5 Things Halloween is to Me

When Halloween comes around it means:

• Coworkers in entertaining costumes
• Overcrowded house parties
• Attractively costumed ladies
• Pumpkin beer
• Boorritos

And you?

How to buy hiking boots that fit

For nearly any sort of prolonged outdoor activity your footwear is the most important gear you’ll own. Good boots make long backpacking trips sightseeing bliss, and make any sort of tricky scrambling seem intuitive vs terrifying.

Most people never get the true pleasure out of their footwear. Many people complain about boots having to “break in” despite going on multiple trips in them. Often people buy boots based on their styling or color, vs lightness or construction.

Differences between synthetic and leather boots

In the past decade most boots have undergone a massive change. Most boots of yesteryear were heavy leather tanks, nearly indestructible and about as light as an anchor. Now most manufactures have abandoned that style of boot making in exchange for lighter boots that use synthetic materials. These boots have some serious advantages, first off they’re crazy light easily weighing half to a third of a full leather boot of the same size. Second because the synthetic materials are also much flexible than leather, many of them don’t have a “break in” period, you just pull them on, and go. They often cost less than full leather boots as well. Read more

KCRW’s Today’s Top Tune

 

 

This podcast features up and coming eclectic, often independent, artists singing their wares.  Available to download just on the day of the release, each song is a unique experience.  To really get the flow of this podcast you should subscribe at least for two weeks. Ironic mustaches and calf hugging denim is not required.

KCRW’s Today’s Top Tune

UM Book Club - Little Brother by Cory Doctorow Part III

 

Pages 181 - 266 (Ch 12-16)

In this section we saw a lot of activity as the novel climbs to what I’m anticipating is an epic conclusion in the few remaining pages.  Two significant events occur that both carry the story as well as modify the dynamic of the plot.   This story has been a fantastic surprise so far.  Doctorow’s talent as a writer and story teller come through even in this youthfully targeted novel. Read more

Denver Arts Week

Denver is promoting its city’s arts and artisans November 14th through the 22nd with the 2nd annual Denver Arts Week.  While I’ll be busying my time in the vibrant city of Oklahoma City followed by Adobe Max in San Francisco,  maybe a few readers can take advantage of this cultured opportunity.  Coordinating the first friday art walk, the opening of the Starz Film Festival, and a few late nate museum swarays, I’m sorry to be out of town.  

No, not really.  San Francisco rocks, I love it there.  Have fun in Denver suckers.  Check out Denver Arts Week at denver.org.

Office Drinking

“This is work, but let’s be civilized about it.”

GQ on keeping booze in your office.

SNL Weekend Update: Touch Map

SNL Weekend Update had me laughing out loud all by myself in my apartment last night.  One of the highlights was the large touch map they were using.  

“I can bounce Michigan.”  

I can’t find a video though.  This is were you come in.  Anyone know of a link?

Wild Caves: Nature’s Sensory Deprivation Chambers

There’s something special about being in complete darkness.  You’d expect it to feel claustrophobic, full of tension and anxiety, after all humans have feared the dark as long as we’ve been around.  Oddly enough being in complete darkness is astonishingly peaceful.  When you’re deep underground in tight cramped conditions and you’re trying to avoid thinking about the uncountable tons of rock precariously suspended above your head your heart pumps pretty fast.  Turn off the lights and just sit in total darkness and silence and instead of feeling trapped and enclosed you feel like you’re in a void more expansive than space and overwhelming you instead you just feel peace.

Caving is a unique experience, it challenges the mind in amazing ways from route finding, 3 dimensional navigation and overcoming fears, while working the body in a kind of excessive that it usually doesn’t see.  There are typically two kinds of caves, Show Caves and Wild Caves.  Show caves are actively managed by a national park, private company, campground, or someone.  They often have lights strung up in them and many times have had paths cleared through them that remove the need to do any climbing. Read more

Podcast Review: NPR Planet Money

 

 

Amidst the financial collapse of the global banking market and the following credit crunch I find myself having difficulty comprehending what is happening in the world around me.  NPR’s Planet Money podcast and blog attempts to answer these questions starting from the ground up.  Shows focus on single topics starting with some form of the basic question, “What exactly is that?”  If you find your self confused by terms like leverage or balance sheets, check out Planet Money.

NPR Planet Money

UM Book Club - Little Brother by Cory Doctorow Part II

 

Pages 89 - 180 (Ch 6-11)

In the second section of Little Brother we get into the meat of the story.  We see the rise of Marcus (now M1k3y) on the underground network Xnet.  With bugged computers everywhere, Xnet is accessed via a linux distribution named Paranoid Linux created for an outdated xBox platform.  Marcus leads a sneakernet campaign to pass disks out to everyone interested.  

As homeland security tightens Marcus’ friends Jolu and Van have grown apprehensive of any insubordination.  Not wanting to end up back in the unmarked prison or worse, end up in the same place as the still missing Darryl, they both express issue to Marcus.  The worsened government actions have the opposite effect on Marcus.  Though he feels guilt for risking many people’s safety with xNet and counter tactics, each raise in security is met with another move from our protagonist.   Read more

Morning Travel Routine

Activity	Time Spent (mm:ss)
Walking	1:28
Waiting	0:32
Bus	15:09
Waiting	11:21
Train	12:37
Walking	9:22

You’re probably wondering, why did greg just publish the amount of time he spends walking, waiting, and riding public transportation on one morning. Me too. But this is it. Take it for what it’s worth.

Getting Used to Trackballs

At least once a month I spend an extended weekend in Oklahoma City with my long distance girlfriend as she works through a 3 year residency.  Given that I’m not privileged with monthly 4 day weekends, I’ve been slowly setting up a secondary home office in her apartment.   Looking to equip my secondary laptop docking station with an above standard pointing device, I found my way to the dark side of mousing, the trackball. Read more

YouTube: Show me something cool

I interrupt this regular friday youtube post to ask for reader input.  

Show me something cool on youtube!  

Post links in the comments…

MixShare’s Rapid Evolution

I first heard about Rapid Evolution from my friend Glenn.  Actually, it was from my friend Cash.  He was describing Glenn’s poor taste in showing up to his house for DJ night with a stack of burnt CDs time stretched to the same BPM and marked to indicate matching keys.  This ensured a relatively low effort maximum mix potential for Glenn.  Last night I bit the bait and analyzed my small but growing drum n bass collection.  Amazing.

If you’re a DJ, I recommend checking out Rapid Evolution to see what it can do for your mix.

Top 5 Show Caves

Caving is a unique experience, it challenges the mind in amazing ways from route finding, 3 dimensional navigation and overcoming fears, while working the body in a kind of exercise that it usually doesn’t see.  There are typically two kinds of caves, Show Caves and Wild Caves.  Show caves are actively managed by a national park, private company, campground, or someone.  They often have lights strung up in them and many times have had paths cleared through them that remove the need to do any climbing.

If you’ve never gone caving before and if you don’t know if you’re claustrophobic or not you should try a Show Cave first.  Show caves commonly have lights strung up in them and marked paths.  Often you can go as part of a tour group or walk the paths at your own speed.  You do not need specialized equipment for most of these caves and if you do they are typically included with the cost of entry.  Although a guided tour dosen’t sound all that exciting show caves have a lot of nice features.  Many of the tours bring people through areas where there is no light pollution or turn off the lights for a bit so you can experience true darkness. Read more

Podcast Review: Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day

I have problems with word of the day.  I read it, I see the examples, but I end up with awkward  usage and worse pronunciation.  Hearing it in an audio podcast though seems to fix at least the latter issue.  Enter Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day daily podcast.  A little over 2 minutes to a better understanding of the language I slay daily.

Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day Podcast

UM Book Club - Little Brother by Cory Doctorow Part I

 

Pages 1 - 88 (Ch 1-5)

This novel feels like Harry Potter.  Mystical, innocent, and somewhat of an indulgence to read as an adult .  Except instead of wands, spells, and wizards, it’s real life technology, accessible and available to most people.  While a few steps into the future, it’s talking about things that exist today.  Each chapter is packed with technological trailheads for any eager reader to follow into a real life interest in computers.  Awesome.

The first section we are introduced to the main characters.  Marcus narrates the story and introduces us to his ARG team Darryl, Jolu, and Van.  We meet a few antagonists: Fredrick Benson the vice principal, and Severe haircut lady of Homeland Security.  The stage is pretty much set in the first few chapters, peering into the main characters’ personalities as well as the motive for the rest of the story.  

There are a few things that really stick out to me.  

The opening paragraph:

I’m a senior at Cesar Chavez high in San Francisco’s sunny Mission district, and that makes me one of the most surveilled people in the world. My name is Marcus Yallow, but back when this story starts, I was going by w1n5t0n. Pronounced “Winston.”

To me, this is one of those details that as a reader, I gloss over till I’m at the end of the book and I find myself back in present time.  Much like for the duration of Catcher in the Rye, I forget that we’re talking to a therapist.  I’m interested to find out the context in which Marcus as has been sharing this story.  Or, it could just be that he changes his handle after his personal security systems have been breached.  

The foreshadowing at the end of chapter 3:

In hindsight, maybe I should have unlocked my phone for them.

Straight forward and quickly resolved, this one sentence though really propels the reader through the next chapter.

My Shrinking Brain

A study was recently released analyzing drinking habits and brain size.  

Overall, the more alcohol consumed, the smaller the brain volume, with abstainers having a higher brain volume than former drinkers, light drinkers (one to seven drinks per week), moderate drinkers (eight to 14 drinks per week), and heavy drinkers (14 or more drinks per week).

At first I was concerned and started reading a few other media reports on the study.  Of all the reports, I was most comforted by CNN’s multi-angled approach.

“We’re talking very small differences here,” says Dr. Garbutt, who was not involved in the study. “We’re not seeing 10 to 20 percent shrinkage.”

CNN: Does drinking alcohol shrink your brain?

Thoughts on Life: Pretending

Who am I pretending to be and to what end?

Happy Brick Day

 

 

Today is the day that Apple announces their new notebook line internally named ‘Brick.’  I’ll be anxiously awaiting the 10am pacific announcement following any of the tech/mac resources like engadget, gizmodo, or mac rumors.  Yes!

LaCie 5big Network Storage Array

I’ve ran out of space for media long time ago.   I want this based solely on sex appeal.  Look at this thing!

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