Matt O’ Rama

A triathlon? Wha…?

The last place I worked had almost no opportunities for exercise, which I always thought was weird since it was the administrative center for a giant hospital. Plus it was very near a bunch of good restaurants. Those factors combined with my general lack of willpower and food issues to cause me to totally obliterate all the progress I’d made in losing weight. My new work is right next to a great bike trail I’ve always liked (the trail where I first learned to really ride actually) and has a deal with the nearby gym (the same one I used to go to when I lived in this part of town) so I’ve been really looking forward to getting back to working out and exercising. I haven’t ridden my bike in like 6 months for pete’s sake.

So to make a long story even longer, somehow the idea of doing a Triathlon got lodged in my head and for the first time in my life I’ve been running. Only twice so far but that’s 2 more times than I’ve ever even wanted to run in my life so it’s a step in the right direction. I bought some running shoes and some goggles for swimming, along with a Triathlon book, a running book, and a swimming book I read about a few months back in the Cool Tools mailing list. The triathlon I’m aiming for is at the end of July and it’s what’s called a Olympic distance: Swim 1500 meters (almost a mile), Bike 25 miles, Run 6.2 miles. I figure that’s enough to make it tough but not impossible. I don’t know if I’ll make it given that I can really only train at lunch and a little on the weekends but I’m giving it my best shot. I’ll be writing more about my training as it goes along hopefully.

One thing I learned today about it is that I’ll be competing in what they call the Clydesdale division, that is the division for people over 200 pounds. I’m not sure how I feel about the Clydesdale definition but since I have no chance of actually winning I don’t care one way or the other. If I just finish it’ll be a miracle so whether I’m beat by skinny people or fat people doesn’t matter to me as long as I cross the finish line and get healthier doing it.

Wish me luck. I need it.

Finally, the ghost of Edison is leaving the building.

Australia To Ban Old-Style Lightbulbs

The Australian government on Tuesday announced plans to phase out incandescent light bulbs and replace them with more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs across the country.

This is great news. Hopefully this, and Wal-Mart’s new commitment to CF bulbs will lead to similar action here in the US. I converted us to all CF awhile ago and have looked forward to the death of the old bulbs for even longer. There’s no reason to use 100 year old technology. Internal combustion engines, you’re next! :)

Google now significantly less useful

Google seems to have made a change to their searches that will now make them significantly less useful for me. I searched for ‘typelist xml’ and most of the search results contained searches for ‘type list xml’ with the ‘type’ and ‘list’ separated. This is not what I searched for and is completely distracting since phrases about ‘types of lists’ and ‘things of type list’ are dominating the results. Blah. It’s one thing to put the ‘Did you mean to search for …’ links and it’s okay when they split your results up into multiple sections for results that hit multiple topics, but don’t do it invisibly. This search is now completely useless on Google. Giving me these pointless search results is going to make me use a competitor for these types of searches and I don’t think I’ll be alone if they keep this up. People doing technical searches need precise results, and those are the people who turned everybody onto Google in the first place.

A Reader’s Dilemma

I just finished the very good and interesting, but also very long, book The Wizard of the Crow (750+ pages) and of course now I’m looking for the next book to read. I got my copy of Sacred Games and of course I want to read that next but it’s 900 pages. I’ve always been in the habit of sort-of cleansing my palate in between big or tough books with a short paperback, usually some science fiction that won’t tax my mind. It’s a weird practice, but I went through a phase where I read the last page of everything I read first so I’m used to my eccentricities. The rub comes with my 2007 goal of doing an autodidact literature “class” for myself by using my website Unreads.com to deeply read and really study a bunch of classics. I listened to a couple of audio courses from The Learning Company (everything they have by Arnold Weinstein, my new personal learning guru, and Books That Have Made History) and bought a bunch of the books. Those courses were an incredibly enlightening experience I’ll post on more later, they’re very much recommended. So I’ve painted myself into a corner by wanting to cleanse my palate but also not wanting to waste any reading time with fluff. My compromise is that I brought my collection of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays to get in some of my “studying” without having to commit to a whole book while Sacred Games is beckoning to me. Being a reader is fraught with problems, I tell you. :)

Cool workspaces

Ever since I first heard of the author Po Bronson’s shared Writer’s Grotto office space I’ve thought it would be extremely cool to set up a shared workspace. There’s a new thing coming up called Coworking that’s focussed on geeks that I would love to get into. The idea is that you get a space and outfit it with desks, chairs, couches, wifi internet access, a fridge, etc., and get people to work there instead of in coffee shops. You either pay for a day’s use of a desk or longer-term. The ideal place would have the same kind of cool vibe as a coffee shop without the random crowds and noise. Cheaper than paying for a regular office, plus with other people around doing stuff for inspiration, ideas, etc.

My dream is doing programming for myself, hence the creation of Mattorama Heavy Industries, and if I get the chance to make money doing that, I’m seriously considering setting something like this up. My only fear is having to deal so much with running the space that I don’t get to work on my own things but that’s probably the business equivalent of premature optimization, worrying about things that won’t end actually being a problem. I don’t think it would take much money to get started either, which is a bonus.

For more info, check out this NYTimes article on a space focussed on writers, and this blog post about ideal working environments. If you’re in Albuquerque and have think this is a good idea, please comment on this post. I’d love to hear there’s a ton of interest in this type of environment here in town.

Haggard! Now with at least 5% more heterosexuality!

Haggard now “completely heterosexual”

DENVER – One of four ministers who oversaw three weeks of intensive counseling for the Rev. Ted Haggard said the disgraced minister emerged convinced that he is “completely heterosexual.”

Yeah, riiight. He’s just going to start hanging out at local fire departments and doing the keynote at the next lumberjack convention. But he’s not gay, oh no. The crack religious psychiatric commando team they put together to “cure” him also had this to say:

Another oversight board member, the Rev. Mike Ware of Westminster, said the group recommended the move out of town and the Haggards agreed.
It was also the oversight board that strongly urged Haggard to go into secular work.

“So congrats, you’re cured. But leave town and get out of our church.”
I almost feel sorry for Haggard. The self-loathing he must feel is just terrible. But then again, he’s a bigot whose words have instilled the same loathing in other gay people and their families so I hope he stays in the closet and hates himself for life. Maybe he’ll take up self-mutilation like a lot of other gay people have when forced to deal with the stress of hating who they are. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

I wanted the new Aenied translation, but…

40 freaking dollars? It’s not even 400 pages! This is looking like one of those books people buy to say they have it so I guess they’re trying to squeeze as much money out of people as possible. Sheesh. If I get around to wanting to read it before the paperback comes out off to Amazon I’ll go I guess.

I had another similar expensive book experience the other day. I bought Infinite Jest for $10 and along with that Lolita which is probably 1/10th as big for $15. I know the size of a book doesn’t determine how much it’ll cost but man, that stung.