Saturday, January 31, 2009
Moving On
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Current State of Me 1-28
Watch: Most Days 1-26 Towards the end of this edition of Merlin Mann's Most Days series is about the best description of Chinese New Year that I've ever heard (the rest of the video is good too, as usual).
Check out: The Top 10 Risks in 2009 (link to PDF) by the Eurasia Group. Important reading forecasting the political landscape in 2009.
Read: Hezbollah: A Short History This is part of the Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics series. A very academic-toned book, it still does a very good job laying out the beginnings of Hezbollah and providing an overview to the numerous aspects of life in Lebanon that the group has its fingers in. Hezbollah is an important group to know something about, and I've found this book to be informative.
Thought: Why do people in Washington D.C. freak out when there is an inch of snowfall? It's really not that scary...
Monday, January 26, 2009
Current State of Me 1-26
Watch: Top Gear Airing on BBC America and available on Comcast On Demand, this is the car show for everybody, even those who don't particularly take a special interest in cars (like me). It can get a bit geeky on the cars at times, like adoring details about how a certain part of the engine works, etc. Most of the time, however, it's downright goofy. It's a very funny show. There are the requisite car reviews, but what makes it interesting are the other segments, one of the best recurring ones is the races. Two of the best were London to Oslo and across Japan. In these, one of the hosts drives a car (a McLaren Mercedes and a Nissan GTR were featured in the aforementioned races, respectively) and the other two take several forms of public transportation, including planes, boats, and trains (including the bullet train in Japan). A throughly entertaining show.
Check out: Tim Ferriss' Blog The absolute epitome of "lifehacking," the way he breaks everything down is absolutely fascinating. The method generally boils down to a "ruthless elimination of non-essentials." Especially check out the posts on learning a language.
Read: Just read Tim Ferriss' blog...
Thought: Annoyed with those people who just endlessly email you junk and just don't seem to get the message that you don't want it? Send them a link to this.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Current State of Me 1-25
Friday, January 23, 2009
Current State of Me 1-23
Watch: A Disquiet Follows My Soul: The second episode of the last part of the final season of Battlestar Galactica is on the SciFi Channel tonight at 10/9c. This is a great show. I almost wrote it off as just another sci-fi show for geeks. I gave it a chance, however, and it's very very good. It's won numerous awards and was even called the best drama on TV by Time Magazine. Give it a chance.
Check out: A word cloud of the key words used during Barack Obama's inaugural speech.
Read: Going off of yesterday's recommendation of Robert Baer's The Devil We Know, here are three quotes from the book to think about:
Still, Amin believes the United States misunderstands Iran by an unnecessarily wide mark. On one level, Americans are too distant from the Middle East, too naive to understand its complexities and history. On another, it's the people who show up in Washington--Iranian and Arab exiles nursing a grudge, with time on their hands and money to pay for a hotel--who influence U.S. policy by default. They color Washington's view of the world, drawing us into foreign adventures we have no business being in. (15)
Thought: Apparently, I'm on the same page as those watched the inauguration address at the Foreign Policy lunch table. For us both, the highlight of the speech was this statement. Especially the last line:...it [Iran] is a country that hides behind appearances. He went on, 'It's not the veil that blinds Iranians. It's the veil that blinds you. Americans see the turban, not the brain.' That's another thing Amin learned to do trying to explain Iran to outsiders: reduce complexities to sound bites we're comfortable with. (16)
The problem is exacerbated, as Amin said, by exiles--usually homesick Iranians who remember an Iran of their dreams. They make themselves indispensable in Washington, in its think tanks, and with Beltway contractors peddling expertise on Iran. But almost invariable the exiles' only service is to promote their own personal interests, which usually come down to changing the regime in Tehran. This is the same malign influence we saw in the fifties when the China lobby convinced us to back Chiang Kai-shek, or today with the Cuban lobby blocking reconciliation with Castro's Cuba. Iraq, though, is the real parable for exiles suckering Washington into a debacle. (17)
To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you're on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.A statement of supreme rhetorical eloquence, not to mention deeper meaning.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
New Motto
I got the idea/phrase from Pseudolectual which is the blog of Dalas Verdugo. He works for Vimeo.com and the phrase was brought to my attention by Merlin Mann (yes, Merlin yet again) in this video. Interesting way to look at the world. I'm not going to expound upon it here, just watch the video.
Current State of Me 1-22
Watch: One Night in Beijing Shot by a photographer from the UK newspaper The Guardian, this is a phenomenal video of scenes from Beijing at night shot exclusively with a Canon EOS5DmkII camera. It does a lot to capture the true essence of that amazing city. Make sure to watch it in HD.
Check out: Danwei This is a great blog about "Chinese media, advertising, and urban life." If you're interested in China at all, it makes for some interesting reading.
Read: The Devil We Know: Dealing With the New Iranian Superpower by Robert Baer. This book is excellent. A thoroughly realistic approach to the Middle East, it proposes some radical shifts in policy and ideas that challenge the current conventional wisdom regarding the way forward in the region. An unrestrained analysis of the situation right now, not tainted by political obligations or tradition. It's what needs to be done, plain and simple. Baer would know too, having spent years deep in the some of the region's darker corners.
Thought: Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School Interesting food for thought...
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Current State of Me 1-21
Listen: Fall Out Boy's new album Folie a Deux. Whether justified or not, I get a lot of stick for liking these guys, but this is another good effort from the Chicagoans.
Watch: The movie Frost/Nixon is excellent. Directed by Ron Howard, it was a limited release in the US, I have no idea where to get it, but I'm sure it can be found on the Internet somewhere.
Check out: Path Finder If you consider yourself a Mac power user, or you just want more out of the Finder, consider this alternative. It's not cheap, it's $40 for a full license, but if you need more power it's worth the upgrade (they have a free 30-day trial as well). It has a positively stunning feature set and is extremely powerful.
Read: Given that Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the historic inauguration yesterday, read the full text of the "I have a Dream Speech." I hadn't read this previously but I think that it's important to know the whole thing, not just the few lines that have become immortalized.
Thought: One of the ideas that I feel was kind of lost in the shuffle during the election campaign was when Obama talked about some sort of program for high-schoolers doing community work in return for government financial aid for college. This is so simple, but so brilliant. It's this sort of reinvesting the dividend of academic success back into our communities that will go so far towards strengthening our neighborhoods.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Easy Money...And the Collapse of the American Economy
It all started with easy money. People, Americans in particular, like to have nice places to live. Those people also, again Americans in particular, sometimes don’t live within their means (or have the slightest grasp as to what those means actually are). So these Americans, who didn’t know what their actual means were and made delusional by easy money, were looking for a place to call home.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Dark Days at the Emirates
The fact that concerns me is that several glaring problems reoccur on a consistent basis. Yes, Arsenal sit 5th in the table, respectable by most standards, but I feel their current position in the league papers over the cracks that are so clearly evident in the team.
They lack any true depth. Sure, they have great young players. Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshire, etc. are exciting talents. But these players are prospects for 2, 3, maybe even 4 years down the road. Except for truly special players, a 17 or 18 year old can't be expected to step into an upper-echelon Premier League team and be a focal point of the side. Except for a few debatable holes, when all healthy, Arsenal have an excellent starting 11. Injuries this season, however, to players such as Tomas Rosicky, Eduardo da Silva, and now, Cesc Fabregas, have exposed a worrying lack of depth in the squad.
Going forward, Arsenal need to reassess their midfield. One of the glaring weaknesses that Arsenal have had this season, and really since Vieira left, is a dominating presence in midfield. Although Mathieu Flamini was excellent last season in the role of a holding midfielder, I feel he played it differently and served a different role than Vieira did. The role he played was more of a counterweight to Fabregas playing ahead of him. It was really a two man show in midfield. When Vieira played for the Gunners, he commanded the center of the field nearly on his own, protected the back four, and was also dangerous in his occasional forward runs.
When one looks for comparisons to the team makeup that Arsenal have right now, Barcelona comes to mind. Yes, there are many differences. Barcelona is probably the consensus best team in Europe right now and are in scintillating form that Arsenal hasn't even begun to approach this season. But, as was recently mentioned by the Spanish correspondent on the ESPNSoccernet podcast, you look at their midfield and forwards and a possible problem you could see is too many artists and not enough workers. The reality, however, is that Barcelona have Seydou Keita (as well as Yaya Toure) to anchor that midfield and provide a bit of muscle. Paraphrased from one of my favorite quotes from the commentary on Euro 2008, these two provide the steel in the silk factory that is the Barcelona midfield.
Unfortunately, Arsenal don't have that steel. They don't have that rock-solid ball winner and defensive midfielder to provide that backbone. They do, however, have plenty of silk: Fabregas, Samir Nasri, Theo Walcott, Robin Van Persie, etc. They have players like Denilson and Abou Diaby, who have shown glimpses of being able to provide that steel, but thus far they haven't been able to maintain any sort of consistency.
Aside from their personnel problems, they also have a leadership problem. William Gallas is not, and never was as far as I'm concerned, the man the lead this team. Fabregas might be, although he's still young and unfortunately got himself injured before he was really able to settle into his role as captain. What Arsenal needs is a player who can step up and take control of a game. When the team isn't playing well, or their attention seems elsewhere, they need a player who can refocus that for them. Someone cut from the Vieira or Roy Keane cloth would fit nicely into Arsenal's squad at the moment. Someone who isn't afraid to throw in a hard tackle, show a little fire and emotion, or simply stand up in the dressing room and make players accountable. There are many things that Arsenal need right now to right the ship, but in my opinion, changes are definitely in order.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Leon Panetta at CIA
The ideal is always that intelligence not be mixed with politics. When these two come together in any meaningful way, it is nearly always a very dangerous combination. The reality, however, is that the CIA cannot be naive to the political scene in Washington. While the Agency studies politics in nearly every locale across the world, it cannot overlook the political scene which it serves: Washington D.C. For better or for worse if the CIA is going to do its job of providing policy makers with accurate, unbiased information successfully, the CIA has to deal with the political landscape of Washington.
To this end, the choice of Leon Panetta is a good one. As an intelligence outsider and an experienced politician, Panetta could provide a successful contrast to the career intelligence personnel he leads. Traditionally, the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) has been a political appointment and the real power in intelligence matters lies with the deputy directors. It's the DCI that represents the CIA within the circles of high-ranking politicians and other figures within Washington. As someone who knows this political world, Panetta will be a good representative.
In terms of defending the Agency against its critics within the Congress and elsewhere, Panetta will also be a good choice. What really got me thinking about this topic was this article by Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer. In the article, Mr. Baer makes the excellent point that:
"The CIA will need Panetta to hold off the Senate and House intelligence committees, which are gearing up to rip into the CIA for the past eight years of renditions, secret prisons and bad intelligence on Iraq. Mistakes aside, the last thing the CIA needs is another round of overly intrusive congressional hearings like those that so badly damaged the agency in the 1970s. If today's Congress were to deliver a coup de grâce to the CIA, the Pentagon would effectively be the nation's only intelligence agency."The way the CIA was muzzled and ostracized during the 1970s was devastating and the effects of which are still felt so many years later. Despite mistakes made, the CIA can't go through another humbling like that, an impotent foreign intelligence service is exactly what we don't need in times like these.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Two Important Links for Understanding the World Today
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Expansion
The topics I'll mostly be covering (in addition to continuing with the Mac, iPhone, etc. stuff) will be European football (soccer) and international affairs. These are two other areas of great interest for me and I want an outlet to write about them. Hope you'll enjoy it!
Friday, November 7, 2008
Merlin Mann suggests an Internet diet
On the flipside, for those of us who are fans of Merlin's work, he has been taking a bit of a hiatus from the places we normally see him. For me, these are mainly at 43Folders and on MacBreak Weekly. Although I still love the MBW cast, I feel he's sorely missed on the show. Thankfully though, to get our Merlin fix, there is still You Look Nice Today, perhaps the funniest podcast on the Internet. If you haven't already, check it out.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Going from A to B
Thursday, August 14, 2008
My iPhone Apps
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Nicholas Jitkoff's Google Code Page
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Yes iPhone!
Apps for the New Mac User
Monday, April 7, 2008
For the Unix geeks...
Do GTD with the tools built into your Mac
Monday, February 11, 2008
Putting a damper on my SSD hopes...
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Solid State Laptop Hard Drives in Early 2008!
Sunday, December 30, 2007
365 Days of Merlin
Saturday, December 22, 2007
The Best Paper Planner
It's a PlannerPad. I absolutely love it. I love the size (I use the personal size) and the fact that it is spiral-bound, and thus easy to lay out flat on a desk or table. I like the layout of the pages and the weekly view that it gives. It is perfectly laid out to "find priorities, organize a workflow, and plan personal activities," as they put it on the website description. They describe every page as working like a funnel to work from the capture of events, priorities, thoughts, etc. and to get to scheduling what you are actually going to do.
If you're looking for a great paper planner, check them out.
Friday, December 21, 2007
No iPhone?
So far I honestly haven't been very interested in getting an iPhone. I have to say, given how much of a Apple fanboy I truly am, I'm surprised at myself. Part of the reason is definitely the price, which is a bit steep for a cell phone (and given my propensity to be a bit careless with my phones in the past, it probably wouldn't be a wise investment). Another reason is being bound to an AT&T data plan. I already have AT&T, so I wouldn't have the hassle of changing cell carriers, but having to pay the $20+ per month for the data plan could be a bit much, at least in my current occupation as a student.
That having been said, I am still greatly intrigued by the iPhone. I think as a platform the possibilities it presents are fascinating. It opens a new door in the realm of mobile computing and in many ways we're still only beginning to get a grasp on the potential that is there.
I would love to have an iPhone. I actually think I took a half-step there when I bought the iPod Touch. The Touch is a great product, but after some time with it, I realized I saw it mainly as a stand-in for the iPhone. I say it was a "half-step" because I feel like I was trying to get as much of the functionality of the iPhone without actually getting the device itself. The Wi-Fi was nice on the Touch, but I felt limited by it. For me at least, the type of mobile network available on the iPhone (albeit the slow EDGE rather than the newer and faster 3G) is essential to enable key features such as email and other things which really set the device apart; with these features it feels like the device is much more integrated with my life, and with a device like this, that is completely necessary.
For a really geeky example of how I view this, I see the golden standard as the datapads in Star Wars. I can't remember if they are shown at all in any detail in the movies, but they are certainly in the books. These datapads are essentially full computers in the palm of your hand that allow access to data and documents, communication, and various other things. Their multifunction capabilities are light-years ahead of the technology we have right now, but everytime I think about what this technology could be, I find my thoughts going to Star Wars. If this is the path that the iPhone and related devices are taking, that is really exciting.
Friday, December 7, 2007
New Manhattan Apple Store Pictures
Thursday, December 6, 2007
The Future of Quicksilver: Interview with creator Nicholas Jitkoff
Helpful Links:
Quicksilver (the website)
Lifehacker Beginner's Guide to Quicksilver
Lifehacker Advanced Quicksilver Users Guide
No more iPod Touch
In the course of having the Touch, I realized that the reason I have an iPod is to play music and audio with the occasional video. I just didn't use the other features enough or need them to justify having a device with that form factor. I think I would need an iPhone and the enhanced capability of the cell phone and the EDGE enabling email and internet access and all that. The Touch just didn't work for me. For a device with that kind of form factor, I would need a smartphone.
Should I get an iPhone? Probably, but no plans right now. I'm just not all that enticed by it, yet...
Monday, November 5, 2007
For those of us who are just nosy...
Users basically post picture of their Mac hardware setups. It's really interesting to see how other Mac users set up their workspace. Although I haven't posted my Rig up on the thread, I'm thinking about it...
College Kids and Their Batteries
I realize that sometimes they're working on a really long paper or something and need to be using the computer for a long time, but a most of the time I would guess the people that I see aren't going to be there (and using their computer) for the around 2.5 hours that their battery would last.
This is really a minor thing, I know. But it's kind of thing that I've started to notice and really wonder about. Perhaps I'll never know...
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
iPod Touch Jailbreak Resources
Touchdev guide on jailbreaking the Touch (this is a different procedure, but there are parts that can be helpful after the initial jailbreak).
Helpful Forum post on SSH (SFTP) into the Touch (needed to add files to the Touch as well as NES ROMs).
Haven't really looked at this guide but it looks like it could be useful.
Once you have it jailbroken, Erica Sadun from TUAW gives a nice guide for some further ideas here.
Nintendo Emulator:
NES Emulator
NES ROMs
Also... I've been using the Cyberduck FTP client to access my iPod, it works like a charm, I'd recommend it.
iPod Touch and iPhone Easy Jailbreak!
Here The Unofficial Apple Weblog Erica Sadun posted a super easy jailbreak for the iPod Touch and iPhone. I did it to my iPod Touch and didn't have any major problems. I'll post a step-by-step as soon as possible. Basically all you do for this one is point your iPod Touch or iPhone browser to
Another great thing is that a Restore in iTunes totally wipes whatever you've done and gets you back to the factory settings. I've tried it and it does work. Sorry for the bad picture.
Monday, August 13, 2007
My Use for Finder Colors and Smart Folders!
So here's my problem: one of the things I like to do is save interesting news articles and other things from the web as PDFs, something that I love is so easy to do on the Mac. So I have a huge folder of these that I keep on my hard drive. Now I don't have time to read all these right when I get them, so I needed a tagging system with which I could mark the articles for later perusal. I also wanted to keep them all in the same big folder.
And here's my solution: I tag the articles I haven't read yet Green (using the Finder colors). I then have a Smart Folder set up to find all files marked in Green. So then whenever I have some spare time, I can work my way through this folder. Another great feature is that in the Finder (or in my case Path Finder) when you remove the label from a file in a Smart Folder, it disappears from the folder immediately, so in my case it updates my "to read" in real-time.
This can be applied to numerous other things as well. I'm a student right now so let's say I'm working on a big project and I have a bunch of different files scattered all over my hard drive. I can mark any file that has to do with that project with a certain color and then put a Smart Folder somewhere, like on the Desktop for example) and "bam!" it's right there. So give this a shot and give the Finder colors a chance!
Where has the MacUser podcast gone?
This is one of my favorite Mac podcasts, right along with MacBreak Weekly. I love how it's basically a bunch of Mac geeks sitting around talking about Macs (and other interesting tangents that come up).
Ironically, I actually discovered it, as well as many other great Mac podcasts, while I was in China last Fall and Winter. For different reasons I had to travel all the way across Beijing (where I was living) and it was fantastic to listen to on the Beijing subway (or 北京地铁 for all you Chinese speakers out there).
Hopefully they'll get another one out soon, come on guys!
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Merlin Mann's Talk at Google
Everybody's favorite productivity guru, Merlin Mann, gave a great talk at Google recently on a concept he calls Inbox Zero. It incorporates elements of the GTD system and other methods to deal with a massive e-mail inbox. It's interesting and a great way to process your inbox, especially if you're anything like the people at Google, who apparently get upwards of 300-400 emails per day. Check it out.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Great Intro to Getting Things Done
Sunday, July 15, 2007
To Begin...My Favorite Links!
- Blacktree - Site of the greatest application ever invented: Quicksilver. It's for the Mac only but I seriously cannot imagine using my computer without it. If you have a Mac, you have to at least try it.
- 43folders.com - Great productivity site. Centered on the Mac and the Getting Things done system. Check it out.
- macuser.com - Great Mac news and other tidbits site. Check out the podcasts too, they're very entertaining.
- My friend Dan's music review blog.
- My friend Dave's art, etc. blog.
- InterfaceLIFT - This is a great site for wallpaper and icons and other stuff; I'm kind of a wallpaper freak and I go here often to get new ones.