A collection of notes on general Knowledge.

The knowledge portal serves as a clipboard, a place to collect various bits of knowledge from various books and their authors.

programming

—Lion Kimbro

programming knowledge

• The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others.
• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

programming practices

• Prototype before polishing. Get it working before optimizing it.
• Separate policy from mechanism, separate interfaces from engines.
• Write simple modular parts connected by clean interfaces.
• Design programs to be connected to other programs.
• Write programs to write programs when you can.
• Design for the future, because it will be here sooner than you think.
• In interface design, always do the least surprising thing.
• When a program has nothing surprising to say, it should say nothing.
• When a program must fail, it should fail noisily and as soon as possible.
• Write big programs only when it is clear by demonstration that nothing else will do.
• Consider how you would solve your immediate problem without adding anything new.

design

design knowledge

• Good design makes a product useful.
• Good design makes a product understandable.
• Good design is unobtrusive.
• Good design is honest.
• Good design is long-lasting.
• Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
• Good design is environmentally friendly.
• Good design is as little design as possible.

design pragnanz

• The mind perceives objects as being symmetrical and forming around a center point.
• The mind perceives objects that are near, or proximate to each other, to be grouped together.
• The mind can only keep 7 (plus or minus 2) items in their working memory, on average.
• The mind has a propensity to best remember the first and last items in a series.
• The mind remembers uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.
• The mind will perceive and interpret ambiguous or complex images as the simplest form possible.
• The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices.
• The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target.

work

—Parkinson's law

—老子(Lao Tse), 道德經(Dao De Jing)

—Kevin Kelly

work knowledge

• Find your passion and figure out how to get paid for it.
• Do whatever you want to do, but be the best at it.
• Strive for simplicity and competence, but embrace the messiness along the way.
• Under-promise and over-deliver, and own up to your screw-ups.
• Doing what everybody else is doing feels like the safest thing to do, making it the most competitive, and thus the riskiest.
• No one is on their deathbed is wishing they spent more time at work.
• Never stop learning.

work habits

• Doing the right tasks is more important than doing your tasks efficiently.
• Write down your goals. Break them down into manageable tasks.
• Tackle one task at a time, and group similar tasks together.
• You're more attentive in the morning, tackle hard stuff then.
• If you can't do it in 8 hours, you can't do it in 10.
• Don't forget to stretch, and drink plenty of water.
• Keep a record of your time use.

work charisma

• Always look a person in the eye when you talk to them.
• Always stand up to shake someone's hand.
• Be conscious of your body language.
• Ask more than you answer.
• First impressions matter.
• When you walk, look straight ahead, not at your feet.
• Never hit anyone unless they are an immediate threat.
• No matter their job or status, everyone deserves your respect.

writing

—Blaise Pascal, The Provincial Letters

writing knowledge

• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
• Never use the passive where you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign or scientific word, if you can think of an English equivalent.
• Never use a figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

health

health knowledge

• Eat varied foods, biodiversity in the diet means less monoculture in the fields.
• Pay more for foods grown or raised less intensively and with more care, eat less.
• Eat mostly plants, especially leaves. Cook, and if you can, plant a garden.
• Avoid food products with unpronounceable ingredients, or more than five in number.
• Don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.

health breathing

• Expel all of the air from your lungs.
• Keep them empty for four seconds.
• Inhale through your nose for four seconds.
• Hold for four four seconds, don’t clamp down or create pressure.

ascetism

One must first place oneself from the point of view of Epicurus and distinguish natural from imaginary needs. When we are able to despise in practice all that is unnecessary to life, when we will disdain luxury and comfort, when we will savor the physical pleasure that come from simple food and drink — when our bodies as well as our souls will know the goodness of bread and water we will be able to advance further along the road.

The wise man notes that material progress has as its object the increasing of the artificial needs of some and the labor of others. Material progress appears to him as an increasing weight, which increasingly plunges man in the mud and in suffering.

—Epicurus

incoming(1): mirrors

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