Instead of pharmacology enhancing psychology, psychology is enhancing placebos

The pharmacy industry is investing heavily to develop new psych drugs. At the same time, it is investing heavily to promote and advertise old psych drugs. Placebos are becoming stronger, perhaps because Big Pharma is convincing us that drugs can cure anything.

Joel on Software Articles Worth Reading

I've started boning up on software engineering and programming leadership reading. As I find articles worth reading, I'll post them here.

• Software engineering methods everyone should use
• Why a solid CS grounding matters
• Making Wrong Code Look Wrong
• Evidence Based Scheduling
• What a program manager actually does
• All abstractions leak

Apocalyptic visions and crotch kittens

One link to scare you and make you think, with lots of interesting explanations of the end of the world as we know it (or at least the US).
One link to make you laugh, as science teaches us how to attract women's attention through the careful placement of a kitten.

Roombas of Doom

Samantha Bee interviews iRobot CEO Colin Angle.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Future Shock - Roombas of Doom

Daily Show Full Episodes

Watch to the end for a terrifying view into the future of robotics...

robots.net - Japan's Most Pointless Robot

Is there anything more pointless than the most pointless robots in Japan? Also, I've got to visit Japan one day, before they hit the singularity...

Real Life Super-Hero Wannabes

People are actually dressing up in costumes and fighting crime (found here). This makes me think of the brilliant Mystery Men.

How to export GMail Contact Phone Numbers to T-Mobile Contacts

On my first try, exporting my contacts as csv or vcf to the T-Mobile Contacts didn't quite work. It imported the names, home numbers, and home emails. After mucking with the VCF file some and reading the VCF standard for telephone numbers, I was able to get it to work.
This is how to do it properly:

1. In GMail, go to the Contacts link on the left, then the Export link on the upper right of the box.
2. Export a group of contacts (I made a new group for my wife's contacts) as the vCard format (this is a .vcf file).
3. Open the .vcf file in an editor.
   
4. Replace TYPE=CELL with TYPE=cell,pref,voice,home on all Cell numbers. This allowed T-Mobile to parse the numbers as "Personal Mobile" numbers
   
5. Replace EMAIL;TYPE=INTERNET with EMAIL;TYPE=INTERNET;TYPE=HOME for all home emails, to T-Mobile would parse them as "Personal Emails".
6. Save the .vcf file
7. In my.T-Mobile.com, choose Contacts, then Import contacts from another address book
8. On the next page ("Get Contacts from Other Address Books"), choose "VCF File" and then Browse to find your .vcf file you edited.
9. Click "Upload and Preview", glance over the data to make sure it all looks good, then click "Add selected contacts to my address book".
10. On the phone, I went to Settings > Synchronization > Sync Now, although I'm sure if I waited it would have worked.
    
    

This is on my wife's Samsung T-339. On my new Android phone, I didn't need to do anything except add phone numbers I hadn't copied into my GMail contacts. It just worked and I had my GMail address book including phone numbers auto-magically within 5 minutes of powering the phone on for the first time. More impressive, this was about 2 days before I actually signed up for phone service.

I have seen the future, and it's ubiquitous

ps. Oh yeah, I have a blog!

A few places I've been lately

Lake Tahoe


Disneyland


Table Mountain, South Africa


Cape Town, South Africa


Cape of Good Hope and Penguins


Stellenbosch


Blyde River Canyon


Gomo Gomo


More to come...

You might be in Sillycon Valley, Pt I

You might be in Sillycon Valley when you're on the light rail, with your bike, on your way to your high tech job, checking your e-mail and posting to your blog, all while sitting across from a guy with a Segway on the train.

We don't need no stinking badgers

Sometimes the blog posts just write themselves. I quote the NYTimes: "Many residents of Basra have convinced themselves that the British Army has loosed savage cattle-eating badgers onto its unsuspecting populace as a final gesture of ill intent." I quote the British military spokeman: “Of course we categorically deny that we have released badgers into Basra." I have nothing to add.

And in other news, robots are cool.

This guy has hypnotic and fascinating wind-powered walking robots:

glumbert.com - Kinetic Sculpture

This AAAI '07 video pretty much mirrors my experience with Grace. I didn't use profanity in my very public appearance, but the NYTimes did report I was arguing with the robot.

Brave New World

Nothing much going on here. Since my last post, we've:

1. Finished residency and grad school.
2. Taken a three week vacation in Tahoe and the Pacific Northwest.
3. Packed and moved out of a spare bedroom, an apartment, and a storage facility into an apartment and two storage facilities. [1]
   
4. Started new jobs at interesting places.
5. Entered into contract on a house.

So pretty much business as usual, in other words.

[1] S would like to note we're not sleeping in either storage facility, as that's illegal, as is storing dead bodies.

Symphony of Construction

Continuing on with the musical theme, check out Maestro Woody Phillips leading a symphony of wood-working tools, playing a classical piece by Bizet:


PS. Life proceeds apace. Theoretically, I'm in the middle of a month trip to Austin, but I have two flights back to San Jose for jobs in that span. S just accepted a position in the South Bay, so that narrows my job search. Everything's still up in the air, but I have some good leads.

Beauty Squandered is a Sin

Most buskers aren't world-class musicians like this guy playing a Stradivarius in a DC Metro station. But I've heard some pretty good ones on BART, the Metro, and other various subways and common spaces. I hope I would have stopped to listen to Josh Bell, who performed the music in The Red Violin. Usually I listen a bit to buskers, just because I can't help but listen to background music and read odd bits of text. Other times, I'm the guy in a hurry or listening to my iPod or just plain oblivious.

I'm vowing to give to the street performers whose music I enjoy. (Image from Flickr of an unrelated musician.)