Cupcake Smackdown 2.0 Wrapup Video

Conference Schedule to the End of 2010

I'll be attending three more conferences this year, unless there is a 2010 Stack Overflow Dev Days. Look me up if you'll be in the area.

Great American Beer Festival (GABF)

Denver, CO, September 14 - 19

An entire conference hall full of beer. Tons of presentations on every aspect of beer from aging beer, to cooking with beer, to marketing beer. Beer lunches, beer brunches, beer punches. A good time for beer nerds.

The Business of Software Conference

Boston, MA, October 2 - 6

An incredibly useful conference for software entrepreneurs who want to learn about running a software business. My personal notes from last year's conference has become the most used business text I own. If that isn't enough, BoS will stoke your enthusiasm for the software industry.

The Beer Blogger Conference

Boulder, CO, November 5 - 7 (actual days in Boulder TBD)

A conference about beer blogging, if you can believe it. These three days with the beer elite should be incredible!

Media Math

Two engineering degrees hang from the wall in my home office. I only share this fact because it explains why I wrote this post. I'm a nerd.

My pal @Baconator linked to an NPR article about the health impact of eating meat. I started reading and got stuck on this paragraph:

"In fact, people gained about 4 more pounds over a five-year period for every extra 250 grams of meat they ate daily, according to a new analysis of a large European nutrition study. That's like adding a 450 calorie steak to your dinner every night"

Whatever does it mean? Is this data surprising at all? In which direction is it surprising, too much fat gain, or too little? I dug in my desk drawers for my engineering cap.

Basic principals

• From the NIH, 1 ounce prime steak has 75 calories, or 2.65 calories per gram.
• From the Mayo clinic, there are 3500 calories per pound of fat.
• There are 365 days per year, rounding down.

My initial thoughts are that nutrition discussions have units issues. Pounds? Calories? Grams? I count at least two different measurement systems. Isn't that how we crashed those NASA probes into Mars?

And the calorie by itself has problems, just read about it in Wikipedia. Won't someone think of the poor children who have to learn this stuff?

Analysis

Let's get back to the article. It sounds like they are saying that:

250 grams meat * 5 years = 450 steak calories * 5 years

That means that:

250 grams meat = 450 steak calories

What if the meat is chicken?

250 grams chicken = 450 steak calories

How about pork?

250 grams pork = 450 steak calories

Ok, that seems odd. And wrong. Lets assume they meant that:

250 grams steak = 450 calories

Ok.

250 grams steak = 450 calories = 2.65 calories per gram steak * 250 grams steak = 662.5 calories

Huh? For every 1.5 steak calories, it seems that only 1 sticks to your belly over a five year period. There is a 33% off sale on steak calories! The paragraph seems to be saying that over five years, eating more steak is a deal. I wonder how fruits and veggies stack up against steak.

More Analysis

Ok, let's look at it from the fat gain perspective. Four pounds in five years.

calories in 4 pounds fat = 3500 calories per pound * 4 pounds = 14,000 calories

Ok, let's assume the best case, that this is like eating 450 calories of steak per night.

14,000 calories over 5 years = 450 calories * 365 * 5 = 821,250 calories

What? From this perspective, steak seems like an even bigger deal! Eating an extra eight hundred twenty one thousand and two hundred fifty calories results in only fourteen thousand calories of additional belly fat. Only 1.7% of the calories stuck!

Conclusion

So, what does this all mean? What does it prove? First, it proves that math makes no sense. Second, it indicates that I probably do not understand what the article is trying to say.

If you understand what is going on, please let me know in the comments!

Fancy & Not Fancy

Some restaurants try to act fancy even though they actually tend to annoy me. Instead of complaining to the restaurants individually, I've made a list of some characteristics of restaurants I like, and some I don't like. I've made it public, for everyone's education.

Since I'm not a duke or a anthropology student, I had to make stuff up. If you disagree, you can comment or write your own counter point blog post. Oh, and for the record, most of my favorite places to eat lose points on some of these. I still love you.

• Fancy: What kind of ice is that in my iced tea? Oh, frozen tea!
• Not Fancy: Valet parking instead of parking.
• Fancy: Presenting different dishes on different plates, boards, trays.
• Not Fancy: Wasting food.
• Fancy: Glasses to match the style of beer.
• Not Fancy: No local beer on tap.
• Fancy: Desserts invented by an imaginative pastry chef.
• Not Fancy: Sysco desserts, or clones of Sysco desserts.
• Fancy: A quiet space where you can converse at normal levels.
• Not Fancy: Loud music.
• Fancy: Silverware without food crusted to it.
• Not Fancy: Making a big deal about cleaning up the crumbs I made. Sorry about the crumbs, dude.
• Fancy: One special of the day with a good story.
• Not Fancy: A mumbled list of eight specials.
• Fancy: The chef visits the table to say hello.
• Not Fancy: Nobody ever sees the chef.
• Fancy: The chef sends a small dish to your table.
• Not Fancy: The bread basked sits empty for ten minutes before the food arrives.
• Fancy: A clean, well lit bathroom.
• Not Fancy: A warm, humid bathroom with graffiti and peeling paint. Is this sixth street?
• Fancy: Explaining and describing the dish as it arrives to the table.
• Not Fancy: A water glass filled every time the water is a half inch below the top. Sometimes I haven't even touched it and you added more water.
• Fancy: A water glass that is never empty.
• Not Fancy: I have to ask to find the restrooms.
• Fancy: Friendly staff who act like they want to talk to me.
• Not Fancy: A dining room so dark I can't tell what color my food is.
• Fancy: Showmanship. If you set something on fire, I'll love you forever.

What do you think? Does anybody actually like valet parking?

HTC EVO 4G vs. Motorola Droid: Cellphone Smackdown

Since I received both Verizon's Motorola Droid and Sprint's HTC EVO 4G phone at the GoogleIO conference, why not compare the two phones?

EVO:

Larger and more sensitive screen (4.3 inches)Notification light is always on when the phone is plugged in (it does not flash for notifications when charging)

Sometimes challenging to find the button to wake phone without looking

• 4G drains the battery rapidly
• 3G battery consumption seems typical
• I've noticed more issues with crashing apps
• Soft keyboard has arrows for cursor positioning
• Can get special characters and numbers with a long touch on soft keyboard
• Two cameras, 8 megapixel with flash, and 1.3 megapixel forward facing
• Integrated kickstand (landscape orientation only)
• Sense UI
• Red trim around the rear camera and kickstand
• Fast data connectivity and CPU
• Available WiFi tethering app

Droid:

• Notification light not shared with charging light
• Hardware button for camera shutter release
• Less precise screen
• Positioning the cursor in text is challenging unless you use the D-pad on the keyboard
• Easier to find button to wake phone without looking
• It's easy to accidentally press the volume buttons when plugging the phone in
• Slightly thicker than the EVO
• More narrow screen than an iPhone (3.7 inches diagonal), making the portrait soft keyboard narrow
• One camera: 5 megapixel with flash
• Standard Android UI
• Physical keyboard, although the keys are nearly flush to the surface of the keyboard
• Directional pad by the keyboard
• Gold tone on the rear speaker and camera button (which flakes off the button)
• Slower than the EVO
• No WiFi tethering app

Both:

• Have capacitive touch buttons for home, menu, back, and search, although the order is different on the two
• Use the same thin USB connector for charging and connectivity

The EVO definitely has exceeded the Droid in wow-factor and technology. On the other hand, there are a few areas where the Droid wins in the physical design department. The notification light is separate from the charger light on the Droid, and the wake/lock/power button is easier to find due to the positioning of the protruding headphone jack next to it. The lock button on the EVO doesn't protrude much, and there aren't any good landmarks to find it by touch.

Don't think the Droid wins on everything in the ergonomics department, the EVO still has a more ergonomic soft keyboard, and a more accurate and precise touch screen. Also, I'd rather use the EVO soft keyboard than the Droid hardware keyboard any day. Sorry to the physical keyboard snobs!

The free service on my Droid recently ended, and I admit I'm a little sad even though I still have free service on the EVO. I think that the way the Droid slides open and the hint of gold mesh on the back reminds me of the communicators from the Original Star Trek series. Dorky, yes, but also nice. I think I'll get over it, the EVO is pretty killer.

Win: EVO 4G

Eats the iPhone for Breakfast: Sprint HTC EVO 4G

Only a crazy person would give away two expensive smart phones at a $400 conference. They may as well flush money down the toilet.

In unrelated news, a few weeks before the GoogleIO conference, Google mailed me a free Verizon Motorola Droid phone with 30 days of free phone service. I felt that was a really nice gift. At least, it seemed really nice until they gave me an even better phone on the last day of the conference. Google gave every attendee the unreleased Sprint HTC EVO 4G with another 30 days of service.

Now I have three phones that ring when people call my Google Voice number. It's a little nuts.

The EVO 4G gets attention. It has:

• a huge 4.3 inch screen
• an 8 megapixel camera with two LEDs for a flash
• a forward-facing 1.3 megapixel camera for self portraits and conferencing
• a kick-stand on the back for propping the phone up in landscape orientation
• 4G WiMax data connectivity for fast internet access
• 720p video recording
• a HDMI video out port
• a slick UI

If that isn't enough, people are impressed by the EVO; the phone is a conversation piece, much like the original iPhone was. On the plane back to Austin, a passenger stopped me to ask what it was. Back at work everyone wanted to touch it, and at least one of my co-workers really wants it.

One friend with an iPhone 3G looked at it for 2 minutes and fell in love. Even Jennie thinks might be better than her iPhone 3GS. And the phone is viral: "Hey John, show him the 4G phone!"

In short, it is a striking phone. People want it... until they hear that it is on Sprint only. Then they seem disappointed or wary.

Sprint: thanks for the freebie. I think the phone and the service really shine. Now for the bad news: you need clean up your image. People think that your customer service is terrible, your coverage is spotty, and that your plans are expensive.

Here are my suggestions to Sprint if they want to become the best carrier in the US:

• Build out your 4G network big time. I get 4G in Austin in some places, but never found it in San Francisco.
• Promise friendly customer service. Stop arguing with your customers!
• Offer contract-free plans without subsidized phones. If your service is good, folks will stay.
• Put together some service packages so folks can get 4G internet at home with their 4G phone for cheap.
• Deliver the fastest Android version updates in the industry. Lots of Android users are frustrated by how long it takes for their carrier to upgrade their phones to the new Android version. You can't compete with Apple unless you get Android updates out as fast as Apple gets iPhone updates out.
• Give everybody a free second battery with the EVO. Hey look, you can change the battery. When will the iPhone get that feature?

Some quick thoughts on the EVO 4g:

• It is quick, as long as you don't run too many apps simultaneously. Hopefully Froyo will help with that.
• The screen is beautiful. My iPod Touch now seems small and pitiful in comparison.
• The on-screen keyboard is fantastic, the best I've seen on a phone. The size helps.
• When you have 4G coverage, web pages and the maps load fast. 3G seems pokey by comparison.
• When you don't have 4G coverage, leaving the 4G transceiver on burns batteries.
• The device feels nice in the hand.
• Finding the lock/unlock/power button by feel is difficult. I think the button needs to stick up more or the case needs some curves to guide the fingers.
• The internal speaker seems nice.
• The kickstand is cool, but I haven't used it much.
• The red trim around the camera and kickstand is nice.

What are your impressions of the phone and Sprint's service?

* Updated 31 May 2010 with minor enhancements and commentary.

Get a Hobby

Chris McCann wrote a nice piece calling for startup company founders to get a hobby. I love it!

I enjoyed that Chris responded to his need for a hobby by adopting 30 of them. And then he made a list and started checking them off. Why start with the notion of having one hobby when you can try lots of them?

Beyond relaxation and clarity, hobbies also are opportunities to get passionate about something you might turn into a business. Maybe you can use your expertise in one field (like computer engineering) to solve a problem in another (scuba diving). Instant startup idea. By trying 30 different hobbies, an entrepreneur gets exposure to 30 different potential target markets.

I also believe that building a diverse portfolio of non-occupational experience helps with creativity. Different hobbies require different kinds of thought. Windsurfing requires the surfer to have a mental model of where the wind is coming from, how the board will react to changes in weight, and how the sail will react to changes in position. Mountain biking requires continuous planning for and reaction to the approaching terrain. The more exposure to different problem solving skills, the more your brain stretches, and your reserves of confidence build to help you get through tough patches in life.

I'd like to try more hobbies, but I'm not doing too bad in my checklist of things I've tried so far:

• windsurfing
• surfing
• western horseback riding
• hang gliding
• photography
• writing
• cooking (I tried it, didn't say I was good)
• violin playing
• piano
• crossfit
• reading
• concerts
• music festivals
• shooting
• archery
• boating
• sailing
• rowing
• canoeing
• swimming
• hiking
• caving (the touristy kind)
• exploring new cities
• brewing beer
• making furniture
• flash mobs
• being an extra in a film
• standup paddleboarding
• behind the scenes tours at Disney World
• juggling
• indoor rock climbing

The hobbies I'd like to get some experience in:

• scuba diving
• flying planes
• kiteboarding
• wakeboarding
• snow boarding
• motorcycling
• mountain climbing
• whitewater rafting
• hot air ballooning
• space exploration
• urban exploration
• yoga
• zip lines
• dinosaur bone hunting
• driving a tower crane
• touring in a sleeper car
• unicycling
• unicycling offroad
• stilt walking
• outdoor rock climbing

What am I missing?