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Items by Matt Haughey

A Whole Lotta Nothing

• 

  Bigger Stronger Faster

  Fetched: November 14th, 2008, 9:12pm PST by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I watched Bigger Stronger Faster last night. It's a movie about steroid use in sports which is something I thought I was pretty dead set in my opinions about. As a cyclist I'm keenly aware of how widespread cheating in the sport is and I've always held a pretty low opinion of those that did it.

  A scant few things have challenged my opinions. Outside Magazine famously did a story on an older amateur rider taking all the banned substances he could handle and I remember the takeaway for me was "damn, that HGH actually sounds pretty good." and "Wow, I can see why people take these things."

  On MetaFilter, user Chuckles compiled a list of 8 previous Tour de France top five results, with everyone implicated in doping marked with an X. If he updated it for 2007 and 2008, there'd be even more X's on the chart. It's really more ubiquitous than we want to think.

  I have friends that have defended Barry Bonds and other atheletes and frequently mention Tiger Woods had eye surgery to improve his vision, which is another form of performance-enhancement that seems hypocritical to allow (and I can't help but agree with).

  I sort of expected Bigger Stronger Faster to be either some sort of gross-out "let's take steroids and hurt oursevles" or a depressing "here is how it ruins lives" but it's nothing at all like either of those things. It really literally rocked my world because it presents a side of steroids in sports I'd never considered and it completely changed my opinion of the whole issue.

  The best part is the main guy and narrator is quite literally just some guy off the street who was interested in examining a complex issue, and his passion for seeking the truth pulls you along through the entire film. I have no idea how the filmmakers found the guy or how the guy got into filmmaking, but he's the perfect subject to move through the film and I shared a lot in common (like my distaste for dopining in sports).

  I can't recommend this documentary highly enough.

  
• 

  President Obama

  Fetched: November 14th, 2008, 9:12pm PST by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  

  After watching McCain's concession speech last night, I realized it was John McCain's election to lose. From a mile up, the race was between a guy with tons of experience and some pretty hardcore wartime stories going up against another guy that was new to the senate and was basically unknown before 2004 to most voters.

  I really liked John McCain in 2000, and wanted him to win the republican primaries. I probably would have voted for him as well (if I ignored some of his social conservative tendencies) because he seemed like such a centrist (or at least not too far from center on most issues, especially compared to Bush) and I found Gore totally and completely unexciting (I ended up voting for Nader).

  When the republican primaries began in 2008 I was pulling for McCain as well, since I remembered the guy I loved on all those talk show appearances over the last several years. I was also pulling for Obama for the past year and was happy when both my early picks ended up on top.

  Then the campaign happened. It didn't come on quickly, but I'd say definitely after the GOP convention, the old McCain I loved was gone. I don't recall much of any talk from McCain from the last two months about his detailed plans or reasons why someone should vote for McCain, instead all I heard about was why I should against Obama. That's never a good path to take -- when you don't accentuate your positives and instead focus on negatives, even if you convince others to avoid the opponent you end up with followers that don't have much to be proud of.

  To this day I can't tell if it was McCain's choosing to do what he did at the end of the summer of if it was his true personality finally coming out. I like to think he became a slave to the GOP election machine that likely told him playing it straight with Obama and fighting on the issues wasn't going to rile his voting base as much as attacks and fear mongering could.

  McCain's concession speech was eloquent, impressive, and left me with the admiration I remembered in the McCain from 2000 that I used to like. That the crowd surrounding him boo'd every time Obama's name was uttered makes me think maybe the McCain I used to like might be the guy still at the core but unfortunately let others run the controls during the election.

  Anyway, for the first time since 1992 I was truly ecstatic on an election night. I knew the polls were looking good but I didn't want to be disappointed and a big part of me never thought Obama would actually win, but he did it. I'm glad my daughter gets to grow up and will remember her first president being an inspirational guy that proves anyone can still make it in America.

  Of course, we've left Obama with a pretty tough nut to crack and I imagine once he gets in office all the crazy "socialist!" and "marxist!" talk will quickly go out the window as he'll move to the center and make some tough choices. I predict we'll see people on both extremes displeased with some choices but I find that a mark of a good leader. Bill Clinton made a heck of a lot of choices I disagreed with, but at the end of his term he turned a recession into a boom and kept us out of war and I hope Obama can do the same (obviously, without the intern thing).

  
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  My new year's wish finally comes true

  Fetched: November 4th, 2008, 11:21pm PST by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  

  Eleven months later, my new year's wish comes true (well, president-elect levels of true)

  
• 

  Why I'm blocking you on twitter

  Fetched: November 4th, 2008, 11:21pm PST by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I've been using twitter for about a year and a half now and I follow about 150 friends,  acquaintances, and applications. A little over 2k users of the service follow me, and it seems I get about 10 new followers a day. Over the past few months however, I've taken to blocking the obvious spammy accounts where someone trying to market something tries to follow thousands of strangers. In the past few weeks it feels like I'm blocking at least half of the new followers.

  I figure the people behind those accounts (if there really are people and it's not just an automated spambot attack on twitter which I suspect most are) deserve an explanation, so here are my reasons for blocking new followers:

  1. You are following more than 1,000 contacts. You could spend hours a day reading twitter while following just 100 people. I usually just check in the mornings and evenings to see what my friends were up to that day -- sometimes it requires paging back 10 times to catch it all and sucks up the better part of a half hour each time. Reading Twitter while following 1,000+ is pointless and likely not being actually read by someone
  2. I know twitter is many things to many people, but I like it as a social micro-blogging application with real honest to goodness humans behind every post. I block anything that doesn't have a personal name and doesn't seem like a person writing it. Oh look, a new wax museum in Ohio just started following me! Surely, they don't just want me to click on their bio URL and blog about their new museum, right? Right? Wrong. Humans can follow me, not buildings or organizations or other sorts of accounts that were created to market something and aren't actually being used by a human.
  3. You have nothing but URL dumps of every blog post as a twitter update, all linking to your "marketing" or "sales" or "social media" blog. Pretty self-explanatory, but this person is using twitter to merely promote themselves, not to engage with others or share anything of substance.
  4. You have a bio that mentions you are an expert on "marketing" or "sales" or "social media". Almost everyone with a bio that mentions these phrases breaks an earlier rule as well, and it's clear they're on twitter and following me for some sort of google gaming reason more than they care what I or 1,000 others might be saying.

  
• 

  McCain Button - Get Off My Lawn

  Fetched: November 2nd, 2008, 8:39pm PST by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  
  McCain Button - Get Off My Lawn, originally uploaded by Hebiclens.

  
• 

  The Culture War on Halloween

  Fetched: November 2nd, 2008, 8:39pm PST by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  
  The culture war on Halloween, originally uploaded by mathowie.

  Halloween is a time-honored holiday steeped in the traditions of sharing with your neighbor, celebrating childhood with candy and decorations, and generally having a fun time as the days begin to grow shorter.
  
  There is also a culture war that seeks to end this traditional holiday.
  
  Like the above photograph shows, several local churches near me are throwing parties aimed at avoiding this holiday of giving and sharing with thy neighbors, going by the euphemistic term "Fall Family Festival." They offer treats, fun, and games, but they just so happen to throw them on October 31st, during the prime evening trick or treating hours.
  
  Make no mistake, no matter how many years (Norman Rockwell anyone?) Halloween has existed, no matter how harmless toddlers dressed as ghosts and princesses are, no matter, there is spiritual conspiracy behind this new found war on Halloween and it needs to stop. I fear the day is coming when we won't be able to display our Jack O'Lanterns in the town square, when we will be called names for trying to share real American treats like Crackerjack and carmel-covered apples, and when our sons and daughters will ask us why we can't go out and share candy with our beloved neighbors anymore.
  
  We can't let this happen. Heroes, join me in opposing these PC-thugs and their so-called "Fall Family Festivals." This is a nation with a sweet tooth, our founding fathers ate candy (why else would they have wooden teeth?), and your children and grandchildren should too. Keep candy in Halloween!

  
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  Scalable personal IT for non-geeks?

  Fetched: November 2nd, 2008, 8:39pm PST by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  Last month, I hung out with a friend from college that was impressed by the gadgets I carried and how I used them, but didn't have the spare time necessary to set everything up like I have (stuff like moving downloaded movie files to a TV for viewing, being able to check 5 email accounts on your iphone using gmail/imap, etc).

  After each explanation of how I set things up grew increasingly longer, I realized there's probably a simple business model in place for a Personal IT staff kind of thing for regular users of technology that aren't uber geeks. I picture something that isn't the Geek Squad (they only do work piecemeal, right?) but is more like a subscription service, maybe $20 a month, where you as a customer can basically get your home computer and mobile phone updated remotely with the latest time-saving tweaks. I bet someone that reads lifehacker religiously, can do IT and PC Support work, and could figure out a way to do it remotely (either remote desktop sessions, or having customers' computers phone home to grab updates and configuration scripts) could build a pretty nice business off of it.

  Is there anything like this out there today?

  
• 

  Separate but not equal

  Fetched: November 2nd, 2008, 8:39pm PST by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  Mobile Twitter (m.twitter.com as opposed to twitter.com) bugs I wish were fixed:

  
  1. Protected profiles give this confusing error shown above.

  2. You can't favorite anyone's posts.

  3. You can't block someone from their profile.

  4. No link to begin a direct message on people's profiles.

  
• 

  Three more for the old reading list

  Fetched: November 2nd, 2008, 8:39pm PST by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  Three blogs I have recently found, devoured, subscribed to, and squeal with glee when they update: FiveThirtyEight (awesome election stats and coverage), Lovely Package (it's to product design what longtime favorite Brand New is to logos), and Be Sportier (like Uncrate, but just stylish sports stuff, with large photos and consistently otherwise impossible to find goods)

  
• 

  How to get my nerd vote

  Fetched: October 22nd, 2008, 2:57am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I've been thinking lately about a dream candidate for my nerd habits, my nerdy business, and the way I live my nerdy life. Regardless of party affiliation, if you're running for an office from as small as city council all the way up to president, if you hit on any/all of these things, you just might get my vote.

  1. Broadband Everywhere. I want crazy South Korea/Japan style broadband I've heard about for years: 100Mbps (upload and download) fiber connections for less than $50/month with unlimited bandwidth and the ability to run your own servers. I know the US is a big spread out country and it makes this stuff somewhat difficult/costly, but it's an ambitious goal with a ton of payoff. We don't have manufacturing jobs in the US anymore: we don't make things, we don't build things, we don't sew things here, but we do have lots of ideas and inventions.
     
     The economy of the future in the US is going to be intertwined with the internet and if every man, woman, and child in America has all the internet access they could ever need and could quickly program, build, and deploy their own stuff on their own mega-fast lines, we'd have a million and one programmers and designers and crafters and more contributing to a new vibrant future economy. If fiber everywhere is too much, at least get 3G coverage in more places.
  2. Universal Healthcare. Everyone I know that freelances or works a day job and wishes they could quit and follow their dreams of launching a company complains about the lack of healthcare. Whenever I used to talk about freelancing at tech conferences, the first question was always about healthcare coverage. I've heard that in places like Berlin where you don't have to worry about where your healthcare is coming from or how much it costs, up to 35% of working age adults are freelancers. It may sound crazy and anti-capitalist to consider healthcare for all, but if we flipped a switch tomorrow and everyone had health coverage I swear a million small businesses would launch overnight. I know lots of people that keep a job just to get healthcare that are wasting their creative talents because they had a cancer scare or were born with a defect or otherwise are deemed uninsurable on their own.
  3. No federal taxes on internet purchases. It's worked out well for over a decade, let's just stick with not charging tax on online shopping.
  4. Renew a commitment to Education. Yes, we already spend a lot on education, but it's nothing compared to what we spend on defense. There are loads of possibilities to reform education at all levels with the goals being well-informed kids that love learning in a safe environment and can grow up to attend any college they want to (hopefully cheap or free of charge).
  5. Renew a commitment to Science. Bring back NASA and let's really fly to The Moon and Mars again. Don't let local school boards dictate that it's ok to prevent teaching proper biology (yes, the scientific method and evolution) to students. The US spent the last hundred years being at the forefront of science only to begin abandoning it as we passed into the 21st century. Engineers and scientists will continue to lead innovation in America and it seems silly in this day and age that we even have to defend the basic tenets of science from constant attack.
  6. Real changes to transportation. Increase MPG requirements for all carmakers selling vehicles in the US. Engineers love a design challenge and making a Chevy Suburban get 25mpg may seem impossible today but I'm confident a design team could develop one quickly if given the proper resources. We flew to the freakin' moon 40 years ago on the computing power of today's $5 solar calculators -- we can make cars burn fuel more efficiently.
     
     Regarding alternate fuels, stay away from net-zero energy fuels like Hydrogen and corn-based Ethanol (for now, keep researching them though) and instead focus on what works today using existing technology. Biodiesel could work in many cities and in many cars today given the proper tax incentives to car owners and fuel station owners. Keep researching other fuels (switchgrass ethanol sure would be nice) but it feels like we're ignoring the low-hanging fruit that is biodiesel.
     
     Decrease foreign oil use by giving tax incentives to people that work at home, to people that ride a bicycle or walk to work, and to those using public transportation. Want to move to be closer to work? Get rid of capital gains taxes on homes sold less than two years after you take up residence if you can cut your commute in half or more.
  7. Allow early voting by mail. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love the way Oregon works with regards to voting in all elections. You get voter information packets about 4-6 weeks before an election, then your ballot arrives about 2-3 weeks before the deadline. You can vote at your leisure, using wikipedia, google, and anything else you need to research your vote as you cast your vote.
  8. Revamp Copyright/IP law. Using the internet means you are making a perfect digital copy of everything you ever read, see, and hear, and it doesn't always jibe with existing copyright law. There is lots to say about this, but I wish we were a little more Lessig and a little less Disney when it comes to this realm.
  9. Fund the patent office so it can do a better job. Software patents almost universally suck and stifle innovation.
  10. Open government. Open source voting machines, xml data for every vote on every bill by every legislator. Public Domain dumps of every photograph, recording, film, and publication commissioned by the government in an easy to retrieve place.

  These are all pretty much self-serving: I was a science major in college and grad school, I work from home (and am enjoying a fast fiber connection), run a company that is considering employee healthcare, my wife drives a diesel car, and I previously worked at a non-profit cofounded by Lessig. I know there aren't a ton of details and there are downsides to many things I've mentioned but I came up with my own dream list.

  I know I must be missing something, what would you throw on the nerd wishlist for candidates?

  
• 

  Another great CommonCraft video

  Fetched: October 22nd, 2008, 2:57am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  This is a fantastic informative video for people new to internet scams. Dad, if you're reading this, please watch it.

  
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  Testing out iPhone posting

  Fetched: October 18th, 2008, 5:13am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  
  

  
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  Project Runway Decoys

  Fetched: October 18th, 2008, 5:13am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  Pretty cool to see that the Project Runway producers commissioned not just the three finalists, but the next three runner-ups at Bryant Park as well. Three you didn't see were Jerell's, Suede's, and Joe's collections. As you can hear, the commentator figures out all the fakes. Also, holy crap an entire season of Project Runway Australia on YouTube as well. [via mefi]

  
• 

  Flickr's skinner box

  Fetched: October 18th, 2008, 5:13am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  Flickr's most addictive page in their giant game that is photo sharing is easily the Recent Activity page. It used to be a slight drag to have to check comments you left on other photos as well as your own, and soon after they redesigned their iPhone version of flickr, I realized the combined activity page was a much better solution to the problem of how to keep up on what has changed on flickr for you.

  I'm happy to see upon checking my activity tonight, the same info on the iPhone recent activity page is now showing up in their website proper. Very cool change.

  
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  Throwing in the towel (or the death of blog CMSes)

  Fetched: October 18th, 2008, 5:13am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  This blog is approaching 8 years old and after two years on a custom system I wrote myself, followed by four years on Movable Type, followed by two years on Wordpress, I've given up completely on hosted blog software and moved this blog to Typepad. I really like Typepad and though I'm giving up things like custom .htaccess redirects for old posts and my old permalink URLs, I'm gaining things like the easiest to use posting UI available and most importantly, I'll never need to update any software by hand ever again.

  It's been a long, frustrating week with several days spent trying to move off Wordpress (I was tired of my weblog app chiding me for upgrades every two weeks) followed by several days trying to get MT to work followed by brief experiments with Textpattern followed by giving up and finishing here. There are so many things wrong with each and every blog app that I feel like developers really should revisit my anti-blog CMS screed from early this year.

  
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  Flip video from yesterday's cyclocross race

  Fetched: October 18th, 2008, 5:13am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  
  Heiser Farms Cross A class race from Matt Haughey on Vimeo.

  
• 

  iStockphoto ends up on a license plate!

  Fetched: October 18th, 2008, 5:13am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #666; } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 10px; margin-top: 0px;color:#999; }
  My new license plate, originally uploaded by mathowie.

  I love my new Share the Road license plate that is now offered here in Oregon. It's only $10 as a one-time fee and half goes to the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and half goes to Cycle Oregon, both bike-friendly organizations I support.
  
  I noticed it looked familiar when it showed up. I've been a casual user of iStockphoto for some time and I recently designed a site for a race series a friend was throwing (first race is this Saturday and I'll be there in the beginner class!) and I used iStockphoto to get that cool outline of Oregon and the cyclist profile (I used a slightly different illustration). When I opened the DMV envelope I instantly recognized the cyclist, because it's this file, just reversed, and with the water bottle removed from the outline.
  
  I'm not faulting the designer, iStockphoto is a great place to get super cheap illustrations and I use them all the time, rather, I'm more stoked that an illustration there ended up working all the way up to an optional state license plate.

  
• 

  Cycle Oregon 2008

  Fetched: October 18th, 2008, 5:13am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I finally wrote up my experiences of riding in Cycle Oregon this year. There is a small sampling of the photos I took and the lessons I took away from the event. It really was one of the best vacations I've ever done and was easily the most fun I've had on a bike. I'll be doing it many times in the future and I encourage any friends reading it to give it a try someday.

  
• 

  August cycling/diet update

  Fetched: October 18th, 2008, 5:13am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  

  In August I hit two major goals I set for myself on January 1st of this year, and they were two goals I didn't think I'd achieve. I surpassed 2,000 miles ridden and I did it just before completing my first century (100 mile) ride. Up until this year, I've always ridden about 600-800 miles between May and October and this year I pushed myself to ride all the way through Winter. I'm guessing I'll be hitting about 3,500-4,000 miles for the year by the end.

  The century went really well and didn't feel like a 7 hour day in the saddle even though it was. The first 80 miles were pretty easy and a blast, but riding into a headwind the last 20 was kind of exhausting and I was glad to be finished at the end of the day. I also did the century ride to prepare myself for Cycle Oregon, which kicks off in less than a week. I knew even the worst day at Cycle Oregon (a 77 mile day with about 7,000' of climbing) would be a bit less distance then the century (and the Portland Century featured about 5400' of climbing) so if I could do the century, I should be ok for Cycle Oregon week.

  On the diet front, I'm still down around the same weight as last month. Kind of frustrating that I haven't really budged in several months, but overall I'm about 12lbs lighter than I was at the beginning of the year and I haven't yo-yo'd back up, keeping fairly steady for the past few months. I'm hoping a hard week of riding at Cycle Oregon will kick off another five pound loss, though it sounds like they will be feeding us like crazy at every meal.

  
• 

  TLFT*: Michael Phelps

  Fetched: October 18th, 2008, 5:13am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  Watching some recent olympic track and field events still sitting on TiVo, I'm finally starting to understand how amazing it was for Michael Phelps to swim 17 races and win 8 medals and break multiple records over the span of just a few short days. For some reason I wasn't really that impressed by the announcers constantly repeating it. It's just swimming in water right? You don't even sweat while doing it!

  Watching the track events and seeing the people that do multiple events have to go through heats (like Phelps did in the water), I'm completely and totally amazed by some track stars doing three different events over the span of a couple days. I guess it's because I ran cross-country and longer track events at one time in my life, and that I can see they are totally exhausted at the end of each heat, but I am amazed at the insanity of running full bore several times a day over the course of a couple days.

  Then I realize Phelps did about three times as many heats/races in a similar timespan, and that the few times I've been in an olympic-sized pool exhausted me almost instantly, and I have a new appreciation for the insane amount of sheer exertion that kid put himself through.

  
  * too long for twitter

  
• 

  Almost there...

  Fetched: October 18th, 2008, 5:13am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  If you're visiting this site in a browser, you've likely figured out I've moved to Typepad and there are a few bugs in commenting, in my archives, and in my feed (feed still points to my old blog and permalinks). Things should be working as intended soonish.

  update: yay, everything seems to be working now. Comments are out of order on my old imported posts, and I don't currently have URL redirection for old WP urls yet, but everything basically works again and I'll likely be posting much more because heck, Typepad is kind of fun and easy.

  
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  Flip video from yesterday’s cyclocross race

  Posted: October 12th, 2008, 9:51am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  
  Heiser Farms Cross A class race from Matt Haughey on Vimeo.

  
• 

  iStockphoto ends up on a license plate!

  Posted: October 8th, 2008, 11:40am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #666; } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 10px; margin-top: 0px;color:#999; }
  My new license plate, originally uploaded by mathowie.

  I love my new Share the Road license plate that is now offered here in Oregon. It’s only $10 as a one-time fee and half goes to the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and half goes to Cycle Oregon, both bike-friendly organizations I support.

  I noticed it looked familiar when it showed up. I’ve been a casual user of iStockphoto for some time and I recently designed a site for a race series a friend was throwing (first race is this Saturday and I’ll be there in the beginner class!) and I used iStockphoto to get that cool outline of Oregon and the cyclist profile (I used a slightly different illustration). When I opened the DMV envelope I instantly recognized the cyclist, because it’s this file, just reversed, and with the water bottle removed from the outline.

  I’m not faulting the designer, iStockphoto is a great place to get super cheap illustrations and I use them all the time, rather, I’m more stoked that an illustration there ended up working all the way up to an optional state license plate.

  
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  Cycle Oregon 2008

  Posted: September 30th, 2008, 11:05pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I finally wrote up my experiences of riding in Cycle Oregon this year. There is a small sampling of the photos I took and the lessons I took away from the event. It really was one of the best vacations I’ve ever done and was easily the most fun I’ve had on a bike. I’ll be doing it many times in the future and I encourage any friends reading it to give it a try someday.

  
• 

  August cycling/diet update

  Posted: September 2nd, 2008, 4:32pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  

  In August I hit two major goals I set for myself on January 1st of this year, and they were two goals I didn’t think I’d achieve. I surpassed 2,000 miles ridden and I did it just before completing my first century (100 mile) ride. Up until this year, I’ve always ridden about 600-800 miles between May and October and this year I pushed myself to ride all the way through Winter. I’m guessing I’ll be hitting about 3,500-4,000 miles for the year by the end.

  The century went really well and didn’t feel like a 7 hour day in the saddle even though it was. The first 80 miles were pretty easy and a blast, but riding into a headwind the last 20 was kind of exhausting and I was glad to be finished at the end of the day. I also did the century ride to prepare myself for Cycle Oregon, which kicks off in less than a week. I knew even the worst day at Cycle Oregon (a 77 mile day with about 7,000′ of climbing) would be a bit less distance then the century (and the Portland Century featured about 5400′ of climbing) so if I could do the century, I should be ok for Cycle Oregon week.

  On the diet front, I’m still down around the same weight as last month. Kind of frustrating that I haven’t really budged in several months, but overall I’m about 12lbs lighter than I was at the beginning of the year and I haven’t yo-yo’d back up, keeping fairly steady for the past few months. I’m hoping a hard week of riding at Cycle Oregon will kick off another five pound loss, though it sounds like they will be feeding us like crazy at every meal.

  
• 

  TLFT*: Michael Phelps

  Posted: August 30th, 2008, 12:25am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  Watching some recent olympic track and field events still sitting on TiVo, I’m finally starting to understand how amazing it was for Michael Phelps to swim 17 races and win 8 medals and break multiple records over the span of just a few short days. For some reason I wasn’t really that impressed by the announcers constantly repeating it. It’s just swimming in water right? You don’t even sweat while doing it!

  Watching the track events and seeing the people that do multiple events have to go through heats (like Phelps did in the water), I’m completely and totally amazed by some track stars doing three different events over the span of a couple days. I guess it’s because I ran cross-country and longer track events at one time in my life, and that I can see they are totally exhausted at the end of each heat, but I am amazed at the insanity of running full bore several times a day over the course of a couple days.

  Then I realize Phelps did about three times as many heats/races in a similar timespan, and that the few times I’ve been in an olympic-sized pool exhausted me almost instantly, and I have a new appreciation for the insane amount of sheer exertion that kid put himself through.

  * too long for twitter

  
• 

  Becoming an old (blogging) man

  Posted: August 27th, 2008, 3:32pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  Today I realized that I’m part of the “old guard” of blogging because I remember a time when blogging was so new that very few sites had comments (it seems like MetaFilter was one of the first few?) and after a few years when they started to become commonplace, people were generally decent to each other because it was very literally turning a blog into a face-to-face conversation.

  But I think the root of the problem (described in various media outlets over the past year or so) of snarky, or mean-spirited, or generally unhelpful comments becoming the norm has to do with the distance we’ve achieved from those original link-and-essay heavy blogs.

  I have a feeling that if you’ve only seen blogs in the past five years (which is probably 95+% of people reading blogs today) you consider comments to be de rigueur and they are entirely divorced from the original concept of a conversation between the reader and the author of the original post. It’s not an intimate conversation, it’s just another content management feature available to you on the web.

  This has a de-humanizing effect that I’m seeing play out more and more often in the weirdest places. People will post about their idle curiosities on their personal blog (”Why does x happen when I do y?“) and instead of seeing friendly answers I would expect many years ago, I’ll often see someone early on read into the question and assume all sorts of accusations (”well, maybe it’s because you are a, b, and c, and everyone knows it!“) and watch most followup comments start from there and go into darker directions.

  It’s tough because I love blogs and I love comments in blogs, but I’m starting to think there’s this “new generation” that has grown up online only knowing blogs as having snarky comment areas and never realizing it used to be a personal, intimate space where you’d never say anything in a comment that you wouldn’t say to a friend’s face. Also, know that I mean “new generation” in a way where age of person in it is irrelevant. You could be 50 years old and started reading blogs last summer and I’d put you in that group.

  Of course, I could just be talking out of my ass, old people tend to do that…

  
• 

  New Prius or old Lexus?

  Posted: August 26th, 2008, 12:09pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  The new Prius mules are looking a heck of a lot like the Lexus small-SUV hybrid rx330/350/400h series.

  
• 

  New iPhone car adapter worth having

  Posted: August 12th, 2008, 5:06pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I got a 3G iPhone as an impulse buy the other day (they’re plentiful in Oregon it seems, no lines, got one in ten minutes at 2pm on a Friday) but the big downside aside from the higher monthly cost was that my trusty old Belkin car adapter with pre-amp line out sound no longer charged the iPhone. The newest iPhone accepts power on the USB architecture instead of the old firewire one, so most every old car charger no longer charges your iPhone (and being the battery killer the 3G is, this is important to charge it as often as possible).

  A bit of research the other day uncovered this list of compatible car chargers (with and without sound output) and I decided to bite the bullet and buy the Kensington LiquidAUX car kit.

  After getting the package and setting it up, I have to say it does exactly what it should, charging the 3G iPhone and transmitting sound via the line out cord into my car’s aux-in jack. The extra cool bonus feature is that the wireless remote actually works on my iPhone, allowing me to now skip songs, pause playback, and toggle shuffle directly from my steering wheel without taking my eyes off the road. I really didn’t expect the wireless remote (with included steering mount) to function on an iPhone, but it does and it’s great.

  So high marks all around for this. If you have a new iPhone, and you want to charge/listen to your iPhone in the car, this Kensington option is a good one (there’s a $5 more expensive version with a iPhone holder on a stalk that I didn’t need, but you might).

  
• 

  New iPhone car adapter worth having

  Posted: August 12th, 2008, 5:06pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I got a 3G iPhone as an impulse buy the other day (they’re plentiful in Oregon it seems, no lines, got one in ten minutes at 2pm on a Friday) but the big downside aside from the higher monthly cost was that my trusty old Belkin car adapter with pre-amp line out sound no longer charged the iPhone. The newest iPhone accepts power on the USB architecture instead of the old firewire one, so most every old car charger no longer charges your iPhone (and being the battery killer the 3G is, this is important to charge it as often as possible).

  A bit of research the other day uncovered this list of compatible car chargers (with and without sound output) and I decided to bite the bullet and buy the Kensington LiquidAUX car kit.

  After getting the package and setting it up, I have to say it does exactly what it should, charging the 3G iPhone and transmitting sound via the line out cord into my car’s aux-in jack. The extra cool bonus feature is that the wireless remote actually works on my iPhone, allowing me to now skip songs, pause playback, and toggle shuffle directly from my steering wheel without taking my eyes off the road. I really didn’t expect the wireless remote (with included steering mount) to function on an iPhone, but it does and it’s great.

  So high marks all around for this. If you have a new iPhone, and you want to charge/listen to your iPhone in the car, this Kensington option is a good one (there’s a $5 more expensive version with a iPhone holder on a stalk that I didn’t need, but you might).

  
• 

  The first 24 hours of Fuelly

  Posted: August 8th, 2008, 3:37pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #666; } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 10px; margin-top: 0px;color:#999; }
  The first 24 hours of Fuelly, in statistics, originally uploaded by mathowie.

  Holy cow. 24 hours ago, I took the stage at the START conference and explained some of the thinking and process behind me and pb’s new site Fuelly. I knew it was an influential crowd, and I knew if it was good it might take off, but I thought maybe we’d hit 1,000 users by the end of the weekend at most.

  Thanks mostly to twitter and other blogs (like Lifehacker and Get Rich Slowly) it’s grown a bit faster than we expected. A cable network is doing a piece on it. Various awesome iPhone developers are wanting to plug into the API we still need to build. It’s really been a crazy 24 hours.

  Our inboxes are bursting with feature requests and bugs, but I’m really happy with how far we got building a site in just a few weeks. I’ll be posting a full story of the development and creation of the site on fortuito.us in a week or two when all this dies down a little, hopefully inspiring other developers to try building their own similar projects.

  
• 

  The first 24 hours of Fuelly

  Posted: August 8th, 2008, 3:37pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #666; } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 10px; margin-top: 0px;color:#999; }
  The first 24 hours of Fuelly, in statistics, originally uploaded by mathowie.

  Holy cow. 24 hours ago, I took the stage at the START conference and explained some of the thinking and process behind me and pb’s new site Fuelly. I knew it was an influential crowd, and I knew if it was good it might take off, but I thought maybe we’d hit 1,000 users by the end of the weekend at most.

  Thanks mostly to twitter and other blogs (like Lifehacker and Get Rich Slowly) it’s grown a bit faster than we expected. A cable network is doing a piece on it. Various awesome iPhone developers are wanting to plug into the API we still need to build. It’s really been a crazy 24 hours.

  Our inboxes are bursting with feature requests and bugs, but I’m really happy with how far we got building a site in just a few weeks. I’ll be posting a full story of the development and creation of the site on fortuito.us in a week or two when all this dies down a little, hopefully inspiring other developers to try building their own similar projects.

  
• 

  Apple’s lame DRM

  Posted: August 2nd, 2008, 12:13am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  Not to turn this entire site into an “apple sucks for the following reasons…” blog, but I expect more from them and feel that pointing out their faults and design decisions that go against their typical fine work is worth mentioning.

  Today, I’m pissed at their iTunes Store DRM. I have two computers I use daily, an iPhone, and an AppleTV. All four devices allow me to buy things directly from the iTunes Store, but wherever you purchase a file, it stays. Sometimes when I’m traveling and I’m on my laptop but I wish I had a show I left on my desktop at home, I’ll break down and go to the iTunes Store to get another copy. When you do something like that, you get this screen:

  

  The thing that is broken for me is that you can playback iTunes purchased files on up to 5 computers, which I’m currently using less than the maximum of. Apple knows I’ve purchased the audio/video file before, and they know how many devices have ever played back that purchased file, but instead of allowing me to re-download the file to another computer capable of playing it, I’m forced to purchase a second copy.

  I know I can just FTP the audio/video file from one machine to the next but sometimes you forget to do that before you leave the house. Or, you buy a TV show on your AppleTV, and that syncs to one computer, but not the other.

  I really wish Apple would allow at least a few extra chances to download purchased media files. I’ve lost hard drives and had backup drives die as well, and it sure would be nice if they could let you see your entire purchase history and let you get things back you might have lost, or get second copies for your other devices.

  
• 

  Apple’s lame DRM

  Posted: August 2nd, 2008, 12:13am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  Not to turn this entire site into an “apple sucks for the following reasons…” blog, but I expect more from them and feel that pointing out their faults and design decisions that go against their typical fine work is worth mentioning.

  Today, I’m pissed at their iTunes Store DRM. I have two computers I use daily, an iPhone, and an AppleTV. All four devices allow me to buy things directly from the iTunes Store, but wherever you purchase a file, it stays. Sometimes when I’m traveling and I’m on my laptop but I wish I had a show I left on my desktop at home, I’ll break down and go to the iTunes Store to get another copy. When you do something like that, you get this screen:

  

  The thing that is broken for me is that you can playback iTunes purchased files on up to 5 computers, which I’m currently using less than the maximum of. Apple knows I’ve purchased the audio/video file before, and they know how many devices have ever played back that purchased file, but instead of allowing me to re-download the file to another computer capable of playing it, I’m forced to purchase a second copy.

  I know I can just FTP the audio/video file from one machine to the next but sometimes you forget to do that before you leave the house. Or, you buy a TV show on your AppleTV, and that syncs to one computer, but not the other.

  I really wish Apple would allow at least a few extra chances to download purchased media files. I’ve lost hard drives and had backup drives die as well, and it sure would be nice if they could let you see your entire purchase history and let you get things back you might have lost, or get second copies for your other devices.

  
• 

  July cycling/diet

  Posted: August 2nd, 2008, 12:02am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  July was a good month for riding and I rode over 250 miles in the first couple weeks of the month. Unfortunately, I spent the following two weeks mostly on family vacation down in San Diego. I did get a few rides in, but I forgot how slow city riding can be with all the stoplights blocking you. Overall, I finished the month with only 333 miles ridden due to the time off for travel. On the plus side, August is my last chance to cram in the miles and climbing to train for Cycle Oregon in September. I’m hoping to hit 600 miles in August.

  On the diet front, I shed a couple pounds more but I think I’m going to finally stop drinking soda completely for a month to see how much it affects my weight.

  
• 

  July cycling/diet

  Posted: August 2nd, 2008, 12:02am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  July was a good month for riding and I rode over 250 miles in the first couple weeks of the month. Unfortunately, I spent the following two weeks mostly on family vacation down in San Diego. I did get a few rides in, but I forgot how slow city riding can be with all the stoplights blocking you. Overall, I finished the month with only 333 miles ridden due to the time off for travel. On the plus side, August is my last chance to cram in the miles and climbing to train for Cycle Oregon in September. I’m hoping to hit 600 miles in August.

  On the diet front, I shed a couple pounds more but I think I’m going to finally stop drinking soda completely for a month to see how much it affects my weight.

  
• 

  Apple’s Blind Side

  Posted: July 23rd, 2008, 10:23pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I recently bought my dad a new 20″ iMac and today I set it up for him. This has been a long time coming, going back at least three years that he has suffered under viruses and adware on Windows systems that would grind his computer to a halt. Up until now, he’s been replacing each system every 9-12 months with another $500 generic PC, but since each one used the same version of windows, the cycle would repeat.

  His iMac is probably the sixth or seventh mac I’ve set up out of a box and the experience is great as always. I loaded the programs he used on his PC (almost everything was browser-based, and on firefox, so not too big of a change) and functional replacements were tossed into the dock (TextEdit instead of Notepad.exe, etc).

  There was one big sticking point though. He is in his 60s and runs large fonts in Windows (which is easy to change) in order to see everything easily. I saw his PC boot up and figured no prob, we’ll just mimic it in Leopard since Apple has consistently been a forerunner in the Accessibility options.

  And here’s where things get surprising.

  This is the System Preferences window:
  

  So I tried out the Accessibility pane since that seemed the obvious place:
  

  This preference pane looks fantastic — large fonts, high contrast — perfect for what I need, but looking under the “Seeing” options, I don’t see anything except optional key modifiers to temporarily zoom the interface. Nothing about fonts, nothing about zooming without requiring some panning when zoomed in. I just want the entire OS to look like that pane, but I’m not seeing the option.

  I go back to the all preferences and think “Appearance” must be it then. On a Windows box that’s where you see fonts show up so I bet it is there. Let’s look:
  

  hmm. Nothing about fonts. I try the OS X help and there are no results for “large fonts”. I can’t believe there isn’t a simple option, so I google around. Any combination of “large fonts” and “os x” and “visibility” and “leopard” ends with thousands of links to articles about the utility FontBook. After a couple hours, I only came away with the suggestion that I set the fonts large in every single app my father might use, and if I wanted the Apple menubar along the top any more legible, there is some sort of plist xml hack to bump things up in Finder, using an obscure program.

  Did I miss something obvious somewhere? I asked several longtime mac using friends where one would change the entire system to 24 or 36pt fonts by default and everyone initially thought like I did, that it must be in the Accessibility preferences, but none of my friends could find it either.

  This is one of the few times I have to say Windows has it right (and has had right for many years) — it is extremely easy to find a way to bump the entire OS to larger more legible fonts with just a couple clicks, but I’m not seeing it anywhere on a Mac running Leopard.

  Did I miss something obvious?

  
• 

  Apple’s Blind Side

  Posted: July 23rd, 2008, 10:23pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I recently bought my dad a new 20″ iMac and today I set it up for him. This has been a long time coming, going back at least three years that he has suffered under viruses and adware on Windows systems that would grind his computer to a halt. Up until now, he’s been replacing each system every 9-12 months with another $500 generic PC, but since each one used the same version of windows, the cycle would repeat.

  His iMac is probably the sixth or seventh mac I’ve set up out of a box and the experience is great as always. I loaded the programs he used on his PC (almost everything was browser-based, and on firefox, so not too big of a change) and functional replacements were tossed into the dock (TextEdit instead of Notepad.exe, etc).

  There was one big sticking point though. He is in his 60s and runs large fonts in Windows (which is easy to change) in order to see everything easily. I saw his PC boot up and figured no prob, we’ll just mimic it in Leopard since Apple has consistently been a forerunner in the Accessibility options.

  And here’s where things get surprising.

  This is the System Preferences window:
  

  So I tried out the Accessibility pane since that seemed the obvious place:
  

  This preference pane looks fantastic — large fonts, high contrast — perfect for what I need, but looking under the “Seeing” options, I don’t see anything except optional key modifiers to temporarily zoom the interface. Nothing about fonts, nothing about zooming without requiring some panning when zoomed in. I just want the entire OS to look like that pane, but I’m not seeing the option.

  I go back to the all preferences and think “Appearance” must be it then. On a Windows box that’s where you see fonts show up so I bet it is there. Let’s look:
  

  hmm. Nothing about fonts. I try the OS X help and there are no results for “large fonts”. I can’t believe there isn’t a simple option, so I google around. Any combination of “large fonts” and “os x” and “visibility” and “leopard” ends with thousands of links to articles about the utility FontBook. After a couple hours, I only came away with the suggestion that I set the fonts large in every single app my father might use, and if I wanted the Apple menubar along the top any more legible, there is some sort of plist xml hack to bump things up in Finder, using an obscure program.

  Did I miss something obvious somewhere? I asked several longtime mac using friends where one would change the entire system to 24 or 36pt fonts by default and everyone initially thought like I did, that it must be in the Accessibility preferences, but none of my friends could find it either.

  This is one of the few times I have to say Windows has it right (and has had right for many years) — it is extremely easy to find a way to bump the entire OS to larger more legible fonts with just a couple clicks, but I’m not seeing it anywhere on a Mac running Leopard.

  Did I miss something obvious?

  
• 

  An iPhone lesson I wish I hadn’t learned today

  Posted: July 19th, 2008, 7:41am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  If you leave your iPhone on vibrate 90% of the time like I do and you use the iPhone as an alarm clock when you travel, remember to turn off vibrate before you go to sleep, because the sound that wakes you up won’t be Marimba, it’ll be Airport Shuttle Guy Banging On Your Door, which is a much less pleasant tone.

  
• 

  An iPhone lesson I wish I hadn’t learned today

  Posted: July 19th, 2008, 7:41am PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  If you leave your iPhone on vibrate 90% of the time like I do and you use the iPhone as an alarm clock when you travel, remember to turn off vibrate before you go to sleep, because the sound that wakes you up won’t be Marimba, it’ll be Airport Shuttle Guy Banging On Your Door, which is a much less pleasant tone.

  
• 

  1st gen iPhone battery life issues: it’s the apps?

  Posted: July 18th, 2008, 12:38pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I’ve had my original iPhone for over a year now, and I’ve had a pretty stable use pattern. I charge the phone often (every time I’m in a car (daily) and every other night attached to my computer) and rarely see the battery dip below maximum. For usage, I typcially use it for about 15 minutes of internet stuff in the morning, I’ll use it for about 10 minutes or so around lunch, and I’ll often go out for 60-90 minutes of daily exercise time using it as a music player. I probably make an average of only 3-5 calls on it a week, so it’s mostly an internet device to me, acting in place of a laptop whenever I’m outside of my house.

  In the week since the launch of the 2.0 OS, I’ve loaded my iPhone up with about a dozen apps, but mostly I’ve just tested them out or played with them for five minutes and haven’t launched them a second time. The one app I surprisingly use (surprising because I’m not normally into games and not into cards/gambling at all) is the Texas Hold ‘em game. I’ve probably played it an hour a day since I got the iPhone 2.0 OS.

  What I’ve noticed so far is that if I play a few hands in the game, then hit the sleep button at the top to throw the phone in my pocket or put it on a table to be ignored, when I come back my battery will be down to a half or less. It happened the other night when I played the game before bed. I woke up to a nearly dead iPhone on my nightstand.

  It’s weird because I’ve never “exited” or “quit” iPhone’s native apps before and I’ve never had battery life issues. I often just hit the sleep button when I’m reading email or in the camera app, and the battery will be fine hours later. Yesterday I noticed I played some poker, hit the sleep button, went away for one hour, and my battery was half drained.

  I know it’s a pain that Apple screens all the apps and I bet 3G and GPS are power drains on the new iPhone, but I have a feeling even the well-vetted apps are causing a lot of power consumption that wasn’t happening in the past.

  I’ll concede this is just a hunch and I may be wrong, but after a year of a constantly full battery under mild use, the only changes I’ve made in the past week were using one new app, and my battery is now getting drained much faster.

  
• 

  1st gen iPhone battery life issues: it’s the apps?

  Posted: July 18th, 2008, 12:38pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I’ve had my original iPhone for over a year now, and I’ve had a pretty stable use pattern. I charge the phone often (every time I’m in a car (daily) and every other night attached to my computer) and rarely see the battery dip below maximum. For usage, I typcially use it for about 15 minutes of internet stuff in the morning, I’ll use it for about 10 minutes or so around lunch, and I’ll often go out for 60-90 minutes of daily exercise time using it as a music player. I probably make an average of only 3-5 calls on it a week, so it’s mostly an internet device to me, acting in place of a laptop whenever I’m outside of my house.

  In the week since the launch of the 2.0 OS, I’ve loaded my iPhone up with about a dozen apps, but mostly I’ve just tested them out or played with them for five minutes and haven’t launched them a second time. The one app I surprisingly use (surprising because I’m not normally into games and not into cards/gambling at all) is the Texas Hold ‘em game. I’ve probably played it an hour a day since I got the iPhone 2.0 OS.

  What I’ve noticed so far is that if I play a few hands in the game, then hit the sleep button at the top to throw the phone in my pocket or put it on a table to be ignored, when I come back my battery will be down to a half or less. It happened the other night when I played the game before bed. I woke up to a nearly dead iPhone on my nightstand.

  It’s weird because I’ve never “exited” or “quit” iPhone’s native apps before and I’ve never had battery life issues. I often just hit the sleep button when I’m reading email or in the camera app, and the battery will be fine hours later. Yesterday I noticed I played some poker, hit the sleep button, went away for one hour, and my battery was half drained.

  I know it’s a pain that Apple screens all the apps and I bet 3G and GPS are power drains on the new iPhone, but I have a feeling even the well-vetted apps are causing a lot of power consumption that wasn’t happening in the past.

  I’ll concede this is just a hunch and I may be wrong, but after a year of a constantly full battery under mild use, the only changes I’ve made in the past week were using one new app, and my battery is now getting drained much faster.

  
• 

  By listening to this you acknowledge you are: Brian Davidson

  Posted: July 15th, 2008, 9:03pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I’ve been getting some annoying robot phonecalls recently on a daily basis. They always give me menu options to hear more, but never an option to tell them they got the wrong number (or some guy put down the wrong number). The robot leaves messages with half of their recorded message so when I was deleting a slew of them today I noticed one sounded very different from the rest, so I took a quick recording of it.

  There’s something almost melodic in how the robot says the name and the message is pretty amusing in the way it reads like the worst EULA ever and that part of it sounds like the Miranda Rights being read to you.

  Here it is, enjoy:

  Anyone that wants to download it and put some beats or throw it into a mix is welcome to this direct link to the file.

  
• 

  By listening to this you acknowledge you are: Brian Davidson

  Posted: July 15th, 2008, 9:03pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I’ve been getting some annoying robot phonecalls recently on a daily basis. They always give me menu options to hear more, but never an option to tell them they got the wrong number (or some guy put down the wrong number). The robot leaves messages with half of their recorded message so when I was deleting a slew of them today I noticed one sounded very different from the rest, so I took a quick recording of it.

  There’s something almost melodic in how the robot says the name and the message is pretty amusing in the way it reads like the worst EULA ever and that part of it sounds like the Miranda Rights being read to you.

  Here it is, enjoy:

  Anyone that wants to download it and put some beats or throw it into a mix is welcome to this direct link to the file.

  
• 

  Bizjam Seattle

  Posted: July 7th, 2008, 8:09pm PDT by Matt Haughey

  Tags:    [edit]

  I’m going to be speaking at Bizjam Seattle this Wednesday afternoon about my high road approach to blogging (eschewing SEO snake oil and not being an annoying person on every social network). Judging by the titles, I suspect half the talks will be preaching the opposite of what I’m planning to say, so it’ll either be a breath of fresh air in a sea of insanity for attendees, or it’ll go over like a lead balloon. Either way, it should be fun.

  Here are my slides: