Personal Musings for Public Consumption

Running around the Stanford Ear

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:21:37 -0700

I whooped my own ass today running around the Stanford Ear today. Not the best run I've done there, but it was a nice even and steady pace, so I can't complain. Beautiful view and weather, so it'll go down as a winner of a 60min trott in my book.

I ran with my normal KSOs today and am glad I did. Compared to the Treks, the normal KSOs are easily 50% the weight of the KSO treks and I was able to keep hammering away at the hills. At this point, I can safely say I like running uphill more than I do down. Uphill isn't effortless, but I find it satisfying to stride up without carrying 2 lb weights strapped to each leg. If you have VFF, you probably know what I mean. Cheers!

PS No knee pain from running up or down hill. Win.

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Barry Schwartz: The Paradox of Choice

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:27:39 -0700

One of my favorite TED talks. All marketers and economists would probably enjoy this nugget. Paraphrased: "I wrote an entire book trying to explain to myself why I was less happy with my just-purchased pair of jeans that fit me better than any other pair of jeans that I've owned in my entire life."

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IOS Interior Routing Protocols Cheat Sheet

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:46:00 -0800

Pretty handy cheat sheet for IGPs. IOS_Interior_Routing_Protocols.pdf

Left and Right politics explained

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:00:00 -0800

One of my favorite visualizations of politics.

Europe vs. The US

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:00:00 -0800

EUROPE VS. THE US: WHICH HAS THE BETTER DEVELOPMENT MODEL FOR THE 21ST CENTURY?

Steven Hill makes a bunch of very interesting points regarding Europe's economic development and debunks a few rumors about socialist europe. His data didn't match my mindset. My mindset now more closely matches his data. Very nice. Click through the link below to give the talk a listen.

Europe vs. the US: Which Has the Better Development Model for the 21st Century? (mp3)

My Internet Went Away

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:01:48 -0800

Sweet.

Lady calls Leo Laporte's Tech Guy Show claiming her WI-FI access has "disappeared", come to find out that she doesn't even have a router! She's been stealing someones wi-fi for the past year! She even bought a wi-fi extender hoping to get it back. BEST Tech Guy caller EVER. PERIOD.

TEDTalks : Gary Lauder's new traffic sign: Take Turns

nospam@example.com (TEDTalks) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:39:00 -0800

Pretty cool to watch small numbers yield big numbers. Traffic wonks will enjoy this 6min video.

Fifty percent of traffic accidents happen at intersections. Gary Lauder shares a brilliant and cheap idea for helping drivers move along smoothly: a new traffic sign that combines the properties of "Stop" and "Yield" -- and asks drivers to be polite.

The Business of Climate Change Conference

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:05:00 -0800

From the The Business of Climate Change Conference. This guy is one of the more entertaining and interesting speakers. Certainly the ramifications of his talk should be of interest to most.

TEDTalks : The LXD: In the Internet age, dance evolves

nospam@example.com (TEDTalks) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:00:00 -0800

I've been waiting for this to come out. Excellent performance.

The LXD (the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers) electrify the TED2010 stage with an emerging global street-dance culture, revved up by the Internet. In a preview of Jon Chu’s upcoming Web series, this astonishing troupe show off their superpowers.

The Science News Cycle...

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:40:48 -0800

...and all this time, I thought local TV and blogs were trustworthy sources of information. Damn it.

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:34:02 -0800

Very clever and well done.

TEDTalks : Gary Flake: is Pivot a turning point for web exploration?

nospam@example.com (TEDTalks) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:00:00 -0800

If you're a data geek, you'll love this presentation. It's a blatent "we invented this at Microsoft" talk, but look past the corporate nod and you'll see a really interesting technology that lets you visualize information as a web. Very pleased to see information represented in some kind of multi-dimension interface.

Gary Flake demos Pivot, a new way to browse and arrange massive amounts of images and data online. Built on breakthrough Seadragon technology, it enables spectacular zooms in and out of web databases, and the discovery of patterns and links invisible in standard web browsing.

I'm Sure Glad The Recession Ended

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:53:11 -0800

It's a good thing the recession ended. Otherwise, key economic charts might look something like this.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/03/im-sure-glad-recession-ended.html

Interesting data and I find the irony funny.

Last night I finally got to Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room in my Netflix queue and was left thinking about health care and insurance companies. The similarities between the two are uncanny.

Fixing up WordPress to work behind nginx

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:06:41 -0800

WordPress looks nice, but is a rats nest of code under the hood. If you configure nginx* to proxy back to Apache*, you may find yourself with a nifty pile of never ending 301 redirects. I've solved this before, but had long since forgotten. Below I've got my recipe for fixing.
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Coffee Party

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:19:57 -0800

Here's a nugget from Facebook/Twitter than I'm keen on. The Vet in the second video does a pretty good job of summing up my present attitude. I'll be interested to see where this goes.

http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/