Category: Random

I’d heard about this video a few months ago. Finally got around to watching it.

I did not study the theory of economics outside of high school so this was educational for me.

Will it Blend has already done an iPad. I love this guy.

I unboxed my new camera today. It is the replacement to my three-plus year-old Canon Digital Rebel XT. The Rebel has been great, but it’s showing it’s age, plus I wanted to upgrade. If you click through, you’ll go to my flickr set that has the unboxing.

I follow the blog Unclutterer because it often has nifty approaches to tweaking your daily life and schedule to make you more productive. It’s a little less blatantly obvious than Lifehacker (which I also follow) but does fall sometimes into the same PIT OF DOOM of obviousness.

Today [ed: this was a while ago, unfortunately] was one of them—sort of. Annabel Candy described how she used time tracking and a pie chart to identify tasks and procedures that were taking time away from the things she’d rather be doing. She identified 10 “Time Traps” (good phrase!) that she wanted to eliminate or cut down. Most of the traps were excellent places to simplify or eliminate, but one of her identified places for cutback frightened me:

6. Sleep – Try cutting out one hour of sleep. I’ll probably function fine and gain an extra hour a day.

Don’t do it, Annabel! Very few Americans get the sleep they need to be fully productive and alert (I don’t). You may be one of them, but if so, don’t make this your sacrifice. I think you might regret it.

I generally get by on seven-ish hours of sleep a night but I would be delighted if I could work my way around to a constant eight. There are challenges and choices in my life that are impeding that, though. Burning two hours every day on my commuting does not make me want to sleep the extra hour by sacrificing friends, family and home time.

Keep your sleep. You may find that you’re more productive after increasing the amount of sleep

TRON! That is all.

We went to see They Might Be Giants last night, opened by Jonathan Coulton. This was both a fun night and an exceptionally long one.

Fun because I got to hang with friends having pizza and beer prior to the concert and enjoying the music during. Long because I was/am sick as the proverbial dog and was having difficulty not just sitting against a wall and listening to the drums in my own head.

Beyond the cold, the concert was a lot of fun. Jonathan Coulton’s music is fun and TMBG’s stuff is also wacky and wild. We were treated to two different sets of music by sock puppets. How often can you say that?

The picture above was taken after TMBG asked everyone to pull out their various video-capable electronic devices and record the song (one of the sock puppet songs). You can see all the various screens lit up.

(Well, one of the coolest things…)

This website, brought to my attention by the Bad Astronomer, is just way too much of a time sink. I can sit and play for hours. It is a solar system simulator which lets you play with the initial conditions with up to four different bodies!

As Phil Plait says, start with one of the default solar systems and tinker with it. It’s fun. I especially liked trying to craft odd slingshot trajectories.

Jack, Jake, Whoever