dots and loops

The Brain Science Podcast had an interesting episode devoted to the subject of free will and I think it helped clarify for me some of the concepts. The variant of free will in question is a traditional and spiritually informed one, whereby our actions originate in some unassailable kernel of the self. Some people consider the workings of the frontal lobes to be free will, but that is a weaker notion.

The podcast helped me to conceptualize the issue in terms of causation. I’ll outline two different stances, one spiritual and the other materialistic. I won’t pretend to get either right. It’s interesting to note up front that historically there have been theological stances which do not believe in free will, Calvinism being one example. I think the issue partly being the difficulty in reconciling individual free will with the idea of God’s omnipotence. continue reading

This morning on the way to work I listened to a Planet Money podcast about ex-drug dealer Freeway Rick Ross. The planet money team wanted to get his responses and opinions regarding the economics of drug dealing, to test how well they match up with economists predictions. All of this was very interesting, of course, but while listening to Freeway Rick describe the life and times of a L.A. crack dealer I suddenly realized that for Rick, dealing drugs put him in the highly desirable state called flow by positive psychologists. Rick, who spent a while in jail and is now out on parole, says there is nothing else he would rather do than be a drug dealer, and while I can’t help thinking this betrays a shortcoming of imagination, it is hardly surprising considering how much flow he achieved in his former job, where he was essentially CEO of a thriving business.

Anyway, I haven’t read much about flow but I imagine it’s an idea that is not typically called upon to illuminate the motivations and psychology of those striving for goals that don’t match up with societies.

• Lifehacker Best Of 2008 Roundup
• Howto: Add Items to the Right-Click Menu in Nautilus | Techthrob.com
  GUI app to customize the nautilus right click menu. An essentially feature of any descent file manager.
• Best Of 2008: Most Popular Free Windows Downloads of 2008
  An impressive list of some damn fine looking software. Could Launchy actually have some competition?

For years now I’ve been using and managing my Linux server over a SSH connection. Indeed, this entire website was coded up using vim over SSH. In the beginning Unix machines were primarily accessed via teletypewriter (tty’s) and CRT terminals connected through a serial connection, and this tradition lives on in the plethora of terminal/console applications for *nix systems (unlike Windows systems, which are virtually impossible to administer from a console alone). So, I’ve been managing my Debian and Ubuntu systems for years now without ever firing up an X server, happily reading my mail with the proud but austere mutt, seeking tech advice on freenode using the ever clever irssi, haunting the occasional programming news group via the enigmatic but flexible slrn, and more recently downloading *nix ISO’s over bittorrent with rTorrent. All managed with the indispensable terminal multiplexer screen, which is essentially a window manager for terminals, with the added goodness of letting you disconnect and reconnect to sessions. continue reading

• Compiz – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  A crazy 3D window manager for *nix systems. You can use this in place of metacity on a gnome desktop.
• Alan Doyle » Setup FreeNX under Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)
  This thing is so fast I’m speechless. After fiddling with XRDP and VNC, I’ve decided this is the definitive remote desktop solution for Linux. And it all happens over ssh automagically (no tunneling required, like with VNC).
• rss2email
  A handy tool for delivering RSS feeds to your email account.

This is apparently one of the best console (ncurses) bittorrent clients for *nix systems. I’ve been meaning to switch over to a *nix/console bittorrent client for a while now, so I don’t have to leave my Windows machine running all night when downloading torrents. uTorrent is such a sophisticated and easy to use client that I’ve been reluctant to change, but I think with this client I will finally make the switch.

Now, if only it was possible to detach and reattach XDMCP sessions (like you can RDP sessions), then maybe I’d go with a graphical client. Something clumsily approximating remote desktop’s “resummability” can be accomplished in VNC, but I’m just not convinced.

• RTorrentUserGuide – The libTorrent and rTorrent Project – Trac
  The indispensable rTorrent user guide.
• polishlinux.org » rTorrent console P2P!
  Here are a couple of nice screen shots explaining rTorrent’s window.
• Howto: Use rtorrent like a pro « Motho ke motho ka botho
• wTorrent – Trac
  You can even use it with a web front end.

• AppleInsider | Apple ordered to end exclusive iPhone deal with France’s Orange
  I wish something similar would happen in the States. If I could use the iPhone with Verizon I’d almost definitely get one.
• Bash Shell PS1: 10 Examples to Make Your Linux Prompt like Angelina Jolie
• Huffduffer
  Delicious for audio files.
• Lastpod
  An audioscrobbler (last.fm) client that works nice with the iPod. Very useful for those not using iTunes.