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Stephen Brandau | March 11, 2008
Arena(known to self and others) clever, intelligent, logical, trustworthy | Blind Spot(known only to others) accepting, adaptable, bold, caring, complex, confident, dependable, friendly, independent, kind, knowledgeable, mature, proud, reflective, relaxed, searching, self-assertive, self-conscious, sensible, shy, silly, tense, warm |
Façade(known only to self) extroverted, observant | Unknown(known to nobody) able, brave, calm, cheerful, dignified, energetic, giving, happy, helpful, idealistic, ingenious, introverted, loving, modest, nervous, organised, patient, powerful, quiet, religious, responsive, sentimental, spontaneous, sympathetic, wise, witty |
Stephen Brandau | February 26, 2008
Lots of Progress has been made with Dean Kamen's prosthetic arm I previously talked about. This footage of "the Luke Arm" is especially impressive.
Inhabitat, an environmental issues site, has a great video of Mary Lou Jepson, one of the XO developers, explaining how revolutionarily green the laptop is.
Anyone who edits html will love this tool, which allows you to enter in your code and refresh a second frame which shows you the output.
Inhabitat, an environmental issues site, has a great video of Mary Lou Jepson, one of the XO developers, explaining how revolutionarily green the laptop is.
Anyone who edits html will love this tool, which allows you to enter in your code and refresh a second frame which shows you the output.
Stephen Brandau | February 14, 2008
Happy Valentines Day! I was originally tempted to refer to the holiday as Singles Awareness Day, but according to the Wikipedia article, SAD is often celebrated on the 13th or 15th so they are two distinguishable holidays. I suppose I'll have to wish you a happy SAD tomorrow. In the mean time if you're sad about being single there's a new service, WooMe which uses streaming audio and video chat to create what's most easily described as an online speed dating system.Stephen Brandau | February 6, 2008
[Photo from justusjonas' flickr set]Ever since the first notions of individuality hit humankind, we've been trying to build ourselves into better people, one at a time. This trend was identified and as soon as people figured out solid methodologies from which they could improve their lifestyles, the self-help industry was born. Books like How to Win Friends and Influence People became sensations as people saw real noticeable positive changes in their interactions with others. The self-help industry has hit an odd point in its history, primarily due to the internet, and I think it's one that parallels the music industry in many ways.
The music industry has seen 3 things happen, almost simultaneously and symbiotically: The amount of [quality] music made has increased. The amount of music demanded has increased [with larger storage capacities and easily available music]. The perceived value of music has dropped. And the industry [meaning the record labels] has completely ignored these new facts. In response to the established industry's stubbornness, numerous artists are signing with smaller labels and exploring new methods of distribution which focus more on artist compensation. These new strategies are notably less lucrative than those of the megastars of yesteryear, but they're much more realistic considering the
So how does this apply to the self-help industry? While more conventional, profitable self-help enterprises still exist and remain popular, such as The Secret, the criticism such all-in-one guides catch is enough to turn most would-be self-improvers away. See, it's real easy for me to post a self-help tip on the internet. If it's a good tip, it's real easy for that tip to get shared and spread like wildfire all over the internet. There are tons of people improving their lives every day and sharing their secrets with everyone online; Assuming their tips are of value, authors usually get some recognition or at least an increase in page views.
Unfortunately, page views aren't money. If they were, scantily dressed girls on myspace would be quite a wealthy demographic. See, the self-help industry can no longer profit in the way it used to. It's just too easy to get all those great tips on the internet for free: much in the same way music is easy to get on the internet for free. The self-helpers, luckily for individuals looking to improve their lifestyles everywhere, aren't as stubborn as the record industry. No, they've realized this isn't some exclusive game, and they don't know all the facts. So where do you go for the cutting edge self-help? Well, it's no longer called self-help. Instead things like Lifehacks and Lifestyle Modification have gained immense popularity on the internet.
The contributors to these movements seem to relish more in helping people and driving discussion than profiting off of it. It's an exciting, rapidly growing phenomenon from which I can only imagine good things coming.
Stephen Brandau | February 5, 2008
There are an enormous amount of free services on the internet to help you with day to day tasks. Until they get copied or bought by the larger internet conglomerates, these services will remain scattered around the internet in between common use by the general population and total obscurity. Here are a few of those services; I hope you find them useful.
FatFingers.com lets you search ebay for incorrectly listed items by searching for typos similar to the search term you use so searching for television will turn up results like telervision, allowing you to catch those auctions which frequently go without bids.
Blackle.com gives you access to Google search on a black background, saving very small amounts of energy individually, but according to the running total you can thank Blackle for "444,478.143 Watt hours saved." I imagine they'd save quite a bit more energy if only they could expand their black background onto the rest of google's services.
Some time last year I came across TradeTricks.org which compiles tricks of various trades for public use. The site has gone without an update since September, but managed to work up quite a list of tricks before then.
MissingMoney.com will tell you if you have any outstanding accounts receivable in your name. While I wasn't lucky enough to have any in my name, I was sure to inform some of my family members they had money waiting to be claimed.
FatFingers.com lets you search ebay for incorrectly listed items by searching for typos similar to the search term you use so searching for television will turn up results like telervision, allowing you to catch those auctions which frequently go without bids.
Blackle.com gives you access to Google search on a black background, saving very small amounts of energy individually, but according to the running total you can thank Blackle for "444,478.143 Watt hours saved." I imagine they'd save quite a bit more energy if only they could expand their black background onto the rest of google's services.
Some time last year I came across TradeTricks.org which compiles tricks of various trades for public use. The site has gone without an update since September, but managed to work up quite a list of tricks before then.
MissingMoney.com will tell you if you have any outstanding accounts receivable in your name. While I wasn't lucky enough to have any in my name, I was sure to inform some of my family members they had money waiting to be claimed.
Stephen Brandau | January 14, 2008
Mondays can be rough, especially if you're one of the many students returning from winter break to your first day of classes. Give work a rest and enjoy a few entertaining items from the internet.
The Art of Christopher Huet is surreal and beautiful. Some of it may not be safe for work, so proceed with caution.
A good lesson can be learned from a customer service follow-up call placed by Microsoft 10 years after the original call. The most likely cause of the much belated phone call was an errant keyboard stroke making 98 into 08. I find it even more interesting, and impressive, that Microsoft should have customer service records all accessible and potentially active from as long ago as 1998 and potentially even longer.
On the topic of helping your future self, this game's objective is exactly that. Without giving too much away, the goal of the game is to eventually get to the 16th floor, but that is impossible the first few times. Give the game a go. I'm confident you can figure it out.
The Art of Christopher Huet is surreal and beautiful. Some of it may not be safe for work, so proceed with caution.
A good lesson can be learned from a customer service follow-up call placed by Microsoft 10 years after the original call. The most likely cause of the much belated phone call was an errant keyboard stroke making 98 into 08. I find it even more interesting, and impressive, that Microsoft should have customer service records all accessible and potentially active from as long ago as 1998 and potentially even longer.
On the topic of helping your future self, this game's objective is exactly that. Without giving too much away, the goal of the game is to eventually get to the 16th floor, but that is impossible the first few times. Give the game a go. I'm confident you can figure it out.
Stephen Brandau | January 11, 2008
Many of you have no doubt heard about the photo printing service Snapfish, but you may not have considered using it outside of printing your own personal photos. If you can't find images you want on a regular image search, it's easy to find some free-to-use, spectacular images by browsing Flickr's Creative Commons Library. From there save some of your favorite ones and upload them to your Snapfish account. Besides having Snapfish send you the images in regular picture form, it's possible to have them print posters and even canvased images. If you're new to Snapfish you'll get 20 free 4x6 prints. One of my friends used his 20 free prints to cover his wall in photos of various things from the famous V-Day Kiss to Fenway Park, making an otherwise plain wall into an art gallery.
Have an old PS2 laying around? Maybe you've converted it into a cheap DVD player by just never using it for anything else. Well, thanks to a vigilante group of console modders, you can now buy a memory card that mods your PS2 to be more useful than ever before. Like most other console mods, the card allows your PS2 to back up games on a hard drive where you can later access them or run non-standard operating systems, but with this one you'll never need to take out the soldering iron. Rumor has it the card only works on usb 1.1 due to PS2's limited capabilities so it won't be the fastest way to back up your games, but it certainly could inject some new life into your old PS2.
Have an old PS2 laying around? Maybe you've converted it into a cheap DVD player by just never using it for anything else. Well, thanks to a vigilante group of console modders, you can now buy a memory card that mods your PS2 to be more useful than ever before. Like most other console mods, the card allows your PS2 to back up games on a hard drive where you can later access them or run non-standard operating systems, but with this one you'll never need to take out the soldering iron. Rumor has it the card only works on usb 1.1 due to PS2's limited capabilities so it won't be the fastest way to back up your games, but it certainly could inject some new life into your old PS2.
Stephen Brandau | January 9, 2008
Today the New York Times is running an article about a mother in a battle against food allergies. The article is a little top-heavy with pseudo-science about genetically modified foods and the like causing food allergies, but does give some credence to other more popular theories of allergy development such as 'the hygiene hypothesis' which states that our immune systems are meant to develop naturally by fighting off bacteria and viruses; the new trend in personal hygiene and antibiotics stifles our immune system's development because it never gets to learn what to do.
I was born with a genetic milk allergy. To clarify I wasn't ever lactose-intolerant; I was allergic to the specific form of protein found in milk and I didn't get over this allergy until I was entering grade school. As I got older I developed asthma related allergies to dogs and specific types of grass. I also experienced an anaphylactic reaction to canned tuna-fish. I was sick many times as a child, and was diagnosed with strep throat, tonsillitis, and scarlet fever. Often I was given antibiotics. While I grew out of most all my childhood allergies, I'll probably never own a dog lest I want to live in misery.
These all pale in comparison to the biggest prank my immune system would play on me: My esophagus developed an allergy to food. The technical name for the disorder is eosinophilic esophagitis (EE). Multiple endoscopies and barium swallows indicated I don't have the usual 'ringed' esophagus seen in other cases, and allergy tests prove no one food causes it. I am in effect, allergic to everything I eat. When I was first diagnosed my doctor attributed my EE to my use of antibiotics as a child, but considering my family history of food allergies, it probably isn't entirely the cause.
Having EE forces me to eat my food much more slowly which ultimately causes me to eat less. (I originally went to the doctor only because my EE had caused me to become severely underweight) Seeing as how eating takes so much of my time I tend to think a lot about what I eat. This has caused me to do much of what Robyn O'Brien, the mother from the NYT article, suggests doing: "Avoid anything genetically modified, artificially created or raised with hormones. Don’t eat food with ingredients you can’t pronounce."
Although I have much more faith in genetically modified foods, I encourage you to start looking up words you don't know. Preservatives like sodium benzoate, which has been recently shown to damage mitochondrial DNA, are found in many common foods. Additionally, there are many foods which have been shown to help our bodies function. Nuts and eggs have loads of essential amino acids that help with basic bodily functions and higher cognitive skills. I can assuredly say that I've found no better study food than a cup of coffee and a bag of trail mix. (The kind without the chocolate or the cereal)
I was born with a genetic milk allergy. To clarify I wasn't ever lactose-intolerant; I was allergic to the specific form of protein found in milk and I didn't get over this allergy until I was entering grade school. As I got older I developed asthma related allergies to dogs and specific types of grass. I also experienced an anaphylactic reaction to canned tuna-fish. I was sick many times as a child, and was diagnosed with strep throat, tonsillitis, and scarlet fever. Often I was given antibiotics. While I grew out of most all my childhood allergies, I'll probably never own a dog lest I want to live in misery.
These all pale in comparison to the biggest prank my immune system would play on me: My esophagus developed an allergy to food. The technical name for the disorder is eosinophilic esophagitis (EE). Multiple endoscopies and barium swallows indicated I don't have the usual 'ringed' esophagus seen in other cases, and allergy tests prove no one food causes it. I am in effect, allergic to everything I eat. When I was first diagnosed my doctor attributed my EE to my use of antibiotics as a child, but considering my family history of food allergies, it probably isn't entirely the cause.
Having EE forces me to eat my food much more slowly which ultimately causes me to eat less. (I originally went to the doctor only because my EE had caused me to become severely underweight) Seeing as how eating takes so much of my time I tend to think a lot about what I eat. This has caused me to do much of what Robyn O'Brien, the mother from the NYT article, suggests doing: "Avoid anything genetically modified, artificially created or raised with hormones. Don’t eat food with ingredients you can’t pronounce."
Although I have much more faith in genetically modified foods, I encourage you to start looking up words you don't know. Preservatives like sodium benzoate, which has been recently shown to damage mitochondrial DNA, are found in many common foods. Additionally, there are many foods which have been shown to help our bodies function. Nuts and eggs have loads of essential amino acids that help with basic bodily functions and higher cognitive skills. I can assuredly say that I've found no better study food than a cup of coffee and a bag of trail mix. (The kind without the chocolate or the cereal)
Stephen Brandau | January 9, 2008
So after a long and grueling football season that left many scratching their heads, the LSU tigers are the first repeat champions during the BCS era as well as the first BCS national champions with 2 losses during the regular season. With more upsets than ever, the BCS system looks due for some real scrutiny. Undefeated Hawaii only made it to the Sugar Bowl, after all. Then they were pummeled by Georgia and everyone stopped griping. (Except for the Bulldogs who may have faired better against LSU than OSU did)
Before the last week of regular play I was hoping for a USC - Ohio State Rose Bowl game and subsequent rematch since USC faces OSU in their opener. Undeniably, injuries were a factor for many teams. The Oregon Ducks, for one saw themselves quickly lose composure with Dennis Dixon out. Despite all the controversy, 2007 proved to be one of the most exciting seasons in college football history, and the All American Football League Blog has an excellent roundup of the most exciting moments from the season.
On a separate note for those of you who don't care about college football, I've got a couple cool tricks to help you be more aware of the way your brain works. Both of these tricks I found in issues of Scientific American: Mind, which has quickly become my favorite magazine.
Much like we are all right or left handed, we all have a dominant eye. To identify your dominant eye point at any object with your index finger. Now wink or alternate covering each eye while observing where your finger is pointing. Whichever eye is dominant will view the finger as correctly pointing at the object, whereas your other eye will view it slightly off. Although I originally found this test quite easy, I now find myself skeptical and I think the choice of my right or left arm to point has something to do with which eye I use. Maybe I'm 'eyembidextrous'.
The second trick I find more compelling, and can be found in the recent December issue of the magazine. Place 2 quarters in the freezer while keeping one room temperature. Place the quarters in line so that the two cold ones are surrounding the room temperature quarter. Place your index and ring finger on the cold quarters and then your middle finger on the room temperature one. All three quarters will feel equally cold. According to the magazine, it's because our brains "fill in" sensory information where we think it may be wrong. Because you feel the 3 quarters as 1 surface, the brain assumes it should all be one uniform temperature. If the middle quarter is removed, the sensation disappears. I've long been interested in neuroscience and for anyone else with similar interests, this magazine makes for a great periodic read.
Before the last week of regular play I was hoping for a USC - Ohio State Rose Bowl game and subsequent rematch since USC faces OSU in their opener. Undeniably, injuries were a factor for many teams. The Oregon Ducks, for one saw themselves quickly lose composure with Dennis Dixon out. Despite all the controversy, 2007 proved to be one of the most exciting seasons in college football history, and the All American Football League Blog has an excellent roundup of the most exciting moments from the season.
On a separate note for those of you who don't care about college football, I've got a couple cool tricks to help you be more aware of the way your brain works. Both of these tricks I found in issues of Scientific American: Mind, which has quickly become my favorite magazine.
Much like we are all right or left handed, we all have a dominant eye. To identify your dominant eye point at any object with your index finger. Now wink or alternate covering each eye while observing where your finger is pointing. Whichever eye is dominant will view the finger as correctly pointing at the object, whereas your other eye will view it slightly off. Although I originally found this test quite easy, I now find myself skeptical and I think the choice of my right or left arm to point has something to do with which eye I use. Maybe I'm 'eyembidextrous'.
The second trick I find more compelling, and can be found in the recent December issue of the magazine. Place 2 quarters in the freezer while keeping one room temperature. Place the quarters in line so that the two cold ones are surrounding the room temperature quarter. Place your index and ring finger on the cold quarters and then your middle finger on the room temperature one. All three quarters will feel equally cold. According to the magazine, it's because our brains "fill in" sensory information where we think it may be wrong. Because you feel the 3 quarters as 1 surface, the brain assumes it should all be one uniform temperature. If the middle quarter is removed, the sensation disappears. I've long been interested in neuroscience and for anyone else with similar interests, this magazine makes for a great periodic read.
Stephen Brandau | January 4, 2008
Sometimes the most mundane tasks make me feel great. Yesterday I went to the pharmacy to get my prescriptions refilled. It was a simple and quick task completely dependent on my own willpower. What's more, I decided to buy a gallon of milk and a carton of vitamin enriched 'orange juice beverage.' I guess the added vitamins mean they can't call it orange juice anymore.
More than anything, this kind of activity makes me feel grown-up. Sometimes it takes some quick, systematic human interaction to remind myself that regardless of the giant powers that be, really everything in the world is run by people. Governments, corporations, religions, really exist and interact with one another through the medium of people.
Adulthood, to me at least, is this realization that as an individual, you have all the potential say in life that anyone else is afforded. I think with the internet this realization has even more profound effects because you're more able to see the innards of these systems. You get to see people interacting and exchanging ideas; creating collective decision-making systems and effectively making the world work the way it does.
Today I went to the dentist and felt similarly grown-up. Since I was a kid, like many of you no doubt, I've found it hard to keep myself flossing every day. Every time I go to the dentist they tell me I need to, and every time I shirk off their warnings. Today the dental hygienist told me that I had stage 1 gingivitis. She informed me that this was dangerous because the disease first weakens your gums, then gets into your jawbone and eventually your teeth start falling out as your jaw rots away. While this is an especially scary image, I seem to remember the Guinness Book of World Records listing gingivitis as the most prevalent disease on earth, affecting billions of people worldwide.
That being said, I can't really imagine my jaw falling out all that soon. Nonetheless I may start flossing more as it's just another one of those mundane tasks we must decide to do as adults. What do you think adulthood is? Do comment!
More than anything, this kind of activity makes me feel grown-up. Sometimes it takes some quick, systematic human interaction to remind myself that regardless of the giant powers that be, really everything in the world is run by people. Governments, corporations, religions, really exist and interact with one another through the medium of people.
Adulthood, to me at least, is this realization that as an individual, you have all the potential say in life that anyone else is afforded. I think with the internet this realization has even more profound effects because you're more able to see the innards of these systems. You get to see people interacting and exchanging ideas; creating collective decision-making systems and effectively making the world work the way it does.
Today I went to the dentist and felt similarly grown-up. Since I was a kid, like many of you no doubt, I've found it hard to keep myself flossing every day. Every time I go to the dentist they tell me I need to, and every time I shirk off their warnings. Today the dental hygienist told me that I had stage 1 gingivitis. She informed me that this was dangerous because the disease first weakens your gums, then gets into your jawbone and eventually your teeth start falling out as your jaw rots away. While this is an especially scary image, I seem to remember the Guinness Book of World Records listing gingivitis as the most prevalent disease on earth, affecting billions of people worldwide.
That being said, I can't really imagine my jaw falling out all that soon. Nonetheless I may start flossing more as it's just another one of those mundane tasks we must decide to do as adults. What do you think adulthood is? Do comment!
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