles. I say if it's good enough for James Lileks to mention in a Bleat, then it's good enough for me.
posted on 06.15.2005 12:41 PM7
Have you checked out microsoft's "Office Document Image Writer"? With one of my recent xp upgrades, or office upgrades, it now sits as one of my printers.
When you print to it, it creates a PDF-like file that are read in a microsoft reader. All free, and works on most XP machines, I would guess.
posted on 06.15.2005 1:25 PM8
Ah, the fallacy of suppressed evidence: like when they edited the videos of "Terri" leaving out the times when her eyes didn't "follow" a balloon.
Well today we know: "Terri" was blind, and wasn't abused. And wasn't at all capable of recovery, conciousness or anything else.
A big apology is due Michael Schiavo.
posted on 06.15.2005 1:27 PM9
Joe,
Thanks for the "Writer's Toolkit" link. Probably the most helpful thing I've ever come across while blogging.
posted on 06.16.2005 4:20 PM10
Joe, I have enjoyed reading your Yak Shaving series so much I have linked to it with a post on my site. http://tbirdofparadise.blogspot.com/2005/06/evangelical-outpost-has-hints-tips-to.html
Unfortunately, I have been unable to run a trackback to your site. This email will have to suffice! Thanks. By the way, if the "farmer and the cowboy" can be friends, so can this PCUSAer extend an Aloha to a friend who just happens to be a PCAer!