Vedana - Eric Case

Meditation for Beginners

2013-09-07T14:16:00.005-07:00

Every now and then, friends ask me how to get started with meditation. I'm a longtime Vipassana meditator, and definitely recommend that people try it out. But the minimum time commitment to learn the specific practice I do is a 10-day course.

That's a bug chunk of time, so I rounded up a few resources for getting started that require just 10-15 minutes of sitting:

This 25-minute, "Mini Anapana for All" audio is a great introduction from Goenka; the first 15 minutes are the important part. It suggests a regular practice of 10-15 minutes per day, morning and evening.
The 10-min "Group Sitting" audio will also suffice.
"Brief Instructions for Sitting Meditation" from Audio Dharma is a 5-min quick intro.
calm.com, via Duncan Davidson

Creepy

2013-08-10T20:31:00.002-07:00

I just bought a new pair of shoes, and during the checkout process I was asked to join the store's "VIP" membership program by sharing my full name, zip, email, etc. Apparently this would grant me an immediate 10% in savings, and extend my "trial window" (during which I could return the shoes) from 30 to 90 days.

I told the person handling the checkout that I'd prefer to not join the program, yet she persisted in trying to sell me on it. I declined again, which surprised her — it didn't seem like she'd often encountered someone so willing to pay "full retail price" for their items, when the "VIP" program had such obvious benefits.

Then she said, "I'm going to get in so much trouble for this." I asked her to elaborate, but she didn't share further details about why she'd get in trouble.

I assume this practice is what the NYTimes documented back in April, or is perhaps how the creepy DataLogix stuff works.

Truth

2013-04-27T12:39:00.002-07:00

Macklemore:

"Being a rapper is one of the most narcissistic careers in the world. You are surrounded by yourself: interviews, Twitter, Facebook, Billboard charts, YouTube plays, shows, the crowds, awards etc. Fame suffocates the spirit and consumes you if you let it. You wake up thinking about you, and go to bed thinking about you. That’s not a good place to be."

Herbalife long-form

2013-03-31T09:58:00.006-07:00

Two great reads:

1) Death and Denial at Herbalife from the LA Times, 2001-02-18

2) The Big Short War from Vanity Fair, 2013-04

Destiny

2013-02-23T15:25:00.000-08:00

My favorite comment from the HN thread about Bungie's new game:

It's amazing to see the path Bungie has traveled. They made a couple of Macintosh games in the early 90s, then had a breakout hit Marathon in 1995 on the Mac, back when serious gamers played Doom on the PC and laughed at the Mac (maybe they still do?).

When I was a kid with a Mac, wanting to learn to program games, I read this interview over and over: http://marathon.bungie.org/story/jasonjonesTofTMPG.html

I had to read this again to remember that the original Marathon game had taken three developers a little less than a year.

And on re-reading it, it's great to see how much solid, long lasting advice there was in that interview.

#BungieFanForLife

Other notable coverage:

Seattle Times interview with Activision's Eric Hirshberg
Variety

Gun Control link roundup

2013-02-03T09:20:00.001-08:00

Interesting / notable pieces about the gun debate:

Mother Jones — 10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down
Rolling Stone — The NRA vs. America
Priceonomics — Ugly Charts about Guns in America

Higher Ed

2013-01-29T20:05:00.002-08:00

Recently, Chuck and I have been discussing the merits of a college education, which are increasingly debatable given the rising cost of such programs and the availability of online learning material.

Here are some links that have turned up in our thread, and afterward:

Quora thread, "How much is a US college degree worth?"
Quora thread, "Why have tuition costs consistently gone up much faster than inflation in the US?"
Stanford faculty experiences with online courses, which are a new supplement/alternative to traditional degrees
MIT Tech Review article about economist Josh Angrist, who's been studying this topic for decades
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory's silly comments about liberal arts degrees not preparing students for their eventual employment later in life
Mark Cuban advocating that students considering 4-year college start by assembling a "college value plan"
The Awl — "Venture Capital's Massive, Terrible Idea For The Future Of College"
Bill Gates in a recent conversation with five journalist/bloggers
Clay Shirky's followup piece in The Awl

Company Values

2013-01-26T11:03:00.003-08:00

A poignant quote from Nicholas Carr:

"It might seem kind of strange for a company to build a search engine — a pretty costly undertaking — using criteria that it knows to be debased, to be anything but objective. But to Facebook, it’s business-as-usual. Here’s the difference between Google and Facebook: Larry Page recognized that commercial corruption was a threat to his ideal. For Mark Zuckerberg, commercial corruption is the ideal."

I've always admired Google for having a clearly-articulated mission and set of values since its earliest days. And even if these weren't fully-formed when Larry and Sergey first started hacking on PageRank, the company culture they created was such that values guided their choices.

Facebook, however, started as an adolescent prank, and seems to have bolted on a mission and values much later on, as-needed by outside circumstances.

[via Buzz]

Followup, 2013-01-29: Chuck pointed me to this CNN article about Clay Christiansen, which describes our "capitalist's dilemma" where companies are essentially trapped in a cycle of over-focusing on efficiency innovations, which are great for them in the short term but detrimental in the long term. Instead they should be focusing on "empowering innovations," which create new markets and jobs, and improve the economy for everyone (not just their own balance sheets).

Yay, Capitalism

2013-01-19T11:50:00.003-08:00

High finance is both fascinating and frightening, and thus a quote from Fortune's piece on SurveyMonkey's upcoming financing round caught my eye:

"We generate all this cash and don't have any use for it." —Jimmy Lee, vice chairman J.P. Morgan's investment bank

I'm sure there are plenty of things in the world that could benefit from someone else's excess cash, things that would make the world a better place / feed the hungry / improve the environment / etc. But companies operating without higher principles end up in situations like these. Dave Goldberg should read Let my People Go Surfing.

RIP, AaronSw

2013-01-15T19:38:00.001-08:00

I didn't know Aaron well, but was fortunate enough to hang out with him a few times during his short but brilliant life. Despite his age I always considered him a role model, for his technical prowess as well as his vision, idealism and passion. He didn't just think and talk about how the world could be better, he devoted his life to actually making it better.

One quick, trivial memory I'll share, from the first time we connected — back in ~2005 he posted something on his site about his server's hard drive crashing, so a few of us from blogger-team paypal'd him some $ to buy a new one; he would have been ~19 years old at the time:

A few months later we got to meet him in person, when he visited Google for lunch, and I saw him a couple more times over the years, at conferences and whatnot — throughout I've remained a fan of his writing, causes and code.

To see him in action, watch his Freedom to Connect 2012 talk.

His premature death is an utterly tragic loss for humanity. Rest in peace, Aaron.

(followup: videos from his memorial in SF)

---
Coverage:

Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman
Matt Haughey
Cory Doctorow
Larry Lessig (and his followup)
Tim Berners-Lee
Brewster Kahle
Peter Eckersley of the EFF
Alex Stamos, expert witness in Aaron's court case
John Schwartz in the New York Times
Timothy Lee in ArsTechnica
Aaron Greenspan
Dan Gillmor
Doc Searls
Henry Farrell
Orin Kerr in The Volokh Conspiracy (and part two)
The Economist
PDF Tribute
The JSTOR Liberator
Alex Macgillivray on Twitter — "If you'd like to give money to some of @aaronsw's causes: Demand Progress, OpenLibrary, Creative Commons"
Rick Falkvinge — The Petition to Fire Aaron Swartz's Prosecutor Reaches its Goal
Ronaldo Lemos — 2009 email interview with Aaron
Tim Wu in The New Yorker
Mike Masnick at Techdirt
Rebecca Greenfield at The Atlantic Wire — "A Guide to the Finger-Pointing"
Adam Clark Estes in The Atlantic Wire — "The Congressional Backlash Over Aaron Swartz's Suicide Has Begun"
Robin Amer, re: Aaron's funeral
Ian Millhiser — "Aaron Swartz Faced A More Severe Prison Term Than Killers, Slave Dealers And Bank Robbers"
The Huffington Post
Philip Greenspun on the effects of plea bargaining
Yusuf Simonson in The Daily Muse
Health Care Renewal blog on some of Carmen Ortiz's past prosecutions
Michael Daly in The Daily Beast
Senator John Cornyn following up with the Attorney General
Jennifer Granick from the Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society
Kevin Cullen in The Boston Globe
Charles Pierce in Esquire
Dan Kennedy in The Huffington Post
Joseph Perla on a new book, On Internet Freedom
Scott Horton in Harpers
retired Federal Judge Nancy Gertner
the Los Angeles Times on Aaron's funeral
Carmen Ortiz's official statement
James Boyle's response to Orin Kerr
The Boston Herald on Ortiz's office's handling of future cases
Noam Cohen in the New York Times
Gregory Foster, "Finishing what Aaron started with PACER"
Steve Schultze's background on their PACER work
Aaron's own Freedom of Information Act request & profile, from 2009
Declan McCullagh in CNET
The Economist on Plea Bargaining
the Andrew Auernheimer case, which is startlingly similar to Aaron's
the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's letter to Eric Holder
The Economist (print edition)
Adrian Lamo in PandoDaily
Andrew Payne's letter to Carmen Ortiz
Mark Suster
Farhad Manjoo in Slate

Aaron's causes

Calls to Action

Dan Gillmor: "We can honor Aaron’s life in the best way by doing what he did at his amazing best. We can work to expand an open Net and society, and to make “liberty” a word that means something again."
Marcia Hofman: "Let's Fix Draconian Computer Crime Law"
Gregory Foster: "I looked into Aaron Greenspan's proposed Operation Asymptote, and I wanted to recommend it as an effective and poetic tribute to Aaron Swartz's memory."

"Subscribe" to Wikipedia

2012-09-19T08:20:00.000-07:00

If you regularly use Wikipedia, you should donate monthly to show your support.

They have their own donation page, though you can also use Network for Good, which has a (somewhat) friendlier UI, email notifications and annual reporting for donors.

Why Android?

2012-09-14T12:48:00.002-07:00

I've been a loyal and passionate Apple user since we got an Apple IIc back in the '80s, and I even waited in line with @cw for the first iPhone when it was released. However, I switched to Android a few years ago, for the following reasons:

• Google Voice — Apple had rejected the iOS Google Voice app, so Android was the only way to use it natively.

• Unlocking — Apple wasn't yet selling unlocked iPhones, and I wanted to be able to freely move to different carriers both in the US and when traveling internationally (the Google feature phones are unlocked by default).

• Tethering — though iOS supported tethering, the Carriers gate its availability and charge extra for it, which is preposterous (bits are bits), while unrestricted tethering has been in Android for a long time. (I use prepaid data service for this)

• Cloud sync — Android's Google Account integration works directly from the cloud (email, contacts, calendar, docs, etc.), while iOS back then made you go through desktop iTunes for these things.

• Misc policy things — for example Apple's nonsensical in-app payment policies (which prevent apps from using their own payment means), their draconian approval process and content policies, etc.

• Hackability — without rooting, and while staying on the official OS upgrade trunk, Android lets you do things like make free calls with Google Talk, use a better Intent UI, dim the screen beyond the default settings for better nighttime reading, scrobble to LastFM, etc.

• Intents — probably my favorite Android OS feature, Intents let apps communicate with each other. For example, I can email something to myself with a single tap, post a link to a GroupMe group without copying/pasting, etc. Intents are great, and they're also coming to the web. So stoked for this.

• Other misc UI things — system widgets (for turning things on and off like the LED flashlight, wifi hotspot and airplane mode), app widgets for things like playing/pausing audiobooks and music, etc.

Tom articulates a few more reasons as well.

That said, Android definitely doesn't provide nearly as refined a UX as Apple has created with iOS, which I do miss. Apple's stuff is so beautiful that you just want to use it for the sake of using it, which I definitely don't feel in Android-land. But ultimately the choice is about tradeoffs, and for the time being, I'm going with better functionality (for my needs) while sacrificing a bit of form.

---
Update, 2012-09-18 — Nick mentioned two other great Android features I neglected to include in my list, Google Maps turn-by-turn navigation (coming in iOS6), and Google Now, which is surprisingly useful. These days most of these things are possible in iOS — Google Voice, unlocked iPhones, cloud sync — but I don't anticipate rootless hackability coming to iOS anytime soon.

Side Projects the eBook

2012-08-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

We're honored that Domainr is featured this new eBook, Side Projects. I wrote a bit more about it on the Domainr blog.

Props: OS X Daily

2012-08-03T09:12:00.002-07:00

OS X Daily is one of my favorite weblogs — they post relevant tips every single day, and more often than not I find myself trying them immediately, or jotting them down for later reference.

For example, here are some recent posts that have caught my eye:

Their headlines are well-written, which makes their feed easy to scan.

LazyWeb — Google Voice read state sync

2012-07-27T20:15:00.001-07:00

Google Voice, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

Decoupled phone number — when your number is decoupled from your wireless carrier or SIM card, you can change carriers whenever you want. Find the best service, best deal, best offering that matches your usage patterns, use your number internationally, etc. Also incredibly handy if you lose your phone for some reason.
Central archive — it's surprisingly useful to have a Gmail-style archive of your SMSs, voicemails and call log.
Free calling and texting — send and receive SMSs via mobile data (which don't count against some ridiculous cap), and make calls for free via Gmail and GrooVeIP
Call handling — screen incoming calls, block numbers from calling and texting you, use "do not disturb," play customized greetings, etc.
Multi-platform — use the service from Android & iOS mobile apps, a Chrome Extension, or any modern web browser.

A UX annoyance though — the service needs to keep track of read state. Currently, for example, the Chrome extension will chime to notify me that I have a new text, and I'll reply to it from within Chrome.

Meanwhile my Android phone obliviously keeps blinking at me, telling me I have a new, unread message that I've already responded to in Chrome. It should know better.

LazyWeb — Add to Contacts

2012-07-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

I'm probably anomalous here, but I like to have restaurants, etc. in my local address book (which is powered by Google Contacts). So when I find one in Maps, I'd like to be able to single-click add it to my Contacts.

LazyWeb — Where autocomplete

2012-07-27T19:42:00.001-07:00

The Where field in a Calendar entry should autocomplete just like Google Maps. Google Now would be a lot smarter if every calendar event had location data associated with it.

Google Calendar, with no autocomplete

Google Maps can haz autocomplete

Bonus request: how to associate a "transportation method" with calendar entries? A few weeks into using Google Now, I'm finding that I drive to some things, take public transportation to others, and walk to others, and Now's suggestions are basically wrong 1/3 of the time.

My LazyWeb

2012-07-27T19:41:00.001-07:00

Since the original LazyWeb is no longer with us (RIP), I'll tally mine here. They're Google-centric at the moment, but that will probably change over time.

Ancient History

my original lazyweb post from 2007-09-08, asking for a few Camino things and mobile & offline Gdocs usage, which eventually arrived.

Thank you, David Simon

2012-07-11T18:54:00.002-07:00

Essential reading: A Fight To The Last Mexican

RIP MCA

2012-05-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

"As we were leaving he called me over to him and said, 'next time you get a Lionel Richie record instead of ours, keep it, he's the shit.' Then he hugged me. Greatest night ever." —MCA

[via Best of Metafilter]

Social Security

2012-04-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

This is a great Rolling Stone piece about Social Security.

[via Best of Metafilter]

Android + Cloud Music

2012-04-30T11:27:00.001-07:00

Mobile music is mostly a wonderful experience these days thanks to streaming services like Rdio. But due to licensing issues, we're left to manually deal with small-but-crucial catalog holes — think the Beatles, Zeppelin, etc.

How to do this without resorting to weird desktop apps (like Google's service), convoluted syncing (think Amazon's service), and non-cross-platform solutions (like iCloud)?

Dropbox.

It turns out that if you Favorite music files in the Dropbox app, the Play Music app can see and play them. Unfortunately you have to Favorite them individually (starring folders is being discussed), but for a few must-have albums it's quick. And because you're using the native music app for playback, you can also scrobble.

"an Illusion of Value"

2012-04-30T10:22:00.001-07:00

Nick Bilton in the Times:

"'It serves the interest of the investors who can come up with whatever valuation they want when there are no revenues,' explained Paul Kedrosky, a venture investor and entrepreneur. 'Once there is no revenue, there is no science, and it all just becomes finger in the wind valuations.'"

"When small start-ups I’ve spoken with do make money, they often find it difficult to recruit additional investment because most venture capitalists — and often the entrepreneurs they finance — are not interested in building viable long-term businesses. Rather, they’re interested in pumping up enough hype and valuation to find a quick exit through an acquisition at an eye-popping premium."

Prepaid Cellular Data

2012-04-17T17:28:00.002-07:00

I've been experimenting with this since last summer, and have been meaning to write up my results, but Skylar beat me to it: How To Reduce Your Smartphone Bill to ~$30/month

My bill is more like ~$25/month because I don't use much (if any) "voice that's not data" at $0.10/min. And the only reason the bill is "per month" is because AT&T expires unused data after 30 days, which is preposterous.

A few other related things:

here's Matt's writeup
this Wikia site lists all the US services that provide prepaid data
I've tried SIP over 3G/4G and the quality just isn't quite there, so I'm sticking with AT&T's $0.10/min service until something better comes along
when I'm on wifi, I use GrooVeIP

Unlocked phones + prepaid data + Google Voice = FTW

---
Update, 2012-05-14: apparently as of 2012-04-18 AT&T has decided to couple prepaid data with a recurring monthly voice/messaging plan, effectively doubling the price for folks with usage patterns similar to mine. T-Mobile's $30 plan appears to be the next best thing.

Also, an Android and Me post rounding up our options.

How to Take Long Web Page Screenshots on a Mac

2012-02-21T17:36:00.001-08:00

This MetaFilter article answered the question in 2006, but for 2012 and Lion, David Chin's blog has the method that worked for me:

pull up the page in question in Safari
open Skitch
in the Skitch menu, select "Snap Safari"