thoughts on philosophy and science

I was unemployed from the period of December 2009 to July 2010 (or as I like to call it my summer vacation). I've been working or studying my entire life. It wasn't until the layoff that I had any real freedom to pursue my own interests and desires. Not wanting to waste this time I decided to keep busy. Sometimes it was work. Very hard, disciplined work. Sometimes it was challenging. But mostly it was fun. And always it was rewarding. I wanted to make this a time to be remembered and create a template for life when I landed a new job.

Generally speaking, I find discussion of religion dull and boring. It has to be one of the most unproductive topics when it comes to debate, as a conversion from one belief system to another is rare.

Most books on electronics theory treat the subject of passives in the following way:

This is an update of an article I wrote almost two years ago. There are a few things I've wanted to change and so I'm taking the time now to expand the original. I hope this will be of some use to budding engineers and college students who are trying to wrap their head around the big picture. This is how I understand what an engineer does, but not necessarily how other engineers see things.

According to various sources across the internet, Americans consume approximately 3.7 billion barrels of oil per year. With a little math we see that's around 10.1 million everyday. If oil were at $40 per barrel, this comes out to $148 billion oil consumed every year. Obama's new regulations were designed to, 'save 2 million barrels of oil per day'. This works out to 8.1 million barrels per day, or about 3.0 billion barrels consumed per year. If oil is at $40 per barrel this is about $120 billion per year.

My philosophical studies have finally taken me to their final leg of the journey: the psychological turn. I have spent years understanding the nuances of metaphysics, logic, society and ethics. I have now reached a point where I feel that my understanding of the universe and of people can help me understand myself and to reach of ultimate goal of being happy and content with my own life.

What is your purpose? Do you do anything that's important to society? Do you do anything that's important to you? Think about happiness. What makes you happy? Does happiness just happen to you? I doubt that and what I'm about to propose supports that it does not. If you have ever been happy in your life, and then at some point later you did reach a state of happiness, then happiness didn't just 'happen'. Either someone did something to you or for you, or you did something yourself that lead either directly or indirectly to your happiness.

I recently became interested in human development and the stages of life. There are a few theories out there and some seem very practical and reasonable. It got me thinking how my life has gone through so many changes and I thought it would be an interesting exercise to write down those stages.

When I reflect on my life, such as it has been so far, I see very distinct periods. Periods that are always ended or created and joined by major life events. I have given a word (or sometimes two) to each.

Synopsis
I recently upgraded my router from Debian Sarge (3.1) to Debian Etch (4.0). Debian is a fairly ideal platform for building routers. It includes all the software you need. The packaging is fantastic and most of it integrates fairly well. The Debian infrastructure is unsurpassed and so are its ideals. Here, I will share with you the steps required to build a professional router. I will also point out bugs and problems I had during the installation. Places where Debian could provide better integration and be more seamless.

Motivation