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So, we have this little health program at work – all voluntary – and for doing a health screen/hitting various exercise/weight/smoking/etc goals – you get rewarded with $25 gift cards from American Express.  Well, this free money isn’t quite what it’s cracked up to be.  It only works at a handful of retailers – of which the only one you’ve likely even heard of is Amazon.  But yet, you cannot combine the use of this card with another payment option.  So in other words, you need to spend up to $25 exactly – and not over.  And, they have the card blocked so you can’t buy gift cards either.  Lame.

But here’s a site to help you stick it back to the man.  If you purchase an item, but are just shy of the $25 free shipping, use this site to help you find items of the amount you desire.

http://www.filleritem.com/

It will help you located “filler items” of a certain value to get you to the magic $25 for free shipping.

Any time you go to parties out here in Portland, inevitbly you’ll run into people that think the are “all that” at running or biking.  Now there are lots of really good bikers and runners – and I run a 5k daily to stay in shape/good health.  But when I think of a good runner, I think of these guys.  Couple of interesting notes:

• The hunt happens during the heat of the day
• The belief is the man can out last the prey because he can sweat to cool himself and replenish water while running -whereas the kudu cannot and overheats/becomes exhausted.  Would this work in cooler climates?
• He’s wearing average old shoes at 3:38 – nothing fancy
• The chase takes 8 hours.

“Experience Bram Stoker’s Dracula in a new way — in real time. Dracula is an epistolary novel (a novel written as a series of letters or diary entries,) and this blog will publish each diary entry on the day that it was written by the narrator so that the audience may experience the drama as the characters would have.”

Here

Take the quiz and find out…

Turns out:
“You are Pocahontas”
“You are Pocahontas.  You defy convention and sometimes do what is considered taboo.  Unfortunately, others do not always appreciate your differences, so it’s good that you are so string-willed.  You are loyal and you believe in fate.  Your true love will find you one day.”

I can’t wait. 🙂

Yes, a sheet of pretty standard paper is turned into a speaker.  Still bendable, good audio quality (50hz-20khz), etc.  Only sad part is that I can see this primarily used for advertising.  As if adverts weren’t already more than annoying enough.

Link is a video clip showing it actually playing music – crazy.

Tokyo shot over a year with a DSLR.  Be sure to turn your sound on/up.

In some ways I’m a libertarian, a Democrat, and a Republican.  However, it is always interesting to hear opinions about your rights.

Here’s a recording of a law class given by prof on why you should never let your client talk to police without a lawyer present:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865
This video is slightly more biased towards getting away with things you maybe shouldn’t, but does give you a great visual show of how easily you can accidentally give up your rights.
Citizen’s guide to your Rights:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqMjMPlXzdA

I always liked these sorts of lists.  Much like the “12 things I learned by 42 that I wish I’d known at 22“.  This is also an interesting list overall, but I liked a few more than others:

1. If you are buying something that you will use often and for a long time, never go cheap.
5. Try to keep enough cash to pay your bills for at least six months in reserve. It will make your life immeasurably easier if your car breaks down, you have a surprise medical expense, or you get an opportunity to get a fantastic bargain. (I’m shooting for 12 months myself)
7. “Don’t have any children or get married until you can support and love yourself first.”
10. Start looking for a new job BEFORE you quit your old job.
11) Don’t take any job that only pays commission unless you’re either an expert salesman or ready to spend months working without pay to gain the skills you need to become an expert salesman.
24) Don’t ever loan your friends money if you want to keep them as friends. After all, if they were good with money and were likely to pay you back in a timely manner, they probably wouldn’t need the loan in the first place. If they really need the money, you want to help them, and you can afford it — just give it to them.
26) When men have a problem and they tell you about it, they want to know how to fix it. When women have a problem and they tell you about it, they just want you to listen.
28) If you don’t know the agenda of the people you’re getting your news from, then you don’t have the information you need to know if what they’re telling you is true.
35) You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
38) You are not invulnerable and you are not going to live forever. You can make mistakes at 18 that you will have to live with for the rest of your life.
45) If you want your life to have impact, focus it! Stop dabbling. Stop trying to do it all. Do less. Prune away even good activities and do only that which matters most. Never confuse activity with productivity. You can be busy but without purpose.
50) When trying to decide between two closely matched alternatives, always have a bias towards action. In the long run, it’ll lead to your having a lot more experience, great stories, and a richer, fuller life.

Two fabulous videos from “Britian’s Got Talent” you really should see.  Two ordinary people who do something completely unexpected and extraordinary:

47 year old Susan Boyle sings Les Miserables

Paul Potts a mobile phone salesman sings opera

I’m currently working with Intel’s newly acquired game development team called Project Offset.  You can see some video clips of recent work here,  or here (Voodoo Extreme), or here (Gamespot).  There’s also a video clip of Sam McGrath on G4 TV showing off the system (I worked with Sam on two different technologies now)

And get it directly from the Offset project page – and see that I’m listed in the ‘Meet our team’ section.  🙂

Also, Tom’s hardware does a decent review of publicly available info on Larrabee.