#110 - Media Expansion, Life Tracking Correlations, Security, and Linux

Motto: A Bird in the Hand is Worth Several Hundred in the Bush. Birds are in Bushes All the Time, in Hands much less Often.

Now we turn to this week in media expansion.

Right now I’m watching “This Week in Google” as it’s being recorded. I listen to the podcast every week per the suggestion of my sister, Alissa. It’s one of the several new ways I find myself killing time. Also on this list: This American Life, audiobooks, and TV On-Demand via Netflix or Hulu.

That’s the future. That’s the way things will be. TV is slowly dying with it. Olivia Wilde wrote an article championing Video On Demand on Buzzfeed. Kevin Spacey talked about the future of media at the Edinburgh TV Festival. If you’re killing time, both of those links are worth clicking on (IMHO).

Now we turn to this week in Life Tracking.

One of the implicit goals of tracking which of a set of 25 daily tasks I complete was to see how doing one thing effected doing other things. Does completing a workout correspond to better eating? Is writing a Column correlated with not wasting time?

So I did some spreadsheet work:

The TL;DR of the spreadsheet is that there aren’t any major correlations, outside of the “more likely to work while at work” block. In fact, there is almost a suspicious lack of correlation. I expected days including a workout to be more productive across the board. Not so much the case. The only thing that did pan out the way I expected - when I write columns and work on projects I am less likely to check off “Focused Less on Yourself”. That makes sense.

For all you nerds out there - the units on that spreadsheet were left intentionally vague. The whole thing is normalized around 100%. Each data point shows the percent change from my usual likelihood of completion.

No matter the situation, there is a relevant XKCD. That’s internet rule #35.

Now we turn to this week in cyber security.

For the longest time I’ve been one of those people who uses one or two passwords for everything. My small set of passwords were actually fairly strong, but rendered weak by the sheer number of services I used them on. I can tell you all this now because it has finally changed. I have committed to a password management solution and many, long, different passwords. One for each service. Exactly which service am I using? That… is… that’s what I’m doing after I post this.

Now we turn to this week in Linux.

I pulled out my old computer last night on a whim and tinkered around for a bit. Long story short I completely wiped it clean and installed Linux on it (Ubuntu 12.04, specifically). I’m going to use it in-conjunction with my normal computer to ensure an elegant cross-platform cross-operating system digital playground. All of my documents, pictures, videos, and music I will convert to the most open-source, most generic possible filetypes. I want to have a dynamic mass of tightly controlled yet-open to anywhere file. That’s my goal.

Now we turn to this week in the rest of life.

Other than that, life has been pretty uneventful as of late. Still not 100% sure on a wedding venue or date. Melissa has transitioned very gracefully into a full-blown working adult (she’s a music teacher). She’s doing very well and I’m very happy about that. The transitional phase is slowly coming to a close and things are starting to settle down some. Life is good.

Top 5: Suggestions for New Rules in Math

1. e^pi-pi = 20, although rounding this up makes it less special
2. X÷0 = ∞
3. 0÷0 = (coin flip to decide if the answer is 0 or infinity)
4. ∞÷∞ = (coin flip to decide if the answer is 0 or infinity)
5. 2+2 = “Aaron’s awesome”, we have to teach this to kids now.

Quote:

“Do you consider listening to a book ‘reading’” Danielle, and yes, I do.