Andrew Ferguson
Rejecting Your Reality and Substituting My Own Since 1986
Subscribe to RSS FeedShared Items for the week of March 15, 2010*
- Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2: Sunday Morning Reading (February 21, 2010)
- BlatherWatch: What could a mother do? (March 13, 2010)
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (updated daily): February 19, 2010 (February 18, 2010)
- MAKE Magazine: Power line 1, tree branch 0 (March 1, 2010)
- New Scientist – Online News: Mom and dad, stop stifling me – it’s damaging my brain (March 11, 2010)
- today and tomorrow: Horsetail Firefall (March 11, 2010)
- kottke.org: Miniature NYC, a movie (March 12, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Ultra detailed photo of barnacle (March 11, 2010)
- NPR Topics: News: The Growing Power Of The Sugar Pill (March 7, 2010)
- Marginal Revolution: The auction begins (March 4, 2010)
- Discovering Urbanism: Pedestrian Survival Techniques (March 8, 2010)
- scanners: Generic Movie Based on the Movie They've BeenReleasing Every Single Week Since the 1980s (March 9, 2010)
- Daring Fireball: Rob Foster on the Elimination of File Systems as a User-Accessible Part (March 11, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Another earthquake, but not more earthquakes (March 11, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Best jobs in America infographic (March 9, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Woman imitates Michael Jackson after brushing her teeth (March 10, 2010)
- kottke.org: Secret restaurant menus (March 10, 2010)
- Boing Boing: 3*TYPE text leaps out at you (March 10, 2010)
- The Big Picture: Scenes from Kenya – Andrew also says, “I have some friends in Kenya right now, so it’s kind of cool to see where they are traveling.” (March 10, 2010)
- FlowingData: Canada: the country that pees together stays together (March 9, 2010)
* Q: Wha? A: Every week I go through about 1000 posts on my RSS feed. These are ones that I thought worth sharing. You can find previous Shared Items here.
Tags: feed, Google Reader, RSS, shared items
Shared Items for the week of March 7, 2010*
- Bram Cohen's Journal: Enterprise Chatroulette (March 6, 2010)
- Aerospace News: Boeing’s Albaugh: Puget Sound ‘is where we want to be’ (March 2, 2010)
- Download Squad: WordPress blogs will update in real time, via PubSubHubbub (March 4, 2010)
- S p e a k L i k e A G e e k: How ‘Star Trek’ Should Have Ended (March 4, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Petition to make "Hella" the prefix for 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (March 1, 2010)
- All Articles: Tech Break – SSH Tunneling: Like a VPN, only cooler (February 28, 2010)
- kottke.org: Not your father's PageRank (February 26, 2010)
- Joel Gillin: What if I’m wrong? (February 25, 2010)
- kottke.org: Ten things that influence conformity (February 25, 2010)
- RobBushway.com: Unquenchable Desires (February 25, 2010)
- kottke.org: Twitch clicking game (February 2, 2010)
- kottke.org: Richard Feynman explains magnets, sort of (February 2, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Girl stuck in Pittsburgh airport overnight shoots epic horsing around video (February 22, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Truth: Common Power Point mistakes never change (February 23, 2010)
- Marginal Revolution: The Boom and Bust Rap (January 25, 2010)
- xkcd.com: Freedom (February 23, 2010)
- [Jason Preston]: Ignite Seattle 9 Speakers Announced (February 23, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Yet another scientific study endorsing your desire to go have a nap (February 22, 2010)
- Signal vs. Noise: VIDEO: Haiti Earthquake Aftermath Montage: Khalid – Andrew also says, “Run, don’t walk to see this footage. Amazing!” (February 22, 2010)
- AlabamAdventures: AdvertisemenTirade (February 21, 2010)
* Q: Wha? A: Every week I go through about 1000 posts on my RSS feed. These are ones that I thought worth sharing. You can find previous Shared Items here.
Tags: feed, Google Reader, RSS, shared items
Shared Items for the week of February 28, 2010*
- kottke.org: Not your father's PageRank (February 26, 2010)
- Joel Gillin: What if I’m wrong? (February 25, 2010)
- kottke.org: Ten things that influence conformity (February 25, 2010)
- RobBushway.com: Unquenchable Desires (February 25, 2010)
- kottke.org: Twitch clicking game (February 2, 2010)
- kottke.org: Richard Feynman explains magnets, sort of (February 2, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Girl stuck in Pittsburgh airport overnight shoots epic horsing around video (February 22, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Truth: Common Power Point mistakes never change (February 23, 2010)
- Marginal Revolution: The Boom and Bust Rap (January 25, 2010)
- xkcd.com: Freedom (February 23, 2010)
- [Jason Preston]: Ignite Seattle 9 Speakers Announced (February 23, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Yet another scientific study endorsing your desire to go have a nap (February 22, 2010)
- Signal vs. Noise: VIDEO: Haiti Earthquake Aftermath Montage: Khalid – Andrew also says, “Run, don’t walk to see this footage. Amazing!” (February 22, 2010)
- AlabamAdventures: AdvertisemenTirade (February 21, 2010)
- The Big Picture: Vancouver 2010, part 1 of 2 (February 19, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Unscientific look into MIT students’ sex-lives (February 20, 2010)
- Lifehacker: Brush Up on Your Fashion Knowledge with This Geek-Friendly Primer [Fashion Hacks] (February 18, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Vintage photos of “The Empire That Was Russia” (February 18, 2010)
- Wired: Threat Level: Student’s Facebook Tirade Against Teacher Is Protected Speech (February 16, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Videos on bus capture disaster when driver falls asleep (February 15, 2010)
* Q: Wha? A: Every week I go through about 1000 posts on my RSS feed. These are ones that I thought worth sharing. You can find previous Shared Items here.
Tags: feed, Google Reader, RSS, shared items
Shared Items for the week of February 21, 2010*
- The Big Picture: Vancouver 2010, part 1 of 2 (February 19, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Unscientific look into MIT students’ sex-lives (February 20, 2010)
- Lifehacker: Brush Up on Your Fashion Knowledge with This Geek-Friendly Primer [Fashion Hacks] (February 18, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Vintage photos of “The Empire That Was Russia” (February 18, 2010)
- Wired: Threat Level: Student’s Facebook Tirade Against Teacher Is Protected Speech (February 16, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Videos on bus capture disaster when driver falls asleep (February 15, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Fixing US copyright law with the US Copyright Reform Act (February 15, 2010)
- kottke.org: Trailer for the A-Team movie (February 16, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Sleuthing uncovers the mystery of Kingston MicroSD cards’ crappy QA (February 16, 2010)
- Signal vs. Noise: OkCupid scores by teaching (February 15, 2010)
- BlatherWatch: The geography of early seattle radio (February 14, 2010)
- Boing Boing: 24th anniversary of the Challenger disaster – Andrew also says, “I wrote a paper my freshman year of college on the Challenger disaster (http://www.andrewferguson.net/wp-content/pdf/72_seconds_later.pdf). As part of my research, I was actually able to get in contact with Mr. Boisjoly, he’s quite an amazing man.” (February 14, 2010)
- Boing Boing: CNN: Ten big ideas from TED – Andrew also says, “Well shoot…” (February 12, 2010)
- S p e a k L i k e A G e e k: Rock Out with your Spock out! (February 6, 2010)
- kottke.org: Community colleges save lives (February 10, 2010)
- Letters of Note: You're an idiot of the 33rd degree (January 26, 2010)
- kottke.org: Obama: Daddy of the United States of America (January 20, 2010)
- Iconic Photos: Matthias Rust’s Daring Flight (January 19, 2010)
- kottke.org: On the moon without being on the moon (January 19, 2010)
- kottke.org: Me and you and ours (January 13, 2010)
* Q: Wha? A: Every week I go through about 1000 posts on my RSS feed. These are ones that I thought worth sharing. You can find previous Shared Items here.
Tags: feed, Google Reader, RSS, shared items
There, I Fixed It
From thereifixedit.com:One of the things that they don’t teach you in engineering school is that things very frequently don’t turn out like you planned, and sometimes you have to improvise: this is what sets apart good engineers (those who merely get good grades in school) from great ones (those who understand adversity, appreciate elegant simplicity and know how to react when things go wrong. And they barely made it out of school).
It’s all true. Validation at last.
(emphasis mine)
Links on Haiti
I’ve been collecting some links of things I have been reading related to the Haiti Earthquake. I thought it might be worth passing some of them on, listed roughly in the order that I found and read them:
The Big Picture: Earthquake in Haiti
The Big Picture: Haiti 48 hours later
The Big Picture: Haiti six days later
CNN.com Video: Mile-wide smile
The Big Pictures: Faces of Haiti: “Aid agencies are still ramping up their efforts – the Red Cross alone has deployed what it calls its greatest deployment of emergency responders in its 91-year history.”
IEEE Spectrum: Engineers Race to Restore Communications after Haiti Quake
USGS Issues Assessment of Aftershock Hazards in Haiti
The Seattle Times: Stunning recovery: Haitian girl pulled from debris
Wikipedia: USNS Comfort (T-AH-20)
The New York Times: Case Stokes Haiti’s Fear for Children, and Itself
Helping Haiti respond to the earthquake
Staying connected in post-earthquake Haiti
New imagery of Port-au-Prince
The Seattle Times: Body of Port Orchard woman found in Haiti
Red Cross Blogs: Help not hinder Haiti
CNN.com: Ten big ideas from TED: Every eight days, the toll of a Haiti quake
The Seattle PI: American Airlines set to resume Haiti flights Friday
Updated: Here are some other perspectives by some teammates:
A New Normal: Reflections on an Adventure in Haiti
Update: A couple more links
Haiti Earthquake Aftermath Montage
The Big Picture: Haiti three weeks later
NGO networks in Haiti cause problems for local ISPs
Tags: Haiti
Because…
This is a letter that Bruce sent Amber, who forwarded it on to the rest of us and I thought it was worth sharing as well:
Dear Amber and UPC team,
Because you couldn’t fly out normally, we had to drive to Cap Haitian.
Because we were going to be in Cap Haitian, Bill Piepgrass, surgeon and former missionary doctor here decided to come to Haiti since he had a ride back to La Pointe to work at the hospital.
Because Bill was going to come to Haiti to work on Port-au-Prince refugees, he invited his friends, Gary an orthopedic surgeon, Don an anesthesiologist, and Helen an OR nurse.
Since we were going to be coming back empty, we asked and God gave us a load of medical supplies from Royal Caribbean cruise ships.
Because we had all the medical stuff in the back of the truck, all these medical people had something to sit on (sortof) in the back of the truck for the nine hour trip back via Gonaives. Incidently, it is not as easy when you are over 40.
Because the doctors came and because they had stuff to work with, they were able to treat patients like you are going to read about below[1].
Sometimes waiting is a very difficult, important, and fulltime job. Because you patiently waited until it was God’s time and way to get out of the country, we were able to get in sequence for the timing of all that was to come. And be there with the truck.
On Tuesday Lord willing we should be receiving two more plane loads of medical supplies from the cruise ships of Royal Caribbean.
Thanks for coming and helping. The team house roof is pretty much done except for the dinking around finish jobs and it shouldn’t leak anymore.
In Christ,
BrucePS please pass on to the team members
Bruce was also able to put in the outlet that we didn’t get to and they now have power at the vocational school in Foison.
- Bruce forwarded a story about two Haitians whom the medical supplies helped [↩]
Tags: Bruce Robinson, Cap-Haitien, Foison, Haiti
Shared Items for the week of February 14, 2010*
- Boing Boing: CNN: Ten big ideas from TED – Andrew also says, “Well shoot…” (February 12, 2010)
- S p e a k L i k e A G e e k: Rock Out with your Spock out! (February 6, 2010)
- kottke.org: Community colleges save lives (February 10, 2010)
- Letters of Note: You're an idiot of the 33rd degree (January 26, 2010)
- kottke.org: Obama: Daddy of the United States of America (January 20, 2010)
- Iconic Photos: Matthias Rust’s Daring Flight (January 19, 2010)
- kottke.org: On the moon without being on the moon (January 19, 2010)
- kottke.org: Me and you and ours (January 13, 2010)
- kottke.org: Programming lessons (January 13, 2010)
- kottke.org: Conan O'Brien's statement regarding The Tonight Show (January 12, 2010)
- Signal vs. Noise: Weasel words and the absurdity of corporate speak (January 11, 2010)
- kottke.org: Chatroulette – Andrew also says, “Someone else showed me this site the other day, and I tweeted about it http://bit.ly/9dAmD3. It’s a dangerous game indeed, but can also be entertaining…especially if you put just your cat in front of the camera.” (February 10, 2010)
- kottke.org: Be there in a jiffy (February 10, 2010)
- BotJunkie: This Is What Happens When You Build A Hexapod (February 10, 2010)
- Coding Horror: Cultivate Teams, Not Ideas (January 25, 2010)
- Geek News Central: How Much Time Can You Afford to Waste? (February 10, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Penn & Teller's Invisible Thread: lost comedy magic special resurfaces on YouTube (February 9, 2010)
- kottke.org: Using Facebook to split up the US (February 9, 2010)
- Download Squad: HacKey determines what keys you prefer music to be in (February 8, 2010)
- Boing Boing: Challenger space shuttle disaster amateur video discovered after 24 years (February 8, 2010)
* Q: Wha? A: Every week I go through about 1000 posts on my RSS feed. These are ones that I thought worth sharing. You can find previous Shared Items here.
Tags: feed, Google Reader, RSS, shared items
Shared Items for the week of February 7, 2010*
- Boing Boing: Fun with punctuation (February 4, 2010)
- The Official Google Blog: New imagery of Port-au-Prince (January 20, 2010)
- Daring Fireball: Is the United States Senate Filibuster Rule Unconstitutional? (January 12, 2010)
- Daring Fireball: Man of the Day: Jimmy Kimmel (January 15, 2010)
- Daring Fireball: From the DF Archive: ‘And Oranges’ (February 1, 2010)
- What I Learned Today: Check out Obama’s 2011 Budget Proposal in an NYT… (February 3, 2010)
- Daring Fireball: Corporation Says It Will Run for Congress (February 3, 2010)
- Daring Fireball: Facebook Introduces HipHop, PHP to C++ Cross-Compiler – Andrew also says, “Holy smokes.” (February 2, 2010)
- Signal vs. Noise: It’s not a promise, it’s a guess (February 2, 2010)
- Boing Boing: ATM skimmers: man, these things are scary (February 1, 2010)
- kottke.org: Trippy morphing time-stitch video (February 1, 2010)
- S p e a k L i k e A G e e k: “Now, let me get this straight…..We are going to pass a health care plan written by a committee…” (January 12, 2010)
- Download Squad: Should Americans go on a data diet? (January 9, 2010)
- All Articles: Top ten ways to distinguish a freshman from a senior (January 31, 2010)
- All Articles: A mission trip to Haiti in 11, 12, 13, 14 days (January 31, 2010)
- [daily dose of imagery]: shooting people (January 28, 2010)
- Download Squad: Sikuli uses screen shots to run scripts, is amazing (January 30, 2010)
- Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2: That Star Wars Opening Credits Make it to Earth (January 30, 2010)
- Download Squad: Analysis of 32 MILLION breached passwords shows people use stupid passwords (January 21, 2010)
- Aerospace News: Get your Boeing 787 flight-test fix here (January 29, 2010)
* Q: Wha? A: Every week I go through about 1000 posts on my RSS feed. These are ones that I thought worth sharing. You can find previous Shared Items here.
Tags: feed, Google Reader, RSS, shared items
Valihist: The Productivity Medicine
There’s a cabinet at work that has some basic medications: Motrin (ibuprofen), Aleve (naproxen), and Valihist.
Valihist is an “Antihistamine-Stimulant for allergies, colds, [and] runny nose.”
The back of the package lists the the ingredients as: Acetaminophen 325mg, Caffeine 45mg, Phenylephrine Hydrochloride 5mg, and Chlorpheniramine Maleate 2mg.
How many medications contain caffeine? 45mg is about what you get the average can of soda[1].
There’s a little note at the top of the package: This medication is made for occupational use, to keep people on the job, safely and productively. Yea, caffeine will do that for you.
Tags: acetaminophen, caffeine, chlorpheniramine maleate, phenylephrine hydrochloride, Valihist