CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2012-10-22 16:05:39 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 25 +1s)

First real rain of the season... at least there was a rainbow! :-)

2012-08-14 23:37:14 (10 comments, 2 reshares, 16 +1s)

My manager showed up in our weekly 1:1 with this mash-up of hardware. Oh the dangers of getting the first Retina displays, only to be thrown back to the end of the queue when you need a replacement. :-(

He did though point out it in some ways highlights how thought through Apple's designs are, that they don't feel that awkward when thrown together field-medicine style.

2012-08-10 01:37:41 (25 comments, 5 reshares, 17 +1s)

Knock out your lobsters/crabs with clove oil before you boil them - they'll taste better!

I really love lobster - I can still vividly remember the first time I had it when I was nine or ten years old - but the idea of listening to one thrash around in a pot of boiling water sounds like l'suck, and I feel guilty about it. 

This guy went through and methodically explored different ways of knocking out lobsters before you cook them (it makes them taste better!), and came to the conclusion that anesthetizing them with clove oil (via Whole Foods) works amazingly for lobsters and crabs. 

How to become a Seafood Anesthesiologist and Kill your 4th of July Lobster
http://www.cookingissues.com/2012/07/04/how-to-become-a-seafood-anesthesiologist-and-kill-your-4th-of-july-lobster/

2012-07-30 06:02:47 (18 comments, 1 reshares, 30 +1s)

For the last 2.5 years, my best friend +Molly Trombley-McCann and her husband +Ransom Byers and I have been renovating a pair of houses in West Oakland near the West Oakland BART stop (it's San Francisco's Brooklyn). Our original purchase was of two houses on one piece of land, and the renovation of the front house has been dramatic to say the least. We ripped the entire house down to the studs, raised up the whole thing and poured a new foundation, and only in the last few months has the building started to look like a place we could live in. Here are some pictures from the freshly painted upper floor. The orange room is our future dining/living room, the blue room the kitchen, and the yellow room the upstairs bathroom. All of the rooms will be less colorful after either the wainscoting (dinning/bathrooms) or cabinets goes in (kitchen), all or which is white, but I love the colors even now with2x... more »

2012-06-16 04:06:56 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 17 +1s)

Amazing (only) gluten free Mexican food!

2012-04-13 19:07:49 (5 comments, 12 reshares, 36 +1s)

San Franfrazzled: Once-in-a-lifetime picture of lightning striking iconic bridge

"They say that lightning never strikes twice, but this amazing photo proves otherwise.

An incredible eight bolts struck the Bay Bridge in San Francisco last night which was captured in this incredible shot by photographer +Phil McGrew who took the photo through the rain-soaked window of his apartment."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2129246/Once-lifetime-picture-lightning-striking-San-Franciscos-Bay-Bridge.html

2012-03-28 18:39:22 (19 comments, 10 reshares, 34 +1s)

TL;DR: No one shows up in the emergency room smelling of rotting flesh in Canada because they're poor.

We have a new product manager on the G+ team, and yesterday he and I had tea for the first time as part of his greater "getting to know the team" tour. I laughed so hard when he described himself as a "secret Canadian", he sounded totally U.S.of A. but apparently he's just covered in loonies and cooties and such.

For years, I always joked with people in California that I'm from "Southern Canada", because I grew up in Iowa. When I was in high school, it really did feel like we were southern Canada - we cared for the poor, the young, and the old better than almost anyone in the country - our immediate neighbors (Minnesota and Wisconsin) excluded - living up to the social contract Canada has with its citizens. We believed in dignity and we... more »

2012-03-14 20:54:44 (10 comments, 7 reshares, 22 +1s)

I am a huge video of the weird little product videos zappos has, and this is the funniest one I've encountered yet. Have you stumbled across any other brillant Zappos videos? Share them in the comments!

PUMAS. EVERYWHERE.

2012-02-10 19:46:21 (8 comments, 2 reshares, 15 +1s)

Last weekend, +Benjamin Staffin and I watched Lawrence of Arabia, one of my favorite movies. Next weekend, I would love to watch a movie suggested by the G+ community! I'm more than happy to organize a G+ movie watching club... my game plan is:

* Suggest two movies you love at: http://bit.ly/xKvQbC

* I'll pick a bunch of movies and lay out a calendar, then...

* Watch whatever movies you want to watch... I'll bias towards movies you can legitly acquire, though I won't judge you if you torrent...

* and if you want to discuss the movie... either join in a live-hangout discussing the movie, watch a broadcast hangout, or watch a recording of a broadcast hangout! (Not to mention, you also could post or leave a comment You ware welcome!.)

I'll probably end up doing some data visualization on folks' submissions, cause I can't help... more »

2012-02-10 06:49:29 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 12 +1s)

Jeffrey Atkinson and 9 others were tagged in Frances Haugen's album.

2012-02-08 05:05:43 (18 comments, 73 reshares, 96 +1s)

I saw this shared by +NATURE ☼ was transfixed by how it looks just like how signals propagate in the nervous system of the human body! Talk about Gaia!

Much more about neurons! (I've been enamored with biological computing since my senior year of college). :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential

2012-02-07 08:10:06 (24 comments, 7 reshares, 32 +1s)

Where is our Nirvana? Where is our Kurt Cobain? When I turned 27, I didn't have any grand ambitions. The only goal I set was basic: just survive the year. It seemed a reasonable goal considering all the people who I looked up to who hadn't (Wikipedia: 27 Club). This week I realized, wait. If the Kurt of my generation should be dead, shouldn't he (or she) have made three albums by now? Did I miss Nirvana?

I wrote an email yesterday. Completed it. Then didn't send it. I had second thoughts. If I get performance anxiety when I'm writing email, how the hell can anyone suck hard enough long enough to later become Nirvana? You have to be really bad for remarkably long to become a good musician. I know. I was a horrible bassist for too long. Think Gladwell's Outliers here, The Beatles had actually been on stage an amazing number of hours before they ever hit America.
... more »

2012-02-06 03:48:43 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

On 880 going south near the arena, there's a yellow billboard for Roku that says, "The best fifty dollar gift you can't drink." Anyone have a picture of it?

2012-02-02 05:07:56 (20 comments, 70 reshares, 93 +1s)

It's so easy for us to only see the near term and the near past, but we truly are living in a truly unique and glorious time. Never in the history of the world has such a large fraction of humanity had a channel to be heard.

I want to celebrate smallness. Celebrate the quiet. Have you never posted before on G+? Click on the sharebox at the top of your stream and in whatever you type include #franceslisten and I'll check it out (you'll show up in G+ Search for #franceslisten ). :-) I want to hear from you. Here's a prompt even to get you started... What would the chapter titles be to your biography? For example, "Montana; the early years; Cleveland Out in the Cold; NYC Finally Home; Rise of the Internet." or maybe "Before the accident; Everything since." You can share it to Public or just to me. I want to hear from you.

You are needed. You are... more »

2012-02-01 05:30:29 (43 comments, 213 reshares, 221 +1s)

Hilarious! I wonder what else I could mashup...

From: Domingo é dia de
http://www.fotoengracada.com/macarrao-salsichas.htm

2012-02-01 05:27:20 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

2012-02-01 05:26:01 (5 comments, 4 reshares, 9 +1s)

2012-01-28 02:28:47 (21 comments, 5 reshares, 15 +1s)

I am super fond of imgur.com's UI. It asks you to "write a caption" which people can then moderate up and down. I'm 95% certain that brillance correlates with sheer volume of entries created, then filtered by an editor (or editing framework in this case). The bar for a "caption" is really low in the minds of most people, so way more people participate. Combined with the theory above --> destined for greatness.

This image is from:
http://imgur.com/gallery/h4IcM

2012-01-27 21:44:18 (41 comments, 8 reshares, 21 +1s)

Which do you want at work more? +1 to vote in comments!
A MetroNaps Energy Pod
B Ostrich - Pocket pillow for naps

Learn more:
http://www.luxist.com/2007/05/10/the-metronaps-energypod-for-the-serious-power-napper/
http://www.studio-kg.com/ostrich/

2012-01-27 19:31:05 (0 comments, 8 reshares, 33 +1s)

#funWithTypography made with #keynote - you should try it! #changetheworld !

2012-01-27 19:18:13 (19 comments, 101 reshares, 208 +1s)

I saw this on Facebook shared by +Chris Cheng and had to repost. :-)

It's so true. We were drowning in physical mail, so email was a breath of fresh air. Now we're drowning in email and the tables are turned. :-)

2012-01-27 07:42:35 (4 comments, 12 reshares, 11 +1s)

I love this meme--I knew it was only a matter of time before it hit Chicago.

Shit Chicagoans Say

They got a few inside jokes in there too :)

2012-01-26 04:39:25 (18 comments, 12 reshares, 40 +1s)

Oh god this is all SO TRUE that it is painful.

2012-01-20 09:38:52 (32 comments, 1 reshares, 19 +1s)

Favorite / Most Hated Quote? (vote in comments) "You'll worry less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do." - David Foster Wallace

When I was little, my mom would remind me when I was stressed, "you'd worry less about what others think of you if you realized how infrequently they actually do". I'm a pretty neurotic person, and this has always been a deeply comforting refrain - I've repeated it to myself many many a time in my life. It makes me radically less neurotic to believe that no notices me and I am no different than anyone else.

Thus it was a shock to me tonight when I said that to my partner and he said, "I have always hated that quote. I hate the thought that when I'm not around, I don't exist. It makes me neurotic."

Right now, the top issue I focus on every day is... more »

2012-01-19 01:09:50 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 17 +1s)

Starting Conversations from Search Results
#googleplusupdate #search

Today we're introducing a new feature that lets you share directly from Google+ search results, and contribute to a topical Google+ stream. For example, if you search for basketball and then want to make a post about how your favorite team or player is doing, you can share right from the search results.

Just look for the sharebox after searching on Google+, and you'll see an opportunity to "join the discussion" about whatever you've searched for.

When you post from the search results page, it automatically includes a link back to the original search stream. This way others can join the active conversation as it unfolds.

2012-01-18 23:08:40 (14 comments, 5 reshares, 17 +1s)

What would your work day be like with no email? Last summer, I read about Thierry Breton's declaration that Atos (Europe's largest IT services firm) is going to stop using email internally, and it totally ruined my ability to engage with my email because I couldn't rationalize it any more.

Atos found there employees received 100+ internal emails a day, spent 15-20 hours per week triaging them (often at home), and in the end, only about 10-15% were valuable. WOW. Talk about wasting people's lives. Well, as soon as I learned this, it became very difficult for me to force myself to read my email as diligently as I had for years - I get a true flood of it and it takes hours a day to truly keep up with.

It's been a really liberating last few months since I stopped using email in the traditional way. People generally IM me now if they really need to get a... more »

2012-01-18 07:26:33 (2 comments, 9 reshares, 25 +1s)

DEAR ████████████████████ INTERNET ███████████████████████ SOPA ███████████████ IS ████████████ WRONG ████████████████████ AND █████████████████ A █████████████████ MISTAKE. ███████████████ TELL EVERYONE.

+Stop SOPA and Take Action.

2012-01-18 06:42:48 (0 comments, 14 reshares, 27 +1s)

Copy/paste/share this URL: https://plus.google.com/s/sopa to protest SOPA! Use the arrow keys in the image preview to select the best STOP SOPA image (there should be a bunch). Reshare this post to spread the game. #SOPA

2012-01-17 20:11:17 (11 comments, 2 reshares, 31 +1s)

Sometimes labels are only for scale.

2012-01-17 16:59:34 (3 comments, 3 reshares, 4 +1s)

In light of the recent sinking cruise liner, this article from the Economist I ran across in the Dr.'s waiting room yesterday seemed oddly apropos... it's from back in December, but it's about the incredibly mundane (and critical) hurdles sea steading is trying to overcome. Turns out it's hard to be truly independent in an interconnected world (or around salt water).

Cities on the Ocean - The Economist
http://www.economist.com/node/21540395

2012-01-17 07:53:35 (7 comments, 38 reshares, 40 +1s)

What's your favorite mind hack to expose kids to? A more positive follow up on earlier... :-) I'm a big proponent of hacking one's mind, and one of the most exciting things I ever read was this passage on the power of teaching kids that their minds can grow. It's kinda amazing.

" Life Sciences is a health-science magnet school with high aspirations but 700 students whose main attributes are being predominantly minority and low achieving. Blackwell split her kids into two groups for an eight-session workshop. The control group was taught study skills, and the others got study skills and a special module on how intelligence is not innate. These students took turns reading aloud an essay on how the brain grows new neurons when challenged. They saw slides of the brain and acted out skits. “Even as I was teaching these ideas,” Blackwell noted, “I would hearthe s... more »

2012-01-17 06:05:28 (11 comments, 4 reshares, 7 +1s)

This seems like a shocking statistic to me, not because of the numbers, because I would have assumed some Palo High/Gunn student (or their parent) would have organized a club to address it. (I'd even be happy to mentor it).

" The parents point to startling statistics: In the Palo Alto and Gunn high schools' 2011 class of seniors, only 15 percent of African-Americans and 40 percent of Latinos completed the prerequisites for the University of California and California State University with a C or better. That compares with 79.5 percent districtwide meeting those so-called A-G requirements.*"*

2012-01-14 06:08:53 (8 comments, 10 reshares, 25 +1s)

If you love beautiful things but think to yourself "I'm not rich, I could never support the arts", small marketing items like this are amazing way you can make a difference while giving others an opportunity to earn a living. Have a marketing budget? You can support artists! via: +Irene Au

2012-01-12 20:14:45 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

THERE'S A NEW GAME IN TOWN

We call it #PanoPoker.

Pano Poker Rules, or #PanoPokerRules

History:

+Mike Spinak and +Barry Blanchard were inspired by the popular #BirdPoker game which the dashing +Phil Armishaw and the lovely +Lee Daniels started several months ago. Barry and Mike decided to start a landscape photography version of the game.

Rules:

Wiki says:
”A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "sight") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model.”

But we’re not Wiki - so any landscape photo is game-worthy.

While HDR is fine, we would like to see genuine captures instead of a unicorn cut and pasted into a field of poppies, with lightning,rainbows and do... more »

2012-01-11 23:44:06 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

January 11, 2012

2012-01-11 23:53:02 (18 comments, 4 reshares, 16 +1s)

One of the dangers of rarely going to stores is that when you wander into a brick and motor Bed, Bath, and Beyond, you end up being way too entertained by what they sell. Here are the " 'n"/"and"/"-n-" products we found within a 15 foot radius of each other... I'm actually kinda puzzled by some of the contractions. Does "Bash'n Chop" mean "Bashing Chop"? I'm actually kinda scared how you might use one now...

Bash'n Chop
Grate-n-Shake
Snap 'n Stack
Grip and Grate
Wedge and Pop
Snap 'n Lock

2012-01-11 17:11:30 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

Sonic Hit & Run - Howard Hello - My Friend
I stumbled across his song last night while Ben was playing music and had a really fantastic moment of profoundness/sudden awareness during it. You can listen here on Youtube: Howard Hello - My Friend/The Parasite

After re-listening several times and reproducing what I felt, I think the experience I had is actually a result of the song lulling the listener into not paying attention ((( INTENTIONALLY ))) then jars your attention around minute 1:50 (think of it as the sonic equivalent of scanning your stream and then encountering that block of capslock. In reality, if you're listening to this song in a YouTube playlist or as MP3s in a lager playlist (which I encourage strongly - support our artists!), the bridge of more intense chords don't actually distract you enough to break you off from whatever your primary attention is... more »

2012-01-11 04:16:11 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

January 11, 2012

2012-01-11 04:13:45 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

January 11, 2012

2012-01-11 04:11:46 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

January 11, 2012

2012-01-11 01:31:53 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 15 +1s)

Just so folks know, this is the legit Google Page. There are some transient issues around displaying verification status, but we're working on fixing it! Thank you for your patience!

2012-01-09 20:21:53 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

Profile Photos

2012-01-09 06:14:04 (30 comments, 3 reshares, 13 +1s)

How was this ever a good idea? (A commenter reminds me it could be steamed cleaned...)

I'm researching sunken bathtubs (if you have inspiring tubs, send them along!), and I came across this bathtub from a June 1975 issue of Popular Mechanics. Apparently you can create the sunk tub effect by wrapping your tub in shag carpet. Amazing! Check out the last photo in the album - it's the original inspiration photo.

Original Google books links
http://books.google.com/books?id=D-UDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA80&dq=sunken%20bathtub&pg=PA80#v=onepage&q=sunken%20bathtub&f=false

2012-01-09 02:55:57 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

January 8, 2012

2012-01-09 02:55:57 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

January 8, 2012

2012-01-09 02:55:50 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

January 8, 2012

2011-12-29 02:13:30 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 25 +1s)

Just touched down at JFK after an unexpectedly pleasant flight on Etihad Airways. Last year when we came back from Africa, the first thing we did upon leaving Dulles Airport in DC was to go to Whole Foods. When we checked out, the cashier asked if we were just back from Peace Corps, because no one else got so giddy about buying produce. Unfortunately, I am about seven hours from access to a grocery store at this point (we're en route to a wedding in Florida), but I'm going to go dive into a plate of oysters to celebrate my return to US food safety standards.

2012-03-26 09:28:04 (23 comments, 0 reshares, 19 +1s)

I've had a really hard 24 hours. This time yesterday, I expected to be in Vietnam by now on my way to the beach. Since then, ben failed to secure his passport so we had to cancel our plane tickets. Now I'm sitting on a cold curb waiting for the cops to interview me about the massive accident we just witnessed. Lesson: never run red lights.

2011-12-10 22:12:01 (47 comments, 34 reshares, 35 +1s)

I generally try not to discuss Facebook publicly, but I just read this article on the messages Facebook is hiding from you and discovered I had hundreds of messages that had been hanging out in my "Other" folder unbeknownst to me. Several were things I really should have responded to, sigh. :-(

The article below covers a guy who lost his laptop, someone tried to give it back to him, and he found out a year later because Facebook hid those messages from him. Definitely gave me terror when I went to go check my "Other" folder too.