What a disappointment.

To demonstrate it, I created an application that takes screenshots non-stop, played with resizing for a minute and selected few screenshots where crappy resizing is observed:

Related information: question on stackoverflow and posted bug on microsoft.connect.

• On my twitter page I post updates about my site.
• On my twitter page I post updates about my site. To see my twitter page, click here.

• China is the most populated country at the moment.
• China is the most populated country at the moment. For the source, please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

They basically give the same idea.

The first example is more natural and requires very little knowledge.

The second one suggests a user doesn’t know that links are clickable. It is like printing ‘turn the page to continue reading’ on the bottom of a page. That actually distracts the reader.

Now you know.

00:22 Intriguing story, including “my father died”
01:20 Picturing the guards looking for a ‘criminal’ who examines ‘the great secret`
02:11 Without the explication of the essence, the secret is introduced as the ‘greatest paper in history’ and so on.

05:08 The ‘fact’ that "1% of the population earn about 96% of money" is implicitly attached to The secret, no argument given, no alternative cause taken into consideration.

~5:30 Comment: Lots of statements are given one by one, so that you actually have 0 time to think about each one. (Edited later: this pace is maintained throughout the movie)

The theory behind "The secret" is presented;

~6:10 ‘Explanation’ of the secret – thoughts have corresponding frequencies (?)

~7:00 More on the nature of the law of attraction: ‘it doesn’t care whether you want it or you do not want it’

At least by this moment, the law of attraction is something you do not know, it’s being introduced to you – you have no knowledge to justify claims.

Generally, it sounds more like a statement rather than deduced knowledge.

~8:30 Manipulative epithets like "and law of attraction, which is the most powerful law in the universe…". It turns out that laws have a power as an attribute, mind it. The woman saying is knowledgeable enough to claim the law of attraction as the most powerful among all the laws (?)

12:50 Quantum physics and "you can’t have a universe without mind entering into it".

13:34 "It has been proven out scientifically that …" – no reference to a study is given; "scientifically proven" is a manipulative lip service than.

14:30 "The leaders in the past knew the secret (??? really) and did not want to share the power" (?? they made a confession in a diary, ?? just an obvious claim). Btw, I have an alternative viewpoint on the "social machine" pictured at that moment, and the law of attraction isn’t there.

17:33 The story switched to emotions, which is very unlike the previous ones speaking of the LoA as of a psychological universal law.

19:34 "The universe will correspond to the nature of your thought". Note: acting object is the universe.

~21:00 Introducing techniques to feel good

~22:00 Introducing "The Creative Process"

~28:00 "When all is there, act!" // Note: your actions are important

~34:00 Teaching gratitude (and "every man knows when his wife is appreciating him…" examples) as a part of "Powerful processes"; // Note: that’s a psychological exercise – no universe.

~35:00 Speaking about "every time I touch this rock I will think about things I’m grateful for" technique. (Nice technique, by the way, I like it. It implements the anchoring effect, but that’s a different story).

~36:00 Story about the apparent healing with the gratitude rock. (A miracle? Or treating actions were simply omitted from the story?)

~42:00 [I'm quite tired because of constant change of performing speakers who express the same thought or idea in a different way. When the switch happens I have no time to think or criticize the previous speaker. Being 'a regular person' I would probably give up and just perceive information, allowing to ~program me.]

~43:00 Another story of successful visualization. By the way, it’s interesting that most examples are about manifesting having something (cars, watches, homes, money and relationships here) and not creating something of your own, creating the value.

~48:00 Feeling inspired. (Programming really works?). I think if I were reading this I would fast-forward seeking for the meaningful information. But watching this (and, therefore, perceiving emotional expressions – even much more than listening), the same thoughts all over again, somehow convinces me by mere constant repeating. I have a will to close the movie or, at least, minimize the player and just listen; but since I decided to watch it and comment on it, I’m going to continue watching.

~51:00 The guy speaks about visualizing paycheques and how they manifested.

~55:00 Romantic story about a guy who succeeded at dating 3 women/week at first and then succeeded to get married (? thanks to LoA ?)

~1:03:00 "When you think about disease, you create more disease cells, let your doctor …" and on; sounds like a suggestion to be ignorant of diseases.

~1:04:00 "Happier thoughts lead to essentially happier biochemistry" – introducing moods in biochemistry. Don’t get me wrong – I like positivism. I just believe that a mood is an attribute of your mind and yes, there is a connection between mood and biochemistry, but my cells are neither happy nor sad. Maybe, he meant "healthier" ?

~1:12:30 "Every great teacher has taught us that life was meant to be abundant" regardless of the idea, unreferenced mention of "great teachers who say" and "great scientists who say" sounds like manipulation.

~1:14:00 "Most of the great leaders (?) of the past missed the great part of The Secret, which is empowering and sharing with others" How did he deduce that? Are there any other properties and effects of The Secret? What are the other 3 (or 6 ? or 7 – you name it) parts of The Secret that are not mentioned in this program?

After all, why does everyone interviewed refer to the Law of Attraction as The Secret? I understand the first term – philosophers may provide lots of arguments for intention->manifestation world-view (by the way, how does it feel to read "philosophers can" without knowing who exactly?). The second term, The Secret suggests that all the ‘great people’ interviewed somehow deduced that LoA is something worth hiding, to be kept in secret. Or were they all introduced to LoA as The Secret and simply repeat? Is it called so for a reason? I mean, non-marketing and sell-the-dvd reason.

~1:14:30 "If you put your hand on a proper microscope, you’d see a mass of energy vibrating" – introducing a mass of energy.

~1:15:00 "You have enough power to illuminate a city (of what size?) for about a week (why not a year?)". Why do we use power-plants? Does he mean e=mc^2 ? There’s much more equivalent of energy then than to illuminate any city, but physical processes go a different way.

~1:16:00 I don’t know how to call it, they seem to speak of energy as of godness. (introducing new religion?)

~1:18:00 "So what? The real thing is what you can do now"  Yes! Introducing the constructive thought!

1:24:14 "Remember that we use at most 5% of potential of the human mind" Really? Who measured it? Why 5? Why not 14.137? Please comment if you know the source, because I’ve been searching and I couldn’t find. It is a myth? A lip service? Can you grow to 5.5% by doing mental exercises? Which ones? What can I conclude from the statement? I’ve read, in particular, Rita Carter’s Mapping the Mind and partly Mapping the Memory and 1) I didn’t find anything similar to this myth about 5% 2) Brain is a complex organ and parts of it cannot perform interchangeably but take on specific mental functions.

Yes! I’ve done it! I’ve watched the whole movie!

Apart from stories of successful healing (?), no miracles were manifested. Nobody has got a third hand, nobody has reversed the aging process, nobody learned levitation. Primarily they spoke about cars, houses, money and women. And the universe as the acting object who gave that all with which they interacted by the virtue of thoughts – "the most powerful law", remember?.

I like the idea and the positivism. A man can create more being positive and constructive as opposed to being negative and, hence, stressed – I’ll argue on that in the next post I’m going to write, which will be about concepts and how I think they are formed.

Generally, watching the whole movie (1.5h long) is mind-blowing. It would be nice to create such a social experiment: inverview ~30 people telling that flowers should be purple only. How would it feel to listen to that for 1 hour from 30 people?

Just watch it:

The purpose of the application is to provide a nice learning facility for children and grown-ups of the fingerspelling.

I’ve been struggling to catch a bug for a year!!!

I’m overexcited. More details later… Subscribe to RSS feed.

The rest is a mere flow of associative thinking which may lead somewhere.
The idea is to distinguish between ‘productive thinking’ and the rest, for example, by associating ‘the rest’ with a visual something.

So, stay focused on:

• time management (what you’re going to do and when),
• the current project,
• health,
• your happiness.

Now, if you catch yourself thinking 

• new car, gadget or alike » bend the third finger (on the right hand)
• about sweet memories » bend the forth finger (on the right hand)
• other things » bend the fifth finger (on the right hand)

This should form a new habit. By having this tactile feedback you will ‘know’ that you’re not working at the moment.

Surely, you can go on and extend the association for the productive topics you think on.

P.S. To stay productive working with computer, use “I’m going to …” habit.

Some people believe things they can’t pronounce. Use this to filter out the rational thoughts of yours.

The very first step to have something done is to write it down.

Therefore, to have something done, take a sheet of paper and

• write a sentence on the bottom that claims what you want as already done,
• write the first actionable step on the top,
• the second and third ones, if any

Now, stand up, find a mirror. Looking into your eyes, say “I want to have X done. I’m going to do Y, then Z”

There is nothing wrong with those. Strange as it may seem, you just need to be aware of what you’re doing.

Saying out what you’re going to do and for what reason is a good tool to make you know the result. You’re wise already, you just didn’t have that thought that browsing facebook doesn’t help you reach your goals.

So, whenever you switch an activity, say “Now, {current time}, I’m going to do {this action} in order to get {this stuff} done”.

That will make you pretty aware of the purpose of what you’re going to go.

Eventually, when you need to login into an old-box XP, you find yourself missing and these new sweeties.

But this is not an XP-specific problem. You’ve already adopted a new and convenient habit of managing windows, and you’re missing it.

I’ve installed Ubuntu out of geek’s curiosity. It’s a different universe, and one really needs a patience and willing to learn.

Ubuntu runs very fast comparing to Win7. I believe it has superior font rendering. I actually feel it. Meanwhile, I avoided doing any (windows-related) software development, just to stay in the new system, explore, browse the web and read with pleasure.

There are a few strange things as for a windows citizen. There are desktops. Yep, multiple ones. I already have a habit to have one browser window per purpose (e.g. researching a specific topic), while tabs in a window serve the same purpose but show different pages. Desktops let me use the same with windows. I typically have e-mail, RSS reader and twitter on desktop 1, Word on desktop 2, software development application on desktop 3. Very convenient. (By the way, there should be an app that does this for windows, I should get it).

Eventually I boot into Win7. Ooops. I can’t Alt+Click window to drag it. Do it with the title only. I missed this so much that went and found an [app] for this. Oops. No, there is no hotkey to maximize a window. No hotkey to minimize it either.

I can’t make a window semi-transparent if I need to check the status of another one. No way to lay them out on the screen, so that I pick the one I need (Flip3D isn’t as convenient).

How could I live without all those.