Found this video on the Change Your Life, Ride a Bike blog. I like it for a bunch of reasons. It has a nice rhythm, making it pleasant to watch, and it is nice to see the mix of foot, bike, and scooter traffic working well together.
Old Town, Shanghai from Trazmick on Vimeo.
I ported my cell number to Google Voice, moving it from AT&T. It was painless, taking roughly 24 hours to complete.
Since I was out of contract, and starting to consider a move to a new phone and perhaps a new carrier, I thought it would be good to take a break from carrying a smart phone at all. Seems like a good way to observe what I am missing, see what I value most in the device I have spent the last two years using – the iPhone 3G.
What does this gain me?
Should be interesting. Will it be the games I miss, or checking email and twitter feeds?
The honeymoon was already over for some of the other applications I had been using daily. One of the apps I used the most was Cyclemeter, a really terrific tool for tracking my bicycling. When I discovered that there was no way to export in bulk the data, I no longer felt like using it. I could just as easily track my rides in a notebook. If I knew I was going to keep carrying around an iPhone, using Cyclemeter would make sense.
Berkun is an author and speaker, rather well known in the tech world for his books like The Myths of Innovation and Making Things Happen. He has collected his research and experience on the painful topic of giving presentations into a very readable manual: Confessions of a Public Speaker. The goal of the book is clear: to help you become a better communicator.
This help takes the form of “how-to” advice on practical things (what kind of shirt works best with clip on microphones) but more importantly, Confessions will help you understand how to make your public speaking work. Berkun really understands what is going on between presenter and audience, but he also examines the presenter’s state of mind on stage. His sense of humor really makes it all work.
The commonsense of this advice may strike some readers as less than extraordinary. Of course it makes sense to practice your presentation, have a accessible backup of your material etc, but Berkun puts it all into context. Most really good advice is rather ordinary sounding, isn’t it?
Some of the important points he covers:
For me, getting a better understanding of how standing in front of a group of people triggers a fear response was well worth the time spent reading the book. Standing alone in a open space, with numerous strangers staring at you – makes you feel a bit like the Zebra that got separated from the pack, doesn’t it?
If you speak in front of groups regularly, I would be interested in hearing what you have to say about Confessions. I know I will be consulting before I stand up in front of a crowd again.
Here’s the link to the book’s page on O’Reilly’s site.
Confessions of a Public Speaker is the second electronic book I have received from O’Reilly, as part of their blogger review program. I have been reading ebooks on computers or my iPhone for years, but this was the first book I have read cover image to cover image on an ereader. A few weeks ago a friend gave me a Barnes & Noble Nook, and I quite like it.
Cooking for Geeks is equal parts well-rounded recipe collection, safety manual, food chemistry textbook, and manifesto for the Maker/DIY/Geek philosophy. The main content of the book is centered around the first three, but Potter’s preface, introductory chapter and the many interviews with experts convey the underlying theme: getting under the hood and trying things out.
I found C4G very entertaining, and encouraging in the way really good DIY books often are. It isn’t so much that the projects end in profoundly cool results, but that you just *know* discovering new skills, and a deeper understanding of materials and processes, are just around the corner.
Throughout the book there are interviews with interesting people discussing their specialties. Some of these are short pieces, talking about a single recipe. Tim O’Reilly on jam and scones, or Meg Hourihan on chocolate chip cookies. Longer interviews cover geeky topics like knives or Sous Vide. I bet almost any reader will find a real connection to at least one of these.
The “Optimal Cake Cutting Algorithm for N People” on page 257 delighted me. The next time I am serving cake to more than five or six guests, I will definitely implement the protocol.
Get more detail about the book here.
I am taking part in the O’Reilly Blogger Review Program, so some of the eBooks reviewed here are provided for free by O’Reilly Media. Not every review, just some of them.
I buy quite a number of eBooks from O’Reilly, first because I like the books, but I also appreciate that they are simply PDF files. Most titles are also available in formats like ePub or Mobi.
Civil Eats is a blog about agriculture and food, with a focus on economic and social justice issues.
“In our efforts, we support the development of a dialog among local and national leaders about the American food system, and its effects abroad.”
Don’t think it is a nag fest – Civil Eats is fun to read.
There is nothing especially Halloween-like about the movie, but it was part of a perfect evening in Palo Alto. Karloff was quite good.
The Stanford Theatre is a magical place – one of the great places to go see a movie.