Today Was Awesome

New Goal

Tonight I listened to a This American Life segment about the artisanal toast craze and it was totally unexpected. Instead of a story about hipsters and the silliness of $4 toast we got an intimate look at the person that kicked off the trend.

Her name is Giulietta Carrelli.

The podcast is based on an article by John Gravois, you can read it here.

This isn’t a story about toast after all, its the story of a mentally ill woman on her quest for stability and life. Please, read the whole piece but here’s why I’m talking about it: Giulietta has schizophrenia and it sort of comes on in episodes where she can’t think, can’t focus, hears voices, is overwhelmed by the world, and just plain becomes dysfunctional. She wandered for a long time. Losing relationships. Losing jobs. Until finally she starts to find a few things that help her out of her episodes. One of them is talking to people, having them recognize her.

She started a coffee shop a few years ago and she walks the same route everyday to work. She makes sure to introduce herself to anyone living in the neighborhoods she passes through. She warns them that sometimes she can get lost and she would really appreciate help if that happens. When she does have an episode she knocks on people’s doors, asks them for help, and gets directions.

Her crazy appearance (seen above, and she wears the same outfit everyday like a uniform) isn’t about making some kind of statement. It’s about being recognized. When people call out her name and say hi it snaps her out of her episodes; gets her back in reality.

It’s late, and I haven’t fully processed it yet. But there are a lot of really inspiring things in this story and now I’m putting that inspiration into action.

For the next 365 days I will blog everyday.

What does this have to do with the story I just told? I’m not sure, but maybe with a few hundred blog posts I can figure it out.

New Goal

Posted Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Idea: Using bitcoin for the basis of digital scarcity goods.

Setup

One of the problems with DRM systems over the years has been that they are centrally controlled and carry inherent risk. We saw this with “PlayforSure” which failed. Anyone that bought into those digital goods lost everything when the service shutdown.

This has advantages and disadvantages. Right now ReDigi is fighting to resell “used” mp3s. This mostly doesn’t work for obvious reasons (how do you guarantee there aren’t any copies?).

Idea

Ok, so is it possible to mint digital goods that are unique and enforce a license? Bitcoin offers a decentralized currency and it’s major advantage is that a Bitcoin can’t be “copied” and spent twice. Can we apply the same idea to software? Media? Is it possible to build a decentralized system for distributing and managing these different things, your license can be transferred to others, ie sold, just like Bitcoins. Would that work? Would it be worth it?

Idea: Using bitcoin for the basis of digital scarcity goods.

Posted Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Move lots of files using rsync for fun and profit

Yeah, you're a total hacker.

I needed to backup my large collection of cat pictures today and realized how big of a pain moving 2TB of files is using the usual terminal copying tools. Luckily, moving around lots of files, and lots of large files, via terminal is really easy using rsync. Rsync has some nice tricks up it’s sleeve. It can perserve permissions, compress files on the fly, and do some filtering as it copies. Oh yeah, and if it’s interrupted you can always resume, unlike commands like cp, dd, and mv.

Move lots of files using rsync for fun and profit

Posted Friday, April 13, 2012

New site design

Whats this!? A new post on my blog? Your eyes do not deceive you. I’ve been meaning to blog a bit lately but every time I looked at the site I thought it could use a new coat of paint. Please let me know what you think and if you have any issues or ideas! Hit the break to see a list of features.

New site design

Posted Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Make Facebook Useful

I’ve never really liked Facebook because there’s always too much noise. No matter how many people I hide from my stream there’s always junk coming in. The problem is that I can’t set my stream to default to a group of people that I actually care about.

Fixing this takes 30 seconds

Here’s an easy little trick to get around it and only see the updates of a specific group. Just right click on the link to the group you want to follow and then set that page as a bookmark.

If you use Chrome, then setup facebook as a “search engine”.

To do that, right click in your address bar then edit search engines. Set the Name to anything you want, then the keyword to facebook and the url to the group you want. Then when you goto facebook, just type “facebook” with a space after it and hit enter. It will take you directly to the page you want.

Now just curate that group carefully for people you actually want to follow. Mine only has 16 people in it.

It’s simple I know but it helped me.

update: Upon the completion of this post Facebook immediately removed this feature. FML.

Make Facebook Useful

Posted Monday, November 29, 2010

Comcast vs Fiber

I recently hooked up internet in a location without Fiber and had to go to Comcast. It’s the first time I’ve used their service since I was in high school so I was hoping it had improved.

Surprisingly they said I could get 20 Mbit fiber which was awesome. My fiber was only 15 Mbit. So I got everything setup and quickly ran a speed test

Comcast 20/5

Advertised: 20/5
Actual: 5/2

Strangely I only got 5 Mbit. I thought it might be the server so I hoped on my old fiber connection and ran the same test:

BroadWeave 15/15

Advertised: 15/15
Actual: 13/10

Traffic Shaping

I was disappointed by the big loss of speed from Comcast. I expected them to fall short of advertised (everyone does) but to fall all the way down to 5? I lost 75% of my speed while fiber sat around 15% loss. That’s awful but at least I should be able to stream video.

I connected to my file server which is where I store my legally obtained digital content and started streaming. Uh-oh, even though the server can pump out 1500 KB/s I can only get 125 KB/s when going through Comcast. I checked from a few other locations and got stellar speeds which means Comcast is traffic shaping. Other locations give me quite a bit better speed, in the 1500 KB/s range but when I hit my server all of the sudden traffic shaping kicks in and my speed tanks.

Monopoly

Enjoy your monopoly now Comcast, or should I say Xfinity, because as soon as anyone has choice it will quickly become apparent that your internet offering is subpar. I don’t need a company deciding what traffic of mine is worth my bandwidth, that’s my business. Further, I think I ought to make a complaint to the BBB about your outrageous speed discrepancies.

Comcast vs Fiber

Posted Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Personal Web Filtering Options

I love the internet and I’ve always hated internet filters because they block stuff erroneously. However, I do try to avoid certain types of material online and so I’ve done a little work to make sure that I don’t see anything I don’t want to see. Here’s what I do along with some other options.

As a side note, anyone that knows me knows that I hate censorship in a government. What I’m trying to help people do is filter out the content that they personally don’t want to see. I would never impose censorship on anyone.

Personal Web Filtering Options

Posted Sunday, August 1, 2010

HTC – You Owe it To Us

On October 11, 2009 I rushed to get the HTC Hero on the first day it was sold. Eight months later that phone is now considered obsolete. Especially by HTC. First they took nearly seven months to update that phone from Android 1.5 to Android 2.1 now they’ve promised to never update it again.

One update is all they could give us? I really like my phone but when I bought it I thought that it would be updated for a long time to come. I had just come from the iphone where we got all the updates we wanted and when an update was released there was no waiting.

Let me cut to the chase,

Dear HTC,

You have abandoned Hero users. When we buy a phone we don’t just buy it for what it can do, we buy it for all that it will be able to do. Maybe you’ll be better in the future about keeping products updated (and updated in a timely manner) but for now you need to remember the people that made you money just eight short months ago. Here’s what you must do.

Opensource all the drivers for the Hero.

You make a lot of phones, I understand thats a big strain on your dev team to try to keep everything updated. That’s fine I guess. I’m disappointed but the least you could do is release the code for all the drivers. Be honest, there’s not a lot of proprietary value in keeping your drivers secret, especially for what is now considered an “ancient” phone.

Please do this, then I can compile from source myself with a 2.2 rom or a 2.3 rom or whatever rolls down the pipe. You want to abandon us? Fine, at least leave us with the tools to pick up the slack.

Signed,

Dan a, until recently, loyal HTC fan.

BTW, this isn’t a suggestion really, HTC required by law to opensource their kernel. I’m asking nicely but really they’re obligated to.

HTC – You Owe it To Us

Posted Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Solar Power Still Sucks in a Big Way

My numerous (and very vocal fans) will remember that I already wrote a post on how much solar panels suck. But someone who “works in the industry” told me how totally wrong I was. That post was from 2008 so technology should be totally different now right? Almost everyday there’s a story about solar panels reaching new and incredible limits in efficiency.

Please Solar, PLEASE!

I want it to work so bad. I would love to get rid of my electricity bill. Understand, I have a vested interest in solar power being awesome, if it were awesome then I could just throw some panels up and free myself of the utility company. Maybe one day that will be possible, please I wish it were. Even if I could cut it in half I would be thrilled.

So, let’s figure out what that would take. Because if it’s cost efficient, I will do it right now. Luckily for me there’s an organization that has done all the work for me and created a calculator using the latest in technology and current industry costs. Great.

Right now I use an average of 37 kwh per day. That’s slightly above average in the US (don’t ask me how my 1800 sq/ft home does that). Now to get half of that, now remember I’m using this calculator, I need about a 4.1 kW array. So how much does that cost? Luckily they have a calculator for that too.

It’s Totally Cost-Effective

think about how much money they'll save on storage!

So you're an investment banker huh?

So, the grand total is $32,800 to get rid of half my electric bill. But don’t worry, there are tax breaks for this, the federal government will give me almost 10,000 dollars so it ends up being 22,960.00 (I said almost 10,000).

Great, so now if I spend $22,960 to save $35 dollars a month I will recoupe my investment in about 60 years. That doesn’t include stuff breaking, or what happens if we get less than the optimal amount of sun. In reality it’s probably twice as much.

Sorry solar, until the cost is low enough that the investment can be recouped in a year, maybe two, you’re just not worth it.

Actually, I’ll go one step further and say that the government should stop paying people to throw their money away on a technology that isn’t ready. I’m all for more efficient panels and more research but right now it’s just burning money on a technology which probably is way worse for the environment to make than just burning the coal for the electricity.

Prove me wrong and I will love you. Until then, sorry solar, you suck.

Solar Power Still Sucks in a Big Way

Posted Thursday, June 17, 2010

Broken Timbuk2 Bag

I have sent the following letter to Timbuk2.

Dearest Timbuk2,

About 3 months ago I achieved my life long dream of owning a timbuk2 bag. I had long watched, and planned for the day when my computer would be protected by the best bags in the industry. Pining away, I began to dream of the quality, the unparalleled craftsmanship and the utmost attention to detail and style. Surely, with this bag I could be successful, my wife would love me more, my coworkers offering me more respect. Even my community would finally recognize my achievements.

After I got my bag, I rejoiced. These were the halcyon days. The sun shone through the darkness of winter, piercing and warming my heart with epic success. With my timbuk2 bag in hand there was no stopping me. And then the darkness fell.

I still remember that day, I went to pick up my bag by it’s handle and in horrific slow motion it snapped. I looked on in horror, disbelieving that my golden fleece would be so taken from me. It is with a somber heart and forlorn eyes that I look to you, harbinger of hope. May my bag be repaired? Is it covered by warranty? It is the answers to these questions that brings me humbly before you.

Or in Haiku:
I love my great bag
One day the handle broken
Please fix my black bag

Respectfully yours,

Dan Garfield

Broken Timbuk2 Bag

Posted Saturday, May 22, 2010