It seems that US GDP always seems higher than European GDP. A fact that US pundits always seem to crow about. It seems that there may be a reason for this (other than the fact that the US is a dynamic environment to work in). As Philip Greenspun reports on his blog, if health and education are privatized (as they are in the US), then there are some additional monetary of this reflected in the GDP numbers that are excluded in countries with socialized health and education programmes. A conclusion that Philip attributes to Piketty.
The Oculus Rift and Three Kinects
Here is a YouTube video showing a researcher working with an Oculus Rift and Three Microsoft Kinects. Even this simple setup looks amazing!
The Anker T320 Keyboard
I bought an Anker T320 bluetooth keyboard to use with my iPad, mainly because it had such good reviews on Amazon. It's an amazingly good keyboard! It's really light - much smaller and lighter than the Apple bluetooth keyboard I was using before. It charges via mini-USB. The keystroke action is excellent. I am very happy with it. Here is my Amazon Affiliate link to the keyboard should you want to buy it: Anker® T320 Ultrathin (4mm) Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard for iOS (iPad Air, iPad Mini 2, iPad 2 / 3 / 4), Windows and Android 3.0 and above OS with Built-in lithium battery / Aluminum Body
How different will we be?
I read an interesting post yesterday, about how much we change over the course of our lives. Yet, when we look forward at our future, we project forward the same person we are now. We don't expect ourselves to change much at all.
More Notes on Changing Behaviour
I wrote up a post this morning on micro-behaviours, triggers and rewards. Later on I was checking out Hacker News when I stumbled on this post by Alex Coleman, on how to get stuff done. Both posts refer to the same original work by Dr Fogg on micro-behaviours. In my post I emphasize using “triggers” to trigger the new habit, which may be an existing habit or environmental cue. In Alex's post, he puts a lot of emphasis on setting up a routine or schedule. The time itself becomes the trigger.
Micro-Behaviors, Triggers and Rewards
I watched this TED talk video on changing behaviour a few days ago, which really inspired me to take a more structured approach to developing a new positive habit. The key points of the video are that in order to affect long-term behavior change, you need to have a trigger - some habit that you already have, or an environmental queue that you can chain the new behavior from. You also need to make the new behavior as easy to do as possible. You want to associate a “micro-behavior” with your trigger - something that can easily become a habit, but that you can later expand to fully incorporate the new habit you are trying to achieve. Finally, you need to reward yourself in some way every time you do the micro-behavior.
Installing CyanogenMod on a Nexus 7
Yesterday I installed CyanogenMod on my 2012 Nexus 7. I decided to do this because I've been thinking a lot recently about how we will all be using our computing technology in the next few years. I think that we will be carrying around our smart phones and tablets, and using these as our main computing devices - but projecting the screens to the nearest large display. This appeals a lot to me as a developer, but basically I won't be happy unless I have a Unix prompt.