Bad blogger

I have been at this blogging thing for a while now; I'm not particularly awesome at it, but it helps to pass the time. Now that I have a friend that moved far away she started blogging and is thoroughly kicking my ass at this. Seriously a post a day? It just makes me feel lazy you hear that V, now I feel lonely and lazy.

Motivation Ted Talk

I think that you can see some of this play out in where/when individuals leave companies. The part of work that is detail oriented, and not creative/conceptual (ie lawsuits and contracts) tends to repel the individuals that only want to work on interesting problems. The engineers of great Software companies move from interesting project to interesting project. The example of Wikipedia vs Encarta may not be the very best example of one work method vs the other. That is more an example of free and easy to access vs pay and limited to access. I am sure that there are great analogies for this type of work, the speaker just didn't choose one.

Brilliant knife block

*via Yankodesigns.com

In the last several years I have taken to cooking, and find it a rather enjoyable pass time. Since I have really started to take cooking seriously I have noticed that so much of the cooking process really revolves around prep work, (odd given this is the first job you get when you start working at as a cook) and that your prep skills determine the texture of the food as much as the ingredients themselves. Particularly important to this process is knife skill, and there is absolutely no substitute for a damn sharp knife. Most people buy knifes in sets with a big and bulky block to hold them, I recently received a 7" Shun Sontoku that is the main knife I use for prep, but I do not have a block to keep it in. A product like this where the knife comes in a Modular block would be the perfect thing for your kitchen nerd.

Cute robot for uselessness (Twitter)

Gizmodo damn it this is cute, and useless! I wonder if you can create a cardboard body (or something that looks like cardboard) that is mobile and flexible?

Another way to listen to music online

By now most everybody has heard of Pandora, many have heard of Last.fm, and a couple of people have heard of Slacker radio as ways to listen to music streaming online. Theradio.com is throwing in their hat as another contender, and while I cannot say much for their prospects of long term traction, I do like the ability to play songs from the history something that Pandora at least does not let me do. If that is their only killer feature they may struggle but, I do appreciate it. For some reason I think the stations are better than building your own, all of mine end up being Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's all the time. Don't get me wrong I love Karen O, but I need some variety damn it.

Greatest Country on earth?

*img via Popular Mechanics

Any day now we are going to have to turn in the title of Greatest country on Earth to live in. I realize we still kick ass in lots of ways, but the reasons we suck just keep piling up. The kicker for me is from a Popular Mechanics article about other countries have detailed energy star stickers required from manufactures rather than BS optional compliance Energy Star estimates we have here. Don't we have organizations that are dedicated to this sort of industry watching? Aren't they charged with proactively creating rules and regulations that ensure American receive the high quality information, and quality products?

Popular Mechanics via Gizmodo

Yet another reason to boycott Adobe

I don't hide my dislike of Adobe, but this article about persistent flash cookies that are not cleaned with the remove cookies option makes it clear to me that Adobe does not have its customers needs in the forefront of their mind. I have not been using noscript because it was sort of tedious to approve portions of new sites as I came to them but I am starting to think it is time for the tinfoil hat to go back on.

Lifehacker via Wired