Flotsam Picnic

Read the this article about a new car that can also fly as a plane and watch this video about a new shark boat and then vote which you would rather own.

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If you are driven at all to push yourself, then you must listen to this fantastic RadioLab.org piece on limits- of human mind, body and knowledge.

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Trying to figure out the best site/company/tool to print photobooks is brutal.  Here’s a great summary review of the major photo book players in details, very helpful.

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Not sure how much I like the new Life series on Discovery. Planet Earth was epic, but somehow I can’t quite get into Life as much as I would like. We’ll see, only two episodes in.

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I’ve been inspired by Born to Run, a great book by Christopher McDougall about ultra distance runners and the evolution of man. Setting aside for a moment whether or not one of the fundamental premises of the book is accurate or not (that man evolved for endurance running, not speed) there is a fantastic story about how humans can actually run an antelope to death. Summary: man can breathe faster and dissipate heat better than most mammals and therefore certain animals (antelope) can be chased until they collapse from exhaustion, despite being considerably faster in short spurts then humans. Apparently some of the Bushmen of the Kalahari in the most remote sections still (or recently use to) retain this ability and knowledge known as Persistence Hunting.


My humble suggestion: let’s give it a try- with the help of some modern technology. I suggest more than a hunt, almost and expedition. So, here is a proposed outline for a modern day “run hunt”:


1. Teamwork. I think for this to be effective (and fun) a decent sized group would be needed to chase and coral the target. Specifically as well we need a largish team to make sure we have enough of a quorum push to the “finish” at the end of what might be a very long hot run. Therefore, I also suggest a buddy system for the hunt whereby each runner runs with a buddy for company, support and fun.


2. Speed Requirements. I am guessing that the minimum fitness requirements for the run (more analysis to be done) is probably the ability to run 20 miles at 7:30-8ish minute miles over uneven trails/terrain. Item 3 below will help guide overall fitness requirements.


3. Deer Analysis. I assume that different deer are easier or harder quarry and some work should be done to figure out what the actual easiest animal would be to run down. As well terrain plays a role, it would be much better to be out in the open and on plains than in some dense forest or rocky gorge, so natural habitat will also weigh in. IF one wanted to actually run an antelope down (apparently antelope are only native to Africa) I suppose a stocked exotic ranch in Texas would be the place to go, though somehow I think the risk of getting shot seems high.


4. Location & Local Guide. Once a location and species have selected we need a local guide. Someone who can actually FIND the animal for us, knows the terrain etc. The local guide presumably will help guide the whole expedition toward success and can coordinate many of the logistics in advance. The guide could also take care of euthanizing the animal when it collapses and cleaning it.


5. Tagging & Target. Even with a local guide I doubt we could ever track a deer with the kind of accuracy and efficiency needed to run to actually succeed. So, I suggest a little bit of modern technology be employed. Once a target quarry is identified the guide will actually shoot it with a small GPS tracking device and possibly a dart/tag marker of some sort to make it easier to both quickly identify the quarry if he heads into a herd and also to find him should visual contact be lost for too long.


6. Backup Support. I suggest several ATVs trail the group at some moderate distance (1 mile?) and maintain contact with walkie talkies. The support team would haul gear for the crew including medical supplies, water, food, clothing etc. As well, They could bring tents, sleeping bags and cooking supplies to camp out after the hunt or at least provide some comfort. The support team would maintain contact with the group as well as monitor the GPS device and give guidance to the team. It could give a lift to stragglers and bring them back up with the pack if they fall back or need a rest and ensure that we don’t end up spread out over 10 miles.


7. Permits. Based on a very cursory review of a couple mid-western states it does not appear that a permit would be needed since we would not be “hunting” with: a firearm, archery or muzzleloader, though we probably would need to secure landowner permission and access for an area. It might also be beneficial to try and find an area either devoid of other hunters or even try and reserve an area if possible in advance.


Perhaps I’m crazy, but this seems not only doable, but like a totally fun activity. If you like to run, love adventure and had a good group, what a great way to spend a couple days.

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Taylor Bay is beautiful and very shallow sandy bay on the south side of Providenciales.

The bay itself is close to a mile long and is extraordinarily shallow for hundreds of yards out allowing young children to a great place to play and splash in the water with our risk of deep water or waves. As well there are some good shells and starfish there to be found. However, getting to Taylor Bay can be very hard if you don’t know how to get there- there are no signs and it is not marked.

Directions to Taylor Bay:
1. Take Leeward Highway and head south on South Dock Road
2. Take South Dock Road all the way to the end to Chalk Sound Drive and go right (the only way you can go, which is west).
3. Take Chalk Sound Drive to Ocean Point and go left (the only way you can go)
4. See map image below on where to park, the parking is a small dirt lot (really carved out of the side of the road). There are no signs and it is about 200 yards down the road on the right hand side.
5. Follow the path between the two rocks down to the beach with the tennis courts on your right side (about 50 yards).
6. Relax.

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The following is a short list of my top apps that are must haves and work well specifically for the Motorola Droid. Just my two cents.  [Now Updated!]

0. K-9 is a an alternative mail reader to replace the default Android mail app. While it has a few issues and some bugs here and there, it is a much much better solution for reading mail on your phone and is highly configurable.

1. Home++ replaces the home navigation system with a highly customizable and powerful application.  Allows for the increase of screens with apps/icons, overloads lots of information and links in a strip across the bottom.  It does crash from time to time (really just restarts the app) but I find it FAR superior to the built in home screen management.

2. SMS Popup better notifications for SMS messages- I prefer this as it actually opens the message in a modal window on your phone without having to open the messaging app (make sure to turn off default notifications from the built in messaging app)

2.5 Swype is a pre-release software package that is a totally new way to type.  You just drag your finger across the keyboard without ever lifting it and it guess the word.  It requires a little more back-end work to install as it is not in the app store yet, but I have found it to be pretty great, and is *especially* good for one handing typing as you can just drag your thumb.  It’s in beta but they do give access to users.

3. NewsRob an RSS reader that syncs with google reader for your feeds.  Very slick and well done and makes reading your feeds excellent on your phone and avoids repeat content sorting.  You can use the volume keys to article up or down- makes reading your feeds on the go a snap.

4. Yelp & OpenTable pretty self explanatory, both good apps

5. Advanced Task Killer is a must for keeping control of what your phone is running and shutting down power hungry processes.  Also try Advanced Task Manager which is a much more powerful but similar app.

6. Amazon, Barcode Scanner & Shop Savvy are three well known and solid shopping apps

7. Night Ringer is a great app for automatically changing volumes, vibration and other notification based on time of day.  You have to upgrade to get the full functionality (like selecting several emergency numbers to turn the volume on) but a good app if you don’t want drunk friends or opposite coast people waking you up in the middle of the night.  If you DO want that, don’t use this app.

8. Last.fm is probably the best music app for Android.

9. Evernote app is basic but good if you are a user of the product.  Next iterations should allow for local storage of content when the Android OS allows access to SD card memory vs only the built in memory.

10. Wixel is a great boggle like game with online game play

11. WaveSecure allows you to lock down your phone or even erase it via SMS if it gets lost or stolen.

12. Calorie Counter and Cardio Trainer are decent health/lifestyle apps.  Not as good as ones on the iphone (IMHO)- Calorie Counter does have a nice barcode scan feature with the camera, but managing your food is a little clunky.  Cardio Trainer is a great GPS based app for working out outside and tracking where you go, but if you are a serious athlete or really want precise distances for times/splits you’ll find it too inaccurate.  Here’s a review of the accuracy of WorkSmart’s CardioTrainer

13. NYTimes has an android app now that let’s your browse and read content sections, slide between stories and generally read the paper pretty efficiently.  It is a little slow, but a good app non-the-less.

14. NPR along the same vein as the NYTimes NPR has a solid app to read news with the upside of being able to listen to stories directly from the phone by streaming them which is a really nice feature.

15. WTD What the Doodle is a great pictionary like game you can play in real time against people drawing on the touch screen and using the keyboard to guess words.  Totally worth the $1.50 upgrade (free version is good too)

16. Skype Skype on your phone, call anywhere anytime on Skype from your handset…nuff said

17. Dialer One replaces your current phone dialer with a much better functionality and allows easy addition of new numbers.  Best part is you using number pad to type a name and pull it out of your address book.

18. DoubleTwist Great music and video player and with a desktop client is a great way to sync music and itunes playlists to your phone.

19. Androsonos While this app is kind of buggy and not the most elegent, if you have the Sonos sound system you can control it from your android phone, at last.  A for effort.

20. PDANet If you don’t have 2.2 or higher of Android you can use this to quickly and easily tether your laptop to the 3G network.  Works like a charm!

21. Drync Clearly the best way to track, find and learn about wines.  I love this because when you find something you like you can easily stick in in your “cellar” and buy it at the store next time.

Other notable apps that you may have seen on lots of other lists:

Google Sky Map- awesome if you like stars

Google Earth- just amazing

DockRunner- allows you to run the Droid like it was in its alarm clock docking cradle without the cradle

Meebo- IM

Twitdroid- Twitter client (meh, twitter)

Qik- stream video in real time from your phone to the web (totally sweet)

1 Comment | In: life, media | tags: android, droid. | #

In an effort to determine just how accurate my Nike+ iPod is and how it compares to GPS based mobile applications I decided to test both of them out in a very controlled environment.  I ran with both devices the same distance- exactly one mile around a track.  Then I compared the results of each device- and both were off, but the GPS was off by a lot.

First off, note that I have my Nike+ calibrated to my stride already (which I used a track to set) and I ran a comfortable pace for the mile so I was not pushing it too hard or too little, a standard stride in other words.

The Nike+ showed that I ran .97 of a mile, so off by 3%, which seems like a very reasonable margin of error.  I suspect that this has to do with the placement of the chip which I tuck under my laces, I do not run in Nike shoes with the special slot.  See the graph below:

It is interesting to note that the speeds vary dramatically as reported by the data- as fast as 6:19 per mile and as slow as a 7:53 per mile pace.  I think this range is much too large for a 4 laps on a track at an even pace, though I am unsure why the variance would be so large. As a side note I mapped this track with a couple different online tools like MapMyRun and Runstoppable and both accurately measured the track.

However, using WorkSmart Lab’s CardioTrainer for my Android based phone was much less accurate (I have a Motorola Droid on Verizon).  I set the GPS ping time to 1 second and wore it in a clear sleeve on my arm.  The track I ran had no tree coverage or other interference for a clear satellite signal.  As you can see from the image below it’s very off from the track (which I ran the inside most lap). Also of note is that I ran 4 laps on the track- the app was consistently off in the same way much of the time. There doesn’t seem to be any conclusion to draw about which movements are hardest to track (longitude vs latitude).

As well you can see from the image below for whatever reason the elevation is very off (this is a flat track) and the speed variance is very large as well.

So the summary conclusion is that Nike+ iPod is the most accurate for total distance even with a number of oddities to the data (I hear calibration is key) and WorkSmart Lab’s Cardio Trainer is not very accurate at all, but if you are running somewhere new or someplace you don’t know (like trails) it can be a great way to find out where you went.  It’s a nifty app for sure, but I wouldn’t rely on it for data that is more than directionally correct and would certainly never run splits or time trials with it.

Next on the list to check:
*Nike+ on a treadmill
*Other GPS Android run apps to see if it is CarioTrainer or phone hardware.

List of top Android Apps for the Droid

1 Comment | In: life, sports | tags: running sports. | #

It is the new year and like everyone else I am compiling my “to-do” list for the year.  There is the usual set of stuff on there plus some other random things that are important to me that I want to get done this year.  But the biggest change for me is I am now working a different kind of list which I call my “not-do” list.

For me there are three central buckets to what is important in my life and makes me feel that my life is being fulfilled: professional development, personal development and family.  Professionally I need to feel that I am growing and moving and expanding my horizons and contributing to society; personally I have lots of interests and personal growth goals that I want to achieve and I want to spend as much time with my family as possible.  While the proportions of where time gets allocated over the years changes (like when I had kids), I know I have to have all three.

I recently turned 35, which by no means is old, but it is old enough for me to come to the realization that I just am not going to get to do all the things I want to in this life.  Frankly, it sucks.  I sort of always knew this was true, but age has a way of clarifying what you already know.  So how do I get the things that really matter to me done?  Focus.

I have started a new on going list of things that I am just not going to do.  Some I am crossing of my list in perpetuity– that’s right, I am *never* going to do them (like learn conversational French).  Some I am just removing for this year but will revisit in future years (run another marathon).  I am keeping these as ongoing lists, but once it is on the never do list, it is on.  I suppose in 5-10 years I could revisit it, but I won’t think about anything on there until then.

My belief is that all the goals and things I want to get done compete not only for time but for mental and emotional energy.  By removing stuff from my list I hope I will free up time to focus on the goals that really matter to me and also free myself of some of the emotional and mental baggage that comes from keeping those unfulfilled items in my head.  I know that if I don’t do this, I will never be able to do the things that really matter– or not to the level I want to.

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Maybe I am a simpleton, but I sure love electricity and all the stuff it does for my life.  And, wow, planes fly!

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