I participated in the first ever NW Indiana Startup Weekend this past weekend. My team won. We now have a year of free office space and a lunch with a VC to pitch the idea to fund it.
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Christ is Risen
For the Easter season, romanians say to each other in greeting "Christ is risen" and respond "Truly He is risen". It's an eastern tradition that runs across many churches.
So to all of you, friends, and future friends, acquaintances, and enemies I hope to make peace with, to everybody reading I say to you Christ is risen and wish you all the good things that are promised with that statement.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Back from vacation
I went to Disney World with my family last week. We really needed the vacation. I'm back and rested and will be resuming regular blogging.
I'm actually happy I missed the past week. Catching up led to several face palm moments at the crassness and stupidity.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Even Google Thinks I Should Fly
I just did a trip plan to see what my alternatives are. It looks like Google's getting into flying directions
Maybe I should reconsider driving? Maybe not.
Besides, renting a minivan and driving the five of us down is significantly cheaper. As a bonus I get to add a few more states on my quest to visit all 50 states.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Vacation Buffer Building Countdown 3.16.14
I'm going to Disney World and part of getting ready for this family vacation is setting up a blogging buffer. I've never been particularly good at that so I thought I'd write about it and see if that helps building it up.
Blogs I write on with their respective daily posting goals
Flit-TM - 9
Citizen Intelligence - 1
Chicago Boyz - 0
That's a dozen posts a day. We're driving down starting Saturday and will be arriving back home the next Sunday. That's 9 days where it will be difficult to keep up with my schedule. That would make the full buffer needed being 90 posts, 81 for Flit-TM and 9 for Citizen Intelligence.
Current buffer count with posts left to write today:
Flit-TM - X:X
Citizen Intelligence - X:X
Chicago Boyz - 0
Blogs I write on with their respective daily posting goals
Flit-TM - 9
Citizen Intelligence - 1
Chicago Boyz - 0
That's a dozen posts a day. We're driving down starting Saturday and will be arriving back home the next Sunday. That's 9 days where it will be difficult to keep up with my schedule. That would make the full buffer needed being 90 posts, 81 for Flit-TM and 9 for Citizen Intelligence.
Current buffer count with posts left to write today:
Flit-TM - X:X
Citizen Intelligence - X:X
Chicago Boyz - 0
With 12 days to go until that first travel day that makes the adjusted daily goals:
Flit-TM - XX <- not good, up 2 from yesterday
Citizen Intelligence - X
Chicago Boyz - 0
Citizen Intelligence - X
Chicago Boyz - 0
This should be fun. Of course, a daily post working out the buffer struggle doesn't hurt.
Update: this is a blown post. my buffers were gone at this point and I didn't fill in the blanks when this auto-post fired.
Update: this is a blown post. my buffers were gone at this point and I didn't fill in the blanks when this auto-post fired.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Vacation Buffer Building Countdown 3.15.14
I'm going to Disney World and part of getting ready for this family vacation is setting up a blogging buffer. I've never been particularly good at that so I thought I'd write about it and see if that helps building it up.
Blogs I write on with their respective daily posting goals
Flit-TM - 11
Citizen Intelligence - 1
Chicago Boyz - 0
That's a dozen posts a day. We're driving down starting Saturday and will be arriving back home the next Sunday. That's 9 days where it will be difficult to keep up with my schedule. That would make the full buffer needed being 108 posts, 99 for Flit-TM and 9 for Citizen Intelligence.
Current buffer count with posts left to write today:
Flit-TM - 4:5
Citizen Intelligence - 1:0
Chicago Boyz - 0
Blogs I write on with their respective daily posting goals
Flit-TM - 11
Citizen Intelligence - 1
Chicago Boyz - 0
That's a dozen posts a day. We're driving down starting Saturday and will be arriving back home the next Sunday. That's 9 days where it will be difficult to keep up with my schedule. That would make the full buffer needed being 108 posts, 99 for Flit-TM and 9 for Citizen Intelligence.
Current buffer count with posts left to write today:
Flit-TM - 4:5
Citizen Intelligence - 1:0
Chicago Boyz - 0
With 13 days to go until that first travel day that makes the adjusted daily goals:
Flit-TM - 18
Citizen Intelligence - 2
Chicago Boyz - 0
Citizen Intelligence - 2
Chicago Boyz - 0
This should be fun. Of course, a daily post working out the buffer struggle doesn't hurt.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Long Trip Driving Patterns
On long trips, my wife and I tend towards swap off patterns of 2-4 hours. We've done the run to Toronto that way and also to NY from our starting point just outside Chicago. I'm wondering what's the optimal pattern in your experience? Does it change depending on how long you want to go?
Vacation Buffer Building Countdown 3.14.14
I'm going to Disney World and part of getting ready for this family vacation is setting up a blogging buffer. I've never been particularly good at that so I thought I'd write about it and see if that helps building it up.
Blogs I write on with their respective daily posting goals
Flit-TM - 11
Citizen Intelligence - 1
Chicago Boyz - 0
That's a dozen posts a day. We're driving down starting Saturday and will be arriving back home the next Sunday. That's 9 days where it will be difficult to keep up with my schedule. That would make the full buffer needed being 108 posts, 99 for Flit-TM and 9 for Citizen Intelligence.
Current buffer count with posts left to write today:
Flit-TM - 1:7
Citizen Intelligence - 0:0
Chicago Boyz - 0
Blogs I write on with their respective daily posting goals
Flit-TM - 11
Citizen Intelligence - 1
Chicago Boyz - 0
That's a dozen posts a day. We're driving down starting Saturday and will be arriving back home the next Sunday. That's 9 days where it will be difficult to keep up with my schedule. That would make the full buffer needed being 108 posts, 99 for Flit-TM and 9 for Citizen Intelligence.
Current buffer count with posts left to write today:
Flit-TM - 1:7
Citizen Intelligence - 0:0
Chicago Boyz - 0
With 14 days to go until that first travel day that makes the adjusted daily goals:
Flit-TM - 19
Citizen Intelligence - 2
Chicago Boyz - 0
Citizen Intelligence - 2
Chicago Boyz - 0
This should be fun. Of course, a daily post working out the buffer struggle doesn't hurt.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Diversifying my information sources
I'm a little creeped out by people who have no clue what's going on outside their own little circles. Epistemic closure, a sort of intellectual isolationism is something I find repugnant. Google plus makes it easy to get out of that because people share circles of hundreds of others and you can just grab them, sight unseen and find a whole new world. That new world has really upped may daily consumption of cat pictures but also of people who think significantly differently than myself and who I can have a discussion with. I foresee circle building and pruning is going to be a regular activity for me going forward and it doesn't come naturally for me. It is good for me though.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Sun Tzu and Bob Marley
My older daughter told me she had decided to pick out Sun Tzu's The Art of War for reading on her own. She had a substitute teacher in art class and was reading the book but found it impossible to continue as two of her classmates were singing Bob Marley's Three Little Birds and the juxtaposition of the two was just too much for her. My daughter is having an unusual 6th grade.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Tell a story
One of the things that I find fascinating is the number of tools that are out there and free for the taking. I just found a new one to create something called visual novel games. It's called Ren'Py and has been used to tell hundreds of branching stories with multiple pathways. It comes out of the Japanese tradition but is culturally independent. I like the concept and hope that it gets an IOS version soon. Right now it can make games to tell stories in Windows, OSX, Linux, and Android.
My son's throwing a party
14 years old and my son's throwing a party on a minecraft server. I didn't even know parties were a thing on minecraft. Google's not much help as I'm seeing a lot of links on how to make creeper cupcakes and other real world artifacts for minecraft themed parties. Apparently minecraft birthday parties are a big deal in 2014. Who knew?
Pulling real world party elements into minecraft gets a lot fewer hits on Google but it's out there.
I'm pretty sure that my son's party will be different than this but the whole thing seems so bizarre. This is not the dystopian future all the cool kids were predicting 20 years ago.
Pulling real world party elements into minecraft gets a lot fewer hits on Google but it's out there.
I'm pretty sure that my son's party will be different than this but the whole thing seems so bizarre. This is not the dystopian future all the cool kids were predicting 20 years ago.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
43 years ago
Forty three years ago, my parents found out that even a babe-in-arms has to have a separate airline ticket paid for. That ticket was for me to get out of Romania. I was just 2 years old.
My father's sister, Sylvia had bought 3 tickets, one for each of them and third which my parents thought covered the two half fares for the both of us but was issued for my brother, George (who I miss very much but that's a very different story). They had one day to get money they did not have to Sabena airlines, in a different country, and pay for that ticket, across the iron curtain that divided east from west in those days. All this was before the Internet had made things so easy. The Sabena clerk was absolutely positive my parents would never make it for the flight the next day. Such things were impossible in 1971.
My father didn't have the phone number of his sister and the US embassy didn't have a phone book for that area of Jersey to look it up for him so my mother swung into action and called one of the few cousins she knew the Nazis had not killed. Katus Fishbein was my mother's, father's, brother's, daughter (her cousin) and had been in my mother's, parent's wedding party. She was very religious, an ultra-Orthodox jew (which becomes relevant later). She wasn't sure we'd be good for it. After all, we'd be penniless arrivals and who knows what sort of guy cousin Juliana had married. She had recently found out that cousin Juliana was alive just a year prior via a postcard her uncle Joseph had written to her brother and was somehow in her father's papers. She wrote back to that address and even though the address had had its name changed (three times by then) the postmaster delivered the letter. All she knew was that Juliana's husband was a christian. So she called another (mutual) cousin and that cousin, Clara Fein, vouched that we'd be good for it. My mother hadn't a clue that cousin Clara had survived WW II. Cousin Clara hadn't known that her uncle Joseph's family had survived until that phone call.
So the Sabena clerk in Bucharest opening up the office found my parents waiting for her at the doorstep and a telex from the home office saying that the fourth ticket was paid for twice. The Sabena home office apparently had my father's sister's number and had separately informed her. Aunt Sylvia came through without asking.
Of course, the adventure wasn't over. At customs, they inventoried our possessions to make sure we weren't stealing from the socialist fatherland. My parents were allowed three hemp cloth diapers for me, for instance. My mother still uses one of those diapers to make sure that she doesn't burn delicate clothes when she irons. They checked me for ear rings. No gold except simple wedding bands was allowed.
We all missed our flight connection and got a flight for the next day. Unlike the previous flight which had been due to arrive at 5PM Friday, it arrived at noon on Saturday. Aunt Sylvia got notified about the day change but somehow missed the time change.
When my parents finally arrived, it was the jewish sabbath and ultra-orthodox cousin Katus had asked cousin Clara to meet us at the airport. So there were my parents, two kids, two suitcases, and not a penny to their name. And here come a pair of people, absolute strangers shouting out my mother's name and hugging and kissing and conducting them to their car. The last time Clara had seen her cousin she was seventeen and my mother was three years old.
In the back, my father whispered to my mother "who are these people?" My mother whispered back "I don't know." Cousin Clara's husband heard, laughed, and all was explained on the way to their apartment.
Cross Posted: ChicagoBoyz
My father's sister, Sylvia had bought 3 tickets, one for each of them and third which my parents thought covered the two half fares for the both of us but was issued for my brother, George (who I miss very much but that's a very different story). They had one day to get money they did not have to Sabena airlines, in a different country, and pay for that ticket, across the iron curtain that divided east from west in those days. All this was before the Internet had made things so easy. The Sabena clerk was absolutely positive my parents would never make it for the flight the next day. Such things were impossible in 1971.
My father didn't have the phone number of his sister and the US embassy didn't have a phone book for that area of Jersey to look it up for him so my mother swung into action and called one of the few cousins she knew the Nazis had not killed. Katus Fishbein was my mother's, father's, brother's, daughter (her cousin) and had been in my mother's, parent's wedding party. She was very religious, an ultra-Orthodox jew (which becomes relevant later). She wasn't sure we'd be good for it. After all, we'd be penniless arrivals and who knows what sort of guy cousin Juliana had married. She had recently found out that cousin Juliana was alive just a year prior via a postcard her uncle Joseph had written to her brother and was somehow in her father's papers. She wrote back to that address and even though the address had had its name changed (three times by then) the postmaster delivered the letter. All she knew was that Juliana's husband was a christian. So she called another (mutual) cousin and that cousin, Clara Fein, vouched that we'd be good for it. My mother hadn't a clue that cousin Clara had survived WW II. Cousin Clara hadn't known that her uncle Joseph's family had survived until that phone call.
So the Sabena clerk in Bucharest opening up the office found my parents waiting for her at the doorstep and a telex from the home office saying that the fourth ticket was paid for twice. The Sabena home office apparently had my father's sister's number and had separately informed her. Aunt Sylvia came through without asking.
Of course, the adventure wasn't over. At customs, they inventoried our possessions to make sure we weren't stealing from the socialist fatherland. My parents were allowed three hemp cloth diapers for me, for instance. My mother still uses one of those diapers to make sure that she doesn't burn delicate clothes when she irons. They checked me for ear rings. No gold except simple wedding bands was allowed.
We all missed our flight connection and got a flight for the next day. Unlike the previous flight which had been due to arrive at 5PM Friday, it arrived at noon on Saturday. Aunt Sylvia got notified about the day change but somehow missed the time change.
When my parents finally arrived, it was the jewish sabbath and ultra-orthodox cousin Katus had asked cousin Clara to meet us at the airport. So there were my parents, two kids, two suitcases, and not a penny to their name. And here come a pair of people, absolute strangers shouting out my mother's name and hugging and kissing and conducting them to their car. The last time Clara had seen her cousin she was seventeen and my mother was three years old.
In the back, my father whispered to my mother "who are these people?" My mother whispered back "I don't know." Cousin Clara's husband heard, laughed, and all was explained on the way to their apartment.
Cross Posted: ChicagoBoyz
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
My Poor Taste in Movies
Just for fun, I clicked on this worst 9 movies link (at 4 in the morning my insomnia isn't allowing for serious work). To my surprise, I recall most of them and to my shame, remember that I wanted to watch 6 of the 9 when they were in theaters. A cultural aesthete, I am not.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Twitter cleanup update
Funny enough, about 1% of the spam accounts that I was just slammed into following are actually interesting. I'm leaving them on as followed. Amid all that dross, there does turn out to be a little gold. Now back to the task of turning lemons to lemonaid...
Friday, January 31, 2014
Travel day
I'm off to suburban NY for some family issues from today through Tuesday. If you're in the area and would like to meet, let's see if we can schedule something.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Now officially on the market for a new car
It worked fine starting up this morning but the battery's drained when I went out just now to pick up my kids. An electrical system slow drain is just the cherry on top of the whole motor oil leaking, break fluid leaking, body rusting away catalog of woes for this thing.
A good trickle charger is more of an essential tool than I thought when I originally got the thing all those years ago.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Hunter Douglas
We got Hunter Douglas shades with the house. This morning 3 of the four brackets snapped when the big shade was pulled up to let light into the kitchen. It turns out that Hunter Douglas will send out new brackets for free. They just want you to send the broken ones back so the engineers can see them to do failure analysis. They come in 7-10 days normally.
Talking to the customer service rep, I suggested that the company publish the files needed for those of us that have 3d printers to print them. That way I'd be able to put up the shade today. It's not like Hunter Douglas is making any money off the parts orders so there is no real reason not to do it. People would be just as willing to send the broken bits back postage paid as they are today.
She thanked me for the suggestion and changed my shipping to 3 days, without me asking.
Hunter Douglas is likely to get my future business.
Talking to the customer service rep, I suggested that the company publish the files needed for those of us that have 3d printers to print them. That way I'd be able to put up the shade today. It's not like Hunter Douglas is making any money off the parts orders so there is no real reason not to do it. People would be just as willing to send the broken bits back postage paid as they are today.
She thanked me for the suggestion and changed my shipping to 3 days, without me asking.
Hunter Douglas is likely to get my future business.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Call from school
It isn't often that you get a call from school and it's good news. Usually somebody's sick, unruly, or bleeding. But not today. My son's been tutoring two kids for a few months and apparently they just tested their progress. One of them raised their scores a full year. The other raised them a full two years. I'm so proud I could pop.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Bitcoin comeback
The gloom and doom bitcoin crowd seems to have quieted down now that BTC has resumed its upward trends from its recent lows in the $600 range. At writing Preev is listing BTC at $909, still well off its all time highs but about twice what my eyeball tells me its long term price trend is. That's a bit fluffy but not scarily so.
My microtransaction fueled program of acquiring bitcoins continues apace, currently totalling 0.04876797BTC or a bit more than $40 at present prices, territory of a decent burger joint night out with the wife with drinks added in. Minor tragedy has struck though as The Charley Horse has gone out of business and I was using their burger and drink menu for pricing benchmarks. I have to find a new restaurant now.
My microtransaction fueled program of acquiring bitcoins continues apace, currently totalling 0.04876797BTC or a bit more than $40 at present prices, territory of a decent burger joint night out with the wife with drinks added in. Minor tragedy has struck though as The Charley Horse has gone out of business and I was using their burger and drink menu for pricing benchmarks. I have to find a new restaurant now.
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