Ramblings

Google Chrome

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:14:00 +0000

Google released their own web browser today called Google Chrome. This begs the question, is this YAFB: yet another flying browser.

I tried it out for a few minutes. It has a cool feature whereby you can drag a tab and make it a new window. You can also take a tab and drag it back to an existing window. I've often wanted to do that. So far so good.

El Camino del Rey

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:23:00 +0000

I wasn't going to watch this video because I though it would be crap. After I did anyway, I wish I hadn't watched it. Once I realized what the guy was doing, it really freaked me out.

Watch this guy walking a "trail".

Intel Programmable Matter

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:27:00 +0000

Just think of the possibilities programmable matter would bring. It's mind boggling.

"Jason Campbell, senior staff research scientist at Intel Research, gave a broad idea during Rattner's Thursday keynote just how disruptive the technology could be to users' daily lives--by replacing the electronic devices that people carry. Size is no longer an issue--the device can take the form of a wristband or thumb-drive, and stretched to a larger size to answer a call or send off an e-mail."

Entire Article

What's Up With The Dark Knight's Voice

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:28:00 +0000

Hilarious video that examines Batman's speech.

Cool Post About Swimming from Tim Ferriss

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:58:00 +0000

Tim Ferriss of Four Hour Work Week fame put out a post about swimming. It's got a neat video with Natalie Coughlin and another one with a guy swimming laps who looks like he's expending zero effort.

Google Image Labeler

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:31:00 +0000

Google Image Labeler has to be the worst thing to happen to office productivity in years.

Basically, google wants you to help them tag images. To do so, you play a game with a random, unknown partner. The two of you apply labels to images. If the two of you enter the same tag, you both get points. You try and match labels on as many images as possible in 2 minutes.

They even amp up the difficulty as you improve by making the easy tags "off-limits".

Good stuff. You quickly find yourself trying to figure out your partners head.

THE 6 BEST SMART ASS ANSWERS

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:37:00 +0000

SMART ASS ANSWER # 6

It was mealtime during a flight on Alaska Airlines. "Would you like dinner?" the flight attendant asked John, seated in
front. "What are my choices?" John asked. "Yes or no," she replied.

SMART ASS ANSWER # 5

A flight attendant was stationed at the departure gate to check
tickets. As a man approached, she extended her hand for the ticket and he
opened his trench coat and flashed her. Without missing a beat, she said, "Sir, I need to see your ticket not
your stub."

SMART ASS ANSWER # 4

A lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store but
she couldn't find one big enough for her family. She asked a stock boy, "Do these turkeys get any bigger?" The stock boy replied, "No ma'am, they're dead."

SMART ASS ANSWER # 3

The cop got out of his car and the kid who was stopped for speeding
rolled down his window. "I've been waiting for you all day," the cop said. The kid replied, "Yeah, well I got here as fast as I could." When the cop finally stopped laughing, he sent the kid on his way
without a ticket.

SMART ASS ANSWER # 2

A truck driver was driving along on the freeway. A sign comes up that reads, " Low Bridge Ahead." Before he knows it, the bridge is right ahead of him and he gets stuck
under the bridge. Cars are backed up for miles. Finally, a police car comes up. The cop gets out of his car and walks to the truck driver, puts his
hands on his hips and says, "Got stuck, huh?" The truck driver says, "No, I was delivering this bridge and ran out of
gas."

SMART ASS ANSWER OF THE YEAR 2007

A college teacher reminds her class of tomorrow's final exam.
"Now class, I won't tolerate any excuses for you not being here
tomorrow. I might consider a nuclear attack or a serious personal injury,
illness, or a death in your immediate family, but that's it, no other
excuses whatsoever!"
A smart-ass guy in the back of the room raised his hand and asked,
"What would you say if tomorrow I said I was suffering from complete and
utter sexual exhaustion?"
The entire class is reduced to laughter and snickering.

When silence is restored, the teacher smiles knowingly at the student,
shakes her head and sweetly says, "Well, I guess you'd have to write the exam with your other hand."

Get Out Much

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:03:00 +0000

Found this over at OneSentence (True Stories in one sentence):

Get Out Much?

An impatient check of the UPS online tracking center reveals that the package has been on my front porch for three days.

Airplane Captain's Message

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 06:40:00 +0000

A plane was taking off from Kennedy Airport . After it reached a comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the intercom, 'Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Flight Number 293, nonstop from New York to Los Angeles . The weather ahead is good and, therefore, we should have a smooth and uneventful flight. Now sit back and relax... OH, MY GOD!' Silence followed, and after a few minutes, the captain came back on the intercom and said, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I scared you earlier. While I was talking to you, the flight attendant accidentally spilled a cup of hot coffee in my lap. You should see the front of my pants!'

A passenger in Coach yelled, 'That's nothing. You should see the back of mine!'

Media Defenders

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:28:00 +0000

A quaint story about hacker vs entertainment industry. Big problem: how do artists get paid for their work if it's "ok" to download stuff for free? If content is free, who works for free to make it? Ok, so the artist is starving. How about the guy working the mixing boards or editing the video? How about the people who make the equipment, the cameras, the guitars, etc? How about the guy who delivers lunch to the studio? Are they all suppose to work for free too?

Exactly what "man" is getting stuck?

Check out the story...good read.

Windows 'Mojave'

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:19:00 +0000

Microsoft ran a user focus group on their new Mojave operating system and got a dramatic, positive response. Microsoft probably would have been better served by having a small Vista launch and telling people they couldn't have Vista unless they bought a new PC. That would have created a "scarcity" demand and people going to look at it just to see. (not to mention the PC manufacturers would have loved them - prob could have convinced them to go to a higher minimum standard for Vista installs as well).

As it stands, Vista upgrades on older equipment and underpowered new equipment have hurt it's image badly. Oh, and doing a better job with that blasted UAC would have been a good idea.

Cheat Netural

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:53:00 +0000

Bill Clinton can finally relax. Now he can buy credits much like his former veep Al Gore buys carbon credits to offset his personal pollution.

http://cheatneutral.com/

Outsourcing Mistakes

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:51:00 +0000

Outsourcing sounds great. It could be great. However, you have to compare Apples to Apples.

I stumbled on post from an Aussie who had some negative experiences with offshore outsourcing and his analysis of the situation. His analysis married well to my intuition based on experiences in corporate America. The outsource workers are often cheaper on paper, but total cost to the desired output was higher than using onshore labor.

Check out his full post.

The trickiest part is that the onshore labor quality varies WIDELY as well. It may be that offshore beats out bad onshore, but loses to good onshore. "Bad" and "Good" are up to the employer and therein lies all the problems in the world.

Push Broom Menace

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:19:00 +0000

Safety First!

This might be going a teed too far: Push Broom Menace.

Paralysis of Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:43:00 +0000

"My name is Kijana Woodard and I'm addicted to Analysis".

I admit it. I've come clean. I have an unhealthy addiction to analysis and often am paralyzed by indecisions. My personality leads to find "the best" way of doing something. Unfortunately, "the best" is a very tricky adjective to apply to many things and situations.

What I do is sit and think...and think...and think. I think long and hard and turn the problem over in my head. Around and around. I look at it from multiple angles hoping to get everything in my head just right before I "do" anything at all. I mean, I wouldn't want to "waste time" right.

Too many times, I find I end up doing nothing. In writing this blog entry, I sat for ten minutes "thinking" about different openers and an outline of content. I am addicted to analysis.

The ironic part is, my personality is such that once I've figured out the problem completely, I'm immediately bored and my motivation implementing my solution drops dramatically.

I'm trying a new solution: GTD. Getting Things Done. Just Do It. Whatever buzzword is applicable is better than nothing.

The simplest example I can think of (off the top of my head - sweet) is needing to go to an appointment. If you get to the appointment on time, they give you $200. If they like you, you get an additional $100. You have to leave in five minutes to have any hope of making it on time. You need pants. Which are the "perfect" pants to make the right impression? Hmmm, this grey pair is a classic. Oh, but khaki would present a casual flare. STOP!

Maybe one option is 80% better than another. Pick it. There may be an option that it 5% better than that and be "the best", but if you're late or never it's 100% worthless.

I hate to say this. It's better to get something even substandard finished than to have the perfect solution locked in your head. Besides, once it's out there, you can always perfect it later, if it makes sense to do so.

I am addicted to analysis. Even as I write this, I'm cringing at having put spaces between each paragraph. Did I use the right words? Is it too long? Blah, blah blah. It's done.

Keith Jarret

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:51:00 +0000

The other day I was watching a documentary about Miles Davis on Ovation TV.

About mid-way through, I shot up out of bed and was transfixed by an 8 second clip of music. I haven't been able to find the same clip, but I did find some videos of the same guy who grabbed my attention: Keith Jarrett.

Checkout this Keith Jarrett "Sun Bear Concert" on YouTube. My favorite part is about 3:30 - 3:55.

There's a bunch more on YouTube. Here's Keith with Miles. Out there. Funny enough, both clips are from the '70s.

Swedish Education

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:56:00 +0000

Interesting article on "free schools" in Sweeden: http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11535645

Batman: The Dark Knight

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:25:00 +0000

I went to see The Dark Knight today at the IMAX.

What follows is my review of the movie:

See this film!

Regions Bank Update

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:24:00 +0000

I got a note back from Regions Bank regarding my warning. It was a generic email telling me to call a number if I thought I may have given information to phishing scheme. Pathetic.

Regions Bank Fraud

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:50:00 +0000

I received an email today telling me to update my Regions Bank account info. That's just suspicious under any conditions. I KNEW this was fraud because I don't have an account with Regions Bank. The url pointed to some similarly named site that was not the regular regions.com.

So then began the insanity. Within 15 minutes of the email getting to my gmail account, I was on the phone to warn them of the scheme. One problem: there's no way to reach a human. They even had a REPORT FRAUD number that I dialed but it just went to regular customer service. The only fraud it mentioned was lost/stolen cards or strange charges.

I called a couple more numbers and finally called the online tech support. I thought I was getting somewhere, but the number just rang for five minutes until I finally hung up.

So now many more of their customers will pay for the fact that they do everything they can to NOT answer the phone.

I sent in a message via their online form. There was no fraud option there, so I had to put it under "other". It'll probably get lost in other stuff until late tomorrow. I put "FRAUD ALERT!" at the top to get their attention, but they'll probably think I'm spamming them.

Hmmm, maybe there's something to having solid, open communication with your customers and the public.

Golf Carts on the Road in Texas

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:19:00 +0000

Found this article about the growing popularity of electric cars. Most of it is pretty standard copy, but the last paragraph was interesting.

"Sharing the road with bigger cars requires extra caution and alertness, say owners. And drivers of normal-size cars sometimes get impatient with the slower, tinier vehicles. Dr. Peters recalls one driver who screamed an expletive-laced version of "get that thing off the road." Generally, though, faster drivers just pass him by. Then, Dr. Peters says, he usually catches up to them at the next light.'

That last bit is the essence of Hypermiling and saving gas.

Transparency Tyranny

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:35:00 +0000

Interesting article on Transparency Tyranny. It's tyranny for the producers, but a triumph for consumers. Producers won't like it because it limits their ability to arbitrage information. However, as with everything, this is a huge opportunity for new businesses and some existing one's as well.

The website has an RSS feed of new companies. I had it in my google reader for a couple days, but had to cut it off. I just couldn't read about 50 new companies a day. Sheesh.

Google Reader

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:10:00 +0000

After GTD Inbox, one of the best pieces of software I've started using is Google Reader: http://www.google.com/reader/.

You can aggregate all the stuff you look at on the web onto one page via RSS. You can even get slick and google a term on Google News. That search is available as an RSS Feed that you can add to Google Reader.

Now if I can just get BOTW into Google Reader. Hmmm.

Anyway, I've added a share from my Google Reader account to this blog (down the left side column). I can add items that I find easily to my public GR profile in one click. Cool.

GTD GMail.

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:08:00 +0000

I've implemented GTD (Getting Things Done) and Inbox Zero. So far, this only extends to email. I'll have to work on the rest of my existence later. I feel like a newly sober drunk. I've kept my gmail inbox clear for 2 days. Two whole days.

Whatever. We'll see if I can keep it up for a month.

Checkout this GTD plugin for Firefox/Gmail: http://gtdinbox.com/. I'm using that to help out. So far, so good.

Rambles On

noreply@blogger.com (Kijana Woodard) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:08:00 +0000

Attempt 3 at rambling. :-)