Lee.org

The Institute of Urban Homesteading in Oakland has a lot of cool courses this summer, including my Real Bread in 10 Minutes class :-)

More info and signups at IUHOakland.com

Wow. They did it. And it’s so curiously awesome. I watched for 2 minutes… and then another 2… and then another…. I could watch this the whole thing

Star Wars Uncut

This is long form Sweded moviedom.

(props)

Having a good bike is amazing. Last week, for the first time, I was able to keep up with the uphill 13.5mph green wave on Valencia… with ease!

And today I rode to CPMC Pacific Campus (where I’m doing my hospital volunteering for school and such) in 30 minutes… less time than it would have taken on the BART + shuttle bus. And it was easy.

Hurray!

And here’s a shout-out to the guys at Pedal Revolution who set me up.

I tried Fungavir for my persistent toenail fungus yuckiness. It’s “too good to be true” claims are too good to be true. The website offers vaguely worded claims that it has special ingredients that get under the nail where other products fail. It does not.

It works about as well as any other topical antifungal I’ve used, but it’s more expensive and the advertising is shadier. Don’t buy it.

I’ve written a lot over the years about anti-fungals, take a look. Short form: Most topicals keep the infection at bay but none get under the nail to the root of the problem. Prescription orals sometimes work, sometimes don’t. There’s no reliable cure for nail fungus, this is especially true for topicals. Oral medicines work from the inside-out so you’ve got a better shot at a cure but they aren’t reliable either.

Fungavir’s website is filled with weasel words and hot air. Read some of their ad copy with that in mind:

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There are many discussions about nail fungus going on on my blog. Search my blog for the word “fungus” for more.

Here are some good posters to bring to your next Occupy Wall Street event

There are lots more (and the commentary that goes behind them) at http://wedontmakedemands.org/posters.php

After seeing the GoDaddy Superbowl ad, I have decided to drop them as my domain host provider. Their ads are consistently demeaning to women and that’s not cool.

My subscription is paid up til 2015. I put it on the calendar to drop them in 2014.

For reference, the ad I saw opened with, “This sure is a crazy way to draw attention to .co names from GoDaddy. Who won’t notice a hot model in body paint?”

Here’s a link to the 30 second ad on Youtube. It’s gotten 60 Thumbs-Ups and 200 Thumbs-Downs. It’s not often that soft-porn gets a Thumbs-Down!

local version:

OK Go – Needing/Getting: a music video made with a car

local version:

Holy crap, look at the amazing world we live in and imagine the mind blowing world we are going to live in.

Short form: Take their free online class and “… in seven weeks you’ll learn how to program all the major systems of a robotic car, by the leader of Google and Stanford’s autonomous driving teams.”

Long form: I got this email from the free Stanford Artificial Intelligence class that I signed up for:

Hi Lee Sonko,

Thank you for your interest in AI Class and congratulations to those who
successfully graduated. We were totally amazed that over 23,000 students
made it all the way to the end in a Stanford graduate-level class.

Due to popular demand, we are teaching a follow-up class: AI for
Robotics at www.udacity.com . Also due to popular demand, we now have
a programming environment, so you can develop and test software. Our
goal is to teach you to program a self-driving car in 7 weeks. This
is a topic very close to my heart, and I am eager to share it with
you. (This class builds on the concepts in ai-class, but ai-class is
NOT required).

We are also launching an introduction to programming class, where
students will learn to program a search engine, without any prior
knowledge of programming. This will be great for students new to
computer science.

We are doing this with a new university: Udacity. In the next months,
we will offer an entire computer science curriculum through Udacity,
and offer certification services so that an entire degree can be obtained
online.

I would love to see you in class again! I would also love if you could
help us spread the word and recruit students. Udacity is an experiment
in democratizing education, in making free education available for
everyone in the world. It can only succeed if you join us and help
spread the word.

Sebastian

Here’s a note from JD and Gil at WhatWillYouLearn.com. I’ll be teaching Beetlebots :-)

Hello there!

We’re very excited to announce the next Workshop Weekend!

• WHAT:  Workshop Weekend #3!
• WHEN:  March 17-18, 2012
• WHERE:  Tech Liminal, Oakland
• Want to teach?  Visit  http://whatwillyoulearn.com/teach
• Suggest a workshop:  http://whatwillyoulearn.com/#suggest

Our next weekend of soldering, programming, building, crafting and exploring is coming up in just six short weeks —  March 17th and 18th at Tech Liminal in Oakland.

 

Interested in teaching?

We just opened teacher registration this week. If you’re interested in teaching, or know someone who might be, send them to our website at  http://whatwillyoulearn.com/

The deadline to sign up is  Wednesday, February 15, just twelve days away! Sign up even if you don’t have a perfect idea for a workshop — we’ll work with you to develop your vision into a great workshop.

 

Want to take workshops?

We’ve got commitments from teachers for a few old favorite workshops — including  Arduino,Sewing with Electronics, and  Electroluminescent Wire Sculpture  — and we’re adding a few new frequently-requested workshops, including  Programming,  Robotics,  Web Development, and  Lockpicking.

If you’d like to see a new workshop, but haven’t told us about it yet, let us know! Fill out our workshop suggestion form:  http://whatwillyoulearn.com/#suggest

We’ll send another email when student registration is open, in about two weeks. In the meantime, be sure to save  March 17-18!

 

Happy 2012, and see you in March!

Cheers,
J.D. and Gil

I just flew back from Boston and boy are my arms tired!

I went to a big reunion at a hotel and had a blast. Moreso, I saw friends I hadn’t seen in 7… 10… 12 years! Thank you Trav, Julie, Luke, Molls, and Adam! And thank you to everyone else who hugged me shouting, “Where have you been! I missed you!”

Luke and I at Dunks* in Woburn Center! That’s a -real- Boston Cream donut in my hand. (We also went to this pretty kick-ass Brazilian meat place)

*Dunkin’ Donuts, our last, best hope for coffee**

** Hat tip to Babylon 5