Ryminate

Microblogging

Usually there are several times throughout the day when I think, "I ought to blog about this." Unfortunately, there are a finite number of hours in the day and blogging often gets bumped off the to-do list.

Enter the microblog. Just to the left of the main content on my blog I've inserted a microblog--short posts of a sentence or two that I usually post from my Blackberry. To set this up I use a combination of the Twitter widget on the blog and then Twitterberry on the Blackberry. It's been great to be able to shoot off a quick update or thought a few times a day as opposed to writing a regular blog post.

If you're interested in following my microblog (as if you needed more noise in your life) you can do so via Twitter or RSS.

How a Pocket Audit Saved Me From the Man-Purse

A few days ago I decided I was carrying around too much junk in my pockets. It was getting uncomfortable, and it probably looked even worse--especially in dress pants. While my pocket inventory consisted only of a wallet and keyring, both were getting out of control. It was either simplify, or spring for the man purse; I chose the former.

I began the simplification process by doing a pocket audit. My wallet was a leather, tri-fold model full of membership cards, punchcards, business cards, gift cards, notes, receipts, etc. (i.e., it was a fatty). My keyring had several keys on it that I only used periodically, a sentimental knickknack, a broken usb drive, and the keyless entry fob for my car.

After taking an inventory, I decided to strip down to the bare essentials (See picture). The wallet became a binder clip holding my driver's license; two debit cards--one work, one personal; and some cash. The keyring was downsized to two car keys, an office key, a house key, and a new usb drive (containing PortableApps for the geeks out there).

After making these changes I've been DELIGHTED with the difference. So far I haven't missed any of the extra inventory. I admit, I was a bit apprehensive about going without keyless entry for my car, but it's really not that big of a deal. It's amazing to me how small simplifications in my life can pay such large dividends.

The inspiration for this change was ZenHabits, a great resource on simple productivity.

Spc. Howell at the Broncos-Packers Game

A few weeks ago my brother serving in the Army in Iraq emailed us to say he would be on the jumbotron at the Broncos-Packers football game. Tickets were sent to our family to attend the game and me, my dad, and my two other brothers all ended up going. We had little idea that we would also be on the jumbotron, but when we arrived at our seats midway through the first quarter Miles the Broncos mascot and the cameras were all waiting. Check it out:

Doing Good Via the Internet

What do you do on the Internet? Me... a lot! I do email (gmail, Exchange), read a TON (mostly via Google Reader) , connect with people (LinkedIn, Facebook), do research, check the weather (SimpleWeather), listen to music (Pandora), watch TV, chat (Meebo), talk (Skype), build my family tree (Geni), blog and more.

While these things are all good, (like Google, I try not to be evil on the Internet), if I'm honest with myself these things are pretty self-interested activities. I guess I do send get well emails from time to time, or make charitable donations via the Internet, but I could certainly be better at using  the Internet to "do good."

Here are two great opportunities to "do good" on the Internet, each of which only take a few minutes:

1. Let'sSayThanks - Regardless of your position on the current Iraq mess, you have to give it up for our troops. They are loyal and courageous despite the tough situation. Let's Say Thanks is a site that allows you to send a free printed postcard to U.S. military personal serving abroad. Take two minutes and do this. On a personal note my brother and his new wife are both stationed in Baghdad, he on his second tour. They are both Army combat medics so they see the worst of the worst. I love catching them from time to time on Gmail chat--cool, huh.
2. FreeRice - Want to brush up on your vocabulary and at the same time do something good? Go to FreeRice.com and you will be quizzed on your English vocabulary. If you click on the correct answer you donate 10 grains of rice to those in need. The rice is paid for by corporate sponsors. This site is simple, fun, and good. (Maybe StartupWeekend should take a look at doing something good like this. Andrew...?).

Let me know if you have any other cool ways to "do good" on the Internet.

Passive Shopping on CraigsList

This week I bought a bike on CraigsList. It was an incredibly easy thing to do because of RSS (if you don't know what RSS is, click through to this great explanation).

Here's how I bought my bike:

1. I decided I might be interested in buying a new bike at the right price.
2. I did a search under the "bikes"  category on CraigsList for "60cm." ("60cm" is the bike size my lanky frame requires).
3. There were a few results, but nothing of particular interest. Thankfully, CraigsList provides an RSS feed for this specific search. I copied the RSS feed, (provided in the lower right corner of the search results screen), and then loaded it into my feedreader. From that moment on, anytime a bike with "60cm" in the description was posted on Craigslist, my feedreader pinged me.
4. So I went on with my life, and every few days or so a 60cm bike showed up in my feedreader.
5. The above 60cm bike showed up this week, I called the buyer, and arranged to buy it for a bargain price.

Traditionally, to get this kind of deal I would have had to scour the classifieds at least daily, and then race other  potential  buyers  to close the deal. Now, I use RSS and as soon as a posting is made, I get a ping. This is how I bought my office whiteboard, my car, and could very well be how I buy a house. I love when technology makes a normally labor intensive task a breeze.

Countries With Universal Healthcare

(Click map for a larger view). This reminds me of the "Nations Who Have Not Yet Adopted the Metric System" map. My mom used to say, "Just because everyone's doing it, doesn't make it right." I agree. Plus, not everyone is doing it. There's Africa, Iran, and North Korea (among others).

Ryminate

I am in the process of changing the title of my blog from "Crossing the Rubicon" to "Ryminate". I originally used "Crossing the Rubicon" because I love the meaning behind the phrase. From Wikipedia:

The Rubicon river is notable as Roman law forbade any general from crossing it with an army. The river was considered to mark the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul to the north and Italy proper to the south; the law thus protected the republic from internal military threat. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC, supposedly on January 10 of the Roman calendar, to make his way to Rome he broke that law and made armed conflict inevitable. According to Suetonius he uttered the famous phrase ālea iacta est ("the die is cast").^[2]

Suetonius also described how Caesar was apparently still undecided as he approached the river, and the author gave credit for the actual moment of crossing to a supernatural apparition. The phrase "crossing the Rubicon" has survived to refer to any people committing themselves irrevocably to a risky and revolutionary course of action – similar to the current phrase "passing the point of no return".

I love that. Nonetheless, I am going to file away my domain rubiconventures.com for later use and go with ryminate.com for the blog. "Ryminate" is derived from Ryan's ruminations. A bit corny I know, but I'm OK with corny. "Ruminate" is a great word that means "to chew over; reflect deeply on a subject." Also, a "ruminant" is "an animal that digests its food in two steps, first by eating the raw material and regurgitating a semi-digested form known as cud, then eating (chewing) the cud, a process called ruminating." I think that's a great image of what I do mentally with the stuff I post. (I'm half kidding).

Over the next little while I'll be changing the header, changing the domain mapping, updating some links, etc. Hopefully I won't break anything.

(Oh and yes I did use the Web 2.0 logo generator for the current Ryminate logo :).

Tour de France 2007 Google Mashup Map

For those following the Tour de France this year sans Lance, Ubilabs has put together an impressive Google mashup map of each stage. This mashup allows you to follow each stage LIVE, displaying the exact position, heart rate, cadence, speed, and power of the racing cyclists on an interactive map. Most impressive!

New Baby

Just when I had built up some momentum blogging, my wife and I had a baby. Yep, this past Saturday we had a baby girl 2.5 weeks early. Everything went very well for both mom and baby. I joked with my wife that I could live-blog the whole event since they had wireless internet at the hospital. Maybe next time.

Beautiful Internet... Beautiful Caselaw?

Check out this gorgeous map of the Internet, compiled by researchers studying the Web's connectivity. The dense nodes in the center represent the core of the Web through which most traffic flows. The study's novel finding: Taking away these core connections wouldn't crash the net. The 'mantle' and 'crust' of connections would keep humming, albeit a little slower, through peer-to-peer connections. Furthermore, the increased use of peer-to-peer communications could improve the overall capacity of the Internet and make it run much more smoothly. More BitTorrent will save the Internet? Hmm...

Findings aside, I think this is an intriguing picture. But is it art? I think so. Being a lawyer, I think would also be very interesting to be able to graphically represent a particular case. The center would represent a particular decision (e.g., Brown vs. the Board of Education), and then it would be linked to all decisions cited in the decision (i.e., precedents), as well as all cases which subsequently cite the decision. If there's anyone out there that is interested in pursuing this I'd love to have a picture of a few cases on my wall.