Packing up my bags...

I'm migrating my blog from blogspot to my own domain!

You can find the updated version of my personal life at www.vincentkardiogram.com

Diversions [Artful Procrastination]

Finals are next week, along with a series of papers and the >play conference. It through it all, I still seem to find some time to browse the Internets.

The Cat Piano from PRA on Vimeo.

I have been typecast [Identity]

I AM Times New Roman.

Am I timeless or a snob? Or maybe both (MWF, TThSat, Sunday I rest). Take the quiz here to find out "What font are you?"

Boston

(c) emily sterne photography

Over the summer, Kelly and I got married in the Boston Public Gardens.  The entire week was put together in large part with the help of our friends.  Jen was able to recruit Emily Sterne to help photograph the special event.

You can read Jen's recount and emily's amazing photos.

Volatile Organic Compounds [The Answer]

What is new car smell.

We all love it, is it because its an association with newness? Whatever the case, new car smell can now be yours (sans the volatile organic compound stuff).

If you go to a factory, you'll notice most people who assemble cars wear a mask. They have a mask because they're constantly made to smell that new-car smell. That smell is not necessarily healthy for you. Most of those odors are VOCs, volatile organic compounds.

- Paul Dan Schneider, VP of marketing for Chemical Guys.

Thanks answer fella!

The US Deficit

Megan McArdle of the Atlantic Monthly has an interesting post of the budget deficit. Read it here.

Arlington

I'm also sad that I gave up my VA drivers license for a CA one....

The World Leaders' Facebook Group [Humor]

Sage Stossel, executive editor of The Atlantic Online, put together a facebook page for world leaders.

In This Downturn, Google Hires Goats [Environment]

Over the weekend, I went up to Sonoma for winetasting. On the way back, I learned that Google hires goats on a monthly basis to trim the lawn.

The LA Times flushes it out LA Unleashed today:

When fields at the company's Mountain View headquarters needed brush and weeds cleared to reduce the fire hazard, it was decided that a herd of goats would be rented rather than using gasoline-powered mowers.

California Grazing provided approximately 200 goats, which spent about a week on the job. Not only did the animals clear the area, but they also fertilized it as well.

"It costs us about the same as mowing, and goats are a lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers," Google director of real estate and workplace services Dan Hoffman wrote in a posting on the company's official blog.

Read more here.

Econoland [Economist Theme Park]

In tough economic times, it's always refreshing to hear of companies who are able to capitalize on the environment. According to their website, "The Economist Group is delighted to announce the development of a public-entertainment facility that combines the magic of a theme park with the excitement of macroeconomics."

Among the different attractions, rides include:

• The currency high-roller: Float like a butterfly with the euro and drop like a stone with the pound!
  
• Chamber of horrors:Fiscal fantasyland: Watch the economy shrivel before your very eyes as you struggle to stop growth falling!
  
• The Severe Contest: Try your strength against a bear market!

Let's just hope its an April fools joke.

Little Red Riding Hood [Animated Fables]

In the age of information, people expect to be able to take a deep dive at any point in time. I can't tell you how many times bets are settled by accessing wikipedia via my mobile phone.

Tomas Nilsson created a 3 minute reinterpretation of Little Red Riding Hood for a (Swedish) university class project.

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did:



HT: Thingamababy

Executive March Madness [Obama's Picks]

Chris Good from the Atlantic breaks down Obama's NCAA bracket. Key takeaways:

• UNC wins
• Obama is conservative and plays it safe
  

You can read the breakdown in bracketology here.

Refrigerator Magnetic Essays [Outsourcing]

In a globalized, frictionless, or flat economy has led to outsourcing on anything and everything. Tim Ferriss claims that you can "escape 9-5, live anywhere, and join the new rich," in his 4-Hour Workweek book.

So I'm not surprised to see that outsourcing essay writing has become a global affair. I recall a friend of mine who had one of her essays "contributed" to an essay bank. She didn't know how it got there, but evidently, somebody had made got compensated for her essay.

The Chronicle of Higher Education peels away at these Essay Mills to reveal something that is both sophisticated, global, and very profitable.

In a previous era, you might have found an essay mill near a college bookstore, staffed by former students. Now you'll find them online, and the actual writing is likely to be done by someone in Manila or Mumbai. Just as many American companies are outsourcing their administrative tasks, many American students are perfectly willing to outsource their academic work.

What's going on behind the scenes, however, is another story.

The address listed on the site is in Reston, Va. But it turns out that's the address of a company that allows clients to rent "virtual office space" — in other words, to claim they're somewhere they're not.

Check out the rest of the article here.

How not to interview [sesame street]

Being a producer for a show isn't as easy at it seems. Check out what happens when Ricky Gervais and Elmo go waaay off.

Woot!

Like many people out there, I have a hidden dream of being a photographer. I've posted a couple of my pics in my flickr account. I've even tried to participate in the flickr community by submitting my pics for review--typically with ego-bruising results. I personally love the picture, but maybe that's cuz I'm a bit biased because of the model. ;P

However, every once in a while, I'm always surprised at people who find my pics and include them into their sites.

For example, Word Press magazine, included a picture I took at the Chicago Air and Water Show. I've included it to the right. Check out the original.

Who would've thought a picture of mine would be used for a post about word press themes.

I always thought that my pictures would be used in places like here, here, and here.

And that's the beauty of the Internet. The randomness and the asynchronous nature of putting something out there for the community to pick-up on.

It's Political Sushi [Oddities]

My friend Marie sent me a link to this. Evidently there's a guy rolling sushi rolls in the splitting image of Obama.

I guess it's suppose to be an homage, but seems a bit weird to me... Its interesting what they choose to highlight as MyBO's key features...

How to be smarter [Exercise Your Brain]

Given that I've left the corporate world to join the startup world, I've been reading up on how to be more creative, more active, and more curious. In short, how to sharpen the mind and be smarter.

I came across this 2007 Wired article by Joshua Green. In short, here are a couple items that Josh tried to sharpen his noodle:

• Eat well, especially during breakfast
• Get a full nights rest
• Shower blind
• Brush your teeth with the opposite hand
• Blast Mozart
• Drink Coffee
• Engage in "Neurobics"

Source: Wired

Contact Solution [Contact List Management]

By Teo

I'm a happy user of the HTC Touch PDA from Sprint. I was able to receive both my personal mail and my work mail. Unfortunately, right before my flight out to California this past Saturday, my phone decided to wipe all of its contacts along with it. Let me tell you, don't play with your contact list right before the plane takes off--You'll spend much of the flight wondering how to get your contact list back.

Luckily, I had exported my outlooks contact list in a CSV file. So began, over the last couple days, my journey to sync up all my contacts. I've tried plaxo but was never happy with it. It constantly crashed my outlook and create tons of duplicates. I found it unfriendly and inconvenient.

Add to the mix that K and I now have a MacBook... (We're supposed to share it, but since my vaio died on me, i'm the primary user...thanks k!).

I've been trying to figure out how to get the Outlook CSV file, Mac Address Book, Gmail, and my HTC phone to sync. If you know if an elegant solution, let me know.

At first, I found an interesting hack on lifehacker. At first it didn't work, but after I linked my ipod to the mac (the ipod syncs to my pc desktop). Course, as a new mac user, I'm not terribly crazy about editing my plist. I'm afraid of breaking things.

But then I cam across Soocial. It's still in beta right now, but so far, I'm a fan. Given how volatile these betas are, Soocial saves a back-up of your contact list and even sends you a copy via gmail. It even identifies doubles for you and allows your to merge them. Take that, plaxo!

The merge process is a bit slow, but I'm more than happy to give soocial some time to prove itself to me.

So one day later, how far have I come? My old CSV contact file that was synced to my phone is now living in my Mac addressbook and gmail. But my phone still has no numbers.

It's all about baby steps.

Lessons learned?
Windows XP desktop + Windows Mobile + macbook + iPod that can't decide if it wants to sync to a pc or mac = headache

Jeet Kune Do Ping Pong [Nokida Ad]

Bruce Lee shows us his nunchuck skills in a completely new way:

Nokia N96 - Bruce Lee Ping Pong from Ramalho Blog on Vimeo.

lady slumdog vengeance? [movie rumors]

In an interview with Empire, Danny Boyle (director of the recent Slumdog Millionaire) has recently been offered the opportunity to remake Chan-Wook Park's Lady Vengeance.

Lady Vengeance is the third and final part of Chan-Wook Park's vengeance trilogy. If you haven't seen them, you should Chan-Wook explores three different takes on vengeance.