I asked my roommates if they had any tricks, and one suggested I check out the application Forest to supplement my attention discipline. He even went so far as to state that the success he had achieved on his most recent O-Chem test he could largely attribute to the app instilling concentrated periods of studying in him. Obviously I was fascinated, and checked it out immediately.

Forest goes back to the basics – rather than organizing your tasks through some efficiency algorithm, or feeding you self help tips that you already know, Forest simply asks you to set a timer, with the button “Plant” to initiate the timer. A seed on your phone screen appears, and begins to grow into a a tree, its final size corresponding with how long you’ve set your timer for (between 0 & 120 minutes). If you exit the application before the tree has finished growing, and let yourself be distracted, your tree dies and you must begin growth anew. This makes for a simple and incredibly effective tool for when you really have to buckle down. A quick glance over at your phone and now the idea of killing the tree, and your progress, isn’t worth checking for that Snapchat update – you’re in it to win it and that means staying focused.

The number of trees, and types of trees (different trees corresponding with different periods of time) are tracked and presented in a calendar. Your successfully completed time periods can be viewed in the form of day, week, and month breakdowns, and show the forest you’ve grown. I sincerely recommend this application for anyone who lacks discipline when it comes to their mobile device and remaining connected. Whether you’ve got an O-Chem test or are running a hedge fund, this is a forest that helps you grow your productivity.

The post The Forest App Grows Your Productivity appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

Automobiles are inherently mobile, and increasingly they contain equipment that would commonly be considered computing devices… Many of the ECUs embodied in today’s motor vehicles are carefully calibrated to satisfy federal or state regulatory requirements with respect to emissions control, fuel economy, or vehicle safety. Allowing vehicle owners to add and remove programs at whim is highly likely to take vehicles out of compliance with these requirements, rendering the operation or re-sale of the vehicle legally problematic. The decision to employ access controls to hinder unauthorized “tinkering” with these vital computer programs is necessary in order to protect the safety and security of drivers and passengers and to reduce the level of non-compliance with regulatory standards. We urge the Copyright Office to give full consideration to the impacts on critical national energy and environmental goals, as well as motor vehicle safety, in its decision on this proposed exemption. Since the record on this proposal contains no evidence regarding its applicability to or impact on motor vehicles, cars and trucks should be specifically excluded from any exemption that is recommended in this area.

To put that very simply, because you COULD do wrong or evil by modifying your car, you shouldn’t be allowed to do it; because you can kill with a hammer, you are no longer allowed to buy one; and because we made this hammer so complicated, any modification of it would make it a weapon not a hammer. Under their proposed reading of the law, you own your car but not the software that runs it. And while this is terrifying in-of-itself, it has far reaching consequences for all other devices that come with firmware preloaded. Your washing machine? Nope, you don’t own that either. Your television? Still belongs to Sony. Your microwave? I guess we’ll let you keep using it for now…

As word is spreading about this proposed change, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others are circulating a petition to add an exemption to the DMCA to allow people and independent shops to work on cars, and I encourage everyone to sign it.

The post It Could Soon Be Illegal To Work on Your Car appeared first on FactoryTwoFour.

First of all, think before you pack. Write out the days of the week you’re going to be traveling and start by righting down what you absolutely need to wear on certain days. You know you want to be comfortable and have slip-off shoes on travel days, you might have a meeting you need to dress up for, and there might be a rodeo you don’t want to miss that requires Wranglers and huge belt buckle. Once you have your necessary outfits down, you can start sketching the rest of the days looking for clothing items that can be shared and used again. Be ruthless in your re-wearing and pack as little as possible.

Next, pack your suitcase with your shoes first. Either by facing the soles of the shoes toward the edges of the bag, or lying them heal to toe, create a layer of shoes at the bottom. Next you want to pack any fragile items like watches or sunglasses inside your empty shoes, and pack any additional space either inside your shoes or around them with soft pieces such as underwear, socks, or t-shirts. It is these softer items that you want to use the “roll” method with by turning them into compressed tubes of fabric. Your goal with all this filler material is to create a nice, flat foundation on which to build the rest of suitcase.

Now it’s time to bundle. Lay any pants or jackets into the suitcase one at a time without folding them. For pants, that means the waistband goes all the way to touching the short edge of your suitcase, while the legs drape out over the side. With jackets, the collar once again goes against the short side while the tail hangs over the edge. The key here is to alternate which edge items are hanging over. You should go back and forth on each item so you are left with a suitcase with two bare long edges and the two short edges with clothing draped over them. Starting with the second item, fold the excess back into the case. Work backward (fold in the item on top at any time) unit everything folded within the confines of the suitcase. By alternating layers like this, your pants will be less likely to wrinkle and the thickest sections (waistband and collar) won’t all be on the same side but evenly distributed. Now use your suitcase’s “bra straps” – those interlocking ribbons that cinch everything down.This creates your second flat layer of clothes.

At this point you’ll want to place your folded collared shirts on top of this second layer. If you’ve been judicious enough on the number of items you’re bringing, you should have ample space between the bundle layer and the lid of the case to not crunch your collars. This space is also where your toiletries double-bag goes. Finally, snake your belts around the edges of the case rather than curling them up. You sir, are done packing. You should now have enough in your bag to last anywhere from a weekend to a year, depending on your own personal level of style. For a last tip, leave your toiletries bag in your suitcase for the next time you travel. Now bon voyage!

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