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Gabriel Garcia Marquez has written some of the best books I've read in my life, two of my favorites. What an interesting story.
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March 30, 2007
March 29, 2007
March 28, 2007
March 26, 2007
On Vox: Into the Open Water
On Saturday, I had my first open water swim in the Bay.
Wow. Cold.
The water was 53.2 degrees F / 11.8 degrees C. Or: Cold.
I'd splashed around some in the Pcific on my three ill-fated surfing adventures, and of course I've taken a quick dive in the water before. But there's a huge difference between doing that and continually sticking your face in the water to swim. Making myself do that, and then breathe normally while swimming, was one of the hardest things I've done so far during this training: Not physically, but mentally. It took me ten minutes or so to begin swimming normally, and even then I had trouble with sighting and swimming a straight line, and bumping into others. I also swallowed a ton of water. A ton. Of Water.
When they called time, I almost didn't want to come out. I was just coming up on 2/3 of a mile, and finally getting into a groove. Although the coaches said we had to warm up, I think the real key was to let my face get completely numb--as you can maybe tell from the rictus attempt at a smile I made as I emerged.
Finally, I'm a mere $54 dollars away from my Team in Training fundraising minimum. (Though I still have another $1200 to go before I hit my goal.) If you'd like to make a contribution, please check out my fundraising page. You can find a link there that shows how the money is spent.
Wow. Cold.
The water was 53.2 degrees F / 11.8 degrees C. Or: Cold.
I'd splashed around some in the Pcific on my three ill-fated surfing adventures, and of course I've taken a quick dive in the water before. But there's a huge difference between doing that and continually sticking your face in the water to swim. Making myself do that, and then breathe normally while swimming, was one of the hardest things I've done so far during this training: Not physically, but mentally. It took me ten minutes or so to begin swimming normally, and even then I had trouble with sighting and swimming a straight line, and bumping into others. I also swallowed a ton of water. A ton. Of Water.
When they called time, I almost didn't want to come out. I was just coming up on 2/3 of a mile, and finally getting into a groove. Although the coaches said we had to warm up, I think the real key was to let my face get completely numb--as you can maybe tell from the rictus attempt at a smile I made as I emerged.
Finally, I'm a mere $54 dollars away from my Team in Training fundraising minimum. (Though I still have another $1200 to go before I hit my goal.) If you'd like to make a contribution, please check out my fundraising page. You can find a link there that shows how the money is spent.
Originally posted on mat.vox.com
March 25, 2007
March 24, 2007
March 23, 2007
March 22, 2007
March 21, 2007
They Destroyed My Google Home Page, Part II
Yesterday evening, I was pretty excited about my new Google home page. The banner was cute, I was impressed that it changed to match the time of day (or, in some cases, weather), and I was generally pleased with it.
This morning, when I came into the office, and saw that the sun was rising over my tea garden, I was equally happy. Much better than the standard whitespace, I thought, I can't understand why people are complaining about something optional.
But then, less than an hour after I arrived at work, I killed it, reverting to the old homepage design. Why? Because I use my Google homepage as an information delivery device (note the tabs across the top). I have three widgets, all of which you can plainly see, and the rest of the page is dedicated to RSS feeds. The banner, though cute, is considerably larger than my standard homepage, and I end up losing some of that information that I can normally see at a glance, without even really looking for it.
I also think the new features--send to a friend, about this widget, and you might also like--only tend to work for people who are using mainly Google default settings, and even they aren't incredibly useful. (Well, maybe not "send to a friend," but certainly the other two.) For example, when I click to find a "you might also like" for the New York Times, what shows up "above the fold" on my MacBook are links for Google Calendar, Reuters, Science Daily Headlines, and
NPR News. Ho-fucking-hum. The same link for Wired News gets me slightly better results--Lifehack, Computerworld News, TechDirt, and a cute puppy--probably because Wired News is a standard Google "widget" and it's less of a general interest one than the New York Times.
But when I break out of what Google offers, things start sucking. So I want to see something similar to my Macworld feed, what does Google suggest? Well, Macworld. While it is true that if I like Macworld I might also like Macworld, I'm not sure what value that really adds for me. People who like Matt Haughey and Anil Dash's weblogs apparently enjoy feed readers--the same ones, even. And once I get to smaller blog feeds--the kind of feed that's a specialty type site that I might really want to find something similar to--forget it. Last Plane to Jakarta? Nothing. Stay Free? Nothing. And in some cases the results are just plain dumb. Andre Torrez' weblog is called "Notes." So what does Google think I'll like if I read that site--which often tends to be about things like software, programming, advertising, music, and San Francisco? Why, other sites that use the word "notes" in the title, naturally.
Now, I have a (very rough) understanding of how that process works, and I'm not being critical of the "similar to" function. That's great, and if it doesn't always work, who cares? that it does some of the time when I do a standard Google search is enough for me.
What I think is a mistake is adding something that doesn't work very well to the homepage. And, unfortunately, that goes for a lot of what's been added to this update. Here's the part of the post where I pre-emptively say YES I KNOW I CAN JUST NOT USE IT. But I've been using it. For months and months. And it was great. So it's a disappointment to see it crossing over into feature glut.
For further reading, see Part I of my Google home page kvetching.
March 19, 2007
On Vox: Vox Hunt: Weekend Results
Show us something you did, made, saw or bought this past weekend.
16.1 miles per hour average on 3700 feet of climbing. I'm getting faster.
Originally posted on mat.vox.com
March 16, 2007
On Vox: Dance Dance Revolution
This morning, riding the N-Judah on the way to work, I was listening to an IndieInterviews session with John Vanderslice that has been sitting on my iPod for way too long. (Next up: his interview with Merlin Mann). I expected he would be pretty interesting, and he was. And it also made me wonder why Pixel Revolt didn't cause more of a sensation.
his earlier albums are filled with great songs, but none seem as album-oriented as Pixel Revolt, which is filled with gorgeous songs from start to finish. And it's not just the melodies; the lyrics are heartbreaking, introspective, political. All albums should be this good.
In any case, I thought I might upload a few of his tracks from various albums, plus an Alias remix of "Exodus Damage" (AKA: Dance Dance Revolution).
Originally posted on mat.vox.com
March 15, 2007
March 14, 2007
March 13, 2007
Twitter Nation
If SXSW is anything, it is Twitter's coming out party (for better or worse). Seemingly everyone who is anyone at all, darling, is on Twitter by now, and the Digerati certainly seem to have morphed into Twitterati over the past several days.
But pretension aside, if you need any proof that Twitter is having its moment, you need only see the following exchange between Robert Scoble and Presidential candidate John Edwards:
Not only is John Edwards on Twitter, he's actually using it (or: someone in his staff is at least) to answer questions about his campaign within minutes of their being posed. Now, where's Obama?
Originally posted on mat.vox.com
