You can control Pandora from your keyboard:
play/pause: spacebar
next song: right arrow
like this song: plus
don't like this song: minus
louder: up arrow
softer: down arrow
max volume: shift up arrow
mute: shift down arrow

Pandora.com lets you make your own internet radio station: You type in the name of your favorite band or song, and Pandora plays similar music. I created stations playing jazz fusion ("Yellowjackets"), dance music (“Armin Van Buuren”), and Christmas music ("Rudolf"). (When you sign up for Pandora, it will ask for your zip code. If you don't live in the United States, just type 12345.)

Pandora.com
Older story about Pandora.com

This $17,000 PC has no keyboard and no mouse. Instead it clicks where your eyes are pointing! Great for avoiding RSI or just kicking back.

details

Clip these turn signals onto your ears, and press buttons on the attached belt clip to indicate you're passing on the left. Also nice for cyclists on sidewalks!

details

If you've found this blog useful, please tell all your friends about it. Your friends will appreciate it, and you can start sharing all sorts of interesting stories!

The address is chris.antiblog.com

• plays (specially-encoded, short) videos
• FM radio
• records via built-in mic, for lectures, interviews, and voice memos
• records via line-in plug, from CD player
• five-band EQ
• install music and video by simply dragging files from your PC
• 20 hours of music, 8 hours of video: Enough battery for a long plane flight
• available Black, Silver, Blue, Pink, Orange

details

details

Happiness comes from the left, logical side of the brain. Anger comes from the right, emotional, illogical side of the brain.

Anger, like all emotion, is neccessarily illogical: When you're about to be attacked, there's no time to stop and think! If cavement stopped to weigh the pros and cons of their flight-or-fight decision, they were killed, and didn't pass on their afraid-yet-thoughtful genes.

details

details

Every day you learn how to feel. Listen to people complain, and you'll start to do the same. Talk to someone who is depressed, and you'll feel depressed. But talk to someone who is happy and you too will feel good.

Don't you know someone who can light up the room with their smile? Or someone who can kill the mood without saying a word?

Imitating others is something you can't control. The social contagion thesis posits that attitudes, beliefs, moods and behaviour spread among people like infectious diseases - not by rational choice.

You'll be happier when you hang out with happy people and avoid pessimists.

details

Slides:

• Start with your main point, then add details, repeating the main point after each detail. (So your audience can space out, or come in late, and still follow your talk. And you won't panic if you run out of time.)
• Plan to talk for one or two minutes during each slide.
• Write a clear title on every slide, in a large sans-serif font.
• Use simple pictures instead of text.
• Avoid bullet lists, logos, dates, background images, repeated references to your name, your organization, the conference name, etc.

Speaking:

• Look at your audience or your screen - not your laptop.
• Emphasize your main point: Say "This is my main point", or change your voice, speaking very slowly, or leave a long pause after your main point.
• Feel free to pause to collect your thoughts. Don't rush. The audience is reading your slide. Don't say Ummmmm!

details

Enlarge

Then pack everything but your clothes in a big plastic bag (30x40cm, 11x16"). Place this "core" bag on top of your clothes. Then, starting from the top, wrap each item firmly around the bag. (Firm wrapping pulls out any wrinkles. Don't fold: Folding causes wrinkles.) Finally tie your bundle firmly in your suitcase. (Don't let your clothes move around: Moving causes wrinkles.)

At your hotel, hang your clothes in the bathroom. The steam from your shower will remove most wrinkles.

Pack dark clothes that dry quickly and either don't wrinkle or look good wrinkled.

Pick one or two colors. Dark clothes look less wrinkled.

Try synthetic fabrics:

• Nylon dries in minutes and weighs little.
• Seersucker looks good wrinkled.
• Coolmax dries quickly, won't wrinkle, and is cooler in summer and warmer in winter than cotton.

Test your clothes by hand-washing them at home. See how wrinkled they get, and how quickly they dry.

Most of your luggage is clothing. The secret to packing light is taking just a few clothes, and spending 10 minutes each night washing them.

Wash and rinse your clothes in the sink or shower of your hotel. Pack a flat rubber jar opener or rolled sock to stop the drain. Pack a single small soap for your face, hair, body, shaving, and clothes washing. Wear your socks like mittens and scrub everything. Then roll your wet clothes in a towel, and twist the towel tightly to squeeze out most of the water. Finally hang up your clothes.

In the morning, if you're leaving the hotel and your clothes are still wet, just wear them. Damp clothes feel great in the summer, and your body will quickly dry them.

A few airlines say your bag must weigh less than 6kg (15 pounds), but I've never seen airlines weigh carry-on bags. Still, you will be carrying that bag though the airport and to your hotel, so make it light!

The point is not to see how much you can sneak onto the airplane. The point is to see how light you can be.

It's great to travel with only a small bag. Because you won't check luggage, you can get through the airport faster on both departure and arrival. Without a big suitcase, it'll be much easier to walk between your airports and taxis and hotels.

And you don't have to worry about your bags getting lost. (Over the twenty years I've been traveling, my bags were lost twice. Once it took only a few days to get them back, but once I had to wait a month!) About 1% of checked airplane bags get lost, damaged, or stolen. A small bag sets you free to travel without worries!

Over this next week, I'll tell you how and why to pack small.

details

This Time Boxing has many advantages:

• Time Boxing encourages you to frequently think about what's important.
• Time Boxing prevents you from thoughtlessly spending all day on one task. Instead of being a perfectionist, endlessly tweaking, never finishing, you can decide if your job is good enough after just 30 minutes. (If not, you could later decide to spend another 30 minutes. Time Boxing is not about working faster per se, but about giving you frequent chances to decide.)
• Time Boxing breaks large or unpleasant tasks into small unthreatening chunks, reducing procrastination.
• Time Boxing lets you get things done during little breaks between appointments, breaks you might otherwize waste in chit chat, email, or daydreaming.

Time Boxing

-- Margaret Halsey (via Frank Sapp)

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy,

it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!