DB's shared items in Google Reader

University Website

2010-07-30T00:00:00Z

Secret Chemicals in Perfume

2010-05-26T15:36:17Z

What Perfume Makers Won’t Tell You? on GreenBiz.com is a quick look at the chemicals that aren’t listed in perfumes, some of which are allergens or disrupt hormones.

The article references a recent report, Not So Sexy: Hidden Chemicals in Perfume and Cologne.

In bolded text throughout the report are words like “secret chemicals,” “multiple sensitizers,” “multiple hormone disruptors,” and “widespread use of chemicals that have not been assessed for safety.”

Culprits named include:

limonene
linalool
eugenol

I’m going to read this report in full and decide whether there’s an actual concern here, but my initial instinct as a perfumer is that these elements are contained in pretty innocuous items. Limonene is an organic compound in citrus that gives things an orange smell. Linalool is a naturally-occurring alcohol found in flowers and spice plants. Eugenol is a chemical compound in extractions from clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, basil and bay leaf.

I’m not discounting this report all together, and I’m certainly interested in the synthetic elements that they study as well as the natural elements. But I also think the phrasing and presentation of the report preys on people’s emotions without fully educating consumers about these substances, how they are found and used in perfume, and the testing and regulation the industry is already following.

I’ll update this post once I’ve dug into the report further.

On self determination

2010-03-05T10:52:00Z

I posted this eight years ago (!) but a reader asked for an encore.

...are we stuck in High School?

I had two brushes with higher education this week.

The first was at a speech I gave in New York. There were several Harvard Business School students there, invited because of their interest in marketing and exceptional promise (that's what I was told... I think they came because they had heard that Maury Rubin would make a great lunch!).

Anyway, they asked for my advice in finding marketing jobs. When I shared my views (go to a small company, work for the CEO, get a job where you actually get to make mistakes and do something) one woman professed to agree with me, but then explained, "But those companies don't interview on campus."

Those companies don't interview on campus. Hmmm. She has just spent $100,000 in cash and another $150,000 in opportunity cost to get an MBA, but...

The second occurred today at Yale. As I drove through the amazingly beautiful campus, I passed the center for Asian Studies. It reminded me of my days as an undergrad (at a lesser school, natch), browsing through the catalog, realizing I could learn whatever I wanted. That not only could I take classes but I could start a business, organize a protest movement, live in a garret off campus, whatever. It was a tremendous gift, this ability to choose.

Yet most of my classmates refused to choose. Instead, they treated college like an extension of high school. They took the most mainstream courses, did the minimum amount they needed to get an A, tried not to get into "trouble" with the professor or face the uncertainty of the unknowable. They were the ones who spent six hours a day in the library, reading their textbooks.

The best part of college is that you could become whatever you wanted to become, but most people just do what they think they must.

Is this a metaphor? Sure. But it's a worthwhile one. You have more freedom at work than you think (hey, you're reading this on company time!) but most people do nothing with that freedom but try to get an A.

Do you work with people who are still in high school? Job seekers only willing to interview with the folks who come on campus? Executives who are trying to make their boss happy above all else? It's pretty clear that the thing that's wrong with this system is high school, not the rest of the world.

Cut class. Take a seminar on french literature. Interview off campus. Safe is risky.

The Words Don’t Fit The Picture

2010-03-03T07:16:53Z

5DMKII, 16-35mm, f/3.2 @ 1/20, ISO 6400.

I was feeling a bit down about the Olympics being over and then this happened. I guess there still is a bit of awesome left in Vancouver.

From this I learnt two valuable lessons:

Don’t despair. You might run into a storm trooper outside your apartment; and
Never leave home without a camera.

Try different

2010-03-03T10:29:00Z

The usual mantra is to 'try harder'. Trying harder is impossible when you're already trying as hard as you can.

But you can always try different.

Years ago, I was creating trivia questions for a product we built for Prodigy. We had a 99% accuracy rate in doing the questions. Which was great, except there were 1800 questions in a batch, which meant 18 wrong each time, which was totally and completely unacceptable. These were honest mistakes, made by smart people working as hard as they could.

No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't do better than 99%. So we switched our system completely and did it in a totally different way. Same number of people, same number of hours, 100% accuracy.

If it's not working, harder might not be the answer.

Google prototypes real-time OCR and translation in Google Goggles

2010-02-18T01:00:22Z

incredible demo, simply tying existing pieces of Google tech together

Help me win a People's Choice Podcast Award

2009-11-17T17:14:00Z

The podcast I've co-hosted since 2006, Inside Home Recording, has been nominated for a 2009 Podcast Award, in the Education category. We're up against some heavy hitters, such as Grammar Girl and The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, so to have a chance of winning, I'm asking for your help.

Simply go to PodcastAwards.com and choose Inside Home Recording in the Education category. (Feel free to pick any other shows in other categories too.) Then put your name and email address at the bottom and confirm your vote when it reaches your email box. Finally, if you can, please do it again tomorrow, and each day until voting ends on November 30. Each person can apparently vote once per day.

I'm not sure how good a shot we have, and the prizes aren't huge, but it would be fun to win. Thanks!

IKEA in Japan

2009-09-22T10:20:00Z

I went to Ikea for the first time last week. I didn't even know there was an Ikea in Japan. I'm not even sure how I found out there was an Ikea in Japan. Maybe I read about it online or maybe someone mentioned it in passing. Either way, I went to Ikea for the first time last week.

Ikea in Japan is exactly like Ikea anywhere else. This was somewhat disappointing because I was expecting it to be less Swedish and more Japanese. I thought it would follow the McDonald's model, which is to say import the original but add a few items on the menu that can only be found in Japan (like the shrimp burger and the egg burger, for example).

So I was expecting Ikea to be Ikea but with a Japanese twist. Futons instead of beds. Chopsticks instead of forks. Sushi instead of meatballs. But no. The Japanese Ikea did not deviate in any way from the Swedish original. Well, except for the smoking area. I don't remember seeing a smoking area next to the entrance of a Canadian Ikea.

Despite being located in an industrial area in the middle of nowhere (just like in Canada!), the store is extremely easy to get to (not like in Canada!). Ikea offers a free shuttle bus from one of the busiest train stations in downtown Osaka.

The bus was one big moving advertisement for Ikea. Inside the bus, there was an instructional video on how to shop at the store. I think the fact that there's a right way to shop at the store (following the arrows with your little pencil and piece of paper) partly explains its success in Japan. Ikea is already very Japanese. There is a correct way of doing things, there are lots of instructions and explanations, everything is very orderly and clean, there is a proper route that you have to follow. The store is practically a microcosm of Japan.

The bus also contained several ads featuring the Ikea cafe, which were meant to stimulate your appetite during the 25-minute ride so that by the time you finally arrive at the store the first thing you want to do is order up a plate of meatballs with lingonberry sauce. (Which is exactly what we did.)

The menu contained standard Ikea fare, except for the green tea lattes and Japanese curry. The rest of the Japanese Ikea experience was exactly the same as the Canadian Ikea experience. There were the same showrooms containing the same furniture. The same marathon floorplan winding its way through model living rooms, bathrooms and bedrooms. The same massive marketplace. The same airplane-hangar-sized warehouse. And, finally, the same long line ups at the checkout counters.

I picked up a few items for my new apartment (I'm moving on Thursday. But that's a whole other story). Of course, furnishing my apartment was just part of the reason I went to Ikea. I really just wanted to see if it was any different in Japan. And even though it wasn't any different from any other Ikea anywhere else, it was still very Japanese.

Estimation

2009-07-20T00:00:00Z

When You Put Data In, You Should Be Able to Get It Out

2009-07-17T16:43:47Z

One of the most basic features a good software application offers is a way for users to get the data they put into the system out. Sounds reasonable, no? But that isn’t the way it works, especially for a a few notable webapps.

For example, Twitter only lets its users retrieve the last 3,200 updates they’ve entered into the system. If you’ve tweeted over 3,200 times? The status updates starting with number 3,201 are simply lost to you. Poof! Gone. You can’t retrieve them using Twitter’s API or search engine. And yeah, I know, Twitter’s supposed to be ephemeral, represent the NOW, be the current “pulse of the planet” or whatever. But for its most loyal users, who log their lives and thoughts and links on Twitter, that update back in early 2007 matters. The cap can feel like someone has burned your diary. Most likely this is a scaling issue, but let’s get serious here: if I’ve been kind enough to enter data into your system over 3,200 times, the least you can do is let me export, backup, page back through all my status updates always.

Flickr does a similar thing with non-Pro accounts: you lose access to sets you’ve created beyond a certain number. At least Flickr gives you the option to upgrade to a Pro account in order to still get them (and I have), but it still wigs me out that I would create something on a system and then get denied access to it without paying. I could see denying me access to other people’s data, but my own? Really?

Most software works pretty simply: you enter data into it, and it outputs something useful. But at the most base level, you should be able to get back out what you’ve put in.

If your Twitter update count is nearing or over 3,200, and you want to save a copy to your computer, this simple (but geeky/XML) method using cURL will work. Photo by mary.w.e.

July 16, 2009: Electrified Plants

2009-07-16T05:11:46Z

It took photographer Robert Buelteman 10 years, working an average of 60 hours a week, to produce 80 photographs.
Damnnnnn!:eek:

Quote:

Working in complete darkness, he begins by placing his chosen plant onto a metal board which he then passes the electrical surge through.
He can even pinpoint areas where he wants to focus the charge using a wand and a simple car battery.
As his subject lights up with the current, and emits radiation invisible to the naked eye, Mr Buelteman captures the moments by passing a fibre optic cable back-and-forth over the plant. The cable emits a beam of white light which is just the size of a human hair and whatever the miniscule torch-beam touches, transfers the image onto film.
The captivating blue haze that surrounds every leaf, petal and stalk is actually gases ionising around them as the plant is electronically shocked.

Uh... um... oh. :unsure:

Quote:

'You just have to imagine it like a painter creating a picture on canvass,' he said. 'The plant is the subject just like the painter's bowl of fruit or the person they are capturing.
'The electrified board I place the plants on is the canvass. The fibre optic cable emitting the light-beam is my paintbrush.
'Another way to try and understand it is like a normal photograph on a normal camera, except I am manually controlling the exposure by hand. In the same way the image I capture is simply burned onto film.'

Ahhh, of course. :smack:

Quote:

But despite these being the first pictures of their kind in his profession, Mr Buelteman says he has in fact invented nothing and uses a combination of age-old techniques developed decades ago. Semyon Kirlian - developer of Kirlian photography - accidentally found in 1939 that it was possible to photograph electrical discharges at the edges of objects if that were being shocked on an electrified plate.

At 10 years X 60 hrs/week = 80 photographs, I can see why it didn't catch on. :haha:

link

woman on yellow wall

2009-05-06T08:03:33Z

Queen street, east of Church.
To read the text, check the higher resolution image on flickr.

Rain, Rice, Gods and Gems

2009-04-13T15:05:56Z

For the first two weeks in February, I joined my family in a trip to India. Though I was born here in the U.S., we used to go back to visit family in India pretty regularly when I was a kid. But then I got older, was always busy, and before I knew it, it had been 25 years since I'd visited. It was well past time to remedy that oversight, and perhaps the single thing that drew me back the most was the idea of visiting the village where my father was born and raised.

During our brief visit there, my father and his brothers took me on a walk through the rice paddies that surround their village. Our family owns all of the paddies from their house until the nearby river. Along the way, I stopped to quickly take this shot of the Shiva temple that the village uses for worship.

I still have vague memories of accompanying my grandfather once or twice on his near-daily walks to this temple when I was a kid. His walks to the temple continued until he was well into his 80s and perhaps his 90s.

The green in the foreground is unretouched, the actual vibrant color of a newly-planted second crop of basmati rice. Historically, this region of western Orissa was plagued by recurring droughts. A single rice crop was a blessing, just enough to provide sustenance in an area where a family of four often earns the equivalent of less than $500 a year.

But in recent years, a combination of government-planned irrigation projects and the serendipitous discovery of some precious gemstones in the region funded a pump system that enables a second annual crop. This second crop meant many villagers could go from just putting food in their mouths to actually making a little bit of money. Nearly every home in the village was made of mud when I lived there as a child, but on this visit nearly every home had been rebuilt with brick, with some even sprouting second stories. The village school had been rebuild and classes extended all the way to high school instead of ending at the fourth grade.

The style of temple shown here is very typical of the architecture of village temples in our state; We saw similar mandirs in honor of Shiva, Rama, a few Krishna temples, and other various deities in the many villages we drove by during our trip. I didn't actually go in this temple, but I spend some time walking in the nearby rice paddies that are still being planted and harvested in my name.

Jamaica’s Most Wanted » RM fires off arrest warrants in Lutan Fyah ...

2009-03-20T03:41:12Z

... Pump attendant charged with credit-card fraud · RM fires off arrest warrants in Lutan Fyah’s arson case · Police kill two in shoot-out · Man freed of rape after only getting to first base · Stepdad on bail for carnal abuse ...

Short and Sweet: A Lesson about Using Twitter in Business

2009-01-29T02:13:00Z

I just got the latest Evernote newsletter, which comes about once a month to regular users like myself. The company has some great news to kick off '09, not the least of which is the closure of a $4.5 million round of funding. That's great news, and they've earned it steady improvements to an innovative product.

The last note in the newsletter has a telling lesson for businesses who think that Twitter is just another megaphone for broadcasting how awesome your company is:

As many of you know, we're big fans of Twitter. A while back we asked you to tell us what you liked about our @Evernote tweeting and what you didn't. The response was clear: more suggestions on how to use Evernote and fewer links to media coverage. So, for those interested in the latter, we just launched a second Twitter account focused solely on media and blogosphere coverage.

Emphasis is mine. There are two lessons here: 1. People want value from corporate communications, especially when it comes through a channel like Twitter where you have to be not only concise, but relevant. And double-especially when your product is a productivity app!

Twitter is a conversation, not a one-way broadcast, and definitely not an SEO enhancer. To misuse it is to hear the gentle sound of interested customers losing interest.

Let's hear it for learning from your customers and responding in action as well as word, as Evernote has here.

looking forward

2009-01-22T06:24:05Z

A girl watching Obama's speech live at Dundas Square in Toronto.

In honour of Obama–a poem, from Walt Whitman

2009-01-20T19:39:58Z

[EDIT] I revoke my poem.

I knew the opening four lines, but NEVER studied the text–until now!

GOOD GOD…Why didn’t somebody say something????

Horrors!

My intentions were honourable though. Completely. AND I had that scene from Dead Poet’s Society in my head, where the student stands on his desk as the teacher is leaving…and starts reciting the poem.

“O Capatin, My Captain….”

I believe people–like administrations–can change. What I’d like to believe even more is that this change in administration brings a change in people. And we lead ourselves into a new era.

Battlestar Galactica: Fracking Rack

2009-01-13T21:41:00Z

I'm not entirely au fait with Battlestar Galactica, but it looks as though this montage has left Captain Data with a rather obvious interest in Princess Leia's bosom. Or is she a Cyclon? I can never remember. Beam me up, Spocky!

Thanks to Vishal! Original is here!

these floating, shapeless oceans

2009-01-06T19:23:38Z

11th Grade

2008-12-19T00:00:00Z

Bikini Food Fight Video (comedy) [del.icio.us]

2008-07-06T21:19:21-07:00

"We can promise exposure". Well, naturally.

Overlay.TV - Watch it. Click it. Get it. [del.icio.us]

2008-07-06T18:28:09-07:00

Quite interesting--YouTube gone meta.

Border yoga event stretches boundaries at U.S.-Mexico fence [del.icio.us]

2008-07-06T18:16:06-07:00

Games without frontiers. Sort of.

MakeMeBabies Predicts What You and Your Lover’s Kid Will Look Like [del.icio.us]

2008-07-06T18:08:30-07:00

Really smart Facebook app. Money in the bank. Assuming, you know, they figure out how to monetize it.

The Stalled Server Room - The Daily WTF [del.icio.us]

2008-07-06T17:51:49-07:00

This just seems like a recipe for social disaster.

YouTube - LSU Fake FG vs South Carolina [del.icio.us]

2008-07-06T15:42:15-07:00

Watch the replay. That's the cheekiest hand-off ever.

MTSS Episode #17 (The Penis) at Midwest Teen Sex Show [del.icio.us]

2008-07-06T14:55:17-07:00

Pretty funny. Not safe for work or prudes.

YouTube - Simpsons Map for Quake III Arena [del.icio.us]

2008-07-06T14:48:05-07:00

The level of detail is remarkable.

Wild times for sports blogs may be nearing an end - Los Angeles Times [del.icio.us]

2008-07-06T12:50:10-07:00

Features the wrongest prediction of the year: "What's the shelf-life for a website that only has women in bikinis?" Uh, I think we can measure that shelf-life in decades.

YouTube - Birthday Greetings from Joe Cocker [del.icio.us]

2008-07-06T09:59:31-07:00

Quite funny. Still an exceptional performance, but excellently meta.