xekul

A post on Slashdot says that Merlin patched the CVS in March. Merlin also patched the EOLed RT-AX56U, which Asus isn't providing an updated firmware for.

Language in Thought and Action by S.I. Hayakawa

Metaphors We Live By by Lakoff and Johnson

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan

The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker

Tao Te Ching (various translators)

Despite the costs starting to creep up as my sites start taking up more space and bandwidth, I continue to host my sites and register my domains on NFSN because of the geek/DIY/libertarian ethos and the excellent support provided by Jeff the few times I've needed it. Though unconventional in a world full of cheap "unlimited" hosting, I trust that NFSN will conduct themselves with integrity if I have any issues with my site or domains, and that's a lot more important than saving a few dollars a month.

Since the start of the pandemic I've been self-hosting a Jitsi instance on Linode for my hypnotherapy business -- partly to transmit high-bitrate audio, partly for privacy and partly for compatibility, since it works in most web browsers. It works well even internationally (over a broadband connection), to the point where I won't even consider commercial software for this use case.

For Canadian equities, especially mining stocks, ceo.ca seems to have a lot of knowledgeable participants.

Otherwise, maybe a Bloomberg terminal, though it's out of reach for most people. The high price to entry is a feature, not a bug.

Hypnotism and applied life philosophy from a humanistic/naturalistic perspective:

https://www.youtube.com/morpheushypnosis

In some ways yes (inward focus, suspension of analytical thought, nonjudgement of the feelings or memories that arise), but in other ways no. Hypnosis doesn't usually incorporate the bilateral stimulation that's central to the theory behind EMDR, despite the stereotypical image of a swinging pocketwatch, and is performed almost entirely through verbal suggestion these days.

If we recognize hypnosis as a highly suggestible state, it follows that hypnosis is not very good for recalling memories, and better for adopting new perspectives. This is supported both by research and my own professional experience.

It's also that meditation is usually observant and not goal-directed, or at least it's taught that way, while hypnosis is usually used to achieve a specific goal, which means the hypnotist is intentionally making an effort to influence the client.

I'm a professional hypnotist (15 years of practice) and this is hands-down the best mainstream article on hypnotism I've read in years. Fitting phenomenology into science has often struck me as trying to shove a square peg into a round hole, but I'm glad to see scientific validation for knowledge that hypnotists have had for a long time. For example, my practice also assesses 10-15% of our clients as very low or very high in suggestibility (although I've never heard the term 'lows' or 'highs' before). In this situation, science is studying what practitioners are already doing or already know.

Most of the public discourse around hypnosis has to do with whether it's a distinct state of mind and whether it has any real effect. In my opinion, this is already settled (yes and yes). The unanswered questions, and problems to solve, have to do with what you communicate to somebody who is hypnotized so that you are giving them helpful thinking that will improve their quality of life, rather than fantasies that vanish once they open their eyes. This is the work of philosophy, and it's where the most interesting work lies ahead, even if many people (even practitioners) are not recognizing it yet.

If people stop smoking once they adopt the worldview of a nonsmoker, feel socially comfortable once they believe they're fundamentally an equal to the other people in the room or sleep better once they're satisfied that they're perfectly safe and secure, perhaps these problems are not as medical as we frame them.

The patents that were sold had to do with BlackBerry's legacy non-core business (mobile devices) and don't comprise their entire patent portfolio. They've specifically said that the patent sale won't affect their existing customers (such as QNX licensees).

The first two books are extremely useful for preventing people from taking advantage of you, if you are naive as to how manipulative people can be: that's what I got out of them when I read them early in life.

I'm a consulting hypnotist (hypnotherapist), albeit with a strong technical side (e.g., I've trained my employees to use desktop Linux for remote work).

I'm essentially in the business of thinking clearly about client problems and communicating that thinking as effectively as possible, which means that I gravitate toward communities that take pride in the same. Although this is a technically oriented forum, I find many of the discussions here to be intelligent and thought-provoking, especially when they have to do with philosophy, psychology, sociology, economics or business -- those topics that we all must be concerned with, whether we work in tech or not.

Kobo has Pocket integration.

The Unihertz Titan could be described as a spiritual successor to the BlackBerry Passport: similar form factor, rugged build quality and long battery life, but runs Android 10. I'm typing on one right now.

The original is interesting and relevant even if you never intend to touch a tennis racket in your life.

A lot of sites let in traffic from Google so that their sites will be indexed and rank when people search for them.

T.S. Eliot. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" perfectly captures the essence of a middle-aged man's insecurities, and Eliot wrote it when he was 23.

The Blackberry Hub (i.e., the unified inbox) is one of two reasons I'm still using a Blackberry (the other reason, of course, is the physical keyboard).

Back in 2011, I mined enough BTC on my $1000 mining rig to eventually make a 5x profit, but there's no way I'd be able to make a profit today at the current difficulty/prices.

This is a Show HN. Over my life, I've often thought, "I wish I could find an xyz. Surely somebody on the Internet knows where I could find one. I'll even pay them to find it for me!" So I created a website to enable that kind of search.

We do have audio samples (they're halfway down the sidebar on each product page) and we offered a discount way back in January when we launched.

If you're interested in trying it out but the price is holding you back, here's what I can do for a fellow HN user:

First, complete an order all the way to the PayPal page, but don't pay. Then e-mail me at luke@hypnotizr.com with the order ID that PayPal shows you. I will make your order and send it to you, and afterward, you can PayPal me any amount of money that you think is fair (I'll count it as market feedback).

I switched from Blackberry to Android (Samsung Galaxy Glide) last week and I'm mostly happy, except for some features that I had taken for granted as a BB user (good physical keyboard, notification LED, and stellar battery life). If RIM were to release a Blackberry that could run Android apps and had better Google Apps integration, I would switch back in a heartbeat.

For cultural rather than technical news, with an intelligent and vibrant community, Metafilter:

http://www.metafilter.com

I'm aware of two ways to do this with the content network:

- Bid on specific placements. If there's a blog or blog post post I want my ad to appear on, I can tell Google that I want to raise my bid for that specific URL.

- Bid on specific keywords. For example, I might include the keyword phrase "freelancing health insurance personal experience" in my content campaign, and give it a higher bid price than the keyword "medical bills." In this regard, it's the same as with search, except that your ad is triggered based on Google's scan of the blog post, rather than what a searcher types into Google.

To get an idea of the keywords that Google might extract from a blog post, type its URL into the Google Keyword Tool:

https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__u=10000000...

I don't know exactly how the content matching algorithm works, but I know that search traffic produces a higher conversion rate than content. A big part of that is because a content click doesn't have the same intent to buy that a good search keyword does. For my business, content clicks convert about 1/3 as well as search clicks, so I just cut my content bid to 1/3 of my search bid, and that way I'm paying the same per customer regardless of the source.

I've heard these numbers from multiple sources and I believe they are correct.

The highest costs per click listed in the infographic are for specific, long-tail keyword phrases (three or four words long). These keywords can convert at an absurdly high rate, which means that advertisers can spend a lot of money on clicks and still make a profit. And since Adwords works on a bidding system, the costs per click can get driven up pretty high in a competitive niche.

If you look at the keywords that have a cheaper cost per click, the keywords are fairly generic. That's because the conversion rate is lower for these keywords, so advertisers have to adjust their bids per click downward in order to make a profit. If the infographic showed keywords that are even more generic (e.g., one-word keyword phrases), you would see even lower costs per click.

I know a lot of Internet marketers. The ones who can get results consistently and who care about optimizing those results are already making a ton of money promoting their own businesses or selling other people's products through affiliate programs. You can't hire them on a salary. If you want to get them on your side, start an affiliate program and offer a generous commission for signups or sales. Whatever your gross margin is, expect to pay about half of it to the affiliate.

It might seem like a lot, but remember that with affiliates you're guaranteed to make a profit. If you paid for an advertising campaign yourself, or hired a firm for a fixed amount, you could potentially lose thousands (or more) if the campaign fails.

If you want to pay for results but you don't want to manage a bunch of individual affiliates, look into cost per action (CPA) marketing. There are several firms (NeverBlue, Pepperjam, etc.) that offer this service. Like it says on the tin, CPA marketing is when you pay after a specific action (like user registration) is performed. They're usually a significant minimum spend with CPA marketing.

However, if you ask me, you should take the time to train yourself (or one of your other founders) into being a capable marketer. Good marketing is one of the important factors in the success of your business, and if you ask me, it's too important to delegate or outsource to somebody who isn't invested in the future of your business.

Hypnosis is usually done with the eyes closed -- people tend to visualize better that way, and I guess it prevents the eyes from drying out too.

Many people have used hypnosis tapes, CDs and MP3s, for decades, without the presence of a hypnotherapist, and I've never heard of anybody being harmed by it. If the recording cuts out halfway through, the client will eventually emerge from hypnosis, as though they were waking from a nap.

I think it's a good idea to do both. It can take a few months to see results from an SEO campaign, so in the meantime, I'll do Adwords to optimize my landing pages and figure out which keywords convert the best.

I can't stop laughing at the name of the app. It's fantastic!