My Favourite Colour

25 things

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:16:49 GMT

1.) My first word was "flower".

2.) As a child, I would rarely keep my clothing on, especially when I was playing outside.

3.) When we were kids, my brother and I used to always want to use the jingly knife at dinner.

4.) I was the geek who won all the awards at high school graduation, and then I didn't go to my prom.

5.) I was inspired to go into physics by reading Richard Feynman's biography in the library while the rest of my class learned calculus that i'd already taught myself.

6.) I have degrees in math and philosophy.

7.) I took tai chi lessons for a year and stopped because I got good at it and scared myself.

8.) I spent a lot of time going places I wasn't supposed to be in university, such as steam tunnels. To do that, I used to be able to pick 5 pin locks, but haven't kept it up as a skill.

9.) I visited my brother in Kensington Market in Toronto and got myself locked out on his fire escape. No one was home and I had to climb down a drain pipe to get back in the building. This was the first thing I climbed, other than trees.

10.) I once lived for a week on a small pile of change when I learned that "the check will clear in 30 days" means 30 business days, not 30 calendar days.

11.) My appendix perforated on St Patrick's day 2005.

12.) I used to have a pool table in my living room.

13.) I've been doing yoga for almost 10 years, and it brings me a lot of joy.

14.) I have worked for 2 startups and will definitely do it again (but will not repeat #10 above).

15.) I learned to scuba dive, but had more fun scrambling over rocks on the shore than I had in the water.

16.) When I moved to Seattle, one of the things I missed most were the nesting teak end tables that as a kid I'd learned to draw at that my dad oiled and gave to me when I left home.

17.) I've made a comprehensive list of the pros and cons of having kids and made what I consider to be the simple decision not to.

18.) At times in the past, I have had bad credit only because I hate reading my physical mail.

19.) I don't make decisions unless I'm forced to, and I secretly appreciate anything that makes me decide.

20.) I still have the first piece of furniture my parents bought when they got married: their kitchen table.

21.) One of my favourite books is A Pattern Language, and I constantly want to redesign my world to contain many more of the beautiful, functional and human patterns that it describes.

22.) I really enjoy cooking, although I rarely do it.

23.) I often enjoy silence more than music. If I listen to music, I want to experience it, not have it on in the background.

24.) I used to be terrified of causing change in the world, and now I'm growing terrified of not.

25.) I am more interested in who I'm becoming than in who I have been.

the 15 min revolution

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:41:57 GMT

Hypothesis: the corporate world would be a hell of a lot more productive if the default meeting length in outlook were 15 min (or if it were easy to schedule a 15 min meeting).

Since a lot of my meetings (and I have a ton of them) are with only a couple of people, 30 min -- the shortest meeting length that's easy to schedule -- is always sufficient and usually long. 15 min is long enough to understand an issue, evaluate tradeoffs and decide, that is, as long as everyone has prepped, is on time and is willing to focus on making the decision.

Scheduling 30 min creates a lot of deadspace in my (very full) schedule that I want to compress, but futzing with outlook to convince it that I actually do want a 15 min meeting is frustrating.

So, does any one know a way to change the default meeting length in outlook 2007? Google couldn't find it, and it doesn't seem to be burried anywhere in the options. Is there a registry setting?

dragos

Wed, 07 May 2008 06:49:38 GMT

dragos, originally uploaded by bitmask.

cardboard tube fight!

Wed, 07 May 2008 06:42:13 GMT

cardboard tube fight!, originally uploaded by bitmask.

nausicaa

Sun, 04 May 2008 18:33:28 GMT

nausicaa, originally uploaded by bitmask.

gerberas

Sun, 04 May 2008 18:33:01 GMT

gerberas, originally uploaded by bitmask.

camera store

Sun, 04 May 2008 18:31:55 GMT

camera store, originally uploaded by bitmask.

Today, I bought a new lens for my canon dslr. 85mm f1.8. This was the guy who sold it to me. I put the lens on my camera, looked up and shot this. Unsurprisingly he seemed very used to having his photo taken.

eyes

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 04:32:22 GMT

eyes, originally uploaded by bitmask.

this week's theme? Things with eyes.

skateboard

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 06:31:42 GMT

skateboard, originally uploaded by bitmask.

found this when i went out walking today

hawaiian s[hk]irt friday

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:19:47 GMT

hawaiian s[hk]irt friday, originally uploaded by bitmask.

feeling a lot better today. yesterday, paul declared that it was to be hawaiian shirt friday! So i put on my hawaiian shirt and decided it was too not safe for work, so I just wore the skirt.

drugs

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:19:14 GMT

drugs, originally uploaded by bitmask.

still sick. came home from work early today too and a cute now orange haired girl came by to drop off some ibuprofen for me -- and in fact it was also orange.

the orange section

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:18:24 GMT

the orange section, originally uploaded by bitmask.

still sick. i have some orange books.

bowling

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:17:20 GMT

bowling, originally uploaded by bitmask.

this week's theme: orange!

baked beans

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:15:34 GMT

baked beans, originally uploaded by bitmask.

i had a huge craving for baked beans so I attempted to make some. my recipe called for 'haricot beans' which confused me because I thought haricot was french for beans. I finally settled on 'great northern beans' which turned out to be close enough.

roasted tomatoes

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:13:40 GMT

roasted tomatoes, originally uploaded by bitmask.

this week's theme is: things I made.
(actually last week because by now i didn't post photos last week)

excess

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:29:45 GMT

excess, originally uploaded by bitmask.

Printed photos today, and hung them up. They were 8.5x11 and the frames were a practical 7x9.5. I made this out of the excess that I trimmed off. I think I like it.

milestones

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:04:13 GMT

Passed 100 photos recently (April 9). 100 continuous days of taking a photo! I don't think it's making me take better photos, just more photos. Pictures, really. I'm taking shots of stuff just because it's there and I need to take a photo. I'm not making art. The purpose was to spend a small amount of time every day concentrating on composition, colour, juxtapositon, something to make my brain happier. I think i'm going to start adding weekly themes to make the project more interesting.

Over a month without drinking coffee! 36 days. 12 days with no caffeine at all and my migraines are much less intense and infrequent for it. I really really miss coffee. Today I had my first cup of decaf to figure out if it's caffeine or all the other stuff in the coffee that gives me problems. And I'll never know. Decaf sucks. I still miss my tasty bitter morning drink. Now trying various caffeine replacement herbal things.

10 months of recording everything I eat. Working on ways to import and store all the data so I can generate graphs etc. The graphing and transformation software is done, it's the data entry that's the bitch..

Nearly two years in Seattle. I still wonder wtf i'm here, but I don't want to leave anymore. Though I do miss a friendly "you're welcome".

bryn

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:02:00 GMT

bryn, originally uploaded by bitmask.

face

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:01:08 GMT

face, originally uploaded by bitmask.

this moves, as if it's talking. it's disconcerting. made me think of the head in Neuromancer.

books

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:57:07 GMT

books, originally uploaded by bitmask.

Rich gave me these books as a farewell (he's leaving Amazon).

day 100

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:52:37 GMT

day 100, originally uploaded by bitmask.

100: The number of nerf darts that fly around the office everyday..

massage

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:51:42 GMT

massage, originally uploaded by bitmask.

Went for a massage; Sierra is fantastic.

speech

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:47:01 GMT

speech, originally uploaded by bitmask.

this was #9 (persuade). It was on microfinance, and how it's possible to make a huge difference to someone's life with as little as $25 through a microcredit organization such as kiva.

Here are my notes for the speech so you can read them:

World bank:
extreme poverty $1/day
moderate poverty $2/day

3.8 billion people live on less than $2 a day

these people are poor for a myriad of reasons which are not their fault
deficiencies in public administration
failures of their environment
overpopulation
disease
whatever the reason, they are unable to thrive

what have you done to help?

give money to charities..
and when you do, do you pay attention to what percentage of your donation goes to helping people
when you give to charities do you know who's life you've changed?

aid can do good
but specifically in africa, despite the billions of dollars poured in to the continent, of people in extreme poverty is increasing
increasing aid increases dependency on aid as free goods flood the market and put local merchants out of business
if you're given everything, how much incentive do you have to become self reliant?

just after the new year, i got an email saying that manuella had finished paying back her loan
manuella enterprising woman who raised money for her current store by giving massages and manicures
now she sells school supplies and she had just paid back a loan to buy a photocopier which will expand her business

I was impressed by how she bootstrapped
and so when I found her profile on kiva, I lent her part of what she was asking for
32 other people also contributed to her loan
which was then distributed by one of kiva's field partners in ecuador

kiva is a person to person microlending organization
$700,000 loaned
to 2026 entrepreurs

i went back to kiva and started looking at other available loans
i lent to
safina in tanzania who works 10 hour days to make $50/mo expand her business selling cloth
sun chrip, mother of 4 in cambodia build a roof and a sturdy wall so that her house wouldn't leak.

loans are few hundred to 1000, many people contribute to one loan
small sums would never be lent by a normal bank
and because the borrowers have no credit
because the administrative costs outweigh the interest on the loan

first microfinance bank
Grameen bank started by Muhammad Yunus as a research project to test this method for providing credit and banking services to the rural poor
grameen means 'of the village', so this is is a bank of, for and by the people
aim to lend to the poorest of the poor

it was wildly successful
In 2006, Yunus and the Grameen bank were jointly awarded the nobel peace prize
for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.

Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty.
...
That vision can not be realised by means of micro-credit alone. But Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that, in the continuing efforts to achieve it, micro-credit must play a major part."

why does microlending work so well

targeting women
more likely to spend money on improving their family and children
than to spend it on themselves
raises socio economic status gives them power

2nd innovation
group lending
group not responsible for the loan
but will not receive another loan if any of the members defaults
encourages others to fill in, and to help each other make payments
borrowers have better information about each other than the bank, credit
support group, community, business ideas

traditional aid doesn't have the power to affect people at this level
loans are small
and have tremendous potential to affect the lives of the recipients

who has become rich from receiving handouts?
prosperity is the result of opportunity and effort
microlending gives the opportunity and allows people to
to provide services and gain esteem in their community
to gain skills
build their own future, to become self reliant

the next time you want to give money, take a minute to consider WHO you are giving it to.

sources

wikipedia
kiva
microplace
www.csa.com/discoveryguides/microfinance/review2.php?SID=...
www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html

saturday house

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:22:19 GMT

saturday house, originally uploaded by bitmask.

Went to Saturday house today to work on a speech for Tuesday.

hanami

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:14:50 GMT

hanami, originally uploaded by bitmask.

Tried to eat outside, but it was too cold. So the group of us went back to my place, and we ate indoors instead. In all it was a great party! We'll do v2 when it's a bit warmer out.