Friday January 27, 2012
Hello.
I'm 33 now, and I've started noticing that my body needs some help to stay in the tip-top shape I so effortlessly enjoyed throughout my teenage years. To this end, I've been swimming and going to the gym a bit more, even before work sometimes. All of which is to say that I'm finding myself increasingly interested in tracking my activity. Since (finally) getting an iPhone I've been playing with different GPS tracking apps, including Nike+ GPS and MapMyTracks. There are some hardware bits and bobs out there that look interesting too. Of the available options, I'm currently most taken with the FitBit (http://www.fitbit.com/) but would consider the Jawbone UP (http://jawbone.com/up) once they sort out the production issues. The recently announced Nike Fuel Band (http://www.nike.com/fuelband/) also looks interesting but is not available in the UK yet.
Google+
"We thought this was going to be a huge deal: that people would behave very differently when they were and weren't going by their real names. After watching the system for a while, we realized that this was not, in fact, the case. (And in particular, bastards are still bastards under their own names.)"
https://plus.google.com/103389452828130864950/posts/YJbzDptWGQt?hl=en [Yonatan Zunger, Google+ Chief Architect]
"Google knowingly burned an awful lot of goodwill with one of their key communities, techies. The way that they did it hampered Google+ during its launch, preventing it from getting the momentum it probably deserved. ... They did it to get name that links to "the real world you." They wanted to get a commercial advantage for Google, at the expense of people's ability to choose how they present themselves. ... Names are personal. They shouldn't be subject to policies for vague, untested reasons. They shouldn't be subject to policies at all unless your idea is even better than Google can do. Don't make your new thing fail by sacrificing it on the altar of real names."
http://emergentchaos.com/archives/2012/01/google-failed-because-of-real-names.html
Interruptions
"Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They're extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. ... Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html
Pirating the Oscars
"The MPAA is winning the battle to stop screener leaks. A record 37 films were nominated this year, and the studios sent out screeners for all but four of them. But, so far, only eight of those 33 screeners have leaked online, a record low that continues the downward trend from last year. ... While screeners declined in popularity, 34 of the nominated films (92 percent) were leaked online by nomination day, with 25 of them available as high-quality DVD or Blu-ray rips."
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/01/oscar-screener-battle/ [Andy Baio, who has been tracking piracy of Oscar nominated films for 10 years.]
Friday fun
"Bus-Tops is a collaborative public art installation across 20 London boroughs. There are 30 red and black LED screens dotted around London, on the roofs of bus shelters. Absolutely anyone in the world can create artwork for them, creating a new exhibition space for the public, and Public Art."
http://bus-tops.com/ [Now live. Make something amazing.]
These guys sent a Lego minifig into space (well, the stratosphere at least). Oh yes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQwLmGR6bPA
A response to the state of the union address, from the West Wing president
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/25/state-of-the-union-address-west-wing [which also means that 'Jed Bartlett' has a profile page on the Guardian now: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/jed-bartlet, which in turn links through to http://twitter.com/Pres_Bartlet. Hmmm.]
Dogs life
http://imgur.com/omzmE [We lost our dog to cancer recently, and perhaps
because of that I found this especially touching. If you're wondering
who is behind it, the words seem to have been lifted (unattributed) from
http://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/owl3i/my_awesome_old_blind_terrier_still_loses_his_shit/c3kr7w5]
Fact of the day *
Apple's market capitalisation now exceeds the gross domestic product of Singapore, or two Apollo space programmes.
http://thingsappleisworthmorethan.tumblr.com/
* N.B. there may not be a fact every day.
Have a good weekend. I'll be back in your inbox on Monday.
Yours sincerely
Roo
I'm 33 now, and I've started noticing that my body needs some help to stay in the tip-top shape I so effortlessly enjoyed throughout my teenage years. To this end, I've been swimming and going to the gym a bit more, even before work sometimes. All of which is to say that I'm finding myself increasingly interested in tracking my activity. Since (finally) getting an iPhone I've been playing with different GPS tracking apps, including Nike+ GPS and MapMyTracks. There are some hardware bits and bobs out there that look interesting too. Of the available options, I'm currently most taken with the FitBit (http://www.fitbit.com/) but would consider the Jawbone UP (http://jawbone.com/up) once they sort out the production issues. The recently announced Nike Fuel Band (http://www.nike.com/fuelband/) also looks interesting but is not available in the UK yet.
Google+
"We thought this was going to be a huge deal: that people would behave very differently when they were and weren't going by their real names. After watching the system for a while, we realized that this was not, in fact, the case. (And in particular, bastards are still bastards under their own names.)"
https://plus.google.com/103389452828130864950/posts/YJbzDptWGQt?hl=en [Yonatan Zunger, Google+ Chief Architect]
"Google knowingly burned an awful lot of goodwill with one of their key communities, techies. The way that they did it hampered Google+ during its launch, preventing it from getting the momentum it probably deserved. ... They did it to get name that links to "the real world you." They wanted to get a commercial advantage for Google, at the expense of people's ability to choose how they present themselves. ... Names are personal. They shouldn't be subject to policies for vague, untested reasons. They shouldn't be subject to policies at all unless your idea is even better than Google can do. Don't make your new thing fail by sacrificing it on the altar of real names."
http://emergentchaos.com/archives/2012/01/google-failed-because-of-real-names.html
Interruptions
"Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They're extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. ... Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html
Pirating the Oscars
"The MPAA is winning the battle to stop screener leaks. A record 37 films were nominated this year, and the studios sent out screeners for all but four of them. But, so far, only eight of those 33 screeners have leaked online, a record low that continues the downward trend from last year. ... While screeners declined in popularity, 34 of the nominated films (92 percent) were leaked online by nomination day, with 25 of them available as high-quality DVD or Blu-ray rips."
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/01/oscar-screener-battle/ [Andy Baio, who has been tracking piracy of Oscar nominated films for 10 years.]
Friday fun
"Bus-Tops is a collaborative public art installation across 20 London boroughs. There are 30 red and black LED screens dotted around London, on the roofs of bus shelters. Absolutely anyone in the world can create artwork for them, creating a new exhibition space for the public, and Public Art."
http://bus-tops.com/ [Now live. Make something amazing.]
These guys sent a Lego minifig into space (well, the stratosphere at least). Oh yes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQwLmGR6bPA
A response to the state of the union address, from the West Wing president
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/25/state-of-the-union-address-west-wing [which also means that 'Jed Bartlett' has a profile page on the Guardian now: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/jed-bartlet, which in turn links through to http://twitter.com/Pres_Bartlet. Hmmm.]
Dogs life
http://imgur.com/omzmE [We lost our dog to cancer recently, and perhaps
because of that I found this especially touching. If you're wondering
who is behind it, the words seem to have been lifted (unattributed) from
http://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/owl3i/my_awesome_old_blind_terrier_still_loses_his_shit/c3kr7w5]
Fact of the day *
Apple's market capitalisation now exceeds the gross domestic product of Singapore, or two Apollo space programmes.
http://thingsappleisworthmorethan.tumblr.com/
* N.B. there may not be a fact every day.
Have a good weekend. I'll be back in your inbox on Monday.
Yours sincerely
Roo
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