The probability subject is a very difficult subject to me. This is because it involves estimation of all the possible events. Therefore, it involves the combination and permutation. And there is no exact formula for different situations. It also involves statistics.

Gambler’s fallacy, is a very good notion. To simplify it, gambler’s fallacy is a belief that the next outcome will be different if the observed outcome is repeated consecutively, where these events are actually independent. The best example is tossing the coin, which has the probability of 0.5 for head and 0.5 for tail. Because tossing the coin first time will not affect the second time, the probability to get the head or tail is always same.

Long time ago, I used to use a text file to collect all my favourite websites. This is because I was using Internet Explorer, and Firefox was not yet introduced. I totally disliked the “favourite” files in IE. Besides that, I cannot bring my favourite websites to any other computers.

Then, after using Firefox, I started building up my bookmarks. This is really great because the bookmarks can be easily exported and imported with a single file.

Preface

I am Arch Linux fan. Recently, I discovered a distro, Fuduntu, which stated that it is optimised for laptop and netbook use. This increases my interest due to battery draining problem for my old netbook. Though my old netbook was installed with Arch Linux using LXDE, the battery can only last for only 1 hour. That is why, I think I am going to switch to Fuduntu. However, after installation of Fuduntu, then I found some problems like missing the packages FreeFileSync and VisualBoyAdvance, and also failed to install Wine because of dependencies error. This made me regret to uninstall Arch Linux from my netbook, because installing Arch Linux is really exhaustive.

I want to learn the speed reading skill. So, I look for the resources, and keep practising. The following is the summary on what I learn about speed reading, especially based on the following video.

Average reading speed is 150-250 wpm (words per minute).

Most of the problem of reading is regression, that is go back to read again. To avoid this problem, if one sentence we don’t understand, we just continue. Only go back if the whole paragraph is not understandable. To make the reading continuously, one of the way is using a finger or any pointer to go through the words. There are several reasons. One of the reason is that our eyes always distracted by the thing it is moving. Another reason is help us to focus. Also, using finger, we will not go back to read again. This is best way used in speed drill (refer below).

Firefox, though I like it, I still feel a lot of limitations of using it, especially reading the PDF using the plugin from Adobe Reader. This is really a drawback. Because the plugin in Linux I feel that it is not very stable. That is why, normally I open the online PDF with Chromium, because Chromium (Google Chrome) has built-in PDF plugin.

Now, Firefox 15 has a built-in PDF plugin as well. By default, it is disabled. So, we need to enable it manually.

I use aMule. But even with the SVN version from Arch Linux, it produces the same problem as I was using Linux Mint, high CPU usage problem. It works well at the beginning, but will suddenly high CPU usage, causes my laptop battery drain very fast.

So, I try to find the solution. Then, I found one solution, not like using MLDonkey or other alternatives before.

Using the aMule daemon, amuled from command line.

When I read Catechism, the term “grace” is quite confusing. There are at least four types of grace I read: sanctifying grace, habitual grace, actual grace, and special grace. So, recently, I tried to solve my confusion by going through these differences. By reading the Catechism again and again (the related part only), and also some other resources, so, I simplify them,

Sanctifying (or deifying) grace = 圣化恩宠, permanent state of grace. Habitual grace = 常居的恩宠（宠爱）, is also sanctifying grace. Actual grace = 现时的恩宠（宠佑）, transient help to act (intervention of God), different from habitual grace. Also called “gratuitous grace” in Summa Theologica. Special grace = 特别的恩宠（神恩）, also charism, oriented to sanctifying grace. Considered actual grace.

My HP laptop always has a shutdown problem. This problem affected the hibernation. That is, after I shutdown in Linux, my laptop battery will keep draining, and the battery is still warm after shutting down.

To solve this problem untechnically, there are two ways. Never shutdown, but restart. Because I have dual boot, there is a grub menu when startup the computer. So, during the grub menu, press the power button, this will shutdown the computer without battery draining.

Finally, I solved the problem doing printing with my Arch Linux with Canon iP1600 printer. It is an old printer. With several tries of those drivers mentioned in forums and other discussions, I never success to use this printer with Arch Linux. That is why, whenever I want to print, I need to reboot into Windows 7, print, then reboot into Arch Linux again. This is really troublesome.

However, recently, I found a possible solution. That is using hardware virtualisation. Actually, it is using the guest OS to detect the printer, then print from the guest OS. So, my guest OS is still Windows. Meaning that, Linux is still not working with Canon iP1600. But, this solution avoid rebooting for different OSes.

Latest Arch Linux announcement mentioned that AIF (Arch Installation Framework) is no longer included. And this installation method is replaced with Arch Install Scripts. Users who are willing to install Arch Linux need to follow the guide. So, I just tried the installation of this latest Arch Linux with the VirtualBox.

If you follow the guide accordingly, everything should be fine. But without the basic Linux knowledge, it is really a hell (I think so).