General

So I Started Counting My Steps

Posted on January 4, 2014January 1, 2014 by Sam Kornstein in General

My brother gave me a Fitbit One for my birthday back in August. I was initially skeptical about where or not I’d find it useful, and actually didn’t even start using it until 3 weeks ago. It’s an activity tracker, which essentially logs daily steps walked and stairs climbed using an accelerometer. It’s less accurate than GPS based apps such as RunKeeper, but the benefit is that you just keep in on a belt or in my case in a pocket, and it just passively logs what you do. And the USB-based rechargeable battery lasts about a week. I was skeptical because while this type of information might initially be interesting, it doesn’t really serve much of a long-term purpose

One Month Rails Update

Posted on January 3, 2014January 1, 2014 by Sam Kornstein in General

As previously mentioned, I’ve begun the One Month Rails course to learn a little bit about coding. Unfortunately, given some time constraints, it’s looking more like it will be a Three Month Rails course. I’m about a third of the way in, and so far, I like it a lot. The quality isn’t impressive, the narrator isn’t too polished, and there are lots of small mistakes or oversights (especially for PC users), but the method is great. It’s much more practice than theory, providing only the necessary context, while putting focus on resources, tools, frameworks, etc that are necessary to build applications (e.g., using GitHub). The benefit of this approach is that within less than an hour, you already have

How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk

Posted on December 29, 2013December 29, 2013 by Sam Kornstein in General

The NYT has a brief survey that seems to be effective at predicting the origin of the way you speak. Not surprisingly, mine shows up as just generic Boston/NY/NJ. Interestingly, a friend who’s from Tennessee, but spent a good portion of his childhood in Europe around a fairly diverse community of English speakers, was told his dialect’s origin is a mix of Northern Tennessee (the exact region he’s from), the Midwest, and San Francisco. The latter two likely being s lot of what he picked up in Europe. He was very impressed that it was able to tease out the specific Tennessee portion. It seemed to work very well for his family as well. If you have a few minutes,

Regional Differences in Words for Things, Like Beer

Posted on December 5, 2013December 5, 2013 by Sam Kornstein in General

Via Chartporn: ‘Beer’: Not to be confused with ‘Bear’: ‘Tea’: More here. I thought ‘Pineapple’ was interesting, as I hadn’t realized English and Spanish are the outiers.

Tyler Cowen on Black Friday Economics

Posted on November 29, 2013November 29, 2013 by Sam Kornstein in General

From 2011, but still relevant: In fact it seems that early December has in general the cheapest prices of the year, not Black Friday. Dare I suggest that some people like waiting in those lines with their thermos cups and stale bagels. You could try to argue they are “forced to do so,” to get the bargains, but in a reasonably competitive world each outlet will (roughly) try to maximize the consumer surplus from visiting the store, including the experience of waiting in line.

Texas Venison Sausage

Posted on November 29, 2013November 29, 2013 by Sam Kornstein in General

Happy thanksgiving from Austin.

Trendy on a Budget

Posted on November 24, 2013November 24, 2013 by Sam Kornstein in General

My good friend Linda Nguyen was featured and interviewed in today’s Boston Globe for her ‘Trendy on a Budget’ blog and Instagram feed. “At first glance, 32-year-old South Boston resident Linda Nguyen appears to be your average compliance specialist at a financial services company. She’s engaged, dotes on her precious Yorkshire terrier, and has an obsession with fried chicken and travel. But take a closer look at her fashion choices and it’s clear we’re not dealing with just any financial services employee. Nguyen loves to hunt down bargains and then share (OK, brag about) them on her blog. Which could only mean one thing: She’s our Instagram style star of the week.” A few good lines from Linda: “Over the years, Bentley (my

Lightroom 5 Preset: Wild West

Posted on October 19, 2013April 13, 2017 by Sam Kornstein in General, Lightroom 5 Presets, Photography

Here’s my eleventh free Lightroom 5 preset, Wild West. I’d put it in the vintage photo category — it adds subtle sephia overtones and dulls the saturation. It seems to work best when there’s a subject in the foreground. It’s great for shots of people as well. Here are some examples: Here’s the download: Lightroom 5 Preset: Wild West To install it in Lightroom, simply right click any preset, select import, and then select the downloaded preset file.

Hatch

Posted on October 17, 2013October 17, 2013 by Sam Kornstein in General

My good friend, Mr. Scott Sigel, has a hand in this great company. They recently rebranded and were written up in TechCrunch today: Makeably, the New York-based, custom-made goods marketplace that closed on seed funding from Great Oaks, 500 Startups and others earlier this year is now relaunching under a new, easier-to-remember name: Hatch. Alongside the rebranding, the company has also evolved the process by which consumers tweak and “remix” the products offered for sale. The site, founded by ex-Googlers Ryan Hayward and Anastasia Leng, is similar to CustomMade in that it’s an attempt to connect everyday shoppers with artisans capable of producing custom goods. But this summer, Hatch (then Makeably), made a slight shift to differentiate itself somewhat from its competitors. Leng explained that the majority of shoppers looking

You Don’t Have to Suffer Through Bad Meetings

Posted on October 5, 2013October 5, 2013 by Sam Kornstein in General

A very true post from my friend Adam Sigel: The other day my friend Max was asking how to have better meetings. He’s a bright guy, so I was sort of surprised that the obvious answer evaded him: have an agenda and share it in advance. As our conversation continued, I realized that his problem was not functional but procedural. Max is among the countless people who have bad meetings thrust upon them by others. He was wondering how to impart change in someone else’s domain. Anyone invited to a meeting has the ability to improve it and the right to skip it. If someone sends an invitation without an agenda, ask for one. No one will be upset. You’ll be surprised