Posted by Chief on Jan 19, 2010 in
Synopses After reading half of the book, I feel as though I have a good idea about where it’s headed, if anywhere at all. It feels scammy. Why? So many scammy self-help authors out there asserts Napoleon Hill’s advice as their own. It feels dirty, tainted, simpleton, and yet, there’s truth in there.
I have no desire to see this book through to its end. Having skimmed the table of contents, and having read the first few chapters, I feel fairly confident that I can imagine the advice to come in the remaining chapters.
Sometimes, it’s not the advice, but the story, that makes a book worth reading. I do fear that not seeing this book through, I’ll miss out on a little nugget that might actually be more valuable than the hour or so that I’ve spared myself by not reading this book to the very end.
It is for that reason that I’ve decided to not issue chapter-by-chapter updates from here on out. The time spent writing is wasteful, not to mention painful. It’s bad enough that I have yet to endure another hour of this trivial little book.
I may write a final summary, but don’t hold your breath. I’ve written enough.
Tags: give up, Napoleon Hill, scammy, Think and Grow Rich, trivial, waste
Posted by Chief on Jan 19, 2010 in
Lessons I’ve discovered that icons given headings in Google Earth KML stopped orienting in the specified heading direction. The result is that when a user rotates the Earth so that true North is not directly “up” on the screen, the angle of the icon is misleading. For wind barbs, this could lead to dangerous decisions being made if the viewport isn’t manually corrected to set up = true north.
There are several known branches of this problem.
One involves the Google Earth browser plug-in:
Apparently, this incorrect handling is the end result of a bug fix to “correct” icon heading behavior.
Google Earth Plug-in – 5.1.3506.3999
(Issue 131) Icon headings should now behave as expected, and consistent with the Google Earth desktop client.
http://www.noeman.org/gsm/mac-other-oses-softwares/106515-google-earth-google-earth-plug.html
More on this bug (affecting version 5.1.x): http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/earth/thread?tid=005bea9c26949e40&hl=en
Work-arounds: GroundOverlay and use a Colada model, both ugly.
Another instance of the icon heading bug:
There is another situation in which the heading of the icon is not obeyed. This occurs when an invalid styleUrl is used in the KML. One recommendation is to remove the “#” character. ex: <styleUrl>#balloonStyle</styleUrl> is no longer correct as of version 5x. I have not confirmed this, but I’ve heard that this is correctly implemented as <styleUrl>balloonStyle</styleUrl>. What happend? This isn’t very backwards-compatible nor user-friendly. Why the change? HTML hashes are logically sound, as they refer to a locally named entity, such as those specified by a style id.
What worked for me was to completely remove the styleUrl when providing a local Style. See below.
Broken:
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| <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2" xmlns:gx="http://www.google.com/kml/ext/2.2" xmlns:kml="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<Document>
<name>Weather Stations</name>
<description><![CDATA[<p>Generated: 2010-01-19 22:03:45 UTC</p> <p>Only stations reporting <b>within 3 hours</b> are included in this document.</p>]]></description>
<open>1</open>
<Style>
<ListStyle>
<listItemType>radioFolder</listItemType>
<bgColor>00ffffff</bgColor>
<maxSnippetLines>2</maxSnippetLines>
</ListStyle>
</Style>
<Style id="balloonStyle">
<BalloonStyle>
<text><![CDATA[
<h2 style="font-size:1.1em;border-bottom:solid #333 1px;">Instrument:
$[name]</h2>
$[description]
]]></text>
</BalloonStyle>
</Style>
<Folder>
<name>Visibility and Avg Winds</name>
<Style>
<ListStyle>
<listItemType>checkHideChildren</listItemType>
<bgColor>00ffffff</bgColor>
<maxSnippetLines>2</maxSnippetLines>
</ListStyle>
</Style>
<visibility>0</visibility>
<Placemark>
<name>Any Instrument ID</name>
<description><![CDATA[ <p><font color="#999">Sample Date</font></p> <div>Data Table Here</div>]]></description>
<styleUrl>#balloonStyle</styleUrl>
<Style>
<IconStyle>
<scale>3.25</scale>
<heading>0</heading>
<Icon>
<href>http://www.example.com/barb.php?spd=4&dir=74&val=7&col=65280&dia=100</href>
</Icon>
</IconStyle>
</Style>
<Point>
<coordinates>-117.1135,32.3325,0</coordinates>
</Point>
</Placemark>
</Folder>
</Document>
</kml> |
Working:
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| <Placemark>
<name>Any Instrument ID</name>
<description><![CDATA[ <p><font color="#999">Sample Date</font></p> <div>Data Table Here</div>]]></description>
<Style>
<IconStyle>
<scale>3.25</scale>
<heading>0</heading>
<Icon>
<href>http://www.example.com/barb.php?spd=4&dir=74&val=7&col=65280&dia=100</href>
</Icon>
</IconStyle>
</Style>
<Point>
<coordinates>-117.1135,32.3325,0</coordinates>
</Point>
</Placemark> |
Tags: bug, google earth, heading, icons, mapping, wind barb
Posted by Chief on Jan 15, 2010 in
Thought Fragments There are unlimited text messaging plans for $20/mo, and there are “unlimited” data plans for $30/mo. But why pay for the data plan? Why not convert your data to be sent as “text”? If one were to implement the tcp protocol over SMS, they could avoid paying for the data plan. Of course, you’ll need a smart enough phone that could collect these text messages and recompose them back into their original form. Further, the load on the carriers would be much greater, but who cares about those greedy scoundrels.
Tags: cell phone, hack, idea, sms, tcp, text messages
Posted by Chief on Jan 12, 2010 in
Lessons,
Quotes Everyone wants a baby, but no one wants a kid these days.
Runaway1956
Kids today get emo and suicidal because they have been given everything, never had to earn anything, never been hungry, never had anything real to fear, never been punished for their behavior and are bored with having too much entertainment.
Nadaka
Tags: add, adhd, bored, children, depression, emo, generation, right, spoiled, wrong
Posted by Chief on Dec 15, 2009 in
Quotes A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
Bruce Lee
Tags: answer, fool, intelligence, learning, question, wise
Posted by Chief on Dec 13, 2009 in
Quotes You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.
Albert Einstein
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.
Buckminster Fuller
Tags: albert einstein, aspire, buckminster fuller, creativity, shock
