I can't find the scientific study put out a couple months ago that refutes that 21 days is sufficient to form a habit. Many other things need to be in play, such as motivation, consequence, etc.

Zyada has it right. for all resolutions, it is the process you want to name, not the outcome. For losing weight, it may be to increase exercise, be more aware of portion size, etc., not the goal of losing weight, if you want a chance of keeping your resolution.

Doesn't work on iPod Touch if you are not in a wi-fi zone, so will stick with swipe to left.

The above advice is correct. Use it, but practice it as well. Ask a northern state or Canadian driving school to give you a couple hour workshop on ice. It was mandatory in my driver's ed class 35 years ago in Saskatchewan. Had to use it a few times, too.

Even though I know how little it costs to get a zipper replaced most of the time, for some reason my extra parka still has the key ring two years later...o

@Rose Tyler: Right on, Rose.

I cannot think of any of the things that may have disappointed me past Christmases or birthdays. And I still feel very awkward when my wife says we should regift something a few years later. My rule, more for the sake of learning grace which doesn't come naturally, is to keep it at least a year and use/enjoy it…

I pack with popcorn popped with a dry air popper. No grease, and the recipient can throw the popcorn into the back yard for a tasty bird treat. Other benefits are that you eat the extra popcorn without the extra junk in microwave popcorn, and you don't use plastic.

Back in the alphanumeric password day, I used a similar tabula recta methodology, but as it had only 36 digits, I used a chess heuristic to be able to write it out whenever I needed it. It has the security of not requiring a sheet of paper, and it has most of the benefits of Graham-Cummings methodology. I should…

The freeware Keytweak does the same thing. What both these programs do is change a registry setting of the keyboard to map to another key, which is why it cannot do multi-key sequences.

@nka: Depends on how tight you want your definitions; if we are really strict, thent he thumb only opposes the pinky fingers (see wikipedia article for discussion)

@shallnot: It is the Ghostscript engine I am not fond of. IT was great many years ago, when I used postscript to edit PDFs, but I'd rather avoid it now if I can as it is just one more thing to have to be concerned with what is otherwise a fairly simple system.

There is not a parent alive who has not lost track of their toddler for a second or two when he or she 'ran' for something. My second child was a runner, and it took all of seconds to get from here to there, and by tyhe time you checked down one aisle she would be in another.

Books. Books are the exception to nothing in the bedroom except for sleep things. Puts me to sleep much quicker that way, and the stimulation from reading no longer does anything to keep me awake not even gripping novels.

The Atari ST fonts and character mapping were at a touch of a mouse, intuitive, and did not slow me down at all, not even during Greek class where I used it for every assignment.

Another way of looking at this is that conformity reduces cognitive dissonance.

As long as it is a choice, even if WWF is the default choice, it is a good thing, and welcome. It would be nice to have a PDF printer driver that has an easy setting to make a PDF non-printable. Right now it is done as an extra step via passsword and encryption.

@2nd White Line: I do this every year—Walk outside aat night and take off my glasses!

@nka: Sorry. Simians (apes) and a few non-simians have opposable thumbs (thanks, yourcitylovesyou). What they don't tend to have is a thumb/palm movement such that the thumbs can make true opposable contact with any of the fingers.

Ironic, but sad nonetheless. I hope she gets the help she needs, and comfort for the family, obviously torn inside out.