All posts by Richard

LinkedIn Updates and the iPad

Android | iPad | Kindle Fire

I just posted the update given below on LinkedIn. I have 427 contacts. It will be interesting to see what happens. I'm genuinely interested in both parts of the result … how the iPad enhances work in either the business or university environment … and the usefulness of LinkedIn updates. I'll post my results early in December (good or bad).

Here is my LinkedIn post:

Testing LinkedIn's use for social updates. Do you use an iPad and also know of blogs which expand the knowledge of how to use iPads in a business or university environment? Please comment and include a url, or just comment to extend the reach of this update to your contacts.

Ipad-user-experience-hands

Make Love or Engineering Music for the Holidays!

Uncategorized

It's two days till Thanksgiving in the United States, which is the official start of the holiday season. Stores are gearing up for "Black Friday" (Wikipedia link). However, if you're trying to ignore rampant commercialism and have combined technical /musical leanings, what better way to spend some free time over the holidays than watching some free engineering lectures from Academic Earth's Video Reading List: The Sound of Music?! While your friends worry about which new video game to purchase for their sweetheat, you could be learning … from Stanford, MIT and Berkeley:

Ah yes, I mentioned love in the title. Assuming you can't handle music and engineering, escape to Yale University and watch: Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Love

As always, Academic Earth (and all of these lectures) is part of my Engineering Learning Portal, complete with many custom built Google Search Engines. Happy Thanksgiving!

Engineering-music

 

A Nerd’s Day Off!

Northern Life

I took a day off today. What does the Northstar Nerd do on a vacation day?

The first item of business was to enjoy the 10+ inches of snow that came down on Saturday. By 8 am I was out at the SnowFlake Nordic Center, run by Olympian George Hovland. I had a great time doing some early season cross-country skiing. See the download from my Garmin and SportTracks software (see my tutorial). Click upon either image to view full sized.

 SnowFlake-1 SnowFlake

After my morning ski it was time to take a hike with my wife along a Lake Superior wilderness trail near Two Harbors, Minnesota. After a nice late lunch, it was time to nerd out in the afternoon and install a new automatic temperature sensor in my Duluth home. LaCrosse Technologies has a very inexpensive internet based humidity / temperature sensor with no management / service fee which sends me an alert by email and text message if the temperature in my home drops under any desired amount (my home is set for a 50 degree warning). My next project over Thanksgiving will be to install a wireless web cam for the home as a security device.

Click upon either image to view full sized.

Probe-2 Probe-1

 

Stat Collecting While it Snows!

Northern Life

The first big snow of the year is starting to come down. Apparently we're due to receive 8+ inches by tomorrow morning. My Nordics Skis are ready to cruise!

After my trail run this morning, I decided to check my stats for the year. I've almost made it across the USA. Google informs me it is 3,400 miles to cross my country at its widest point. I think I'll make the equivalent!

  • Cycling: 4,258 km (47,169 elevation gain)
  • Trail Running: 479 km (21,565 elevation gain)
  • Nordic Skiing: 647 km (26,052 elevation gain)
  • Grand Total: 5,384 km (94,786 feet elevation gain)

If you prefer miles? 3,345! Here's the satellite photo of this morning's Nordic trail run on the Lester / Amity Trails near Lake Superior. (click to maximize)

Amity-Trails