helpmechris.com » Learning

Check out all of This DIY Wilderness Gear

Chris Brown — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:09:17 +0000

I stumbled on to this today… very cool. It’s Backpacking Lightweight’s page of homemade outdoor gear tutorials.

Everything from packs to tarp tents to compression sacks can be made at home.Â If you dig the outdoors, wilderness, survivalism, bushcraft or whatever..Â ..then you’ll love this.

Here’s the link: Homemade Outdoor Gear

Quantum Physics Made Relatively Simple

Chris Brown — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:59:53 +0000

Lectures on quantum theory by Hans Bethe. At age 93 he did a series of lectures for his neighbors at the retirement community. For once you can hear from physics expert without having to decode (as much) to layman terms.

Here’s the link:
Personal and Historical Perspectives of Hans Bethe.

Memorizing PLL algs, F2L on Bottom, Cross on bottom

Chris Brown — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:35:16 +0000

OK, so as soon as I got Â the 2 look permute last layer down I continued on to learning the rest of the PLL algorithms.

I took about 2 weeks to really know them all and now I’m still getting faster at recognition and execution. Here and there I mess up and have to start over on the LL… it’s becoming less and less… I’m starting to feel them. Â I’ve also been gaining skill with cross on bottom and F2L on bottom.

For PLL I memorized badmephisto’s (they guy with the youtube videos) algorithms from his web site. I also watched his tips videos and found them helpful for learning recognition. Also, check out his pll trainer… it’s a nice way to findÂ your weaknesses on the pll step.

If you read my previous posts you know that I switched to cross on bottom about a month and a half ago. This was an easy switch… my cross skills were already bad so they didn’t get any worse. Now I’m happy to report that I can almost always identify the cross solve during the 15 second inspection time. Rarely does the timer start with me still contemplating the cross solve. I’m even getting to a point where I’m looking for corner edge pairs before the timer “dings”.

I also switched to F2L on bottom. This was much tougher than I expected. I’ve been doing F2L on the left for years now so switching to f2l on bottom has a big learning curve. After a month or so of this I’m getting where the little tricks and shortcuts that I knew on the left are starting to feel natural with cross on bottom. Cube rotations still feel clunky. I believe that the cross on left grip is more natural for cube rotations. However, with cross on bottom it’s eaiser to pair and insert without rotating the cube when I would have before. I’m still not as fast as I was with F2L on left but I can see and feel how F2l on bottom will enable me to gain more speed than I had before.

Anyway here is today’s average. I post this mainly so I can come back later and compare but if it helps you or makes you feel good then awesome.

Average: ……..00:55.35
Best: …………..00:46.42
Avg. 5:………..00:54.78
Avg. 10:………00:55.08
3 of 5:………….00:55.20
10 of 12:………00:55.59

Don’t forget about MIT OpenCourseWare. It’s comming…

Chris Brown — Mon, 08 Apr 2002 15:47:00 +0000

Dont forget about MIT OpenCourseWare. It’s comming this fall!
Ever wonder how to surf anonymously? I’ve got some tips….

“Browse with a secure anonymous connection…it can’t hurt.”

-unknown
I’ve always had these concerns and have put alot of research into staying
secure and private for free. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

——————————

SECURITY TESTS:

You should use the following links to test your connection before you
use any of the services below. Pay attention and write down your IP adress,
it will be a set of numbers and look something like “11.22.11.113″.
Once you know have written down your IP adress you will be able to tell
when you have covered your tracks because the test sites will see a different
address.

Your IP Address

Shields UP!

privacy.net/analyze

PROXY SURFING:

Proxy surfing or proxy browsing is when you connect to a site through another
computer on the internet. Look at this like using someone elses car so that
no one catches your license plate. This causes the website you are viewing to
see an IP address that is not actually yours. IP adresses are unique numbers
linked to nearly every internet connection, they usually look something like
“111.22.111.1″.

A few free proxy browsing services:

I Like Megaproxy becuase it uses e-commerce grade SSL Encryption…this means
that the data you transfer is unreadable to anyone between you and the site.

Try connecting from one to the other for an even more secure experiece.

MANUAL PROXIES:You may have seen the proxy settings in your internet options….this
is where you could put in the adress of a proxy server if you wanted to
go this route. There are lists of anonymous proxy servers all over the
net, but I dont reccomend them and here is why: You have no idea who owns
these servers or what activity they track. It is sometimes Illegal to
use these servers when they have been accessed without the owners authority.

OTHER SERVICES AND SOFTWARE:JAP
Anonymity Tool – It’s a little complicated to set up, and their services
are down sometimes. Offers an extremely anonymous connection…definately
worth the trouble.

FREE
ZoneAlarm – This program is easy to install and will let you verify
each connection your computer makes to the internet and set up premissions
for programs to access the internet.

Cookie
Cooker- Use this software to prevent sites from tracking you by leaving
cookies (small files store information) on your computer.

– A utility to remove any programs that might be spying on your computer usage.
Spyware is embeded into many freeware and even some of the larger commercial
software packages.> Internet_Sweeper
- Use this to erase information that is stored in Windows and your browser
that refers to your computer or internet usage.

My Setup For sufing safely:

ZoneAlarm to monitor connections

Opera Browser with all java and history turned off

Opera set to delete the cache files every time it quits
Opera set to ask me before accepting ANY cookies…i usually DONT accept
them

JAP set up as a manual proxy for Opera

Proxy Surfing through Megaproxy and At LEAST one other http proxy site

Ad-Aware runs everytime my computer starts up to prevent spyware