Language: English

Postponing the buying decisions for technology items

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Let’s say you want to buy a monitor. If you have any option of buying that item later, postpone the decision. For example, if you know you will use the monitor only rarely, and you don’t need too perfect graphics, you could buy a second-hand big monitor. In one or two years, you could sell that monitor, and get some of your money back, and within those years, some new technologies will likely appear. Or, let’s say you only bought Microsoft keyboards, and you had only problems with them, and you want to try some new stuff. It’s better to buy a second hand Logitech keyboard, see how it goes, and, when you’re happy with the decision, you’ll take a much more informed decision. Or, let’s say you have the option of buying a cheaper smartphone. You should jump to the occasion of testing the water, buy that smartphone and see how it fits your needs. Of course, there are counter-arguments. All the examples above are of poorer quality and some of them might break more easily, leaving you without the warranty. Buying second-hand implies some risks. Yes, you will get a better monitor and smartphone two years from now, but what will you do during those years? Will you be as happy with the second-hand item as you would have been with the new item? Anyhow, if you can postpone a technology item for some years, it’s likely you’ll be able to get a better deal in future years. It’s just that the wait …

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“I want to start something online, but I lack an innovative business idea”. Well, actually, the innovative idea is *nothing*, you can be innovative with an *old* idea

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I hear this quite a lot. People looking for the perfect idea, for the perfect circumstances and the perfect wind. And not only the perfect circumstances don’t come, but people tend also to have difficulties in coming up with «good» ideas.

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Dumb and Dumber To (2014) – very nice movie!

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I liked this movie a lot: Dumb and Dumber To (2014) – IMDb. Some thoughts? It’s funny (pun intended) to see the consequences of joking. You don’t see this at first, but it’s nice. Humor has lots to do with either surprise or creativity (getting an idea). The first D&D was more on surprise, this one was more on getting some creative insights. A welcome change. It played well on “how should you see the new D&D, based on the fact that you already saw the previous version” (for example, what happened during the time between the movies, or what happened to the car?”. The smart people tend to have less courage. The stupid ones called, interacted, were friendly. At times, the characters said some pretty smart things. I really loved the pain the characters went through to have a bit of laugh. The effort to enjoy themselves, the pain they put for this. They didn’t play by the rules, they were creative. In the movie, they had not too much courage, but they were good people. They were reckless and cute in the same time. All-in-all, it was not extremely smart, but it was a pleasant watch. Good prevails. Their good intentions were better than their lack of capacities and abilities in solving things. I recently saw Beauty and the Beast (1991) – IMDb and Beauty and the Beast (2014) – IMDb, but I got much better insights & ideas from D&D to. Very fun to watch. :)

How to be better against Chessmaster software

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If you play at Chessmaster‘s highest level, it is likely you will never win a game. But, Chessmaster has a mode allowing you to pick the level of your opponents. So, let’s say you play against someone with 1200 level. The trick to win the game is the following: At the beginning, there are lots of pieces on the table. The computer needs a long time to start calculating possibilities, because each piece has lots of options to move. So, the trick is to gather some good advantage material at the beginning (a rook, two minor pieces). Then, force him to make exchanges, queen for queen, rook for rook. You’ll end up in the endgame with big advantage and, even if the computer can calculate much better now, with fewer pieces on the table, he won’t be able to beat you. The alternative – avoiding confrontation at the beginning and just exchanging the pieces can get you in the endgame with relative equilibrium and it won’t be long until Chessmaster will be able to play on your mistakes and beat you with ease.

“Simple” websites are better web sites

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This idea is a very basic one and with big repercussions – “make your site simple, this is, generally, the better strategy”. “In a study by Google in August of 2012, researchers found that not only will users judge websites as beautiful or not within 1/50th – 1/20th of a second, but also that “visually complex” websites are consistently rated as less beautiful than their simpler counterparts. Moreover, “highly prototypical” sites – those with layouts commonly associated with sites of it’s category – with simple visual design were rated as the most beautiful across the board. In other words, the study found the simpler the design, the better.” (source and more details: Why “Simple” Websites Are Scientifically Better)

The most powerful self-assertion to tell yourself whenever you want to break a habit (to give up a bad addiction)

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Sometimes, I want to break a bad habit. So, there’s some “poem” that goes inside my head, there’s a “story” I like to tell myself.

I heard a lot of times that assertions like these work very well to break a bad habit:

  • “I’m better than this. I can overcome this. I have the power in me. I am the master of my behavior.”
  • “Think of the future! The advantages of giving up this habit are so big! Look at me, two months from now, one year from now, five years from now. I’ll be [habit ABC]-free!”
  • “What would the future me say of my bad habit of today?”
  • “When I was little, did I imagine myself doing this?”
  • “What stops me from achieving my goal, of being [habit ABC]-free?”
  • “habit ABC is evil”.
  • “Don’t postpone giving up the habit! Give up [habit ABC] now!”
  • “What would others say of my habit?”

For my experience, I found a much more powerful assertion. A single one, simple & easy:

  • “I don’t even enjoy this!”

It’s very negative, and it manages to cut any enthusiasm I have in having a bad habit. For example, eating some tasty junk food. If I say to myself “I don’t even like this cookie”, I come to realize that, actually, I don’t even like it. Just by using the assertion forces me to come up with some additional questions (“Do I like this? Is it good for me? Should I buy the cookie?”), and, generally, it’s much easier to break a habit with this question.

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Facebook: WordPress code to display the number of comments / shares / likes for the current blog post for administrators only

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Hi,

Let’s say you have a Facebook page and you want to know how many likes / shares / comments does the current blog post has. I made a script, based on this article, which allows you so see how many likes / shares / comments a blog post has.

It will give you an information like this:

sharesvslikes

How to do it? 

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