Viewing Category: Gawking
It's been a while since I've reviewed what's going on in The Forums. It's been relatively quiet, but a few topics are slowly moving:
The Innovation Book Club -- A couple messages about executive book summary clubs...this was part of the inspiration, actually, for the tables of contents post. We need our ideas in bite-sized form!
GTD with Thunderbird -- A heads-up on using the Thunderbird email client a forum member's blog post.
Virtual Freelancer Network -- Discussion continues around using Open Source tools like Drupal to create viable businesses.
How to Build a Community...And Why -- some discussion on why one would want to build a community.
Also created a few new forums:
The Library -- for book recommendations. I'm planning on posting the table of contents of books I think are cool here.
The Incubator -- sort of a project brainstorming area. Right now, there's just one called the "University in a Box".
Talk It Up: The Public Forum -- this is a guest-access forum that everyone can talk in, though if you're logged in you don't see it. I've copied a few of my threads in there to see if anyone had anything to say in the forum format. I may just post them as regular blog posts and see if that makes a difference.
So not a whole lot of activity in the past two weeks; I've been rather busy myself, but the conversation slowly continues, with a few more registrations to boot. Very cool!
Hey sportsfans! Nick's still got that enticing managing editor position open at Digital Web Magazine! I have no idea what a managing editor does, but Wikipedia sez:
A managing editor is a figure who oversees and coordinates the editorial activities of a publication. Although the responsibilities of managing editors vary, the position is generally the second highest in rank, after the editor-in-chief (also called the "executive editor".)
That still leaves the question "what are editorial activities", but I'm assuming y'all out there already know and are clicking away :-) Tell your friends!
I was thinking about dropping cable a while ago, but still haven't pulled the trigger. If anything, I'm watching more shows.
House -- A medical drama featuring an ascerbic doctor and his staff. I am supremely uninterested in most dramas of any kind, particularly medical ones, but I added this show to my Tivo when someone on the Boston Flash Platform Users Group list mentioned that this was the only TV show about debugging. And lo, so it is!
Jamie Oliver's School Lunch Project -- I used to think of Jamie Oliver as the "naked chef" on the Food Network that all the women would swoon over. I assumed he was some flashy glam chef, but after getting sucked into his documentary about Fifteen, I completely came around...he's passionate about what he does, and driven to do the right thing. He totally kicks ass, from what I can tell. He doesn't just talk either: shocked at how terrible school lunches are in the UK, he spent a year and a half trying to introduce healthier food by getting in the kitchen himself. How do you serve a healthy, tasty meal to kids who love processed food for the equivalent of 65 cents a meal? It's an inspiring and thought-provoking show on many levels.
Shalom in the Home -- A Jewish friend was telling me a story that revolved around the daughter of a rabbi, and I didn't get the punchline. And then a little later I was talking to Nathan and he pointed me to some interesting Christian websites as a tool for outreach; I had no idea how technologically savvy churches are these days. The combination of the two experiences has renewed an interest in comparative religion, and since I have no idea what a rabbi does, I've started watching this show. The guy apparently drives around the countryside in a cool trailer and helps people with their family problems; I totally dig the trailer! Freelance designer! Have trailer! Will work on site anywhere!
American Inventor -- As someone who's interested in developing product for the marketplace, this show provides me with insight on pitching, markets, and the effect of personal character on success. However, a friend of mine (a patent attorney) gets powerfully irritated by the program because it raises false expectations; she said that the first year the show aired, she got an increase in calls from people who wanted to cash in their inventions, and she had to spend a lot of time educating them in what the process actually entails. Anyway, they've gotten down to the final four, with two inventors that have impressed me a lot with their character. Now America will choose who goes forward...after the 2004 election, I'm not holding my breath.
CBS News Sunday Morning -- Another friend of mine told me to give this a chance. Not being up on Sunday morning, I tivo'd it and was treated to a very slow-paced 90 minutes of light storytelling; imagine if one episode of Rocketboom was stretched out for 15 minutes, and that's kind of how the pacing felt. On the other hand, there were some interesting stories buried in the timestream. Mentioning my issues with the pacing to my friend, he was stunned that I actually wasn't watching it in realtime. He pointed out that when it airs on Sunday morning, you're just getting up, making coffee, and just easing into the day. The show is paced correspondingly. It had never occured to him that I'd be watching it after a day of work at 1AM. So I've kept this show on the roster, and save it for mornings when I'm up early.
Futureweapons -- When I was in High School, I was a typical kid fascinated by tanks, jets, and guns. As I started drawing more and dreaming about games I would create, I thought having a firm grasp on the military side of things was important. However, I eventually realized that understanding what made people tick was much more interesting than guns guns guns, and I stopped following the technology. Until I stumbled upon Futureweapons, which has captivated me with its look at modern networked, automated, and highly-computerized weapon systems from guns that shoot around corners to networked howitzers. I have mixed feelings about the show: on the one hand, it's interesting to me on the gut "I'm a man! grunt!" level, plus I like understanding how systems work in difficult circumstances. On the other hand, it's also highly disturbing to think of just how advanced these weapons are, and I wouldn't wish their use on anyone. The segment on thermobaric explosives, in particular, was just shy of being really horrific despite their use of white fiberglass mannikins.
Deadliest Catch -- A documentary series about Alaskan king crab fishermen that battle insanely dangerous weather in sub-zero temperatures so we can have our Sunday all-y0u-can-eat seafood specials. Each fishing vessel is independently crewed and captained; it's lucrative work, but that's because it can kill you. Crazy...yet another friend (strangely, the one who recommended CBS Sunday Morning) turned me on to this. It's a nice little lesson in entrepreneurship and leadership too, if you squint at it in the right way.
Clean Sweep -- One of those TLC shows on getting rid of the clutter in your house. Surprisingly inspiring, and sometimes I get some good ideas on how to tackle similar problems in my house. Decluttering is related to productivity too.
A couple weeks ago I starting having battery charging issues with my PowerBook 12". As it turned out, it was the adapter being faulty; it was providing enough power to run the laptop, but apparently not enough to charge the battery. Prior to diagnosing this, however, I had assumed the battery was just dying and it was time for a new one. The old battery was getting maybe 1.5 to 2.5 hours of use per charge, which I regarded as being pretty much par for a notebook computer.
With the new battery, I get over 5 hours if I keep the display dimmed, and I must say that it's really made a big difference in the enjoyment I get out of the experience. I never would have thought that doubling the battery life would make this computer so much more enjoyable. I feel a lot less tethered. Originally, I was quite irritated that I had to buy a new battery, but now I am totally digging it. To preserve this enlightened state of existence, I've been much more careful about how I'm recharging it. For example, I charge it to 100% and letting it drain naturally instead of keeping it "topped off" all the time; this is apparently better for it, and helps maintain its capacity.
There are a few other things in the "replacement" category that I suspect would bring me joy. Surprisingly, getting a faster computer is not one of them.
New computer? Nope. It's been a couple years since I've upgraded my computer systems, which for me is pretty unusual. I'm running an Athlon 2000+ for my basic PC rig, with email and on-site work handled by a Pentium III-M at 1.0GHz notebook. Pretty basic stuff, even low-end by today's standard. I've found, though, that every time I upgrade my computer to the latest whizziest system, I just end up running the same software. It just runs faster, and frankly it's kind of a letdown. Maybe the one time it mattered was when I was playing a lot of Quake 3, and I needed more framerate at higher resolution, but I haven't been playing as many games since then and the urge to upgrade is pretty much gone. My next machine might be an Intel-based Mac...it'll at least be shinier.
A new windshield? Yes! I was listening to the Car Talk radio show last week, and they were diagnosing some woman's mystery water leaking problem with her $200 car. Ray suggested getting a new windshield and having it resealed: "It's like getting a whole new car!" That was an interesting idea...back in 2000 I used to drive to Boston every other day during the week for work, along 30 miles of highway construction at fairly high speed. That year of commuting through clouds of sand and grit chewed up my windshield so it's now slightly pitted and hazed. It bugs me every time I look through it. In the rain, it never wipes clear, no matter how new the wiper blades are. I bet a new windshield would be awesome. I should go test drive a new GTI today just to see if having a clear windshield would make a difference.
There are a few other things in the "replace with exact same item for improved experience" category of purchases that I can think of:
- A toothbrush, after the bristles have poofed into a dandelion shape.
- Socks, after the old ones have stretched out of shape.
- Underwear, after the elastic has lost its stretch.
- Non-stick frying pan, after all the teflon has worn off.
- Grill top, after the bars have corroded into rusty meat-shredders.
- Carpet, after it's gone all nappy.
- Screen doors, after the screening has been destroyed by cats.
- Windows XP, installing it absolutely clean without all the crud that builds up over the years.
Guess I'm just in a Spring-cleaning kind of mood.
SXSW is using something called Jambo to help people find each other, so I'm filling out my jambo profile to give it a shot. One of the questions is "my favorite thing", which after some thought ended up being my car: a Volkswagen GTI VR6. However, my Canon Pixma iP5200 printer, which I love more and more with every passing day, is quickly rising to challenge the incumbant.
Just now, I was doing some full-duplex (2-sided) printing of some SXSW information. I was watching the paper come out, pleased at how well the printer works, and then it sucked the paper back in! It made a kind of "hmm" noise, and then it somehow flipped the paper around internally. Then it printed the second side of the same page, backwards from the way it had come out before. After I took the paper from it, the printer emitted a satisfied "I am so hot" sound as its inkjets settled into standby mode.
The effect was almost exactly like when you're (a guy) sitting at a nice restaurant talking to an attractive woman, and she takes the cherry from her drink and pops it into her mouth. A few seconds later, the stem and pit come out, but you notice the stem has been tied into a knot by her tongue. She smiles as if nothing special has transpired, and continues the conversation while you try to remember what the hell you were talking about.
Full-duplex printing. Ask for it by name, next time you're out looking for a hot printer to share a desk with! :-)
This is one of my favorite holidays, because:
- It's steeped in tradition and ceremony!
- It involves large hibernating rodents!
- It's one of those days of the year where you're allowed to believe in the prognosticative powers of animals, and no one will think you're (too) insane.
There's a little more history behind this holiday than I thought; though Groundhog Day in the US is only about a hundred years old, it is derived from Hedgehog Day from Roman times. We just don't have any hedgehogs here in North America, so we substituted the most convenient rodent. Additionally, the day itself is related to the Spring Equinox that occurs 6 weeks later; the wikipedia article suggests that the "six more weeks of winter" prediction is a bit of folksy humor, since Spring officially starts in 6 weeks anyway.
I haven't really come up with a good way to personally celebrate
Groundhog Day. Anyone have any ideas?
As part of my Action Pack subscription, I'm subscribed to a number of fluffy Microsoft Partner newsletters filled with marketing speak. I keep the subscriptions because occasionally there's a local event that I check out, but usually the content is not that interesting.
I was surprised, though, that the OEM Systems Builder newsletter actually had a large, funny header that immediately drew me into the rest of the content. It's amazing what a little genuine humor can do for the credibility of a newsletter. They certainly know their target audience: crochety systems builders and IT staffers who are constantly hammered with insane demands.
In case you're curious, here's some bad pictures of what the Action Pack is---lots of Microsoft software (everything a small business would use, from Office to operating systems) and marketing stuff to help sell "Microsoft Solutions". The materials are all very slick, so they're just fun to get in the mail every quarter. It costs $199/yr to maintain the subscription ($299 for the first year).
I've been catching up on Tivo the past few nights, killin' time until Battlestar Galactica (AKA the Best Show on TV) starts back up again in January. For those of you missing out, I'm not talking about the campy 80's tv series...I'm talking about the new series running on the SciFi Channel here in the States.
Numb3rs -- Produced by Scott Free Productions, this show is nominally about math theory being used to solve FBI crimes. My favorite part is when the math guy describes how a particular theory can be used to predict behavior or reveal some hidden pattern behind a case. Like a Fourier analysis being used to discovery frequency patterns in seemingly random crime times, or Flocking behavior used to backtrack to find the central node in a Meth lab distribution network. I'm not quite sure if these are practically applied in real life---this is sort of explained away by the math guy's prodigy status---but the theory is presented with awesome computer graphics. Not surprising since Scott Free has produced films under the Jerry Bruckheimer banner like Enemy of the State; they're well known for their shiny FX-laden productions. Scott Free Productions, incidentally, is comprised of Ridley Scott and his brother Tony Scott...you may have heard of Blade Runner, Alien, Gladiator from Ridley, and slightly lesser-known films like Top Gun from Tony. So yup...production values are pretty high on the show. The plotting is a little odd...doesn't really have much snap to it. Some terrible technical dialog...I'm not sure if the math theory is any better, or if the equations they scribble on the blackboards are real.
Prison Break -- I was originally fascinated by the premise: some dude is framed for an assassination by scary organization, smart younger brother concocts elaborate scheme to get into same prison and bust him out from the inside. More murder, and violence ensue. It reminds me a bit of Oz, 24, and MacGyver swished together. The last episode I watched may have turned me off for good though...I get easily tired by sudden switches of plot device to draw out the story. I feel like I'm watching an elaborate set of dominoes being knocked down.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex -- This one is animated, and I've talked about it before The Cartoon Network has started showing the second season (called "2nd Gig"), and the animation has improved slightly so we don't see as many horrifically distorted views of Kusanagi. Unfortunately, her outfits are still really really horrible, to the point that I wonder if it's part of her character. However, between the first and second seasons, there were are few notable episodes that actually moved me far more than either Prison Break or Numb3rs. And the themes are far more interesting that the two movie versions' yawn-inducing plotting; Stand Alone Complex is much more like the manga (comic book), and more accessible. The manga, at times, is pretty confusing if you don't already have an interest in politically-motivated military action, robotics, and cognitive science.
If only the voice dubbing had a little more crispness to the delivery. Some of the themes about human-machine interfacing, politics, and artificial intelligence are pretty cool. It's no Battlestar Galactica
That's been about it. I've seen a couple issues of Monk, which I enjoy for Tony Shaloub's portrayal of his obsessive compulsive detective. I also accidentally saw some episode of JAG that was remarkably cheesy...for some reason I thought it would be like Law and Order or something more dramatic.
I should just stop watching TV until January. Sigh.
Ged, knowing that I'm a Serenity fan, forwarded me Serenity Lego-ized by Chris Doyle. A lot of detail went into this. There's even lego versions of the crew.
Just so you know, the BMW Short Films are going offline on October 21st. You can download 'em for free until then. A DVD is also available for free--you just pay for shipping (it was $4.00 for me).
If you were living under a rock in 2001, this was a series of five short films directed by directors you may recognize: the late John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-Wai, GuyRitchie, and Alejandro González Iñárritu. The films were released over the Internet, which at the time was a kind of first in terms of "premium content developed for the Internet". A second series of three films, one each directed by John Woo, Joe Carnahan, and Tony Scott, was released in the following year. They're all pretty powerful exercises in visual storytelling, with outstanding cinematography and direction (maybe with the exception of "Beat the Devil", which I found nearly unwatchable). Well worth the 4 bucks, particularly for the behind-the-scenes stuff!
UPDATE: Yep, they're all gone now. Hope you grabbed 'em!
