I've started a new gig working with Lumos Labs. They have a web site Lumosity which provides Brain Training (aka Brain Exercises or Brain Games) that keeps your thinking muscles in shape. I worked with them earlier as a consultant but it looks like I'll be switching to full time Director of Engineering in April when Mie, Tesla and I get back from South America (I've alread arranged great apartments in Lima and Buenos Aires). The vacation is a last blast before descending back into the regular full time employee world that I haven't been in since quiting my startup company in 2004.
Anyhow, the brain games are pretty fun, and there's a lot of science behind their efficacy. You should check them out. My favorites are Raindrops, Word Bubbles and Memory Match. The games are designed to improve four cognitive areas: Memory, Attention, Processing Speed and Cognitive Control. It's nice to know that there's some healthy stuff going on, but they are also fun to play and enough of a challenge to give you real satisfaction as you improve.
This is my new desktop image on my workstation: Brain storming.
I grew up in a Marine Corps town, instilled with a fierce sense of patriotism. I was proud to be part of the United States of America, the greatest nation on Earth. Not great because of our military power, but because of our values. We stood against tyranny. We stood for human rights. We rescued the world from the Nazis. We aided victims of disasters caused by either Man or Nature. We would gladly suffer ourselves to right a wrong, to help others. We were the heroes. From a very young age I believed we were perhaps the most morally evolved people humanity had ever seen. I still tear up when I hear patriotic songs.
As an adult I know that the pure version of that fantasy was false even before I was born, but what I felt inside myself was real. If I felt this way, so also some of my fellow countrymen did as well. The fantasy isn't wholly impossible. We can, as a nation, approach these high ideals and behaviors. We can evolve morally in a more just, a more heroic direction. It hasn't turned out that way though. Today I don't tear up with pride when I hear patriotic songs, I tear up with grief. I am ashamed to be an American.
This film from Amnesty International shows a performance artist subjecting himself to a typical CIA enhanced interrogation technique, called "stress position." Prisoners are forced to stand for many hours in positions that cause extreme muscle fatigue. They are told that the floor is electrified, or that they will be shot if they fail to stay in position. The man in the video is not acting, he actually did this for six hours and his response is real. Two more films showcasing other methods are forthcoming. Ask yourself. Is this who we are? Is this what you asked your government to do for you?
I've put out three new loans on Kiva.org. These are small amounts (about $25 each this time) pooled together with other lenders to constitue loans that range from a couple of hundred dollars to a thousand. The loans are given to small business people in developing countries and paid off over a year or two. Here are my recipients this time around:
Lole has a convenience store in Samoa that she's been running for 4 years. She got a $300 loan to expand the shop and inventory.
Hannah has a plantation business in Samoa. She got a $475 loan to buy equipment for the business. If all goes well, she plans on getting another loan after this one is paid off to help her daughter go to University.
Irène is a hairdresser and will use a $1000 loan to add beauty supply inventory that her customers have asked for.
This morning I tried signing up at three Virtual Assistant companies. These are companies that will do pretty much anything you can do over the Internet or on the phone. Prices range from $7-20/hour. Usually the tasks are completed by English-speakers in India. At two of them (AskSunday and GetFriday), errors on the website prevented me from signing up. This doesn't give me much confidence in their abilities or professionalism. The third (and most expensive, as it is more geared towards business research) is Brickwork India and their sign up process seems to be OK so far.
Update: Steven Ludmer, a co-founder for AskSunday, wrote me back in about an hour to thank me for alerting them to the problem and to let me know it had been fixed. I've completed the sign up process now and will report back sometime on how I feel the service is working out. They have a referral program, so if you decide to sign up be sure to put my name (Dav Yaginuma) in your referral field.
Call your congress critters and support HR 811!
HR 811 features several requirements that will warm the hearts of geek activists. It bans the use of computerized voting machines that lack a voter-verified paper trail. It mandates that the paper records be the authoritative source in any recounts, and requires prominent notices reminding voters to double-check the paper record before leaving the polling place. It mandates automatic audits of at least three percent of all votes cast to detect discrepancies between the paper and electronic records. It bans voting machines that contain wireless networking hardware and prohibits connecting voting machines to the Internet. Finally, it requires that the source code for e-voting machines be made publicly available.
I've been posting to a separate blog over at Vox for a few months now. It has seemed to have evolved to where I tend to post technical and more pensive matters here at AkuAku and use the Vox system for quick postings of random things.
I like Vox. We would have gone to the launch party if Mie had checked her email in time.I wish it had more advanced user features, but it's very good as a hassle-free blogging system.
Anyhow, I just wanted to point out that for those handful of folks who would be interested in more fequent postings from me, there's a better site to watch. The feed is http://dav.vox.com/library/posts/atom.xml