#120 Hotel Hack -- Using Google Maps and Priceline.com, BetterBidding has created maps of several cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle) that allow you to search for a hotel, read a review, and find the recently accepted Priceline bids. Useful way to find the lowest price on hotels in unfamiliar cities.
#121 Browser Hack -- To enlarge or reduce text in Firefox or Internet Explorer, hold down the Control key and roll your mouse scrollwheel up or down. (In Firefox, Hit Control-0 to get back to the original text size.) (HT: Lifehacker)
#122 Blogger Hack -- Blogger Templates has a tip on how to remove the navigation bar from the top of your blogspot hosted blog. (The comments section of that post offer alternative methods.)
#123 Know Your Fallacies -- Argumentum ad hominem - The person presenting an argument is attacked instead of the argument itself. This takes many forms. For example, the person's character, nationality or religion may be attacked. Alternatively, it may be pointed out that a person stands to gain from a favourable outcome. Or, finally, a person may be attacked by association, or by the company he keeps.
There are three major forms of Attacking the Person: (1) ad hominem (abusive): instead of attacking an assertion, the argument attacks the person who made the assertion. (2) ad hominem (circumstantial): instead of attacking an assertion the author points to the relationship between the person making the assertion and the person's circumstances. (3) ad hominem (tu quoque): this form of attack on the person notes that a person does not practise what he preaches.
#124 -- RSS Hack -- RSSxl is a free service which will create an RSS feed for any site based on the criteria you provide. All you need is the site's URL and some starting and ending strings that you can glean from the page’s source code. Handy for creating an RSS feed for non-blog sites. (HT: TipMonkies)
#125 HowTo -- Make a children's book. (HT: Lifehacker)
#126 Creativity Techniques -- Use analogous thinking to produce creative results:
1. Identify what it is you want ideas for, and try to find a core verb phrase that captures the essential functional nature of what you are looking for - e.g.: 'How to make X'. 'How to prevent Y', 'How to speed up Z', 'How to become better at A'.
2. For each verb phrase generate a list of items (people, situations, objects, processes, actions, places, etc.) that is 'like' it in some way - e.g. analogies to 'making X' (having a baby, making a pudding, the Genesis creation story, a robot car factory, ...etc.).
3. Pick one of these analogies that seems interesting - preferably where the verb phrase and analogy are from different domains - e.g. a biological analogy for a mechanical problem.
4. Describe the analogue, including active aspects (such as how it works, what it does, what effects it has, how it is used) as well as passive aspects (size, position, etc.).
5. Use this description to suggest ideas relevant to your problem. Does the analogue have features you can use directly? Do the differences suggest other ways of looking at your problem?
(HT: Crinnology)
#127 SoYouWanna -- Write a Children's Book
#128 Math Hack -- To multiply by 9:
(1) Spread your two hands out and place them on a desk or table in front of you.
(2) To multiply by 9 by 3, fold down the 3rd finger from the left. To multiply by 4, it would be the 4th finger and so on.
(3) The answer (i.e., 9 x3 = 27) is read by counting the fingers on the left hand (the two fingers on the left of the folded down finger) and then the ones on the right (the 7 fingers on the right of the folded down finger).
This works for anything up to 9x10. (HT: Fantastic Math Tricks)
#129 Writer's Toolkit -- #5: Observe Word Territory
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.