Jaynes Your Way

Back on the road

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 14:08:00 +0000

Okay, I admit it. I've been beyond lazy when it comes to running. Looking at my Strava Run data is a little embarrassing. If you look at the end of 2013 vs the beginning of 2014 you'll quickly see the visual difference.

If you drill on on this year you will see that in January I ran a total of 46 miles (having a 39 mile race helped), but since then I've only run 85 miles. It took me 7 months to run slight twice as much as I ran in one month (over 4 runs).

Time to get back into training for something. I am looking to do a marathon in Nov. Anyone want to join? Eyeing Philly or OBX, but willing to travel. Who's in or has suggestions of a good race?

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noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 16:34:00 +0000

Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.

--PAUL VALERY, Pieces sur l'art

Opening quote to Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" essay.

Flatiron Building

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 14:18:00 +0000

I've been meandering around the city this week since I have some time off. Snapped this one of the Flatiron building. Reminds me of bowling with the curve of the white line smashing into the point of the building

Five feet of knowledge

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 00:11:00 +0000

Like many who've come across is the Harvard Classics Set, I've often thought of reading the entire series from start to finish. For those of you that don't know what the Harvard Classics Set is set of 51 books assembled by Charles Elliot. His premise was that anyone can gain a liberal education with just the contents of a 5 foot book shelf and 15 minutes a day -- it might whiten your teeth too. Elliot was the president of Harvard University for 4 decades and helped steer the way the school operated, changing it more to the model it is today. When the first set was released in 1909 only 13 percent of the US population had finished high school and only a minuscule 3 percent had finished college. The promised of buying intelligence probably appealed to many since there weren't many available paths to high levels of learning. At the very least it would display well in the living room and signify the eruditeness of the household.

Christopher Beha embarks on the journey to read the entire 22,000 pages of the set over the course of the year. He documents in the more memoir The Whole Five Feet: What the Great Books Taught Me About Life, Death, and Pretty Much Everything Else. I am very thankful that I only had to spend a weekend reading this book, then dedicating the effort and time to tackling the whole set, but at the same time it's a little weird to read about reading. Beha's year of reading was far from just sitting around reading, and he does a great job weaving the reading with the many life events that happen to him in short space of 237 pages. I have to imagine that reading the great minds pre 20th century would help deal with the trials Beha faces. I don't think he has to force the synchronicity of the life events on the wisdom of writers like Emerson, Marcus Aurelius and Dante.

I find the most interesting part of the book is Beha's constant struggle to justify the breadth of the reading. Most of us spent College diving deep into a very short reading list, though it felt long at the time. I don't think he gets to a answer for himself or the reader, but I have to think that the breadth is justified. If you spend your time on a very small selection of writings or even one author you don't really share in the conversation that books represent. Reading and then talking about a similar canon draws you near to other people and helps you see other views. While you can't read everything, there is a common list of books that people are talking about or that provide common insight into the human experience. I lean on the reading more so you have more competing ideas floating around your head.

Great book to gain some knowledge of the Texts and maybe encourage you to read it for yourself. I haven't made up my mind if I will. If you do they are FREE online at Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics_(Bookshelf)

Standing Desk 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 13:56:00 +0000

Was at the GA Happy Hour this past friday and was chatting with some friends about my experiment with a standing desk. I used the term desk loosely because it was a plastic shipping container on my actual desk.

But it did the trick. One of them mentioned it was catching on at the North Wing of GA. Didn't think anything of it till I was reading a blogpost on HN from Colin Nederkoorn and saw a previous post about the $22 Ikea standing desk hack. I read it and immediately went to Ikea and purchased the side table and bookshelf.

Here is the final product, and at the very least it looks way better.

Charity Half-Marathon (Please Donate!)

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:26:00 +0000

Hey everyone! I am running the NYC Half Marathon for a non-profit called Camp Interactive. At first I was just going to run it because I needed some motivation to get back in a running schedule after finally getting over a training injury in early 2011. BUT then I realized this is an awesome cause!

Camp interactive does two things that are near and dear to my heart. First they teach kids how to use technology creatively and also gets them out doors. As a computer science grad with a MA in film I love the programs that they are teaching kids. Video editing, web dev, and all around geekiness! Then getting them out doors as well speaks to my growing up in Boy Scouts. I can't think of a better program to be running for. I can't think of two better ways to give underprivileged kids in NYC a literal way to get out of their environment and way to get out in the future with tangible skills

Please help me by donating for the run. I'm going to sweeten the deal a bit by treating this like kickstarter to get to my goal of $1500:

If you donate $1 or more I'll send you a thank you tweet during the race.

If you donate $25 or more I'll buy you a beer or find a way to get a beer to you

If you donate $50 or more I'll send you a batch of cookies. I am insanely good at baking. State fair winner

If you donate $75 or more I'll send you a nice photo of a NYC location of your choice. 9/11 photos Others (requires flash). Just let me know or my choice

If you donate more than a $125 or more, besides being a rock star, I'll figure out some way to thank you. dinner, a stay at Casa de Jaynes if you're an out of towner, house chores? We'll work something out. Just leave your name in the donation or drop me an email.

{ Link to donate }

Main Camp Interactive Website

Video about CI

And you can follow my training schedule here on google docs

Thanks!

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noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:07:00 +0000

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.”
-- Maya Angelou

Calvin and Hobbes Christmas Eve

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 02:50:00 +0000

Que Seurat--get out of the studio

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 14:45:00 +0000

I spent some time at MoMA a few weeks ago and enjoyed some great new exhibits and some old favorites. I try to see Starry Night--one of my absolute favorites--every time I visit MoMA. There was a larger than normal crowd so I circled around the room looking at everything else for a while. In one of the corners was three or four paintings by Georges Seurat.

Photo by: MoMA

The placard next to the Evening, HonFleurreads:

Seurat spent the summer of 1886 in the French coastal town of Honfleur in order to “wash the light of the studio” from his eyes, he said. He meticulously applied at least twenty-five colors here, in the form of thousands of dots carefully placed on the canvas. Long bands of clouds echo the horizon and the breakwaters on the beach. The vast sky and tranquil sea meet at the horizon line, bringing a sense of spacious light to the picture; yet from up close they also have a peculiar visual density. Seurat added the wooden frame later, hand-painting it with the same technique to add greater luminosity and suggest the extension of the image past its boundaries.

The quote "wash the light of the studio off my eye's really interested me. Could he have painted this if he had stayed in his studio? Probably, but what would have been lost if "the light of the studio" was his only point of reference. The above picture doesn't do it justice, but the color scheme is mesmerizing.

It was a good reminder for me that you need to get out and experience ~~things~~ ~~something~~ anything! Probably something that Stefan Sagmeister describes better in his TED talk describing the power of time off.

I'm going to adopt the attitude of "wash the light of the computer screen off my eye's" and try to get out of screens, which is going to be hard, but maybe I'll see something worth making or doing.

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noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 01:59:00 +0000

"Today is tomorrow. It happened." -- Phil Connors Groundhog Day

Halloween Snow

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 16:12:00 +0000

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noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 02:21:00 +0000

“'Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here,'” (said Alice).
“'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,'” said the Cat (Cheshire).
“'I don't much care where,'” said Alice.
“'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,'” said the Cat.
—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Rise and, well just rise

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 22:05:00 +0000

I use to be a morning guy.

All through under grad I was up before 7, even on weekends. All with out the aid of coffee. I actually didn't start drinking coffee until my junior year. Humming along fine as a cheery morning person, but then I lived the life of a bitter and grumpy grad student. NYU didn't offer any classes before noon and I rarely had to work before those times. Lets just say I lapsed into "sleeping in"--even with a wife who woke up early to go to her job. Then I became the worst creature of all, a snoozer. Things have compounded further by having half the commute to work now so lets just say my snoozing has pushed dangerously close to 8am.

My new goal is to get back in to waking up early. Obviously I've tried, but rarely have the will power to actually not hit snooze. There is many things I want to do before work so I've resolved to wake up earlier again.

I'd like to start with out of bed by 6am regularly before Oct--sans hitting the snooze button. After that I'll re-evaulate and see if we want to push earlier into the 5am hours.

How am I going to stay accountable? Twitter. It's worked for people losing weight and starting revolutions so hopefully it can help me get my lazy bum out of bed. So if you're reading this you're either subscribed to my RSS (sorry for not updating lately) or you saw the link on twitter. So what I am going to do is tweet a good morning message or pic or link if you think I am just setting up tweets to delivery, which Carla already accused me of.

So please if you don't see something by 6:10 am call me on it! Feel free to call me lazy, make up outlandish stories about me, or if you are up that early call me!

quote —— unqute

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 15:43:00 +0000

In pioneer days they used oxen for heavy pulling, and when one ox couldn’t budge a log, they didn’t try to grow a larger ox. We shouldn’t be trying for bigger computers, but for more systems of computers.
—Grace Hopper

He wasn't joking.

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:31:00 +0000

In an effort to take more out of the books I read and to get back on the writing routine, I've decided to write little reviews, really just cobbled together thoughts, on the books I read. I tend to do this over at goodreads, but I've fallen out of the habit or I'll write a one line thought about it. So to the blog world! I'll steer clear of summaries because this isn't 5th grade and amazon/goodreads does a great job of that already.

So last week I read Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, which I assumed would be a more biographical about Richard Fenyman, but in fact it turned out to be a delightful collection of his own writings and lectures.

He is one funny theoretical physicist. Several times I would laugh out loud while reading this on the subway. Feynman is a fantastic writer. He writes with such each and weaves some funny stories about the more absurd parts of his life. He steers clear of the events you would expect--working on the Manhattan Project-- and focuses on the absurd situations he finds himself in, like fighting in bars or randomly patenting nuclear technologies before they existed just because he thought it could be done. This is a mind that solved some major problems with Physics (and other academic pursuits), but Feynman spends a lot, and I do mean a lot, of the bemoaning his in ability to pick up women. I really enjoyed how when he was interested in something he just did it--like studying Mayan Hieroglyphics or learning Japanese.

I would definitely want to have a drink with this curious character.

quote —— unqoute

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:18:00 +0000

Principal: Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Billy Madison: Okay, a simple "wrong" would've done just fine.

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noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 21:41:00 +0000

The Web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect—to help people work together—and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our weblike existence in the world. We clump into families, associations, and companies. We develop trust across the miles and distrust around the corner. —Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web

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noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Fri, 27 May 2011 11:15:00 +0000

"So we've gone from 'Don't trust anyone over thirty' to 'Don't drink any Scotch under thirty'? Is this what's become of your revolution?"-- Cass Boomsday by Christopher Buckley

Kirsten Dunst

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Tue, 24 May 2011 22:04:00 +0000

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noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Sun, 15 May 2011 23:14:00 +0000

Taken from Patti Smith's Just Kids:

"For no one would see what he [Robert Mapplethorpe] had seen, no one would understand."

"It was a good day to arrive in New York City. No one expected me. Everything awaited me."

"Everything distracted me, but most of all myself"

"Once again I found myself contemplating what I should be doing to do something of worth. Everything I came up with seemed irreverent or irrelevant."

Webapps

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Tue, 03 May 2011 15:06:00 +0000

Because you are running your application on the Google infrastructure, along with the rest of the App Engine applications and the rest of the Google Applications, you need to follow a few rules. If your application misbehaves, it might be punished. --Using Google App Engine, 2009

Mm mm sugar

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 18:36:00 +0000

A very disturbing informatic of the amount of HFCS consumed by humans today.

And the amount of sugar.

Here is the full article over at the NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?hp

SVA Staircase

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:06:00 +0000

Definitely felt like Jimmy Stewart in "Vertigo" when I looked over the banister.

My other bookshelf is a library

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:25:00 +0000

I received a letter from Google Books the other day-- I just assumed it was an invoice for a book I purchased--but when I opened the envelope these fell out:

Not sure I really understand the idea behind this campaign, but I like it! Trying to figure out how to make this campaign really more applicale to someone who reads solely on a kindle or ipad.

What dreams may come

noreply@blogger.com (Topher) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 16:09:00 +0000

Gorgeous oil painting by Greg Couch of Blue Sky Studios. If I had know about his art auction for Gana sooner this painting would be hanging in my apt.