In the Parlance of our Times

We choose

2009-07-17T08:39:00.000-04:00

This week marked the 40^th Anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11. In honor of that event, I reread JFK's "We choose to go to the Moon" speech,* and I was reminded of an epiphany I had just a few months ago. Consider the gravity of this statement:

We choose to go to the moon.

I can't help but be reminded of the the alchemists, who chose to turn lead into gold. And yet, where they failed, we succeeded. We took a task that, on the surface, is no less impossible than turning lead into gold, and willed it into existence (albeit with billions of dollars and millions of man-hours).

I sometimes wonder if that sort of willpower still exists in the United States today, and I generally conclude that it does not. Imagine if Obama made the following statement:

We choose to be energy independent in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

Think about the challenge of becoming energy independent in the next decade. It's certainly no harder than putting a man on the moon was in 1962, and arguably more important.** And yet, can anyone here honestly say that we're on track to accomplish this? Have we even accepted the challenge? Is it something that we intend to win?

If so, consider this: Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the roof of the White House. Ronald Regan removed them.

And so, I ask: What can we as individuals do? What should we be doing?

* As all of the Owls in the room will tell you, JFK's "Moon" speech was made at Rice Stadium. The statement immediately before

We choose to go to the moon.

was

But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this asour goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

** Comparing the challenge of putting a man on the moon to that of becoming energy independent, especially as seen through the lens of national security, the latter is clearly more important. Putting a man on the moon was about developing rocketry to prove to the Soviets that we could obliterate them from afar. Because of our energy dependence, we've shipped a huge percentage of our national wealth abroad, toppled democratically elected governments (directly and indirectly), waged wars against peaceful nations, and allied ourselves with nations whose ideologies directly undermine our own. And for all of this, our energy sources are not really any more secure. Energy producing nations still have a head-shot they can fire at anytime.

I should also point out that all of this ignores the political instability that will be brought about as climate change becomes a reality, the amount of habitable landmass decreases, and displaced people are forced to find new homes.

Star Trek: Insurrection Resurrection Drinking Game

2009-05-04T00:46:00.009-04:00

In honor of the new Star Trek movie, JA and I have developed a drinking game.

Take a drink each scene where

Kirk gets a girl or catches a right hook
McCoy performs a miraculous medical procedure
Spock's humanity gets the best of him
Scotty pulls off a miraculous technological feat
Uhura hooks up with another Enterprise crew member
Sulu shows off his sword fightin' skills
Chekhov isn't needed
"Captain's log" is said
An alien language is spoken
There is a box / door that no one can open
The weapons, shields, transporter, or communications are rendered inoperative
A captain declares a Red alert

Bonus

Raise your glass, salute, and drink the first time Kirk takes the captain's chair

Things that didn't make the cut

Kirk gets a clipboard
McCoy says "He's dead Jim" or "I'm a doctor, not an X"
Spock raises an eyebrow; says logic, illogical, or fascinating; has a mind meld; or does a neck pinch
Uhura opens a channel or sings
Sulu sets course
Chekhov gives a Russian history lesson
Any two Enterprise crew members hook up
A red shirt gets killed

Gmail and IMAP and BlackBerry (Oh, my!)

2009-05-03T22:07:00.019-04:00

This post is about how to get GMail filters to apply to mail coming to your Blackberry via IMAP. Specifically, it is about how to prevent messages from GMail that are automatically archived from reaching your 'Berry. It is in response to Gmail and IMAP and BlackBerry (Oh, my!).

The Skinny

I get a lot of e-mail.

Most of the time, I don't want it to show up in my inbox. To help deal with the deluge, I've set up some tremendous filters. However, I'd never found a way to get my BlackBerry to respect those filters - until now. I assumed the answer would come from the new Advanced IMAP feature of GMail Labs. In fact it, the answer came from tricking the BIS Server into thinking this was a standard IMAP mail account rather than GMail IMAP account.

Click here for directions on how to manually configure your mail account.

Note: The directions use imap.google.com. This is incorrect. Use imap.gmail.com instead.

The Back Story

I've had a BlackBerry for several years now. However, unlike most smartphone users, e-mail is the least used function on my device. (The reason I pony up $20 / month for data is because of Google Maps Mobile. Over-the-air contact and calendar sync via Google Sync is nice too.)

Up until last week, I blocked all mail from coming to my 'Berry, almost without exception. Every time I tried to switch, I was deluged by mail from mailing lists where I didn't want immediate notification.

There seemed to be no hope - until Advanced IMAP. Its a GMail labs feature that lets you choose which GMail labels show up as folders on your IMAP account. "Perfect!", I thought to myself. "I'll just enable those labels where I want the mail to show up on my BlackBerry."

But then there was ec-discuss. Its an MIT dorm mailing list that will bounce any message (including ones where its bcc-ed) and didn't do anything to the subject line. Last week, I redirected that mail to its own e-mail address and set up GMail to periodically check that account. (This would have been much simpler if there was an option to filter based on header fields / routing information in GMail, but oh well.)

It seemed like I was finally ready for e-mail on my BlackBerry.

The T-Mobile Paradox

Naively, I thought this would be a snap. Enable IMAP, enable Advanced IMAP from the Labs tab of the settings, and then delete / re-setup your email account on the T-Mobile site.

Via Advanced IMAP, I disabled all of the folders except for my inbox. I then deleted and re-setup my e-mail account. After a couple of test e-mails, I realized that no e-mail was making it to my 'Berry. A tech support call to T-Mobile yielded no results, but the woman did tell me which server my mail account was using - imap.gmail.com. Given that everything was pretty stock, I decided it was probably something experimental, and decided to disable Advanced IMAP. Once again e-mail started flowing to my phone, but I was deluged with messages from freecycle.

I remembered that once before, I had been able to manually configure my mail settings. I then went through this insane cycle of disabling POP and IMAP from GMail and setting up my mail account on the T-Mobile site trying to get a menu where I could manually enter some settings. Every time I did this, the T-Mobile site successfully added the account, and POP and IMAP were magically re-enabled GMail and e-mail was flowing. How was T-Mobile magically re-enabling these services remotely? Where were the settings coming from? I didn't understand.

I re-enabled Advanced IMAP and the mail stopped. Then, I started re-enabling each IMAP folder. Moments after checking the "GMail / All Mail" folder, mail started flowing again.

One mystery was solved, but it raised a host of new questions. Why was mail coming from the "GMail / All Mail" folder, but none of the others? Why wasn't it pulling mail from all available folders? What about standard IMAP accounts (which don't have that folder)? Which folder did it pull from for those accounts?

And then I remembered something - my work e-mail account was also set up on my phone and it worked perfectly. The two were almost identical - both were running over GMail and both were set up via the BIS. What was the difference? Why was one sending auto-archived messages to the 'Berry, while the other didn't? For some reason, I suspected it had something to do with the fact that my personal account was older than my work account. I couldn't prove it, but that's what I suspected.

Having spent a ton of time changing my GMail settings, I started digging through the BIS. Eventually, I noticed that my work e-mail had an "Advanced Settings" tab on the BIS.

A clue!

I called T-Mobile support and had something resembling a discussion from an Ayn Rand novel:
Me: "Why does one have the Advanced Settings tab and the other doesn't?"
T-Mobile: "One is a work account"
Me: "True, but they're connecting to the same server. Neither is using a BES."
T-Mobile: "One is special"
Me: "Why is it special?"
T-Mobile: "One is using IMAP"
Me: "They're both using IMAP! Can you just set them up so that they're the same?"

T-Mobile rep hangs up

At this point I was ready to give up. T-Mobile didn't seem to understand my plight, and there seemed to be no way to manually setup my mail account.

Moments later, my roommate walks in. Frustrated from my call, I told him the tale. He listens intently and says:

"Oh - there's a way to trick the BIS into using IMAP."

Voila.

I've disabled Advanced IMAP and only the messages that make it to my inbox make it to my phone.

Get Involved!

2009-02-05T10:49:00.005-05:00

With the new White House Blog up and running for a few weeks now, I decided to see how its readership staked up against some of the more well-established blogs on the Internet.

For my quick and hugely unscientific study, I employed Google Reader, which has had subscriber statistics available for some time now. I figured that Slashdot, the BBC homepage, and the New York Times homepages would be a good place to set my baseline as they had national audiences and an equally well recognized brand.

BBC News - 2.8 Million
NYTimes.com - 2.2 Million
Slashdot - 326,000
White House.gov Blog - 15,000

What concerns me isn't so much the apathy as the squandering of an opportunity. Doing anything in a transparent manner is hard. Not only do you have to execute, but after you're done, you have to document your actions, publish the document(s), and then inform everyone where they can find said document(s). The White House may be taking note that their efforts to be more transparent are going largely unnoticed.

Whatever the case may be, I hope that people will start reading the White House blog. A new-found pleasure of mine is watching the President's weekly video address on YouTube. I now have some idea how people must have felt while listening to Roosevelt's fireside chats.

Sgt. Peppar's Lonely Livers Club Band

2008-12-22T15:28:00.005-05:00

For the past few months, I've been using Mint to manage my personal finances. It does a wonderful job of integrating information from all of your accounts in one place.

The best feature, from my perspective, is the ability to set a budget. When you start to get close to going over budget, Mint will send you all sorts of alerts, so that you can plan accordingly.

In planning my budget, I discovered that Mint also lets you compare your spending to that of other Mint users in various regions of the United States. I'm always concerned about how much I'm spending at bars, so I decided to do a comparison. First, I decided to compare myself against the average American – Joe the Six-pack Plumber.

Double the national average?! This concerned me a little bit. But there are tons of people in the US who don't drink, drink more cheaply, etc. Surely I would stack up better against my peers in Austin:
Uhh… maybe I'm more like my New York City counter parts?
Where in the US could people possibly spend more on booze than in NY?

Looks like I'm moving to Vegas.

Social Reading, or How to Optimize the Use of Your Friends

2008-12-17T11:21:00.006-05:00

Since the dawn of time, people have relied on their friends to help with tasks that they cannot do alone as a result of time, geographic, or physical constraints. Examples include baby-sitting, moving, and sometimes, shopping.

Which brings me to my new idea: Social Reading.

On any given day, I read between 50 and 75 articles on Google Reader. I'm not sure how this ranks in comparison to everyone else, but I'd be willing to wager that its on the high end for people who are employed and whose job does not involve researching current events.

At the end of the day, however, I stack up somewhere between 10 and 20 articles that I would have liked to have read, but didn't quite get around to. I could boost the amount of time I spend reading by 20%, or improve my reading efficiency, but that's pretty hard. Instead, I'm considering farming out the work to my friends.

Here's where Google Reader (specifically its 'Share' functionality) comes in.

Currently, when I share an article, its because I think my friends might be interested in reading it. But what if I started sharing only those articles that I might be interested in, and kept a separate feed of articles I'm actually interested in? Two scenarios emerge:

Everyone else keeps sharing items that they're interested in.
Everyone a else adopts my strategy.

Let's take situation 1. If an item I shared appears in both my potential items feed and a friend's 'interesting items' feed, I'm more likely to find it interesting than anything else they share, and I should probably read it.

In situation 2, the same logic as situation 1 applies, but we get a boost from chaining. Let's say that a bunch of people friends and friends of friend flag an article as potentially interesting. If one person has some spare time and actually bothers to read the article, it tells us a lot. If they find it interesting, they'll share it on their 'interesting items' feed, and it should indicate to everyone on the chain that they should reconsider reading the article. If they don't, you probably shouldn't waste your time. (If you had enough users, you could even rank items in your 'potentially interesting' items feed based on how many people found it interesting, and weight based whether those people are inside or outside of your social circle). I should note that this is a kind of a giant group-think, but given that these are just current event items that I didn't consider important enough to read to begin with, I'm sort of OK with it.

The only real danger is that the number of people who read my shared items may shrink to zero, at which point the system would completely break down.

And here's where I get a bit nerdy…

I really like this because of its analogy to cluster computing. People with spare reading cycles (unemployed, underemployed, geniuses) read so that those who are fully utilized can focus their efforts on completing the jobs assigned to them.

Which brings up an interesting point: are there other tasks we should be farming out to our social network? I welcome suggestions.

Perfect Poached Eggs!

2008-12-11T10:48:00.001-05:00

I made these perfect poached eggs this morning!

The trick is to stir the water vigorously to create a sort of whirlpool. This causes the egg white to wrap around the yolk and keep a nice shape. Also, be sure to crack the egg into a small bowl and tip the egg gently into the water in the direction of the water flow. Don't try to crack it directly into the water. I've ended up with perfect easy-medium yolks every time.

I'm not the best sketch artist in the world…

2008-12-04T16:31:00.005-05:00

Chris Dodd (wearing a Santa hat) to Rick Wagoner: "Merry Christmas. Here's your sword to fall on."

A New Day In America

2008-11-05T13:14:00.004-05:00

My Friends,

Today is a new day in America.

Let's be honest – things are really messed up right now. Despite what the candidates said while campaigning, getting out of this mess is not going to be a painless process - its going to take a lot of hard work and sacrifice from all of us.

But today is a new day!

Let the knowledge of the challenges ahead energize you as you go to work this morning. Most importantly, be productive – its the best thing you can do today.

But I've spent too much time writing this post – there's work to be done!

Note: I'd appreciate it if someone could tell me the origin of the phrase "a new day in America". I've seen tons of articles today that have used the title, but none have provided a citation for the quote, so I have no idea from whence it came.

WWJGD?

2008-10-30T11:04:00.003-04:00

For those who've read Atlas Shrugged…

Big Thought for the Day

2008-10-28T10:57:00.002-04:00

Use paper bags for garbage cans / recycling bins. To catch potential liquid spills, put the paper bag inside a plastic grocery bag.

I admit its not sexy, but its sanitary and eco-friendly.

Biggest. Spam Scam. Ever.

2008-10-14T00:53:00.006-04:00

A few years ago, MIT purchased an anti-spam solution from Barracuda, a firm specializing in network security products.

I just received an email on one of The Tech's mailing lists about how email from The Tech's mail server are being rejected by the Barracuda Spam Filters. I've edited the message, but goes something like this:

-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Mail Delivery System <Mailer-Daemon@the-tech.mit.edu>
To: user@tech.mit.edu
Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender
Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0000

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

user@mit.edu
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<user@mit.edu>:
host W92-130-BARRACUDA-3.mit.edu [18.7.21.224]:
554 Service unavailable; Client host [18.187.1.1] blocked using Barracuda Reputation; http://bbl.barracudacentral.com/q.cgi?ip=18.187.1.1

Following the link, you're taken to a page where you're asked to fill out a form (which includes a CAPTCHA) in order to verify that you're not spamming people.

Were this where things had ended, I would have forgotten this whole thing. While I don't necessarily think requiring people to fill out a quick form is the best way to fight spam, its certainly not completely unreasonable to ask them to do it once in a while. Extra kudos if they can use some sort of certificate, signature, etc to bypass it.

However, what follows is one of the most perverted uses of technology and diabolically brilliant business plans I have ever witnessed.

Lets assume you'd like to avoid being caught by this spam filter in the future. Barracuda allows you to register with EmailReg.org, an 'organization' which maintains a list of domains and the IP address of their associated mail server. To sweeten the pot, they allow anyone to query their database for free in order verify the authenticity of an email.

Many of you are scratching your heads, so let me provide an example. Lets say that you run Google.com. You register with EmailReg.org and tell them, 'Any email that comes from google.com will have to come from one of our SMTP servers. Their IP addresses are 1.2.3.4 and 9.8.7.6'. This means that an email which claims to be from user@google.com that didn't come from those IP address probably isn't actually from someone who works at Google and can probably be marked as spam. (Note that identity verification is a big part of spam protection, since spammers often pretend to be someone else, in an attempt to hide how much mail they're sending.)

What a great idea right? Spam protection that works and is transparent to users?

Until you realize that they charge $20 to register your domain. Per year.

Effectively, this means that you have to pay $20 per year to send email to people on domains that use this service to verify email authenticity. This wouldn't be that big of a deal if EmailReg was the definitive source for this information, or if they had some new and brilliant technology, or if there weren't any other good solutions. Instead, EmailReg is nobody, their product is a whitelist (albeit with two parameters – domain and IP), and there are a hundred other, perfectly viable anti-spam techniques. Somehow, they've managed to get a major corporation (Baracuda) on board and they're now gouging people to send e-mail – something which is supposed to be free.

I salute the businessman who came up with this idea and the salesman who got Barracuda on board.

Beyond that, I'm furious.

The Real Reason Your Ears Pop on Airplanes: Jet Fuel

2008-10-13T23:05:00.004-04:00

For some reason, I spent quite a lot of time thinking about cabin pressurization on airplanes this week. There wasn't any reason in particular – it just popped into my head. I'm no expert on the subject, but after a few minutes of research on the interweb, I've assembled some good information that could be of use to someone, somewhere, at some point in time.

Q. Why are cabins pressurized?
A. Cabins are pressurized for passenger's comfort and safety.

Think about it this way – normal cruising altitude for a commercial jet is around 30,000 ft. This also happens to be the height of Mt. Everest. When you climb Mt. Everest, you spend days at various camps acclimatizing to the reduced air pressure and reduced air density. Rather than forcing travelers to spend several days acclimatizing to a low pressure / low oxygen environment before flying, airplane manufacturers started pressurizing cabins.

Q. OK… but if the cabin's pressurized, then why do my ears pop?
A. Because the cabin isn't pressurized to match sea level. In fact, the pressure is almost 25% less than at sea level, which is why you have to hold your nose and blow out to relieve the pressure, rather than sticking your finger in your ear. Additionally, the cabin pressure varies throughout the flight (especially during takeoff and landing), but generally its set to match the air pressure equivalent to being 6,000 - 8,000 ft from sea level.

Q. I see. Why isn't the cabin pressurized to match sea level?
A. Basically, to reduce fuel costs.

You can think of the pressurized cabin like a balloon. If the pressure inside the cabin is too great, the fuselage would rupture, just like a balloon that been overinflated. This can be prevented by using stronger materials, but stronger materials are generally heavier, and thus require more fuel. (They also tend to cost more to manufacture, but hey, who's counting!)

I've also heard that airlines have to heat outside air to feed air into the cabin. Since heating air requires energy, and fuel provides the energy for planes, this seems reasonable. However, I can't seem to find any sources to back this up.

Q. Are there any adverse health affects that could result long term from air travel as a result of this reduced air pressure?
A. There's evidence that children exposed to intermittent hypoxia (reduced oxygen levels, like in an airplane cabin) may have reduced IQs and higher rates of ADD and its well established that mild hypoxia can lead to a short-term increase in physical response times and temporarily impair cognition.

But hey, look at it this way. Tons of people live in Denver (5,280 ft from sea level), and they seem to be doing just fine.

Q. Wait – I've met people from Denver! They definitely aren't fine…
A. That wasn't really a question.

UPDATE: The Scandal Underlying Financial Underwriting's Failure: Milburn Pennybags is Stanley Monopoly

2008-10-01T23:53:00.002-04:00

My younger brother is an avid reader, but he's especially fond of The Economist. (I should note that by the end of his first semester in college, he had dropped medicine in favor of economics, and that the publication was largely responsible for his change in vocation.) He evangelizes one blog in particular: Free exchange.

Last week, he astutely noted that the blog had stolen my recent thesis on the underlying cause of the current financial crisis.

Looks like you're not the only one who is explaining the current crisis with monopoly: Crisis roundtable: Playing by the rules

What would I do without the support of my younger brother?

UPDATE: Why Google Transit is isn't Worthless

2008-09-23T13:13:00.004-04:00

NYC transit directions have arrived.

Reading between the lines, it seems that the delay was largely a result delays from the MTA side of things:

We can only achieve this goal if we work closely with transit agencies around the globe to bring accurate and comprehensive transit information to everyone. …

I would like to personally thank everyone at the agencies for their incredible level of enthusiasm for and commitment to the best interests of their riders.

As Akshay pointed out in his response to my previous post:

Part of a big, public company means Google has to get the transit data through official means. As you can imagine, not all major cities are as helpful as Google might like.

Think about it, most "snubs" or "stupid oversights" in the tech world are because of easy to guess legal/IP issues. Knee-jerk whining is part of what makes most internet discourse worthless =P

Touché sir, touché.

The Scandal Underlying Financial Underwriting's Failure: Milburn Pennybags is Stanley Monopoly

2008-09-19T01:08:00.020-04:00

Mr. Pennybags

Mr. Monopoly

BALTIC AVENUE – Rich Uncle Milburn Pennybags and Mr. Stanley Monopoly are one in the same, authorities at Parker Brothers and their parent company Hasbro confirmed today.

Strange financial transactions between Mr. Pennybags' Short Line and Reading Railroad and Mr. Monopoly's B&O and Pennsylvania Railroad added fuel to already intense speculation that Mr. Pennybags may not exist, and was in fact a concoction, a nom-de-plume of Mr. Monopoly, existing only on paper. ~~(Not as in he eats paper. As in, he was fictitious. Its doubly funny because I called it a nom-de-plume, as in pen name, and pen + paper => forged document.)~~ People close to Mr. Monopoly had noted the strong physical resemblance between the two men, but never pressed to meet the allegedly reclusive and hermetic Mr. Pennybags. As one close friend noted, "I mean, yeah, they look like identical twins. (You know - the kind where you have to ask which name goes with which.) But we figured Stan just had common features – I mean, he really looks just like Mr. Peanut. And besides, we thought Stan wouldn't be caught dead wearing a red tie with green pants and brown shoes. "

Mr. Monopoly is best known for his lavishly robber baron lifestyle, his sarcastic, dry wit, and his outlandish 1880's formal wear. Although his beard may have gotten whiter and he now wears his monocle or theatre glasses more often, Mr. Monopoly's signature style has always been one of big, bushy, handle bar, cookie dustpan mustaches, top hats, black tailcoats, and canes. At the time of this printing, Mr. Monopoly was known to have 4 pairs of pants (black, white, gray, and seersucker) and 3 ties (black, white bow, and red bow), as seen below:

Journalists first took note months ago as the seemingly unknown, but highly praised, Mr. Pennybags took the reigns of Short Line and Reading Railroad and quickly entered into merger talks with B&O and Pennsylvania Railroad. When officials at the Federal Trade Commission rejected their proposed merger last week, Mr. Monopoly used a loophole in FTC regulations to effectively merge the companies. Rather than actually merge, the companies will lease each other in full from their partner as reverse annuities, where the value of each company will be repaid to itself through the other company in perpetuity. All share holders will be issued new type of stock which gives them a corresponding number of shares of the other company, but which must be sold with the certificates of their original holding. Financial authorities fear that the widespread use of this new type of stock could have hugely negative consequences.

Big Thought for the Day

2008-08-19T17:47:00.001-04:00

Why do the prongs of electrical devices still have holes if none of the outlets have pins that hold them in place?

Big Thought for the Day

2008-08-15T17:36:00.002-04:00

One should not be too proud of having a lot of frequent flyer miles. They are obtained either by spending a lot of money or by flying frequently, both of which have negative side effects.

Note: Google doesn't know if 'frequent flyer' or 'frequent flier' is the correct term for a person who often travels via commercial airline. Wikipedia recognizes 'frequent flyer'.

Big Thought for the Day

2008-08-14T17:32:00.001-04:00

There is no commonly used synonym for the word 'word' in the English language.

Someone has suggested that this may be an intrinsic property of some types of languages.

Prepare for Arrival and Crosscheck

2008-07-31T23:23:00.003-04:00

Here's Johnny!

I just landed in San Antonio after 18 days in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Suffice to say, it was an absolutely incredible experience.

I'm going to chronicle the details here in the coming weeks, but in the mean time, here are the cold, hard numbers behind my journey back.

Distance: 11500 Miles
Total flights: 5
Total time: 65 hours
Flight time: 24 hours
Layover time: 34 hours
Flight delays: 4 hours
Front and back time: 3 hours

My New Favorite Game

2008-05-07T08:41:00.015-04:00

I love MakeUseOf.com. They always have cool tips and tricks to get the most out of your day (much like Unclutterer and Lifehacker).

Today they had a piece on programs that teach you how to touch type. Among their top choices was a web based game called TypeRacer. To summarize, they provide a blurb from a popular book, movie, or song and you have to type it out as quickly as you can with 100% accuracy for each word (word-level accuracy kills my speed). As an added bonus, you can race against other people who are on the site at the same time.

I think this is a great idea. I learned how to type because of the racing car game in Mavis Beacon (a la Out Run). Unfortunately, they made the game a bit too fun, and as a result I didn't really learn to touch type until middle school (when I was being graded on my mad typing skills). As much as I love the quotes they provide, the game isn't that fun, so there's a chance that kids will actually learn to touch type.

PS - During our recent family weekend in Toronto, I discovered that my Dad has switched from using two fingers to type to using all ten! It turns out that evolution does exist and that it acts in the most mysterious and beautiful ways. Or that you can teach an old dog new tricks. Or some other equally trite truism.

Ready2Search: Internet Explorer / Firefox Search Toolbar Wizard

2008-04-29T17:13:00.001-04:00

I keep forgetting where this site is, so I figured I'd post a link on my blog so that at least I could remember where it was...

Ready2Search is a site which allows you to quickly create a search plug-in for Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2, and Google Toolbar. Its pretty basic: you include the front end of the search string, the back end of the search string, and an image (optional) and they take care of the rest.

Boston City Guide

2008-04-27T22:47:00.005-04:00

Someone just sent this to me. Is an example of the type of forwarded email that I never forward on, but always secretly love.

Welcome to Bawstin (Boston)
For those of you who have never been to "Bawstin", this is a good guideline. I hope you will consider coming to "Beantown" in the near future. For those who call New England home, this is just plain great!

Geographic Information

There's no school on School Street, no court on Court Street, no dock on Dock Square, no water on Water Street.
There are two State Houses, two City Halls, two courthouses, two Hancock buildings (one old, one new for each).
Back Bay streets are in alphabetical "oddah": Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, etc. So are South Boston streets: A, B, C, D, etc.
If the streets are named after trees (e.g. Walnut, Chestnut, Cedar), you're on Beacon Hill. If they're named after poets, you're in Wellesley.
Route 128 is I-95 south. It's also I-93 north.
Massachusetts Avenue is Mass Ave; Commonwealth Avenue is Comm Ave.
South Boston is Southie. The South End is the South End. East Boston is Eastie. The North End is east of the former West End. The West End and Scollay Square are no more; a guy named Rappaport got rid of them one night. Roxbury is The Burry, Jamaica Plain is J.P.

Pronunciation Guide

Worcester: Wuhsta (or Wistah)
Gloucester: Glawsta
Leicester: Lesta
Woburn: Wooban
Dedham: Dead-um
Revere: Re-vee-ah
Quincy: Quinzee
Tewksbury: Tooks berry
Leominster: Lemin-sta
Peabody: Pee-ba-dee
Waltham Walth-ham
Chatham: Chaddum
Samoset: Sam-oh-set or Sum-aw-set but nevah Summerset!

Definitions

Frappes have ice cream, milkshakes don't.
If it is fizzy and flavored, it's tonic.
Soda is CLUB SODA.
"Pop" is DAD.
When we want Tonic WATER, we will ask for TONIC WATER.
The smallest beer is a pint.
Scrod is whatever they tell you it is, usually fish.
If you paid more than $7/pound, you got scrod.
It's not a water fountain; it's a bubblah.
It's not a trashcan; it's a barrel.
It's not a shopping cart; it's a carriage.
It's not a purse; it's a pock-a-book.
They're not franks; they're haht dahgs; Franks are money in Switzahland.
Police don't drive patrol units or black and whites they drive a "crooza".
If you take the bus, your on the "looza crooza".
The underground train is not a subway. It's the "T", and it doesn't run all night (fah chrysakes, this ain't Noo Yawk).
It's not a rubber band, it's an elastic.
It's not a traffic circle, it's a rotary.
"Going to the islands" means Martha's Vineyard & Nantucket.
Order the "cold tea" in China Town after 2:00 am you'll get a kettle full of beer.

Sports

The Sox = The Red Sox
The C's = The Celtics
The B's = The Bruins
The Pat's = The Patriots

Things not to do

Don't pahk your cah in Hahvid Yahd… they'll tow it to Meffa (Medford) or Summahville (Somerville).
Don't sleep on the Common. (Boston Common)
Don't wear Orange in Southie on St. Patrick's Day.

Weather

The colored lights on top the old Hancock tell the weatha':

"Solid blue, clear view…"
"Flashing blue, clouds due…"
"Solid red, rain ahead…"
"Flashing red, snow instead…" - except in summer, when flashing red means the Red Sox game was rained out!

Most people live here all their life and still don't know what the hell is going on with this one.

The Locals

Bostonians… think that it's their God-given right to cut off someone in traffic.
Bostonians… think that there are only 25 letters in the alphabet (no R's) except in "idea".
Bostonians… think that three straight days of 90+ temperature s is a heat wave.
Bostonians… refer to six inches of snow as a "dusting."
Bostonians… always "bang a left" as soon as the light turns green, and oncoming traffic always expects it.
Bostonians… believe that using your turn signal is a sign of weakness.
Bostonians… think that 63-degree ocean water is warm.
Bostonians… think Rhode Island accents are annoying.

UPDATE: "Elevator design is rooted in deception"

2008-04-23T12:36:00.001-04:00

Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post titled "Elevator design is rooted in deception". From the post:

In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works.

I tested this theory today in my office building. It appears that the door close button only works when the break-beam sensor has not been triggered. Thus, on the ground floor, it does not work at all. Similarly, when someone gets on / leaves the elevator, pushing the door close button has no effect at all, but the door closes quickly thereafter. However, when you make a phantom stop (no one gets on or off) the button works marvelously.

The Squeasy Tea Bag Squeezer

2008-04-23T12:01:00.001-04:00

From Unclutterer today:

No self respecting tea drinker would be caught using a spoon to squeeze out his tea.

Technically, no self respecting tea drinker would ever be caught squeezing out their tea. As Alton Brown points out in his Good Eats episode True Brew 2: Mr. Tea, squeezing tea bags makes the tea taste more bitter.