Johari Windows

Stephen Brandau | March 11, 2008

Arena (known to self and others) clever, intelligent, logical, trustworthy	Blind Spot (known only to others) accepting, adaptable, bold, caring, complex, confident, dependable, friendly, independent, kind, knowledgeable, mature, proud, reflective, relaxed, searching, self-assertive, self-conscious, sensible, shy, silly, tense, warm
Façade (known only to self) extroverted, observant	Unknown (known to nobody) able, brave, calm, cheerful, dignified, energetic, giving, happy, helpful, idealistic, ingenious, introverted, loving, modest, nervous, organised, patient, powerful, quiet, religious, responsive, sentimental, spontaneous, sympathetic, wise, witty

People are inordinately fascinated with personality tests and other evaluative measures by which they can describe themselves. One of my favorite tools to gauge what others think of you is a Johari Window. A Johari window is constructed by allowing you and others to select positive attributes associated with you. Your answers are then put together to form a window similar to the one pictured above. It seems to me like this would make a neat facebook application, and while I did see some on facebook earlier, there don't seem to be any right now. Possibly even more interesting is the Nohari Window which works with negative attributes rather than positive ones.

Alternate Ending to I Am Legend

Stephen Brandau | March 10, 2008

Some of my friends and I were recently having a discussion on what seem to be two sides to a spectrum that movies are made on today: Artsy movies with meaning, and big colorful wonderful cinematic extravaganzas. While those that seem to bridge the gap like There Will Be Blood get plenty of critical acclaim, other movies with similar potential don't get the same recognition. FirstShowing.net recently put up an alternate ending to the blockbuster I am Legend. While the original was entertaining, and included a big explosion, I find the new ending much more appealing than the original, and according to those who still read books, the ending fits the author's original vision much better.


Photo from Pip's Flickr Photostream

Get Ripped With Apple and Nike

Stephen Brandau | March 4, 2008

Photo from Rodrigo Quiñones' Flickr Stream

Apple and Nike had previously co-released running shoes which allow you to track your running statistics. A new
announcement from Nike and Apple let's us know they're not stopping with shoes. They're now working on making iPods compatible with gym equipment. I can only speculate on the features such a system would have: Stair counting? Weighing mechanisms? Maybe your iPod will call you a wuss until you complete those last few reps. I suppose there's a reason I'm not on the design team for these things.

The RIAA Steals From Artists, Girls Play Games

Stephen Brandau | February 28, 2008

From Mandolux's Flickr stream

Remember all those lawsuits the RIAA won against those greedy music pirates who had stolen music from artists? Well, they never gave any of the artists the money; That's right, the RIAA effectively profited by suing people who downloaded music. Someone's pissed

To all you mothers: You may want to stop nagging your sons to quit playing videogames as this article provides evidence that the addiction is neural for males. Meanwhile, another study shows us girls can make up for a lot of spacial skills deficiencies by playing computer games. While discrepancies between male and female geometric/mathematic skills have been studied since before the inception of video games, the study does imply that a great deal of the otherwise presumed genetic deficiency can be handled with training.

Updates on the Luke Arm and XO Laptop

Stephen Brandau | February 26, 2008

Lots of Progress has been made with Dean Kamen's prosthetic arm I previously talked about. This footage of "the Luke Arm" is especially impressive.

Inhabitat, an environmental issues site, has a great video of Mary Lou Jepson, one of the XO developers, explaining how revolutionarily green the laptop is.

Anyone who edits html will love this tool, which allows you to enter in your code and refresh a second frame which shows you the output.

700mhz vs Satellite

Stephen Brandau | February 25, 2008

Confused what the big deal about this whole 700mhz auction is? Engadget provides a good explanation as to where the band comes from (soon to be decommissioned TV signals) and what it could be used for. (Cell phones, wireless internet, etc.) While I was originally rooting for Google or another company with 'open' aspirations for the project, it looks like there may be other, more cost effective alternatives like launching a super-fast internet satellite. It only cost Japan $480million; at that rate Google could launch ~10 of these satellites for the price the 700mhz frequency is expected to fetch.

Happy Valentine's

Stephen Brandau | February 14, 2008

Happy Valentines Day! I was originally tempted to refer to the holiday as Singles Awareness Day, but according to the Wikipedia article, SAD is often celebrated on the 13th or 15th so they are two distinguishable holidays. I suppose I'll have to wish you a happy SAD tomorrow. In the mean time if you're sad about being single there's a new service, WooMe which uses streaming audio and video chat to create what's most easily described as an online speed dating system.

Google Reader Now Accessible .01ms Faster!

Stephen Brandau | February 12, 2008

Did you notice anything new today while opening your Gmail? I'll give you a hint:

Reader is now officially integrated into the Google navigation bar at the top of all Google app pages, joining the ranks of Gmail, Google Documents, Google Calender, Photos, and of course their web search. I love Google Reader and hope this change will encourage more people to start using it.

UPDATE: It looks like they've taken the link down from the Gmail page, but have left it up on the Reader page. Too bad that's what I took the screen shot of.

Hillary Derailed

Stephen Brandau | February 11, 2008

Today's Penn Says (A video blog hosted by Penn of Penn&Teller) predicts Barack Obama will win the presidential election because of his audience's response to a joke about Hillary Clinton. Looking past the fact that Penn is delivering the election to the democrats, and really a lot can happen between now and November, I can understand his sentiment. After all, Hillary hate isn't something new. I've long heard that the sure way to a Republican presidential victory is a nomination for Hillary as the Democratic candidate, and truthfully I can't shake the argument, as sexist as it may be: We aren't ready for the most powerful person in the world to be a woman.

It's important to note I don't mean it wouldn't work - that some catastrophic catastrophe would ruin our great country because of feminine leadership - I simply mean there's enough STRONG opposition to dissuade anyone riding the fence. Are you really going to vote for someone who's known to practice the Occult? Granted, Hillary doesn't practice the Occult, but there's enough ridiculous stuff out there that other people believe to make it a reasonable assumption that someone out there will take such a statement as fact. I'm sure Penn, who often supports libertarian ideals, would have preferred Ron Paul winning, and he's arguably less masculine than Hillary. The fact is that neither of them are going to win.

What do you think? Is all this Hillary hate somehow substantiated? Is the election in the bag for Obama? Best comment gets a sticker.

Help Yourself!

Stephen Brandau | February 6, 2008

[Photo from justusjonas' flickr set]

Ever since the first notions of individuality hit humankind, we've been trying to build ourselves into better people, one at a time. This trend was identified and as soon as people figured out solid methodologies from which they could improve their lifestyles, the self-help industry was born. Books like How to Win Friends and Influence People became sensations as people saw real noticeable positive changes in their interactions with others. The self-help industry has hit an odd point in its history, primarily due to the internet, and I think it's one that parallels the music industry in many ways.

The music industry has seen 3 things happen, almost simultaneously and symbiotically: The amount of [quality] music made has increased. The amount of music demanded has increased [with larger storage capacities and easily available music]. The perceived value of music has dropped. And the industry [meaning the record labels] has completely ignored these new facts. In response to the established industry's stubbornness, numerous artists are signing with smaller labels and exploring new methods of distribution which focus more on artist compensation. These new strategies are notably less lucrative than those of the megastars of yesteryear, but they're much more realistic considering the

So how does this apply to the self-help industry? While more conventional, profitable self-help enterprises still exist and remain popular, such as The Secret, the criticism such all-in-one guides catch is enough to turn most would-be self-improvers away. See, it's real easy for me to post a self-help tip on the internet. If it's a good tip, it's real easy for that tip to get shared and spread like wildfire all over the internet. There are tons of people improving their lives every day and sharing their secrets with everyone online; Assuming their tips are of value, authors usually get some recognition or at least an increase in page views.

Unfortunately, page views aren't money. If they were, scantily dressed girls on myspace would be quite a wealthy demographic. See, the self-help industry can no longer profit in the way it used to. It's just too easy to get all those great tips on the internet for free: much in the same way music is easy to get on the internet for free. The self-helpers, luckily for individuals looking to improve their lifestyles everywhere, aren't as stubborn as the record industry. No, they've realized this isn't some exclusive game, and they don't know all the facts. So where do you go for the cutting edge self-help? Well, it's no longer called self-help. Instead things like Lifehacks and Lifestyle Modification have gained immense popularity on the internet.

The contributors to these movements seem to relish more in helping people and driving discussion than profiting off of it. It's an exciting, rapidly growing phenomenon from which I can only imagine good things coming.