YouTube - John Hodgman, Jonathan Coulton and The Long Winters.

1 package of flavored Gelatin (Jello)

3 packets of Unflavored Gelatin (Knox is most common in the US - they come 4 packets to a box)

1 500 mg Vitamin C (optional but it adds some great sour flavor)

1/3 to 1/2 cup of water

LeGummies brick shaped gummy candies.

One of the most interesting operations was the laundry mat [sic]. Having lost many troops and civilians to bombings, the Brits decided they needed to determine who was making the bombs and where they were being manufactured. One bright fellow recommended they operate a laundry and when asked “what the hell he was talking about,” he explained the plan and it was incorporated — to much success.

The plan was simple: Build a laundry and staff it with locals and a few of their own. The laundry would then send out “color coded” special discount tickets, to the effect of “get two loads for the price of one,” etc. The color coding was matched to specific streets and thus when someone brought in their laundry, it was easy to determine the general location from which a city map was coded.

While the laundry was indeed being washed, pressed and dry cleaned, it had one additional cycle — every garment, sheet, glove, pair of pants, was first sent through an analyzer, located in the basement, that checked for bomb-making residue. The analyzer was disguised as just another piece of the laundry equipment; good OPSEC [operational security]. Within a few weeks, multiple positives had shown up, indicating the ingredients of bomb residue, and intelligence had determined which areas of the city were involved. To narrow their target list, [the laundry] simply sent out more specific coupons [numbered] to all houses in the area, and before long they had good addresses. After confirming addresses, authorities with the SAS teams swooped down on the multiple homes and arrested multiple personnel and confiscated numerous assembled bombs, weapons and ingredients. During the entire operation, no one was injured or killed.

via Schneier on Security: Clever Counterterrorism Tactic.

One activity that I am not good at is running. I ran cross country in high school, but was the “last man” on the team. “Last man” is a euphemism for the slowest member of the herd, or voted most likely to get eaten by any chasing animal. Being on a team, getting a letter in a sport, those were important things in high school, unfortunately there isn’t quite an equivalent in adulthood.

I have a list of things I want to complete in my life. If you call it a “Bucket List”, you’re liable to get kicked in the teeth. Items range from “Visit the Pyramids” to “Plan big anniversaries” and “Have better relationships with my friends and family.” An item that has lingered on the list is “Run a marathon.” I have blogged about my progress (do a quick search for marathon or running), but I am not a good runner.

What does this mean? 

I am putting “Run a marathon” lower on my list of life goals. I’m not scratching it off, I might want to do it later in life. What I am doing is redefining what that goal means. By “run a marathon”, I really meant, pick a sport and do it to the furthest it can be done.

I have ridden a bicycle for a considerable portion of my life, and a good amount of the riding I have done has been long distance. In recent history I have biked across Wisconsin and I know my body was built .. or sufficiently beaten into submission, to ride bicycles long distance. My change in goal is to ride competitively in long distance events, centuries, double centuries, even something like the  Adirondack 540. My Uncle Tom was a competitor in Race Across AMerica and my Dad did rather well in the Audax Randonnée Series, so I am taking on the family mantel of riding long, far and as fast as possible.

I am running from a marathon, but I am running to a sport that I am better suited for.

“We’re concerned that the FDA is basing its conclusion on two studies while downplaying the results of hundreds of other studies,” said Amber Wise of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “This appears to be a case of cherry-picking data with potentially high cost to human health.” The FDA’s position on BPA runs counter to a report by another federal agency, the National Toxicology Program, which found “some concern” that BPA may cause developmental problems in the brains and hormonal systems of children.  

YouTube - Sesame Street - How Crayons Are Made.

I remember this video from my youth (it was aired on Mr. Rogers, not Sesame Street). The music and the cinematography are all good. I did visit a Crayola crayon factory at some point in my early grade school years and the smell of all that wax was intoxicating.

It makes me want to run out and buy a fresh box of crayons for Hazel, just so I can smell them, hold them and let my creative juices flow like they did when I was young and unrestricted.

A lengthy video regarding the history and integration in to popular music of the Amen Break. Not a piece of cinematographic excellence, but the audio is great for a background listen.

All the creative people I know fit most if not all these traits. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi hits the nail on the head with some fascinating research to back it up.

I have been working to sharpen the saw, in both my personal and professional life. I have found myself overwhelmed by the amount of work my job and my lovely daughter have created. Some of that overwhelmed sense is good, some of it not so good. Right now my inputs are far exceeding my ability to output effectively. My task list at work keeps growing and I’m not okay with just letting it go. Not that I’m OCD or anything, but admitting defeat and letting projects linger in a state of semi finish just doesn’t fly for me.

I know I recently added the Skribit widget to my site and you’ll notice it is gone. I will admit, I’m a “joiner.” When I find something interesting, i’ll join the site, sign up for the beta and put it somewhere. That stops today. No more sign ups for betas, no more widgets or gadgets or duct-tape add-ons. I can’t rely on betas and I’m not willing to fill out crash reports anymore. As for the widgets, how may pieces of flair does my blog need, after all I am not blogging at the T.G.I.Friday’s.

What about the comments? While I have very much enjoyed everyone who has commented on my blog, I feel like I am not adequately corresponding with those to take the time to write a note back to me and for that I am sorry. I have also read John Gruber’s thoughts on comments on his own blog (as transcribed by Shawn Blanc):

I wanted to write a site for someone it’s meant for. That reader I write for is a second version of me. I’m writing for him. He’s interested in the exact same things I’m interested in; he reads the exact same websites I read. I want him to like this website so much that he reads it from the top to the bottom, and he reads everything. Every single word. The copyright statement, what software I use, he’s read it all.

If I turn comments on, that goes away. It’s not that I don’t like sites with comments on, but when you read a site with comments it automatically puts you, the reader, in a defensive mode where you’re saying, “what’s good in this comment thread? What can I skim?”

It’s totally egotistical. I want Daring Fireball to be a site that you can’t skim if you’re in the target audience for it. You say, “Oh, a new article from John. I need to read it,” and your deadlines go whizzing by because you have to read what I wrote.

If I turn comments on I feel like it’s two different directions. You get to the end of my article and you’re like, “let’s see if there’s anything interesting. Let’s see if there’s any names I know.” That’s really it. Sometimes a design decision is what you don’t put in, as opposed to what you put in.

Erin McKean, a lexicographer, said in her August 2007 TED talk “…And when parts of your job are not easy or fun, you look for an excuse to not do them…” and that’s pretty accurate stuff.1

The work of this blog has not been fun for a while, I’m going to try and change that. Sorry that I’m not going to be commenting on your comments any more, but I have not really enjoyed my blog, my twitter, my facebook, or really thing I’ve been “doing” online.

When I started to write about my “inner hippie” I realized that blogging could be fun, with a little more time spent editing and a little less churning out crap like the iPhone app reviews. That is not my schtick, I’ll leave that to the professionals.

What I will do is start to write the best blog that I can. This means that I am going to write about what I want to. Clay Shirky, in a talk at Web 2.0 explained that gin was how people coped with Industrial Revolution, and the television is our current pacifier. I don’t know if it is because we have just turned off cable2or if the work load and the lack of sleep are starting to catch up with me, but I think that been using the Internet as my whipping horse or pacifier, but I have realized that I can get a lot more return if I have a sharper focus. Blogs I had started, like my failed project, the Simplicity Habit, or the social networks I’m currently a part of are going to either be boxed3 or fall off my radar completely. So long Friendfeed, I hardly knew you. I am now focusing on getting rid of the noise in my life, to be frank, there is far to much.

If you want to converse with me about something on my blog, send me an email via the contact page, or directly if you know it. That is the replacement for comments. Not as personal as you and me sitting down at a bar and talking the night away over some brews and peanuts, but it will have to do until I can arrange for you and I to get to the nearest bar. This the changed blog.

There is probably going to be more stuff about my daughter and the amazing things she doing. I might throw some politics in here and there are also going to be more posts about me getting real with my time, attention and work. These things are going to be written more as letters to myself. If you find them interesting, great! Glad to have you as a reader! If you’re bored, I’m sorry. The internet is full of cool and far more interesting and eloquent stuff than is being produced here. If you want to troll, might I recommend Digg, you’ll find a lot of company there.

Consider this my third album, after a brilliant freshman release and the usual sophomore slum, I’m back. No experimental album shit, just me.

The latest “green” fad is a just that, not so much focused on lasting change, but to fit into the Hollywood-styled, t-shirt wearing, “let’s make this easy” lifestyles. To be frank, that doesn’t work for me.

I have decided to embrace my inner hippie. Not the free-love, narcotics-laced or the down with “The Man”, tax-evading type, but the crunchy granola, save the earth hippie, tree hugger may be the operative word.

When I was young the books, movies and television I consumed has strong messages of protecting the environment. Here’s looking at you Captain Planet! I even attended two ecology club meetings before my mom pulled me out due to the salty language of some of the membership.

Since Hazel was born, Esther and I have realized that we have a large number of chemicals that we use everyday, some of which have questionable health implications. While trace amounts of chemicals are all around us, we figure why expose ourselves and our daughter to more than the background radiation the Universe puts out.

That being said, we are diapering Hazel in cloth. It was initially a scary / daunting task, but after a few weeks of trying, I can confidently say that It is not that hard and not as disgusting as I originally thought.

We are also reducing the amount of other chemicals by creating our own weed killers, laundry detergents and cleaning supplies. All of the organic versions of products, we are making out of items that are generally found in the medicine cabinet or pantry. This is the newest part of being a hippie we have adopted, so it will be interesting to see how this goes.

I am still a vegetarian. The amount of land that is clear cut for livestock is astonishing as well as the amount of waste they produce. Yes, that waste is pretty toxic.

We are also reducing packaging and the throw-away nature that our culture is permeated with. We currently recycle more that we throw away and are going to start composting, reducing the amount that goes to the landfill even more. We reject plastic bags when offered preferring to use a longer lasting alternative and we aim to buy products that have as little packaging as possible.

Lastly, I am riding my bike in lieu of driving. That is no small feat. Racing to work in the morning twilight or home amongst the hurried drivers is not an easy or 100 percent safe undertaking, but the benefits are two-fold, I get a great workout riding over twenty miles round trip, and I am reducing the number of days I put carbon emissions into the atmosphere. If I had the opportunity, I would ride everyday, but that would require me relocating my work wardrobe to work, and that would be a little awkward.

I know the things I am doing are small, but they are becoming increasingly important to me. I am now thinking about how small everyday actions can have a larger impact. How may disposable cups (from Starbucks or a fast food restaurant) have you thrown away from in the past 30 days? Think about it. I realize that, yes, I will from time to time eat a meal that requires me to dispose of the wrappers without recycling and not eat organic. I also realize that chemical exposure from cleaning supplies is minute, but how are you embracing your inner hippie?