Some of you might know that some guys and I are building a watch to count laps for swimmers (www.lapview.com). Our small team at Lapview spends lots of time thinking about ways to measure information so athletes can improve performance.
Personal metrics makes me think of the android character “Data” from Star Trek (pictured above). Data could sense a person’s blood flow and brea...
I am planning a trip to Ama Dablam, 22,349 feet. The year is unclear as I’m still in planning mode.
Ama Dablam dominates the eastern sky for anyone trekking to Mount Everest basecamp, that’s when I first saw it and was captivated. It’s a gorgeous peak.
The most popular route by far is the Southwest Ridge (right skyline in the photo). Climbers typically set up three camps alo...
“Ties are rarely laundered but worn daily,” the Department of Health said in a statement. “They perform no beneficial function in patient care and have been shown to be colonized by pathogens.”
[via AP 9/17/2007]. Originally read in Superfreakonomics.
Good reason to wear a tux.
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I was a judge again this year at SJSU’s Neat Ideas Fair. It’s a student innovation contest that is open to the public. Two companies this year addressed a rising trend that I call micro mapping. “Kart Buddy” helps grocery shoppers create a route in the store matching their shopping list and “Airport Buddy” helps travelers navigate airports. I predict this wil...
HD footage from “ivegivenallican” (I’ve given all I can). Shows the the three most memorable parts of summit day, those being Hillary Step, South Summit and Everest Summit. I wish it showed the balcony — I have a pretty foggy memory of this spot and it would have been nice to see it again with a fully oxygenated mind.
Everest is a different climb than any other mountain cli...
Shockingly, I write email on average from 6AM to midnight from Monday-Friday. The frequency is highest in the early morning when I am responding to customers and teammates. It dwindles in the afternoons when I take most of my meetings.
This dataset is from my corporate email over the last 12 months. I created this report using an Outlook plugin called Xobni (a Cisco investment).
This dataset exclu...
On Sunday at 9AM I walked past my front window and noticed that my cat was staring at a gorgeous Amber German Shepard standing in the street outside my house. What I did not know was that 5 minutes later this gorgeous animal would maul me and send me bleeding to the Hospital Emergency Room.
Here’s how it happened.
I walked outside and heard the dog was whining anxiously and prancing around a...
[Update] It is not illegal to raise chickens in San Mateo, California. No word on ducks.
[Update] My current preferred duck species is the Khaki Campbell (pictured below). They are good in the water, are hardy and lay more eggs than a chicken. I do not know how loyal they are.
I want to raise a flock of 5 ducks and keep them in my backyard. This is a surprisingly common suburban practice, althoug...
The Graphic: The colors lines represent actual sharks from 2000-2008. The gray area represents the extrapolated ranging of all great whites in the area. There is no blow-up of the bay, but supposedly they roamed inside the Golden Gate.
The Study: According to a Stanford University-led study released Tuesday, great white sharks occasionally stray from their Northern California feeding grounds for ...
Google has selected the final 16 public policy ideas from their big ideas contest. You can see the full range of ideas here. This type of work is important to me because ideas frame our understanding of the world and drive our behaviors.
The ideas that resonated with me are:
encourage positive media depictions of engineers and scientists (Neal note: ala the Intel commercial)
create a transport...
