Brian's Life

PWA pics

2008-03-31T14:55:00.000-07:00

http://picasaweb.google.com/bdot.02/BriansWedding
http://picasaweb.google.com/lenchikster/JessicaAndBrianMarch8th2008
http://picasaweb.google.com/philip.vargas/RoadTripToSFBrianJessicaSWedding

Wedding pics

2008-03-26T09:37:00.001-07:00

The most useful page on renting in SF

2007-10-16T00:53:00.000-07:00

This page has several useful links, one of the best of which is http://www.metrorent.com

Unsubscribe from Valpak savings junk mail

2007-04-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

Cox Target Media aka ValPak Savings : Mailing Removal Request Form

Another way to seek victory over the paper junk in your mailbox... Fill out this form.
Make sure to try as many variations of your address as you can come up with!

Unsubscribe from ADVO

2007-04-17T22:20:00.000-07:00

Unsubscribe from ADVO aka Shopwise

If you're getting junk mail that comes with a "Have you seen these children?" card, it's coming from ADVO. Here's their unsubscribe site. Good luck. I'm convinced they'll only take you off the list if you send them a court order. I've tried calling and just found this form tonight. Calling didn't work. Hopefully this form will!

Almost April Fools...

2007-03-28T14:33:00.001-07:00

http://maps.google.com/?q=Mountain+View+to+Zurich

From Mountain View to Zurich - read closely and you'll see...
36. Swim across the Atlantic Ocean 3,462 mi

Official Google Blog: Google Pack cures the PC blues

2007-03-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

Official Google Blog: Google Pack cures the PC blues
Try out the new screensaver!

Merry Christmas searches

2006-12-18T14:52:00.000-08:00

http://www.google.com/search?q=christmas

Thanks to Googlified

A hybrid can save you money

2006-12-14T11:05:00.000-08:00

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2006/12/my_hybrid_saved.html

Corporate sex-offenders

2006-12-14T10:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.perverted-justice.com/index.php?pg=cso

The fate of the electric vehicle

2006-12-12T00:13:00.000-08:00

It's important to try to stay somewhat aware of what's going around in the corporate world around us. One of my major concerns of late has been the environment and the energy crisis that all countries will soon face. To that end, I've started to do some research about the electric vehicle that GM developed in the late '90s, trying to dig up what happened, why they shredded the vehicles, and where the patent for the batteries went.

While I'd love to assemble some sort of synthesis of the data, it makes more sense to put together a list of references that have tried to shine some light into the dark world of big oil.

For starters, here's a sort-of-sloppy site http://www.ev1.org/ which, honestly, looks like a conspiracy-theorist gone wild. Give it a chance. The site claims that mutual funds owning 42% of GM own more than 10x that market share in oil companies, and had a strong incentive to use this controlling position in GM to shut down the electric vehicle. While I don't hasten to believe that it's a matter of collusion among Wall Street mavens, I can't help but see that big oil has a strong interest in having the EV silenced. Billions, nay trillions, are on the line here. Of course, on the other hand, so are the glaciers in Montana's Glacier National Park.

Next, take some time to do a search on the US Patent & Trade Office's website and notice that numerous patents on NiMH battery technology are held by a company in Michigan called Ovonic Battery Company, Inc. or Texaco Ovonic Battery Company, Inc.Here's The Motley Fool's assessment of Ovonic, a company that has been sitting on NiMH battery patents. While they take a rather technically pessimistic slant, others suggest that sitting on these patents genuinely hurts progress.

A one-year old post to Americans for Energy Independence talks about the beneficial effects that could be realized from moving from oil-based energy to solar- and electric-based energy.

Toshiba has developed a battery that uses nanotechnology to recover as much as 80% of its full capacity within a minute.

What we are seeing is a convergence of the technology that is needed to turn the electric vehicle into a reality. All that is needed now is a "good" company that's willing to make some money off of a good thing - that is, helping America to achieve energy independence... A place not constrained by the legacy of big oil or deep-seated greed and uncertainty. Hopefully we'll see these vehicles hitting the road soon.

More links:
Doug Korthof, a leading EV spokesman (interview)

DontCrush, promoting plug-in cars

Tesla, demonstrating EV can be hot... Get yours for only $92k

Phoenix MotorCars, another company on the cusp

Chevron's press release, re: Ovonic

What's the riddle in "The Riddle"?

2006-12-10T23:16:00.000-08:00

I listen to the radio a fair amount and the song "The Riddle" [lyrics] [block that page's pop-ups with Google Toolbar] by Five For Fighting has come on frequently of late. Now, I don't often think about songs I hear on the radio, but last time I heard this one I started thinking about the lyrics.
"The Riddle" as a whole seems to be (and is, according to FFF's myspace page) a message of love from a father to his son, painting a picture of close personal moments with their children that I think many fathers aspire to...

Yet he also touches unflinchingly on the personal. The CD's debut single "The Riddle" is a song he wrote for his children, while the companion video features his beloved blue Mustang (a car passed down to John from his father and the inspiration for the song "65 Mustang). Says John of the single, "A lot of my songs touch on mortality, but at its heart it's a love song from a father to his son." [link]

This aspect of the song nearly brings tears to my eyes, because it reflects a part of the father I hope someday to be. While this is a nice explanation of the meaning as a whole, I still can't help but get put off by the shallowness of some answers to the question "What's the riddle?"
So I ask: Is there a riddle other than pondering "the reason for the world" contained in the song? And if so, is there an answer deeper than "You and I"? And if not, what did some of those other 100 drafts look like?

The Loafer Principle

2006-12-07T00:44:00.000-08:00

A book my uncle wrote, and an enjoyable read.

Order one today :) at http://loaferman.googlepages.com/home

Props to a good post

2006-12-08T12:30:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to increase the visibility of this post about using WiX to write an installer, and how to make it easily upgradeable.
http://blogs.msdn.com/johnls/archive/2006/11/13/how-to-upgrade-software-with-a-windows-installer-package.aspx

Quicktime

2006-12-03T23:01:00.000-08:00

One thing that Apple never seems to get right with quicktime:
REMEMBER MY PREFERENCES AND DON'T SHOW ME THE CLUTTERY SYSTRAY ICON!!!!

I don't care if you wipe out all my preferences when you install a new version, if you'll keep that one preference set.

Bilingual Education - Anderson Cooper 360° Blog

2006-10-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

CNN.com - Anderson Cooper 360° Blog - Bilingual Education

Several of the comments I've seen in the CNN discussion observe that bilingual education is very important in numerous countries, including most of Europe. There are two flaws with using this argument to support Spanish-language elementary education.

The first relates to size. Europe is so small and tightly knit that knowing two or three languages is nearly essential to doing business on the continent. Compare this to the US, where English is the de facto standard of business.

The second flaw with this argument is the implicit assumption that these students are learning both languages. If 90% of teaching is in Spanish, and 100% of home life is in Spanish, the chances of a student learning English well are dwarfingly small.

That said, it is clear that teaching only English will overwhelm and, in many cases, put Spanish-speaking students permanently behind their English-speaking counterparts.

What is perhaps more appropriate is to provide classes in Spanish and phase these out gradually, but firmly. That is, students should be taught in Spanish for a few years, but during those years, they will be put on an aggressive English-teaching program. As they gain proficiency in English, an increasing portion of their classes will be taught in English, starting with reading, writing, and social studies, and eventually moving to math and science (which can be taught in Spanish with less of a detriment to the student's long-term learning).

Bob Hartley, from Pittsburgh, makes an important statement in his comment on the CNN site:
"Hysteria regarding immigrants has gone on in this country ever since the Irish came in the mid-Nineteenth century.
It's an old song used to mask intolerance."

The problem we face in America is more urgent and cuts deeper than the discussion of bilingual education. According to Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, we have an educational crisis on our hands and are not acting quickly enough to solve it. On average, our students are on pace with the world in fourth grade, but by 12th grade they have fallen far behind in technical disciplines.

There are several factors that must be addressed in order to improve America's educational quality. The first and most important is parental involvement. Parents must encourage and motivate their child's education (including Spanish-speaking parents, who should enroll in their own ESL courses). The disintegration of the family in America (47.5% of households are now married) plays a huge part in this, but that is a conversation for another day.

The second touchpoint we must address is much harder for individuals to impact. The US educational system as a whole has inherent flaws. Education in the US tends to reward technical training differently and less than corporate America. This makes it hard for education to get and retain the talent we need to train our children well in math and science, and to excite and motivate them to consider it as a career option. Additionally, we see far too few girls motivated to excel in technical disciplines and pursue them in higher education.

Friedman's book is important in that it calls Americans to action. If this generation and the next are to overcome an unfounded sense of entitlement and face the 21st century, we must make significant changes to how education is run, so that students are challenged and taught effectively. How this is to be done is up for discussion, and US government may or may not be capable, given its failures.

(BLOG) RED

2006-10-13T23:10:00.000-07:00

(BLOG) RED

This is a great movement to end extreme poverty around the world. It'd be great to see it succeed; IMO this should be as important a part of our foreign policy as diplomacy and defense.

Friend Mapper

2006-10-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

Friend Mapper

This site is a cool mashup of Google Maps + Facebook...It's kind of neat to see where people I know are from or are located currently.

Biofuels: Think Outside The Barrel - Google Video

2006-09-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

Biofuels: Think Outside The Barrel - Google Video
This guy, Vinod Khosla's initiative proposal for clean energy in California (see 0:53:30) is very important and I hope we'll see this pass in the upcoming election, to the chagrin of the oil companies, who would love to keep making money off growing oil prices, despite the climate crisis it's causing.

UH -Top Education Stories - Can Tough Grades Be Fair Grades?

2006-09-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

UH -Top Education Stories - Can Tough Grades Be Fair Grades?
A great story about education at my alma mater.

Hybrid

2006-08-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

Track my miles here:

Optical mark recognition (OMR) software

2006-08-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

My friend and I are seeing if we can put together an open source OMR solution for teachers to use.
http://www1.cs.ucr.edu/index.php/main/eventlookup/?id=65

Scan This Book! - New York Times

2006-05-14T23:55:00.000-07:00

Scan This Book! - New York Times
Here's a great article talking about what is the likely future of print media (books, magazines) copyright law. The punch line comes at the end, when Kelly suggests that copyright owners owe the world a duty of searchability.

I agree that it seems reasonable to create a web-friendly Copyright 2.0, under which it is legal to scan and copy for search & fair-use retrieval purposes.

A copyright duration of 70 years is outrageous, and far outlasts the duration needed as an incentive for publication of creative works. Congress should change this as well, but the powers that be (e.g. insert-your-publisher-here) won't let that happen.

To quote Kelly, "Search opens up creations. It promotes the civic nature of publishing. Having searchable works is good for culture. It is so good, in fact, that we can now state a new covenant: Copyrights must be counterbalanced by copyduties. In exchange for public protection of a work's copies (what we call copyright), a creator has an obligation to allow that work to be searched. No search, no copyright."

Microsoft and Google Grapple for Supremacy - New York Times

2006-05-11T15:03:00.000-07:00

Microsoft and Google Grapple for Supremacy - New York Times
Interesting article. I will be working for the big G in Seattle. They've treated me very nicely thus far, including a popcorn tin and some gift cards. :)

Boston, Swimming, Job [Google!!], etc.

2006-02-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends -
During the past couple months, I've been enjoying being back in the Boston area and the US in general. It's good to see old friends and meet the new freshmen that will be taking over the reins from us seniors in only a few years :) I'm really encouraged by the number of strong Christians I see rising up in the Boston area. The people that go through this city will change the world, and I figure the world will be better off if they've at least had a chance to hear and make an educated decision on Christianity.

The swim season ended last weekend. I swam under our new coach Bill Smyth for about one month, and came in with about three weeks of my own training. Somehow, during that month in our new pool, I brought my times down to personal record levels in the 50, 100, and 200 free. In all three events (which I swam at conferences last weekend), I dropped time, breaking 1:50 in the 200 free (1: 49.22), breaking :50 in the 100 free (:49.92), and breaking 24s in the 50 free (23.14). It was a hugely encouraging weekend, and a great way to leave on a high note. I'm very grateful Bill let me swim with the team.

I interviewed frantically across the country for a couple weeks in late Jan/early February, eventually getting offers at Raytheon, Fidelity, Microsoft, and Google. I watched the super bowl from the Univ of Washington campus. We were disappointed with the calls during the game on that day, but I was very happy with the results of my interview the next day at Microsoft. After some waffling back and forth between Google and Microsoft, I found the best of both worlds and will be accepting a position in Google's Kirkland office, which is only 2.5 hours driving from home for me. I'll be working on such exciting projects as Google Earth, Google Talk, Google Pack, and more. [Google Pack, by the way, is a really easy way to get a new computer ready to roll.]

Granted, it will rain more and give me more overcast days, living in Washington state. However, I think the tradeoff of being much closer to home and still having a new city (Seattle to discover) will keep me more than busy and happy for the next couple years. Please pray for my decision as I consider a summer project in Central or East Asia before I begin, probably in early September.

As before, I welcome any updates you want to send my way.

Sincerely,
Brian Patton