NYTimes on Trolls. Put ‘em under the bridge and keep ‘em under the bridge.
Web & Tech
30
Jul
2008
Useless Facts
When I was younger, I always found useless facts fascinating. In fact, one of the main features I had on one of my first web sites was a bunch of Useless Facts (I also had stick figure deaths, yo momma jokes, break dancing moves, and i can’t remember what else..). Here is the top list from Uneccessary Knowledge.
1- An adult giraffe’s kick is so powerful that it can decapitate a lion.
2- The word “lethologica” describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
3- The brain continues sending electrical wave signals for 37 hours after death
4- Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.
5- Between 1902 and 1907, the same tiger killed 434 people in India.
6- During their periods womens middle fingers shrink. No one knows why.
7- Every year approximately 2,500 left-handed people are killed by using object or machinery designed for right-handed people.
8- In “Silence of the Lambs”, Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) never blinks.
9- The clown fish has the ability to change its sex. If a breeding female dies, the male fish will change its sex and mate with another male.
10- During World War II, the very first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allies killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
11- 45% of Americans don’t know that the sun is a star.
12- More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
13- If you unfolded and flattened a set of human lungs they would cover a tennis court
14- The largest number of children born to one woman, who was a Russian peasant is 69.
15- There is enough iron in a human being to make one small nail.
27
Jul
2008
Blogging on Religion
There was an article in a recent Ensign (a publication in the LDS church) by Elder M. Russell Ballard that me and my wife really enjoyed. It was called Sharing the Gospel Using the Internet. A few excerpts here…
Now, may I ask that you join the conversation by participating on the Internet to share the gospel and to explain in simple and clear terms the message of the Restoration…
The Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ has no doubt had a powerful impact on your life. It has, in part, shaped who you are and what your future will be. Do not be afraid to share with others your experiences as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. We all have interesting stories that have influenced our identity. Sharing those stories is a nonthreatening way to talk to others and telling those stories can help demystify the Church. You could help overcome misperceptions through your own sphere of influence, which ought to include the Internet.
I have a lot of friends who aren’t very familiar with the Mormon faith and I think this blog could serve as a good resource to help them understand more of the core doctrines, principles and beliefs of the church. I don’t wanna be too over the top with it…so i’ll probably just do it on Sundays.
My faith and my religious beliefs mean a lot to me and there is absolutely no reason for me not to share them. I’ve shared some religious stuff here before…but I guess what i’m saying is that i’m gonna start doing it much more frequently. Hopefully every Sunday. Sometimes it’ll just be a few thoughts, maybe a scripture or two, missionary stories, and perhaps quotes and excerpts from talks given by modern prophets and apostles.
That’s all. I just wanted to announce that. Here’s a quick scripture for today. Normally it’ll be more.
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
- Matthew 6:33
19
May
2008
My wife’s new design blog
Just wanted to let everyone know that Utah’s best interior designer, yup my wife, just started a cool design blog called Elegance Redefined. Frequent topics include home decor, fashion, interior design, architecture, green concepts, scrapbooking, art, photography, DIY projects, and anything else that looks pretty.
As many of you know…I love design. I love web/graphic design. I love photography. I enjoy contemporary art and I appreciate modern architecture. Thus, I am also a frequent contributor to my wife’s new blog. I’m already blogging there much more frequently than I blog here. There it’s just a lot easier cuz I just post cool pictures and don’t need to say much.
Anyway….you might wanna check it out. Let your friends know. I think you’ll enjoy it.
10
Jan
2008
A few random thoughts.
+ TV thoughts. I’m liking Conan more these days simply because of the writers strike. He doesn’t have writers so he pretty much writes all his stuff. It’s unpredictable and it’s interesting. American Gladiators…I find entertaining (extremely). Celebrity Apprentice….I find amusing.
+ I’m so behind on my blog feeds. I have a lot to catch up on over the weekend.
+ I haven’t taken a single web design class in my life. I learned it all on my own. One of the things i’m really enjoying these days is a book i’m reading by Eric Meyer on CSS. CSS is a programming language used to help display web sites. The book is an easy read (mainly because I’m already proficient in CSS) but it’s really helping me get back to the fundamentals and basics of what CSS is all about. So I like it.
+ Halo 3 is tight. Very tight.
+ There’s a company out there (I won’t name the company) that “creates” a social network for colleges. College pay big dollars for this “service.” Seems fair. The problem is this: this company just goes to ning.com, a site that allows ANYONE to create their own social network (for free), and sets up a social network for the college. In other words, colleges are PAYING this company to create social networks for them when in fact ANY COLLEGE AND ANY PERSON can simply just go to ning.com and set up a social network, FOR FREE. Colleges are paying this companyt! These colleges are completely oblivious to the scam and fraud that this company is pulling on them. It’s unbelievable. It’s shameful. It’s sad that certain companies like this can be so disgustingly unethical.
+ I hate cold weather. So does my dog.
+ We (Zinch) had a nice mention in a good article by the Boston Globe called: Colleges turn to Web tools in hunt for ’08 freshmen. It’s a good article that highlights some of the trends in technology in college admissions.
16
Dec
2007
The Whale Hunt.
There was an interesting experiment done recently by a fellow Princeton dude, Jonathan Harris, called The Whale Hunt. It’s a “storytelling experiment” which documents his 9-day stay with a family of Inupiat Eskimos in Barrow, Alaska, the 
northernmost settlement in the United States. This “experiment” is a story of his whale hunting adventure captured through photography, but later “told” through technology. He goes with Andrew Moore (a Princeton professor) and together they capture an image every 5 minutes(at least) during their entire journey, from the beginning moments of in Newark Airport all the way to the end moments on the frozen Arctic Ocean. The pictures are quite stunning.
But that’s not even the best part, in my opinion. When he returned home, he built an amazing interface to display his 3,214 photos. Basically it allows you to view/filter the adventure the way you want. It can be by time, by image, by characters, by concepts, and by adrenaline (depending on how many pictures he took during a given sequence). He says “In moments of high adrenaline, this photographic heartbeat would quicken (to a maximum rate of 37 pictures in five minutes while the first whale was being cut up), mimicking the changing pace of my own heartbeat.”
I think it’s quite fascinating. Through the technology he has built, he has created a new way of sharing an experience and telling a story. Most importantly, it’s structured and organized in a way that gives the user the control to view it how they want. No other form of “story telling” gives the user this type of control.
I appreciate the adventure that makes it a compelling story. I appreciate the photography that captures the story. And of course, I appreciate the technology that effectively shares the story.
So overall, I liked the experiment. Check The Whale Hunt out or at least read his statement about it.
30
Nov
2007
Random images of the moment.
Every once in awhile while reading news or surfing the web, I stumble upon really funny/interesting/crazy images. When I run into them, I always save them knowing that one day, I will post them on my blog. Today is one of those days that i’m ready to post a few of them. This post is a collection of a few images that i’ve saved from the last couple of weeks.
1) FedEx owns on UPS in this image.
2) I’m so confused. That’s all.
3) He’d get my dollar for creativity, not to mention that smirck on his face.
4) Chavez is evil.
18
Nov
2007
Not sure about Amazon’s Kindle
So Jeff Bezos and the book worm club over at Amazon are releasing a new ebook reader called the Kindle. It’s a device that allows you to read blogs, books, and other text-based “stuff,” for lack of a better word. It lasts 30 hours. and only takes 2 hours to recharge to full capacity.
Newsweek did a 7 page article. Blah blah blah blah blah. Supposedly, Amazon and this Kindle gadget is completely changing the way we read books. It costs $400 bones. Sucky. But it does have some impressive features (wifi and cellular connectivity) that Sony missed the boat on when they released their eReader a little while back.
So I’ve got two simple problems with all this
1) Do I really wanna read a friggin’ 500 page book on a computer screen???? So this isn’t a knock on the Kindle, this is a knock on the whole eReader idea! My eyes hurt after just a few hours of reading news and blogs on my computer. I know, I know, the Kindle supposedly has a fancy-dancy type of screen. But still, I have a hard time believing that it’ll be THAT much different on my eyes. Nothing can be as easy as an actual page of text that I can hold, krinkle and throw.
2) It looks completely unsexy. Yup. It’s ugly. How can I actually read a book on this thing if every time I take a look at it I barf?? Design on this thing is just nasty.
I have a hard time believing this new gadget will be that disruptive in the market. I believe books and magazines will always exist. There’s something about feeling the paper, actually turning the pages, or even just closing the book (with your bookmark in place) to see how far you are that brings a warm fuzzy feeling inside. It’s fulfilling. You feel productive. You feel happy. Reading a huge book on a little screen is straight up depressing. I see no light at the end of that tunnel. I’d hardly feel any progress. No doubt, a lot that goes into reading a book is strictly psychological.
And worst of all with all this, my eyes would hurt. Blind Mickey after a year. Bottom line is i’m feeling bearish on all this. Put this junk back in the trunk.
13
Nov
2007
I love to learn.
It’s so interesting that I grew up in an age of the web. I read the newspaper (the physical paper) every once in awhile, but I definitely prefer reading online (NY Times, Slate, Digg, USA Today). Same thing goes for magazines. Books are the one thing that aren’t very fun to read online…so I still read the physical books (I’m reading a really good book right now that my dad gave me. Once i’m done with it i’ll blog about it and give my thoughts). Most of my reading happens online. It’s funny because my wife sometimes asks, “I wish you’d read more.” Are you kidding honey, I read sooooo much. She doesn’t realize that during many of the hours that i’m on my computer at night, i’m reading and learning.
A lot of it is through blogs. It’s so interesting how that’s really becoming the new media. I subscribe to over 70 blogs in my Google Reader. There are dozens more that I keep reminding myself I still need to add. Sometimes people have the misconception that blogs are just personal journals of what Sally and Bobby did over the weekend. My wife has a blog and so do all her friends. Those are certainly not the type of blogs i’m talking about when I say I read and learn every night for hours. There are thousands and thousands of blogs that, if the entries were split up into sections/chapters, could easily be books, newspapers, or magazines. Those are the type of blogs I’m talking about. Real news. Real education. Substance. Content. Mojo.
It’s so hard to keep up with all of ‘em….I don’t know how I do it. But every time I get catching up….I just can’t stop. So much of what I read is about technology, entrepreneurship, anything business related, world news and current events, design & innovation, sports, random funny stuff, wall street and investing, and Higher Education/College Admissions news.
Every night when I get reading stuff…I realize that there is just so much more knowledge, so much more information out there that I simply just don’t have. Yet, I wanna learn. I eat it up. I love it. I really wish I had more time to learn it all. It is so fulfilling. To really understand the different market trends, newest disruptive technologies and innovations, business principles and teachings, etc.
For some reason, my desire to learn has increased so much. I’m starting to realize how I operate. When i’m put into a position or place and forced or told what to do, subconsciously I push back a little. However, when I feel unrestricted and free, I embrace the task or duty. At Princeton, I was put in a place where I was pretty much forced to learn. Sure, I did it. But my desire to learn wasn’t truly there. Today, i’m in a position where no one is telling me I have to learn. However, I WANT to learn. That desire is so much greater when I feel unrestricted, unconfined.
It’s weird how that works. Bottom line is that I love to learn.
