Earth Hour

A buddy at work made me aware of Earth Hour, at 8:30 SATURDAY (CORRECTION from previous post) where they're asking cities and individuals to turn off all excess lighting for an hour. The idea is to be more aware of the energy we use, and take appropriate steps to conserve.

Here's the Earth Hour website.

I initially asked what should I do during that hour, thinking that I couldn't internet, but apparently interneting is OK. Just turn down the extra lights in the house, and put in some compact flourescents if you haven't yet.

Prostate studies

Studies cast doubt on value of prostate screenings, especially in the context of the impact of unnecessary treatment.

As I read it there's alot of confusion around the whole issue.

Nacho Libre

Ok, I'm a fan of oddball movies, but would've never guessed that I would like this movie as much as I do. It was on TBS several times over the weekend and I watched it twice. It's a definite "must see" in my book - a great re-watch, with lots of good quotes. The story is just a simple one of a simple man wanting more out of life, but just needs someone to believe in him. But it's executed well.

One of my favorite quotes (read with heavy sarcasm).
Nacho is a monk in the monastery talking to the kids in the orphanage who are wrestling (from imdb quotes):

Nacho: Ok. Orphans! Listen to Ignacio. I know it is fun to wrestle. A nice piledrive to the face... or a punch to the face... but you cannot do it. Because, it is in the Bible not to wrestle your neighbour.
Chancho: So you've never wrestled?
Nacho: Me? No. Come on. Don't be crazy. I know the wrestlers get all the fancy ladies, and the clothes, and the fancy creams and lotions. But my life is good! Really good! I get to wake up every morning, at 5AM, and make some soup! It's the best. I love it. I get to lay in a bed, all by myself, all of my life! That's fantastic! Go. Go away! Read some books!

Here's a trailer

Starry Night in 3D

building and walking through a 3D environment of one of the world's famous paintings. I found this very cool.

Cheap Trick - I want you to want me

Cheap Trick's rock classic "I want you to want me" is one of the first real modern "rock" songs I remember when growing up. I grew up listening to mostly oldies and country so it was an ear-opener when I heard this song.

I can't remember the year, but my mom had one of those chart-topper cassette tapes they used to make (my guess is it had a disco song she was using for a dance class at school) and probably after listening to cassettes of the Statler Brothers, Beatles, Elvis, or the other stuff I had cassettes for, I probably put that cassette in to see what it was. I remember it had Foreigner's "Blue Monday" too which I thought had a cool sound, but this song took the prize. I still consider Cheap Trick's "I want you to want me" one of the all time rock classics. It holds up so well over time.

Stand-Up School Desk

This article describes a new stand-up desk for younger children that's being tested in some school's around the country. Very interesting idea. The desk top is higher giving the students options of both standing at their desk or sitting in a raised stool while working at their desk. Proponents say it helps fidgety kids stay in the game, helps sleepy kids stay awake, and teachers like it because they don't have to hunch over tiny desks when giving help.

Anyhow, thought this was a creative idea.

Comparing effectiveness of health care treatments

...part of the new spending bill as reported by the NYTimes

The program responds to a growing concern that doctors have little or no solid evidence of the value of many treatments. Supporters of the research hope it will eventually save money by discouraging the use of costly, ineffective treatments.
...
For many years, the government has regulated drugs and devices and supported biomedical research, but the goal was usually to establish if a particular treatment was safe and effective, not if it was better than the alternatives.

Moneyball on the hardwood

I read the book Moneyball several years back about efforts to better understand a player's contribution to helping a team win in baseball. It showed that traditional statistics generally weren't good measures of how helpful a player was in helping a team win.

Moneyball author Michael Lewis writes an extended piece - note this is long - in the NYTimes but relates it to basketball. Excellent, excellent read if you're into analytics. In my mind, this type of thinking applies far beyond the sports realm.

Here's a link the article, and a brief excerpt:

Battier’s game is a weird combination of obvious weaknesses and nearly invisible strengths. When he is on the court, his teammates get better, often a lot better, and his opponents get worse — often a lot worse. He may not grab huge numbers of rebounds, but he has an uncanny ability to improve his teammates’ rebounding. He doesn’t shoot much, but when he does, he takes only the most efficient shots. He also has a knack for getting the ball to teammates who are in a position to do the same, and he commits few turnovers. On defense, although he routinely guards the N.B.A.’s most prolific scorers, he significantly ­reduces their shooting percentages. At the same time he somehow improves the defensive efficiency of his teammates — probably, Morey surmises, by helping them out in all sorts of subtle ways. “I call him Lego,” Morey says. “When he’s on the court, all the pieces start to fit together."

Corporate Band Rockoff

One of the local universities in town is sponsoring a corporate band challenge for charity, and I signed up to participate on my company's band. We have to do 2 songs for the competition. We had our first practice over the weekend. I'd forgotten how much of a pain it is to lug gear around. I think the weight of electronic gear is the #1 reason for band failure, especially for older bands!!

Anyhow, one of the songs we're going to be doing "At Last" by Etta James. There's a really good singer at work who can pull that one off very well. It's not very demanding to play, but without a singer that can kill it, well don't even bother. Our singer can kill it, so that one is a go.

The other tune we're planning on doing is "Smooth" by Santana and Rob Thomas. That one is demanding for me as there's some pretty tough guitar runs I have to familiarize myself with. Listening to the song I'm pretty sure I can play them or come up with something workable, but it does require me putting in some heavy study.

Here's hoping we pull the tunes together in time for the contest.

An information based energy efficiency approach

I saw this article in the NYTimes highlighting a "new" approach California is using to help spur efficient energy use. It's an approach that on your electric bill not only shows your energy usage, but also shows that of your neighbors, and also provides a comparison with some of the most efficient users.

When electric comapany approaches like rebate incentives haven't seemed to work so well, turning it into a contest seems to push our buttons - sortof a "keeping-up-with-the-Jones'" contest that we seem hard-wired to respond to.

Here's the story.

In my work with insurance we have taken a similar approach - comparing insurance agencies to other similar agencies in an attempt to show where opportunities lie, and perhaps get competitive juices flowing to make changes for the better.

Marshall Vintage Modern amp head

I've always been one to try to find "value" in my musical instruments - trying to get good sound on the relative cheap.

When it comes to guitars and amps I have tended to buy and use used equipment whenever possible. For the first time in my life I'm actually stepping up and buying something really top notch with the Marshall Vintage Modern 50W amp head.

I was searching for tone, listening to samples/sounds coming from amps recorded all over the internet. I started off looking for a Fender Blues Deville amp with 4 10" speakers. I think I remember playing one in a store many years back remembering it as one of the best sounding amps I'd ever played. After listening to several clips though, I realized it wasn't quite what I was looking for.

So I kept doing web searches. I found amp demonstrations on Proguitarshop.com very helpful, as well as many others found on youtube and other outlets. I know it'd be best for me to go try to play all these amps myself - if I could find them - but I find most music stores are surprisingly bad places to audition amps given the noise levels. (Question: why not have better listening environments, and at least have a few tuned guitars if you're in the business of selling musical equipment?)

And I got to thinking about some of my favorite guitar sounds. There was an unsigned band named Ghotti who popped into my mind. The guitarist Ugo's tone, songwriting, and playing inspired me. He plays Marshalls. I'd always thought of Marshall amps as just too expensive, and in a strange way had considered Marshall amps too "elite" to consider playing. But they had that sound. And I knew so many rock bands I grew up listening to played Marshall's also. Maybe it wasn't all marketing.

Anyhow, after listening to lots of amps I was drawn more to the Marshall line, especially after hearing a demonstration of the Plexi model played by one of my favorites Eddie Van Halen in his early years. I kept listening and came across the Marshall Vintage Modern line of amps which was an attempt to create a line of amps with modern features but having the vintage sounds. So I found a seller on ebay and purchased a lightly used Vintage Modern 2266 50W amp head. I've never paid so much for an amp, but I'm hearing the dynamic touch sensitivity, aggressiveness and "aliveness" of sound that I'd been trying to get from other amps on the cheap - and "on-the-cheap" just wasn't cutting it for the tone I was going for. I'm looking forward to running the new amp through the paces when it arrives. And if all else fails, the used market for these seems strong.

Here's one sample video:

Bill Gates on education

Below is an advance quote of a Bill Gates letter to be released Monday at www.gatesfoundation.org (source is the NYTimes article by Nicholas Kristof)

“It is amazing how big a difference a great teacher makes versus an ineffective one,” Mr. Gates writes in his letter. “Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.”

I find this to be a very interesting conclusion drawn from his research efforts in education. Granted, my exposure educational change to has been limited, but my general impression is efforts have been made to standardize education - to standardize and make education into a standardized process - similar to running a franchise of McDonald's restaurants. Similarly, in my work there's always a push to find standardized off-the-shelf processes that can be deployed repeatedly and consistently.

This finding above that the individual teacher matters more than the process resonates with my experience. Administrative and managerial types fret over the "great person" models of success, whether its a good teacher or good employee who just seems to get things done, and try to shoe-horn activities into well defined processes that allow them to "plug-and-play" whenever employee turnover exists... but certainly in my experience it's the right people that really make things happen. That doesn't mean that great process doesn't go along with it - I'm a strong believer in process refinement and efficiency - but effective employees bring their own great processes along with them, not the other way around.

anyhow, just my attempt at reading between the lines for the day....

Sleepy dude

I don't know what it is, but I've turned into one sleepy dude. After I get home from work and have supper I sit down at my computer and have a tendency to flat-out fall asleep. Sometimes it's just for a couple of minutes, and sometimes I just catch my head falling down. And sometimes it's for extended periods... sitting upright in the chair with my head hanging there like a slack bobble-head. slobber dripping from the lower side of my slackjaw.

The odd sleepiness started 2-3 months ago when I got all out of sync and started taking naps after getting home from work - I think messing up my sleep cycle considerably. So far the best solution seems to be stand up while I'm doing stuff. I can't get my system to reset back to normal state at the moment though.

Bought some ebay stock

Haven't had much to post about in a while, but wanted to mention that I have stuck my toe back in the market waters with a small purchase of ebay stock. There's so many beaten down stocks right now, but at 9X earnings for a powerful franchise I figured this is a chance to pick it up on the cheap. In addition to the main site, I'd noticed that ebay's paypal is becoming a common payment method on many websites all over the net - and it's my preferred method of online payments. I don't know much about the prospect for their online phone skype, but I liked ebay in the 20s, so at 13 I just wanted to open a small position.

We'll see how it goes.