Monthly Archives: March 2011

Reality is Confusing My Fiction

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You may remember from episode 41 of Just Shoot Me! (“How the Finch Stole Christmas”) that there is no man named J. Crew. Yeah, I’m citing that a reference and I’m doing no further research on the matter.

Maya Gallo: [Nina comes wearing casual wear] Nina, look at you!
Nina Van Horn: You’ll never guess who I met last night. J. Crew!
Maya Gallo: Huh?
Nina Van Horn: Yes, Maya, there is a J. Crew. And he helped me rediscover the true spirit of casual wear. I walked to work, and I was warm and comfortable in a way I haven’t felt since I was a little girl.
Maya Gallo: But…
Nina Van Horn: I know you don’t believe me, but J. Crew lives inside each and every one of us.
Maya Gallo: Nina, I called the company, and you were right. There is no J. Crew. There never was. He doesn’t exist.
Nina Van Horn: Then who the hell did I sleep with last night?

Of course there is a company called J. Crew.  A rather big one – 12,000 employees, $1.5B in revenues, over 300 stores.

Remember J. Peterman from Seinfeld? He was Elaine’s boss and ran a clothing company based in New York that parodied J. Crew. The character was played by John O’Hurley.

Well there is a clothing company called The J. Peterman Company (although it’s based in Lexington, Kentucky, not New York City) and it was founded by a J. Peterman. Actor John O’Hurley is an investor in the company.

Android Apps

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Someone asked me what Android Apps I’m using, so here’s the list:

Utilities
Advanced Task Killer – Argue about the need for a task killer if that makes you happy, but I get a lot more battery life with it.
Barcode Scanner – Mostly for scanning QR codes.
Big App Show – A daily show about Android apps.
Bubble – A level.
Compass – Just a compass.
Dropbox – Must have for dropbox users. And you should be a dropbox user.
Firefox – Still in beta, but it’s really good. Better than the native browser.
JuiceDefender – Saves your battery life. Really works.

Games
Angry Birds & Angry Birds Seasons – Kill pigs with birds. Makes sense, right?
Bubble Buster – Ever play Snood? Same game.
Unblock Me – Slide little blocks to get them off the board.
Need For Speed: Shift – Not free, but it was worth the $4.

Entertainment/News
Pulse – Awesome RSS reader built for touch. Would be even better on a tablet.
Google Reader – Counterpart to the website.
NY Times – All the news that’s fit to tweet.
CNET News – Tech news.
IMDb – Search IMDb while you’re watching TV. “What was this guy in?”
Amazon Kindle – Syncs with the Kindle automatically. Pretty awesome.
Google Books – Like the Kindle app, but from Google.
Pandora – Plays music.
ESPN ScoreCenter – Tracks your favorite teams automatically.
tv.com – Great when you have a wi-fi connection. From CBS.
Winamp – Plays everything, syncs with desktop.

Other Stuff
Google Earth – Like the desktop application.
Google Sky Maps - Show off to people who don’t have smartphones.
Google Latitude – Get stalked.
DISH Remote Access – DVR management. A little buggy.
Evernote – Note taking tool. Syncs with website and desktop application.
Google Listen – Podcatcher. Not great, but I don’t know of a better one.
Photoshop Express - Simple photo editing.
Radar Now – Just local radar. Nothing more. Great little app.
Google Shopper - Never really used it.
TweetCaster – Twitter app, also posts to Facebook. The best Twitter app for Android.
Twitter – Official app. Not as good as TweetCaster.
Google Voice – Must have if you have a GV account.
Weather Bug – Has a widget and a notification bar feature that doesn’t work.
Wordpress – Blog management

Best of Podiobooks, Part 2

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Here it is, the long-awaiting follow-up to my wildly popular Best of Podiobooks, Part 1.

Golden Age of the Solar Clipper by Nathan Lowell - Science Fiction
Trader Tales 1: Quarter Share
Trader Tales 2: Half Share
Trader Tales 3: Full Share
Trader Tales 4: Double Share
Trader Tales 5: Captains Share
Trader Tales 6: Owners Share
 Shaman Tales 1: South Coast
I rarely reread (or listen) to books, and I’ve never reread entire series before. The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper will soon become the first series I’ve read (listened to) twice.

The Vatican Assassin Trilogy by Mike Luoma - Science Fiction
Vatican Assassin
Vatican Ambassador
Vatican Abdicator
Alibi Jones
Another brilliant series. It’s amazing that this stuff is free. I was originally just intrigued by the title, but I quickly got sucked in to the story.

Ancestor by Scott Sigler – Science Fiction
I don’t know how this didn’t make the first list, but I’m kind of glad it didn’t so I get to include a Scott Sigler book here. Sigler’s is the only horror I read. Sci-Fi-Horror.

65 Below by Basil Sands – Fiction
When I finished this one I immediately bought the Kindle version, which is apparently a bit different. I haven’t read it yet.

This list feels a little shorter than Part 1, but I think if you add up the total listening time it’s pretty close. Guys like Bill DeSmedt, J.C. Hutchins, Scott Sigler, Mike Luoma, and Nathan Lowell have set the bar so high it’s hard to justify putting stories I thought were just “good” on a Best Of list.

As I said last time, if you enjoy these books support the author and keep a good thing going by donating through the Podiobooks page. The author gets 75%.

2.5% of Jiu Jitsu

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In The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman author Timothy Ferriss says,

To  be  perceived  as  fluent  in  conversational  Spanish, for  example, you  need an active vocabulary of approximately 2,500 high-frequency words. This will allow you to comprehend more than 95% of all conversation. To get to 98% comprehension would require at least five years of practice instead of five months. Doing the math, 2,500 words is a mere 2.5% of the estimated 100,000 words in the Spanish language.

This means:
1.  2.5% of the total subject matter provides 95% of the desired results.
2. This same 2.5% provides just 3% less benefit than putting in 12 times as much effort.

This incredibly valuable 2.5% is  the key, the Archimedes lever, for  those who want the best results in the least time. The trick is finding that 2.5%.

Where else does this apply? Is there a 2.5% of Jiu Jitsu that will handle 95% of the situations you end up in on the mats?

I believe there is, but like he said the trick is finding that 2.5%.