Style – Page 8 – Sean Shadmand

Creative ways to tell your story through scrolling.

I read somewhere many years ago that the experience of allowing the user to ready just enough content until the fold, but giving them just enough info that there is more uner the fold was a better tactic then framing your site above the fold with links to actions. For sites that want to say allot, and take users on a journy the scroll is smoother and quicker. It is like a timeline of content from top to bottom, as apposed to a choose yoru own adventure. Since then, I have seen some pretty cool examples of implementations like this. The lastst one I came across was from mozilla (https://webfwd.org/en-US/) Which would make sence since they are the advocates of the web.

Here are some slides (in case they change the site by the time you read this.)

The main home screen looks pretty standard. But notice the color and the footer….

As you scroll up he page the footer rises from the bottom, revealing a whole other expereince….

As the you scroll up, the color of the back ground fades into white, and the old footer is now the new header. I thought it was a beautiful experience…

I have seen many variations of the concept of scrolling while browsing the internet. Here are some others:

This one is called “Ben the body guard” and it was a website for a game. (http://goo.gl/HG9PQ) In this creative experience, the body guard tells you his story as you scroll down the page. The animation of his walking and the street passing by are all based on your scrolling down the page. After the story and his walk is over, the links are neon signs on the buildings rooftops, and the bottom of the page gives you a link to the appstore and a close up of ben peerig down the edge of the top of a high rise. Well done!

Do you see what I see?

Can you guess who that famous person is in the image on the left? Not a clue huh? Well it’s Steve Martin in a scene from the movie Pink Panther. But it isn’t exactly straight from the big screen film, and it isn’t exactly not from the movie either. Confused? Well, it is a mind boggling concept. The technology that Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist at U.C., has developed is able to produce a video from what a persons mind is seeing or thinking.

It really is hard to explain the amazing nature of the this technology so I attached a video below showing it in action. It’s is a must see, and probably is THE most amazing technology I have seen in my entire life.

It’s is interesting how many of the representations of people look primarily the same from the minds eye, and how there are strange over laps of data on others at times. Almost like you can see the minds eye wander, or you can see the related emotions that are associated with some visual queues.

You also have to give allot of credit to the impressionist movement. They were way ahead of their time. As you can see they completely got the nature of the difference between what we “see”, and what we remember or interpret even though we don’t realize it. The videos also remind me allot of what it feels like when I am dreaming.

Video: Left side what was actually seen, right side what the technology decoded from the brain:

Video games may rot your brain, but those gamers may help find the cure for AIDS

Just when parents and wives everywhere finally got thier point across to get their loved ones out from in front of the large screen TV and unplugged from their beloved game console, a twist emerges.

As it turns out even our most powerful computers have problems figuring out the right combinations, patters and sequences necessary to solve large complex problems. AN example of these complex problems that baffle our silicon constructed counter parts is defining the model of many viruses, and you can’t defeat what you do not understand. By leveraging the power of crowd sourcing and the serendipitous realizations that only humans can have (so far,) creating a game to engage gamers to figure out the unique characteristics (folds) of the simian AIDS-causing Mason – Pfizer monkey virus retroviral protease (AKA M-MVP) is having some great success. It’s kind of like Tetris meets chemistry class. Move over xenga, no virtual good in the world will trump the prize of being the person who helped conqore aids!

Even after this gaming experiment ends, the analyzation of the methods and patterms applied to the game by the gamers will be adopted by the computer algorithms, thereby furthering our ability to solve problems at scale.

Check out the video:

Google Labs is Shutting Down :(

Early on in transformation into an official entrepreneur I began preaching the benfiist of focus, and the trap that any small task will invariably have the potential to become a time suck from what you should be spending brain cycles on instead (what has now been known as ABBA in our circle). But I am still left with a small sense of saddens to find out that Google Labs is shuttung down. 😦

Check out the list of many of the apps that will be phased out, and find those are already gone: http://www.googlelabs.com/

It was a good feeling to know that Google maintained their, seemingly altruistic, attention to the experimentation of new ideas for the sake of simply knowing more, and fixing our uneeded hudles in data through tech and science. They were the “casual NASA” of our dat, and althought I understand the need to focus, I had always hoped Google would remain the exception to the rule, and give us something to map our ideals to.

Farewell Google Labs, I hope what you represented does not fall by the wayside in your company or our tech community as well.

An ethical rule of thumb

History has a way of repeating itself. I try to keep myself objective about todays events and ethics, so I am able to rise above the norm and into the right.

Apply what you believe in today: how your perceive morality, ethics and kindness, and apply it to the past, 200, 100 and 50 years. Would you be in what history has decided was good or evil? In what we now see as right or wrong? That should tell you how the future will look back at you, and help guide your perspective on how you see the world today, allowing for some objectivity. This extra step in your thought process while making descisions about morality and ethics in today’s current events, could help prevent you from becoming the great grandfather or grandmother no one wants to talk about in public.

There is one extra step to make this ability to predict how the world will view your stance on current issues in 100 years+. you have to recognize the general terms in which a situation is defined. For instance, racism is not a question of race, but about human equality, poverty is as much about greed and sharing than it is about finance, science is a question about asking questions and challenging systems as much as it’s about what is “proven”, and culture is more about fear of the unknown than it is about what you beleive is right or acceptable.

What do you and Sonic the Hedgehog have in common?

Have you ever played Sonic the hedgehog? Man, what a classic! The objective: Get your hedgehog, named Sonic, to jump, run and even roll through a stage, avoiding the array of animal-ish enemies, only to reach a guarded exit, protected by your arch nemesis, Dr. Evil. Beat him and the entrance to the next level is opened. Keep this up, level after level, enemy after enemy, and you will win the game. — But wait there’s more! If you are attacked without a collection of magical “rings” in your possession, you will die. With one or more rings you can narrowly avoid death by attack.

So which was more important, getting to the next level, or acquiring the rings? Well, any kid would tell you: Duh, both! Obvi. If you only collect the rings you may never get to the end of the level. Alternatively, if you only try to get to the end of the level, rendering yourself ringless, you dramatically decrease your chances of survival.

Of course, one could play the perfect game, dodging all would be attackers, and avoiding falling off cliffs to a spikey-floored doom. By doing so you would indeed win the game, just as anyone else. But who could make it through all those levels without one misstep, one slipped finger, or distracted moment when your Mom calls you down for dinner? I’m going to take a stab at it and say — not a single person. So, thanks to those gracious creators at Sega, you were given those wonderfully magic rings, giving you a fighting chance. You and everyone else jumped at the opportunity, capturing as many rings as you could. You mitigated risk, balanced your options, and grabbed on to what ever you could, outside of the clearly laid goal of completing the level, to of course do just that, complete the level and win the game; achieve success.

That is not a theme reserved for just hedgehogs named Sonic, or any game for that matter. Success is a goal some of us can see, and once we see it, we direct our focus directly at achieving it. But it is often that deterministic direction that creates a far more subtle misdirection.

Nine out of ten startups fail, right? I bet most of them are hard workers and/or have great ideas and/or have a focus and/or goals. A major hurdle to overcome, one that is far less obvious then the cliche advice to work harder/smarter, and the basis for why so many startup fall victim to those one-in-ten odds, is that it is the very focus on the goal that can cause the unbalance in your business, and ironically dooms your chances in achieving it.

Success may live on a straight-line, but the line seen is not necessarily the path to take. The best path is almost always one that dances around the line formed. Looking away, towards an entirely different direction, can reveal a path with far less hurdles when the focus is returned to the goals directive. You must let something go in order to truly have it — a cliché theme that works in almost any environment, and often takes a lifetime to master. Simply put, our “rings” come in the form of friendships, support systems, a passion for what you do, mistakes that need to be made, failures to learn from, vacations to escape to, and random ideas that inspire. When we remember to grab onto those rings when the opportunity to do so arises, or even sometimes when it doesn’t seem like it can, we will be far more able to last the “attacks” the startup game will inevitably throw our way.

So my fellow hedgehogs, should you grab at all the rings you can, even if at times by doing so you are unable to race towards the goal? Most definitely! Any kid who had a sega will tell you: you have to do both. Duh! Obvi.

Diet: Start with — well — your diet.

I was talking to a friend of mine about the perils of staying healthy as I find myself getting older and in the midst of spending every hour on growing my business and not my body. He apparently bumped into a friend of ours from collage that is now an MMA fighter and noticed how fit and in shape he seemed. My friend asked, this now professional athlete, for a short “intro to a healthy body ‘201’”, becuase, as he put it, we have all heard the “101” before. This is what he said followed by the email he sent to add some clarity. I figured it was postable. Some things you may know, somethings are just good to hear again and others may be new to you, so enjoy how ever you choose 🙂

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Basically diet is everything, not just important, but everything. And breakfast is more important then people realize even though they may hear “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, all the time.

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As soon as you wake in the morning, you should consume 16-32 oz of cold water. You body is in dehydration and starvation mode at this time, so the water starts your metabolism by up to 33%.

You want to have something to eat within 30 minutes of waking up as well. I usually eat a bowl of oatmeal with a banana or egg whites. They are both easy to prepare and easy for the body to breakdown.

Doing these two really simple/very important things will have you on you way to being health, losing weight, and having more energy.

Two hours from when you eat breakfast you want to have a light snack. (Protein shake,health bar, powerbar, 10 almonds, pack of peanuts, yogurt, fruit, trail mix) Or some combo of the two.

This helps to sustain your metabolism in between meals, and aids you in not overeating during lunch.

You want to eat lunch 4 hours after breakfast.(Give or take 30 min)

2 hours after lunch you want another small snack.

2 hours after the snack you should eat dinner.

2 hours after dinner you should have a light snack before bed. (If you want, but not needed) But you should go to bed hungry.

So you are comsuming a meal every 4 hours and a snack every 2 hours in between. (This is VERY important)

You should be consuming plenty of water throughout the day. I drink at least a gallon of water, sometimes more. Water helps push everything through your system and aid in digestion. It’s a no-brainer, but people still don’t do it. And NO, you will not be drinking too much water if you consume a gallon, so don’t worry. However you will be going to the restroom quite often.

Stay away from fast food, fried foods, sweet snacks, candy, cakes, and other crap food. Once you start cleaning up what you eat, you’ll start feeling all the bad stuff you have in your food plan.

You do want to pick one day out of the week to have whatever you want. Pizza, Beer, wings, donuts….you get the point. I use Saturday’s as my cheat day and I go to town. Eventually you want to take this Cheat day down to just one cheat meal, but it’s a gradual process. Starting off cutting everything ‘cold turkey’ has negative results, so don’t do it.

Add this with a workout 3-4 times a week and you are off to the races. I’m including two meal plans my nutrionist had me on. You can switch foods around as you choose, but try to stick to the overall theme.

The ol’ switcherooo

I realized todaythat with the advents of iPhone and Google voice free calling from my computer I now use my phone for computing and my computer for calling more then the other way around.

Maybe this is anoter indicaton that mobile is more about sponetaity and look ups where the computer is used as a momemt in time reserved for an action. I am walking and curious about the weater i am about to enter, check phone. I need to talk to my mom at 8 sit down and use skype or gchat for 30 mins….

Maybe ist just ironic, but it was a funny thing to notice today either way.

My greatest life lessons from Computer Science

I really appreciate my education in Computer Science. The most valuable mental shift I gained was the understanding that there are no “hard problems.” To recognize that even extremely difficult problems were easily solved once you were able to deconstruct them into smaller more simple ones. Problem-solving is about figuring out how to simplify, dismantle, and rebuild toward solutions. Simplifying is all about getting good and asking the right questions.

For instance, playing the guitar is hard, playing chords with rhythm is easier, playing chords is even easier, playing a note is more easy – and so on and so forth.

Just breakdown what you want to accomplish and get great at each little piece of it. Then, get great at putting each individual piece together and your problem isn’t all that bad.

Difficult vs. Hard

There is a major difference between difficult and hard for me. I have noticed that professionals love to say they work hard. Over time it has become a badge of honor. I work harder then you and my parents told me hard work = success and therefore I will be/am more successful. That logic seems so screwy and I followed it for way too long.

I propose that if you work hard you are bad at something. There are always difficult things in the world. It is difficult to create an atomic bottom, or be nice to your mom sometimes, it is difficult to start a company. But when something is hard, you are doing it wrong. Life is easier than I think we realize sometimes and with the mentality that working harder is better than not we fall into this brute force, power through mentality. For instance lifting a tree IS hard and people did it for years, building a pulley system was difficult and made lifting a tree less hard.

There are so many red flags that pop up when this is happening. Talking in circles at meetings, staying up late every night, rearranging your pitch to others everytime you give it. Stop and think, am I proud of how hard I am working more than I am tackling the right difficult problem?

It’s weird, is it actually lazier to work hard than find the right difficult problem? For instance, if I had an eating problem and I found myself rummaging through my fridge alot the lazy/hard way to solve it could be to put a lock around my fridge and the lock only opens if I ride my back for more then 3 hours. That’s alot of work and you “solved” the problem, but we know that that is a shit load of work and you didn’t really put any effort toward the actual problem. You simply solved all the points around it, but you worked so hard for it, right? Congrats you’re a hard working idiot. That is a red flag. The difficult thing here is you have an eating problem, go to a gym, go to a psychologist and find out why you find comfort in food, buy healthier foods, etc.

Another example is in politics and law. The ROI for “catching someone in a crime” is low. Someone has to wait around and catch you. The question is why are they breaking the law, why are they angry, is the law right, are the roads safe, etc? Way more difficult but when figured out MUCH easier to maintain and way less hard. Try building a fence on the border of Mexico and the U.S. That’s alot of dumb level hard work. I mean the most similar things are the ancient Great Wall of China, and the BerlinWall…..really? Why don’t you want immigrants here, why do they want to be here and find a mutually beneficial result? If they are coming to the U.S. for healthcare, in order to get healthcare you must be a citizen, in order to be a citizen, you must do x. If it’s cash then offer cash to register, as it may be cheaper then manning and building a non interest aligning wall. Aligning interest and solving difficult problems allows you to not need to over manage tasks and decreases hard work. The best system is one that manages itself to be accommodating to everyone’s passions, interest and goals as closely as possible so that the management of themselves is the most efficient way to work. Regulating pirating music is way harder then making it cheaper and easier for users to download individual songs almost instantly instead of having to break the law, code, search, and wait for songs that are stolen.