i.justrealized

Ubuntu Netbook remix is planned to remove OpenOffice.org and replace it with Google Docs. It’s an odd choice and it probably is some Google influence. Probably Google paid them or something.

According to the latest Ubuntu Netbook Remix Blueprint, the Ubuntu community have decided to drop OpenOffice from the default installation of Ubuntu Netbook Edition for the upcoming Lucid Lynx release, atleast for now. Now documents will be opened by default in Google Docs.

The developers have been removing applications that are irrelevant on a netbook. While document editing is clearly a not irrelevant on a netbook, the developers feel that with netbooks being used mostly for internet related works, Google Docs will suffice. (Source: Digitizor)

Honestly I hardly use OpenOffice in my netbook. The screen estate made it unsuitable for editing. If you still want OpenOffice.org, you can always download manually of course but I suspect most would probably stick with Google Docs.

Reading helps keep stress down:

Reading is the best way to relax and even six minutes can be enough to reduce the stress levels by more than two thirds or 68%.

New research by consultancy Mindlab International at the University of Sussex says reading works better and faster than other methods to calm frazzled nerves such as listening to music, going for a walk or settling down with a cup of tea.

Listening to music reduced the levels by 61 per cent, have a cup of tea of coffee lowered them by 54 per cent and taking a walk by 42 per cent. Playing video games brought them down by 21 per cent from their highest level but still left the volunteers with heart rates above their starting point. (Source: Marie Claire)

I’ve been reading quite a bit these couple of months. What I feel is that reading from a book helps reduce stress much more than reading from the screen.

If you don’t like reading books typically, you may get humor books just to have a laugh. I have a book with only funny pictures — that worked too. I probably flipped through hundreds of times, each time looking at around 10 pictures. That seems to keep my stress level down. Whoever said “laughing is the best medicine” might just be right.

I can’t emphasize more on not resurrecting old email conversations by just replying blindly. The following meant something:

RE: Request for inspection

It meant replying to the previous conversation regarding “Request for inspection”. If it’s not the same topic, start a new email message with a brand new title. Don’t be lazy, new email subjects are free too, please have fun with it. Finding mail has become a challenge recently.

As I grow, I grew cynical. Is it just the way it is or just me?

Stephen King reveals how wasted he was in the past:

In his 2000 memoir, On Writing, King revealed that he’d been so shattered by his alcohol and drug abuse in the 1980s that, even today, he cannot remember working on many of the books he wrote back then. There were times when he’d been doing so much blow that he wrote with cotton wads stuffed in his nostrils, to prevent blood dripping on his typewriter. (Source: Life)

Two top grandmasters, Maxim Dlugy and Hikaru Nakamura, battle it out in a 1-minute blitz game after the U.S. Championship. These guys are amazing. They play chess so quickly.

Speed Chess Game

I hardly know chess and pretty much suck at games that require me to think. Who wants to play snake and ladders with me?

The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. The new film, created by the Museum, is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.