I’m a big scifi buff and I love thinking about how today’s technology will eventually develop into distant-future dreams of flying cars and light sabers.  Today Google announced their new project, Glass, which is an augmented reality device.  Glass provides a Heads Up Display (HUD) for your daily life, helping you make phone calls, get directions, and check in.

You basically can’t get more distant-future than sweet HUDs ( thinkMinority Report).  But wait.  It let’s you check in more easily?  Really?  Although Glass is definitely going to be in the distant-future, there is no way checking in will be.  Watch the video, especially the 1:20s mark:

I can’t stop laughing that, thanks to this amazing technology, I can finally more easily check in.  Phew, good thing checking in will be easier!  Now if only I even bothered checking in on my phone …

Last week a new iPhone app that helps you find girls around you got a ton of press because of its unbelievably creepy use case.  It uses the foursquare checkin API to find recent and nearby checkins done by women.

I’ve always thought checking in was very strange, not to mention a huge privacy concern.  Although I expect this app was created with the use case in mind, I like that it’s also shown the dark side of checking in.  So creepy.

I predict that 2012 will be a year for my career, and my resolution is to live more in the moment.

2011 was the year for my personal life.  In 2011 I biked 207 miles, had the best snowboard season of my life, and started dating my wonderful girlfriend, Jen.  I’m super proud and happy about 2011, but I already see a shift in 2012 towards my career and professional life.  I haven’t blogged much about the startup Eric and I are working on, but in 2012 I promise I will ;).  My new career focus also includes a good balance between work and personal time, though.

As for my resolution, I hope to live more in the moment, which for me means two things.  First, I plan to keep my damn phone in my pocket when I’m out and about with friends.  Second, I plan to work on getting myself away from my anxious, running mind.

As far as phones go, so many people are a slave to their smart phones.  They answer texts the moment they receive them.  They email while they’re watching a movie.  They play a game when they’re bored at a sporting event.  I don’t want to let my phone distract me from living my life.

As far as my anxious mind goes, I let my mind run too much when I’m planning or worrying about things.  I think endlessly about all the possible outcomes when I’m thinking ahead.  I want to stop doing this.  Thinking ahead is good, but harping on every detail and planning ahead too much causes more stress and anxiety than it’s worth.  I’m going to live more in the present, worrying about what’s now instead of what’s later.

I’m also hoping to blog more this year, so stay tuned for more updates and thoughts :).  Happy New Year, everyone!

My friend Keishi and I met playing Counter Strike when we were 15 years old during our freshman year of high school.  At the time I tried to start a web consultancy shop, where I made all the HTML and he made all the graphics.  I originally learned HTML trying to make a Geocities website for a clan I was in.  Eventually I moved on to running a Counter Strike server on a Linux machine, complete with a stats PHP page and everything.

Anyway, Keishi and I had one customer, Paul, and Paul didn’t have any money.  Hence, we didn’t make any money, either.  Some business, right?  Thanks to the internet archive, I’ve found both our corporate website (or at least most of it), AND Paul’s website.  Get ready for some 2001, 15-year-old internet awesomeness, complete with <table> tags and everything.  Here’s the corporate website:

And here’s Paul’s website, ArcadeGamez (with a z):

Those websites are better than Geocities, people!  Speaking of which, unfortunately I couldn’t find my Geocities Counter Strike clan website.  Let me just tell you though, it was AWESOME!

Recently a 30,000 year-old finger bone was found that came from an unknown human species.  And all across the world people hunch themselves over a computer, smart phone, or tablet, eat McDonalds for dinner regularly, and exclude exercise in their lives to beat an Angry Bird level, catch up on sports, or browse Facebook endlessly.  I’ve been wondering lately if thousands of years from now we’ll see a split in human evolution, some of us evolving for the technology life, and others of us evolving to survive in the wild.

Personally I believe in the Matrix/metaverse theory, where augmented reality and brain computers will provide more ergonomic interfaces to software, allowing us to avoid hunching over a computer or smart phone.  What are your thoughts?

I’ve decided to officially participate in Movember, a movement in November where men raise money for Livestrong and prostate cancer, growing a moustache as the donation vehicle.  I know, pretty serious.  Several Atlassian coworkers–31 to be exact–are mo team members, otherwise known as mo bros.  Our CEO has said he’ll even cut a mohawk if we raise $15k–two mo’s, one bro–full on double mo.

Anyway, today I experienced the moustache effect.  I attended a yoga class at a studio near work today during lunch.  After class I had a heart-to-heart chat with the instructor, Dave, about masculinity, the practice of yoga, and the desire for inner peace.  Halfway into the deep conversation it hit me: I have a fucking moustache right now.  Immediately I was embarrassed and distracted, realizing I really can’t be taken seriously with a moustache.  This, my friends, is the moustache effect.  Walkers and runners around the world endure physical pain walking and running for a cure for breast cancer.  Mo bros endure ego hits and a month of self confidence issues.

I lent my truck to some friends for Burning Man this year.  They used the truck for its size, bike rack setup, and towing capacity.  I just got it back, and the aftermath is quite amusing.  First, the inside and outside are completely covered in fine playa dust.  I start coughing when I come within five feet of it.  The bed has a jar of peanut butter, a roll of duct tape, and a bike lock.  The floors are littered with candy and beef jerky wrappers, and the cup holders are filled with various unknown gizmos made of Styrofoam and tape.  It’s almost like my Tacoma has been in a desert candy land, or maybe a dusty Disneyland.

I had a Burning Man ticket but I needed to sell it for scheduling reasons.  I’ll be there next year, though!

I spoke previously about a few really awesome datasets.  I claimed my favorite was Enron emails from 150 employees.  Now that I’ve started playing with the Enron corpus, I’ve decided that the best thing to do is post the funniest emails I stumble across.  Here’s the first of hopefully many:

From:     Bass, Eric
Sent:    Friday, November 16, 2001 1:11 PM
To:    Love, Phillip M.; Blanchard, Timothy; Ryder, Patrick; Farmer, Daren J.; Smith, Jay; Olsen, Michael; Parks, Joe; Baumbach, David; Hull, Bryan; ‘val.generes@accenture.com’; Lenhart, Matthew; ‘kevin.a.boone@accenture.com’; Winfree, O’Neal D.; Rabon, Chance; Mills, Bruce
Subject:

I’m trying to get a feel for everyone’s desire to play PAINTBALL in the next few weeks.  This would obviously not be sponsored by Enron b/c Enron doesn’t have enough cash to buy anything right now.

So let me know if you would be interested and, if so, when you would be available to go.   The cost should be around $30-40 a person.

Please forward to anyone I have forgotten or might be interested.

-Eric

Note the date: November 16, 2001.  Enron went under at the end of 2001, according to Wikipedia.  I feel a little strange posting these with names attached to them, but I suppose since this is public data I might as well go for it.

My new found respect for Matt Damon first came with the “I’m Fucking Matt Damon” video:

Then came his opinion on Palin:

He has a sense of humor; he’s not affraid to make fun of himself; and he and I share similar political stances.  Plus his movies are unbelievable.

Bonus video: