What I Learnt Today

My phone vibrates in my thigh pocket, and reflexly I reach down to answer. But my phone isn’t there. Or if it is there, it isn’t ringing.

This has been happening to me frequently over the last few weeks. It is more common when I am ‘on call’, or if I am expecting a call.

I’m glad to know that at least I’m not the only one going crazy.

Research by Professor Michelle Drouin at Indiana University found that 89% of the 290 undergraduates that she surveyed had experienced what is known as ‘Phantom Vibration Syndrome’

I wonder if women and men have a different experience of phantom vibration syndrome as they tend to carry their phone in different places?

In the best medical tradition of having a fancy name for a simple problem, I hereby propose that the specific phantom vibration syndrome that occurs in the thigh be known by the greek name ‘Meraesthesia Aphonia’.

mer– related to thigh, as in meralgia paraesthetica, which is pain from pinching of the lateral cutaneous nerve of the thigh

-aesthesia meaning sensation (such as paraesthesia or anaesthesia)

aphonia meaning loss of voice. In this case, meaning absence of phone.

Are you also suffering from a case of Meraesthesia Aphonia?

What I Learnt On 9th January in other years

9th January 2012 TUAW Best of 2011 Awards

9th January 2011 Winning the Infinity Blade

How long since you last caught a tube in Tahiti?

Bring back that magical ride by watching this video using the YouTube app on your iOS device or using the Chrome browser on your Mac. (you can ‘steer’ your iPhone or iPad by tilting)

How about this cruise with the dolphins, and flight on a paraglider

Hat tip to Will.

I tested out ‘The Hold’ on a random crying baby today and it worked a treat.

Californian Paediatrician Dr Robert Hamilton has revealed his secret for soothing an upset newborn in the video below.

If you have your own crying baby lying around you may like to test it out.

The real challenge for parents is how to put down a soothed infant so that it doesn’t turn back into a crying baby. Any progress on that one, Dr Hamilton?

What I Learnt On 7th January in other years

7th January 2011 Making it stick!

7th January 2011 Mac App Store Opens Today

The skills that you are rewarded for at University are not the skills that get you the best job after you have completed your degree.

Seth Godin points out in his blog today that the ‘best gigs’ want you to see the online trail of magic you regularly create. Where is your  history of generous, talented, extraordinary side projects? Are you an expert in something that actually generates value?

None of these things are particularly difficult to learn, if you are willing to be not very good at them before you’re good at them.

You won’t learn this at Uni, but you do need to start while you are there. Perhaps begin by following Seth’s blog.

What I Learnt On 6th January in other years

6th January 2012 Stayin’ Alive and the Doc Marten CPR technique

6th January 2011 Getting Things Done

The single most important thing to think about when contemplating a domestic espresso machine is “Which grinder will I buy?” because if you are serious about making espresso based drinks at home, the grinder is the most important component. There is simply no substitute for fresh, correctly ground coffee in espresso making!
Alan Frew, Coffee for Connoisseurs

If you are not grinding the bean just before you brew your espresso, your coffee is stale

Or so I am told by the coffee afficiandos.

At Xmas I was told by Al that my grinder was not up to scratch. We couldn’t produce the treacle like extraction that should take 30 seconds to pour.

We have a Rancillio Silva espresso machine which is robust enough to have survived many years of extreme test conditions – including being dropped from a height. We bought it based on reviews such as

RANCILIO SILVIA Simply the best value, most reliable domestic espresso machine in the world. Superb build quality, commercial components, fabulous espresso, great steam. MUST be paired with a good grinder for best results.
https://www.coffeeco.com.au/articles/july2002.html

The grinder that upset Al was the  Sunbeam Cafe Series Grinder, which has 25 graduations – but even at level 1 was too coarse.

However, he had a solution. Shims. These are washers that lift the two burr heads closer together.

My new shims arrived by mail today from some folks at Nowra, complete with instructions.

The day is saved for $1.75! Good times.

From my recent research, if you are serious about coffee, the grinders that you might consider are
Talk Coffee

– The Breville Smart Grinder Pro – about $240 the only ‘appliance’ considered a contender, but don’t expect it to last for much more than a couple of year
– The Macap M2M about $500
– The Compak K3 or similar about $400 

CoffeParts

– The Eureka Mignon, about $550 which comes in cool colours
– Rancilio Rocky about $450
– Mazer Mini Electronic about $1000

What do you use? What do you recommend? Any thoughts?

Seen at Ballina Car Rental

What I Learnt On 4th January in other years

4th January 2011 How to open a Beer with a Magazine

4th January 2011 iPhone for Cardiac Event Recording

Imagine how expensive it would be to book a flight if the aeroplane could be used only once.

Each rocket that is used to launch a satellite costs about the same to build as a Boeing 747.

A Boeing is flown about 10000 times. A rocket is used once.

The cost of a rocket is a major downer if you want to fly one million people to Mars.

Elon Musk has five major life goals, one of which is to make a back up copy of the human race on another planet, just in case something happens to earth. (see WILT Now I need to buy a Tesla – Wait, but why?).

To get enough people to Mars, the cost of space travel will have to come down by many orders of magnitude.

So, in 2002 he founded SpaceX, ‘one of the most unthinkable and ill-advised ventures of all time’. SpaceX redesigned the way of building rockets almost from scratch Against the odds has become one of NASA’s preferred providers to get stuff to the International Space Station.

The game plan for SpaceX is something like –

Step 1 – build a rocket for which people will pay you to deliver stuff into space (Falcon)
Step 2 – build a bigger rocket that can carry large payloads (Falcon 9)
Step 3 – make that rocket land intact so that you can use it again
Step 4- build an even bigger reusable rocket (Falcon heavy)
Step 4 – make the big reusable rocket reliable enough that it can transport people
Step 5 – start sending people to space
Step 6 – start sending people to Mars (Elon says 12 years time, so he will still be able to go)

On Dec 22nd, SpaceX were successful in Step 3. They landed their Falcon 9 rocket at the site from which it had taken off 10 minutes earlier. It is a major achievement. Check out this video of the landing.

And on January 1st, Elon Musk tweeted
Falcon 9 back in the hangar at Cape Canaveral. No damage found, ready to fire again.

Don’t bet against Elon Musk. Who would like to go to Mars in 2028

What I Learnt On 3rd January in other years

3rd January 2012 Happy New Years Resolutions – Part Three – There’s an App for That

Born before 1973? You were born closer to the 1920s than to today.

Know any 84-year-olds? Their birth is farther away from today than is the 22nd century.

Tim Urban at Wait But Why has been doing some calculations to mark the beginning of  the first year after the ‘Back to the Future’ future.

He points out

These movies were in theaters closer to JFK’s presidency than today:

Batman
Back to the Future 2
The Little Mermaid
Indiana Jones
Honey I Shrunk the Kids
Field of Dreams
When Harry Met Sally

And these movies came out closer to World War II than to today:

The Empire Strikes Back
The Shining
Airplane
Caddyshack

Tim’s list is at Wait But Why

Tim puts all of time into perspective in another post here

What I Learnt On 2nd January in other years

2nd January 2012 Happy New Years Resolutions – Part Two

2nd January 2011 Flipboard – App of the Year 2010

2nd January 2011 When a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words