Alas, it was too cloudy this morning to see the Quadrantid meteor shower. But I got my workout in. Good ole "Cindy" (AMRAP in 20 min of 5 Pull Ups, 10 Push Ups, 15 Squats). Best part: Afterwards, exhausted, flat on my back, watching the steam "smoke" from my face, then listening to the birds and the crunch of snow.
This morning I finally got to 100 double-unders in 3 minutes of jump rope! To get past that I'll probably have to learn to do doubles in sequence instead of just alternating singles and doubles.
2011-12-28t17:10:29 Z | TAGS:
Amazon, Apple, Cyber Life, Google, Hardware, Microsoft, My Stuff, Software, TECH Review of my software usage
I periodically do a review of my software usage -- especially if I've gotten a new computer! However this year I'll emphasize software on my phone and tablet.
Hardware and Operating System:
Phone: HTC Thunderbolt with Android 2.3.4. It's good. I love the integration of contacts between Google Contacts, Facebook, and the phone itself. The short battery life is my chief complaint: Why must I recharge mid-day? I dropped the phone and cracked the screen but it has been fully functional. The crack is annoying though so I have an excuse to get a new phone and Android 4 too.
Tablet: Amazon Kindle Fire with its forked version of Android. I'm fine with the price, size, and speed. All the Amazon stuff (books, music, videos, docs) work great. What I dislike is that some apps are in the Google store but not the Amazon store and vice versa. I imagine that a non-Amazon Android tablets can do all the Amazon stuff fine through apps or the browser. I may make the Fire for the family library, and get a regular Android 4+ tablet for myself later.
Games: Lots available for phone, tablet, comp, console, physical, etc. These are more for my kids.
Angry Birds. $0. Fair. Phone: Pre-installed. Tablet: Available but I don't need it.
Let's Golf 2. $0. Meh. Phone: Pre-installed.
Math Workout. $0. Good. Phone: Pre-installed.
MathDoku. $0. Roughly kenken; Good. Phone.
Enjoy Sudoku. $3. I could have put up with ads on the free version. Good. Phone.
Speed Anatomy. $0. Fair. Tablet.
Comics: Just read in print or online with a big screen!
Comics. $0. By comiXology; Reads require download and often a fee; Fair. Phone: Needs a big screen. Tablet.
Mango. $0. Manga; Fair. Phone: Needs a big screen.
Reading: Going with e-books if available. Hesitating on digital NGM because we love the print.
Kindle. $0. Good. Phone. Tablet.
Google Books. $0. Good. Phone.
Dictionary.com. $0. Good. Phone. Tablet.
Audible. $0. Amazon audio books. Tablet.
News: Perhaps we all check the news too often!
Chicago Tribune. $0. News; Good for local. Phone.
CNN. $0. Good. Phone.
Pulse. $0. Good; A variety of top sources. Tablet.
USA Today. $0. Good. Tablet.
News. $0. Reads Google Reader but no other features?; Ill named; Meh. Phone: Pre-installed.
Google Reader. $0. Fair. Phone.
Audio: I don't do lots of music, but so far I like Amazon's handling of music better than Google and Apple. Yay radio!
FM Radio. $0. An actual local radio; Need headphones for antenna; Good. Phone: Pre-installed.
TuneIn Radio. $0. Internet radio with local options; Good. Phone. Tablet.
Pandora. $0. Internet radio; Love it. Phone? Tablet.
Slacker. $0. Internet radio. Haven't used. Phone: Pre-installed.
TuneWiki. $0. Haven't used. Pre-installed on Phone.
Music. $0. Music player by Verizon with find on YouTube feature. Phone: Pre-installed.
Music. $0. By Google Music Beta; Player but no other features? Phone.
Amazon MP3 Store. $0. Songs usually $0.69; Player and shop at Amazon; Unlimited storage if purchased through them; Good. Phone. Tablet.
Little Piano. $0. A little musical keyboard. Tablet.
Voice Recorder. $0. Take and share audio. Phone: Pre-installed.
Media: I watch YouTube and Netflix, but I don't do much TV, otherwise cable and Hulu might be interesting.
YouTube. $0. Phone: Pre-installed. Tablet: N/A; Just use web.
Netflix. $0. Good. Phone. Tablet.
Connected Media. $0. For sending/sharing music, photos, or videos. Phone: Pre-installed.
Gallery. $0. View and share photos and videos. Phone: Pre-installed.
Gallery. $0. View and share photos and videos. Tablet: Pre-installed.
Videos. $0. View and share videos. Phone: Pre-installed.
Camcorder. $0. Take videos; Can switch to camera. Phone: Pre-installed.
Camera. $0. Take photos; Can switch to camcorder. Phone: Pre-installed.
PicsIn. $0. Doodle. Phone.
Magic Doodle. $0. Doodle. Tablet.
Phone: I use the fewest phone minutes in my family. Waiting for phone wallets to mature.
People. $0 Rolodex; Links people across: phone, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, etc.; Call history. Phone: Pre-installed.
Contacts. $0. Not integrated with my other stuff, so why would I use this? Tablet: Pre-installed.
Voice Mail. $0. Alas, I have to use this now and then. Hide, since this is just the 3rd page on the Messages app. Phone: Pre-installed.
Voice. $0. Google Voice; Don't use on phone much but I do Google calls on a full computer often. Phone.
SMS/IM: Yes, my family texts/chats often!
Messages. $0. SMS; Can also check voice mail; Use often. Phone: Pre-installed.
Mobile IM. $0. For Windows Live, Yahoo!, and AIM. Haven't used. Phone: Pre-installed.
Talk. $0. For Google Talk/Chat; Use regularly. Phone: Pre-installed.
Skype. $0. IM and Skype phone; OK. Phone: Pre-installed.
KakaoTalk. $0. Don't use much. Phone: Pre-installed.
Email: I prefer to do email at a full computer. Urgent communications should be done by phone or text.
Mail. $0. Can connect to Gmail, Exchange, POP3/IMAP, Verizon.Net, Hotmail, Yahoo; I use for Hotmail and Yahoo. Few features. Phone: Pre-installed.
Email. $0. Can connect to various email providers; Don't use much. Tablet: Pre-installed.
Gmail. $0. I love Gmail. Phone: Pre-installed; minimal feature set. Tablet: N/A; Just use web.
Social: I prefer to do social sites on a full computer. I do Facebook, but barely do Twitter and the rest.
Facebook. $0. Most Facebook-specific features. Phone: Pre-installed. Tablet: N/A; Just use the web.
Friend Stream. $0. View Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter; View by status, photos/vids, links, lists (?), and notifications; Post to Facebook, Twitter. Phone: Pre-installed.
Peep. $0. View Twitter; View by all tweets, mentions, direct messages, starred; Post too. Phone: Pre-installed.
Seesmic. $0. View Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz; View Twitter by: timeline, replies, direct messages, profile (my tweets, fave tweets, retweets, following, followers), lists, trending; View Facebook by: news feed, friends, pages, wall; View Buzz by: Following feed, nearby, profile; Post to same. Phone: Pre-installed.
TweetDeck. $0. Owned by Twitter; View Twitter, Facebook, MySpace (PC), LinkedIn (PC), Foursquare, Google Buzz; Post to same. Phone: Pre-installed.
Google Buzz. $0. Post to. Phone.
Foursquare. $0. Most Foursquare-specific features; OK if you like that sort of thing. Phone.
Office and Files: I prefer to do office stuff on a full computer but I love having centralized simple text files that my wife and I can both access. I'd really like to log my workouts in my Google Docs spreadsheets but the interface is a clunky.
Dropbox. $0. Web hosting and sharing; I have no need to pay for Evernote or box.net; Great! Phone. Tablet: Not part of the official Amazon store but the "hack" is simple: http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=47218.
Calendar. $0. View and post to Google Calendar; Mobile calendar access is key sometimes. Phone: Pre-installed; Limited. Tablet: N/A; Just use web.
Docs. $0. View, edit, and post to Google Docs. Phone: Minimal features. Tablet: N/A; Just use web.
ES File Explorer. $0. I tried Astro, but I like ES better. Phone.
Maps: Mobile maps is important when you're travelling.
Navigation. $0. Great back up for GPS. Phone: Pre-installed.
Maps. $0. Google Maps. Can be useful. Phone: Pre-installed.
Google Sky. $0. Nice, I've used it several times. Phone: Pre-installed.
Google Earth. $0. Good, but I haven't used it much. Phone: Pre-installed.
Places. $0. Rate Places app by Android?; Meh. Phone: Pre-installed.
Footprints. $0. Don't use much. Phone: Pre-installed.
Latitude. $0. Don't use much, but I might when the wife gets a smartphone. Phone: Pre-installed.
Utilities: A calculator with basic science functions should be built-in!
Weather. $0. Great!; I check often. Phone: Pre-installed.
The Weather Channel. $0. Good. Tablet.
Calculator. $0. I use this often. Phone: Pre-installed.
Office Calculator Free. $0. Tablet: No built in calculator?
RealCalc Scientific Calculator. $0. OK.
Flashlight. $0. Cool idea but the regular mobile light is OK. Phone.
Candle Free. $0. Fun little thing. Tablet.
Goggles. $0. Google Goggles; Nice idea but I haven't used it much. Phone.
Translate. $0. Google Translate; Good. Phone.
Barcode Scan. $0. Good. Phone
A HIIT Timer. $0. Good. Phone.
Special Apps:
Amazon.com. $0. Love it! Phone. Tablet: Pre-installed.
Mint.com. $0. Good. Phone. Tablet.
PNC Mobile. $0. My bank; Fair. Phone. Tablet: N/A?
ING DIRECT. $0. My bank; Fair. Phone. Tablet: N/A?
Pingdom. $0. Meh. Phone.
Other:
Internet. $0. Android browser; Good. Phone.
Web. $0. Amazon Silk browser; Good when it works: Sometimes the Amazon Stuff works online fine while regular web pages don't. Tablet.
Voice Search. $0. Voice search and commands for phone, web, text, sms, music, navigate, email. Voice commands have been clumsy. Phone: Pre-installed.
Non-mobile computer software brief version:
Windows 7 operating system
AVG anti-virus
Chrome browser
Dropbox file hosting and sharing
IrfanView media viewer
GIMP raster image editor
Inkscape vector image editor
Sketchup 3D modeling
Notepad++ text editor
Mercurial revisions control software
PostgreSQL versus MySQL database
StarCraft II real-time strategy game
2011-12-15t20:37:17 Z | TAGS:
Geology, History, News, Science, Sustainability, TECH, World Methane discovery stokes new global warming fears Shock as retreat of Arctic releases greenhouse gas
History: 55.8 million year ago an extreme climate change occurred called the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). The PETM is so clearly visible in the geologic evidence that it defines the border between two epochs. One of the main theories about PETM is that global warming melted the polar ice and exposed methane. Methane is 20x more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2, so the global warming was exacerbated, the oceans acidified, and mass extinction occurred.
News: The Siberian Arctic Shelf and permafrost has been melting. Now hundreds of methane fountains are turning up. My guess is that once it gets this far, there's no reversing it. We've already been causing extinctions, but there are going to be a lot more. Runaway global warming here we come.
2011-12-13t20:27:13 Z | TAGS:
Biology, Evolution, Faith, Fauna, Images, Live Action, Nature, TECH, Videos Fish uses fins to walk and bound
I've kept a "Life Log" for years. It's a short document (only a few pages long) with a chronological listing of important events, places, people, things, jobs and salaries, medical incidents, births, deaths, etc. in my life.
The format of my Life Log is simple. For each year I have a short line with the year, my age on my birthday of that year, my "grade" if I was in school that year, and similar info for my wife and kids. EG: 2011. 43. JH XX. CH 13/8. YH 10/5. AH 7/1. Then for each year I have bullets for the important things, nested by date and time if possible.
Recently I rediscovered the comic "936 Little Blobs" [http://abstrusegoose.com/51] where the each of the blobs corresponds to one month in a typical lifespan of 78 years. I like it because it gives you a one page view.
However the blobs don't provide much metadata so I decided to transform it into a Life Log spreadsheet [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Anl6QqLgOdR9dFNZTDBERGluYWhiUzFYNG1LQmdlWXc] where each cell represents a month. You can enter as much or as little info in each cell. When you're done entering info, just turn off word wrap and the cells shrink, thus allowing you to see your life on one page. As a spreadsheet, it also does things like calculate your age on your birthday for each year.
A Life Log has a lot of practical uses: Medical history, resume building for job hunting, credit reports, legal issues, etc. However its most important function is to give me perspective on where I've been, where I'm going, what's important, and that time is passing.
Fave recent workout that I did: 5 rounds of: 5 Hanging Ring Extensions, 5 Forward Rolls, 5 Backward Rolls, and 10 Sots Presses 45#. Several reasons: 1. As part of my warm up I do 3 minutes of jump rope where I alternate between single-unders and double-unders, and I broke 90 double-unders so 100 is within sight! 2. Rolling without a mat is gnarly! 3. I knew the Sots Press would work weird muscles in the upper body but I was surprised at what it did for my knee. As part of my cool down I do a 12 minute round of stretches that includes sitting on my knees (seiza). That's the best my right knee has ever felt during seiza in a long while. I think it was the static active knees during the Sots Press! I'll make the Sots Press a regular thing.
2011-12-02t16:49:43 Z | TAGS:
Faith, Literature, Mind, My Stuff, Quotations, Quote, Ramblings, Text 7 and 13
My numbers for today are 7 and 13.
7 is for We are Seven by William Wordsworth. The death of a loved one temporarily weakens us, but to honor them we must ensure that their lives strengthen us and lives through us.
13 is for transformation, rebirth, rebellion. 13 exceeds the numerology of 12. A death must occur in order to have a resurrection. The extraordinary requires the surpassing the status quo.
We are seven! We will transform!
[FYI: Here is a copy of "We are Seven" by William Wordsworth. I prefer the original intro by Coledridge.]
A little child, dear brother Jem,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
I met a little cottage Girl:
She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.
She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad:
Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
--Her beauty made me glad.
"Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
How many may you be?"
"How many? Seven in all," she said
And wondering looked at me.
"And where are they? I pray you tell."
She answered, "Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.
"Two of us in the church-yard lie,
My sister and my brother;
And, in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother."
"You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,
Yet ye are seven!--I pray you tell,
Sweet Maid, how this may be."
Then did the little Maid reply,
"Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree."
"You run about, my little Maid,
Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the church-yard laid,
Then ye are only five."
"Their graves are green, they may be seen,"
The little Maid replied,
"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,
And they are side by side.
"My stockings there I often knit,
My kerchief there I hem;
And there upon the ground I sit,
And sing a song to them.
"And often after sunset, Sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.
"The first that died was sister Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,
Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.
"So in the church-yard she was laid;
And, when the grass was dry,
Together round her grave we played,
My brother John and I.
"And when the ground was white with snow,
And I could run and slide,
My brother John was forced to go,
And he lies by her side."
"How many are you, then," said I,
"If they two are in heaven?"
Quick was the little Maid's reply,
"O Master! we are seven."
"But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!"
'Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
And said, "Nay, we are seven!"