Uh, this is like random or something: Archive

I want to be a Tough Mudder

I’ll be doing the 2011 Tri-State Tough Mudder tomorrow. My son called it a “Funhouse for Adults”. It’s going to be insanely fun. I’ve been working out and spinning a few days a week and running on the weekends. That with a little mental toughness should get me through. In support of Veterans, The “Real” Tough Mudders, the folks over at Tough Mudder...

Nov 11th

Cupcakes by Alex

Jun 20th

Apr 8th

2 tags

My Life in Pictures 2010

Every year I create a mosaic of some of the years photos for my twitter background. It’s great to look back and appreciate those moments again. This year our trip to Greece and our first Halloween party were the highlights. Check out the mosiacs for 2009 and 2008. For a 2 minute glimpse of 3 years of photos see this.

Jan 3rd

1 tag

Happy New Year

via youtube.com My New Year’s Resolutions include singing more with my wife, my best friend, and his wife… and sound awesome to boot.

Jan 1st

Have the Hap, Hap, Happiest Christmas Ever

Where do you think you’re going? Nobody’s leaving. Nobody’s walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We’re all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We’re gonna press on, and we’re gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa...

Dec 24th

2 tags

3 years of photos in 2 minutes

via vimeo.com I created this video using a new service, Pummelvision. The vid contains all my flickr photos dating back to 2007.

Dec 23rd

15 minutes can change your life

via blogs.discovermagazine.com The following writing exercise appears inconsequential, but the evidence speaks for itself. It has been shown to eliminate the gender achievement gap in a University of Colarado Physics course. Exercise: Take 15 minutes to identify 2 or 3 values and write about why they’re important to you. It’s not clear how or why this works, but affirming your...

Nov 29th

1 tag

Mathopolis

via imeveryone.com Don’t think this is real, but if it is…

Nov 27th

Nov 16th

Nov 15th

36 notes

Nov 13th

2 tags

Halloween 2010: A few ghoulish pics

via youtube.com Just a few ghoulish pics from my Halloween get together… Sweet Dreams.

Nov 13th

Oct 17th

Day 51: Spirituality

Aug 15th

Day 24: Stuff

Jul 21st

Day 27: Generations

Jul 20th

Day 25: Sneakers

Jul 20th

Books for NYC Schools

via booksfornyckids.blogspot.com Celebrate reading with ReadThis, The Center for Fiction and writers including Jonathan Dee, Elizabeth Gilbert, Kurt Andersen, Jamaica Kincaid, Sam Lipsyte, Rick Moody, Touré, & Cecily von Ziegesar. A donation of two or more new or gently used board books is all you’ll need for admission to a full day of events. Read more at...

Mar 22nd

Help Jaime Escalante: Mathematics Teacher,...

Mr. Escalante is 79 and struggling with cancer. Actor Edward James Olmos, who played him in the film “Stand and Deliver” has set up a site to help him. Click here to help. Many know Jaime “Kimo” Escalante from the 80’s film “Stand and Deliver”, about a Calculus Teacher that inspires his struggling students to take pride in themselves, work hard, and...

Mar 8th

1 tag

Working with PLGNA - First vid in the series

via plgna.org I’ve been working with many great folks in my neighborhood to rebuild our neighborhood association, PLGNA. I was fortunate to have been elected as president to help drive the effort. We have a lot to do, but we’ve already started reaching out to residents and other neighborhood organizations. Last night I posted the first in a series of videos about how...

Jan 26th

1 tag

Hacking Education with Donors Choose #hackedu

Amazingly, donorschoose.org makes hacking education easy. I see these projects as micro-startups, bootstrapping, hacking and finding creative ways to educate kids. The notes below were written to me by students of a Donors Choose project I helped with, “FlipCams for Hispanic Students”. Their teacher is using the Cams to enhance their learning of English. I relate to these kids. I...

Nov 23rd

2 tags

My talk at Manhattan Bridges High School

(via facebook) I still have plenty to achieve in my life but SHPE(Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers) saw it fit to invite me to talk to students and parents about my experiences as a Latino Technologist. The truth is, I still feel very much like I did when I was in high school. In a way it fuels my inner drive. I had a few moments to speak to the students and parents before my talk...

Oct 22nd

2 tags

Tale of Two Schools - Impact and Expectations of...

via blackweb20.com This Frontline segment, “Education in the Digital Age”, explores the impact technology at what was once a troubled school in the Bronx, NY and a more progressive school in Chatham, NJ. I. Intermediate School 339 in the Bronx 3 Years ago… lots of gang activity, low test scores… only 9% of children were performing at grade level math. Now…...

Sep 2nd

3 tags

Real-time Social Web is Anti-Social

“Real-time” is for machines. That’s a thought rolling in my head today. I’m thinking of possibly doing a long post some time soon, but in the meantime, I’ll share a few “random” thoughts. Professionally, I design and develop real-time trading systems. I see strong parallels between the evolution of real-time trading systems on wall street and evolution...

Jul 18th

2 tags

My 13-year-old Daughter talks about Twitter

Morgan Stanley recently released some research from their 15-year-old intern about Twitter. One data point is not enough to make this interesting, so I encourage moms, dads, or anyone that knows a teenager to ask them about Twitter. You’ll discover some of the curious social media habits *some* teens have. I asked my 13-year-old daughter about it and here’s what she had to say. - No...

Jul 17th

2 tags

Very Local Fundraising

How do you raise money or redirect money for good causes in small communities? I’ve recently discovered the value of a “local” auction. My block association produces an annual street party. It’s typically just plain fun. This year was no exception. However, the state of the economy has been caused us to take on some new concerns. We were hoping to raised funds for...

Jul 7th

5 tags

Calculus of Blogging and Social Media Platforms

Image via Wikipedia I’ve been experimenting with Posterous these past few days. I already use Tumblr, FriendFeed, Twitter, and a few other platforms… which got me thinking about the relationship between them. I was stricken by the fundamental difference between Posterous and Tumblr. Both are blogging platforms, but Posterous is a publisher(via AutoPost) and Tumblr is an...

Jul 7th

1 tag

Free Thoughts on Freemium

Image by louisvolant via Flickr - Ironically, “Freemium” success seems to heavily depend on high costs. While it might be easy for an entrepreneur to enter a market or create value, it’s still costly to sustain Freemium w/no revenue long enough to realize the opportunity. This cost is “astronomical”. The proof? name the “other” google, facebook,...

Jul 6th

3 tags

93 Days of Summer: Photo Project

I plan to document this summer with 1 photo for each of the 93 days of summer, begining today, June 21st, and ending, September 21st. The photos will be posted on the following tumblog. http://93photos.tumblr.com

Jun 22nd

5 tags

Manage Email Hell with Delayed AutoResponders -...

What I want is to automatically archive and send a “Canned Response” to all emails in my inbox older than 3 days. The “Canned Response” might read, “I’m sorry that I haven’t responded to your email. Please resend it if you need me to respond. And as always, call me if it’s urgent! thx” That will get important emails back to the top of my...

Jun 18th

3 tags

Twitter can make money with "Follower" currency

Rather than stock in private or public markets(via IPO), Twitter can sell/auction spots on the “Suggested User” list. “Followers” is a form of currency on Twitter… “Followers” are valuable. It may very well be the best way to get paid in the Twitterverse. In keeping with a “Market” based model, Twitter might maximize value and monetization...

Jun 1st

4 tags

DIY Twitter Client : Yet Another Twitter Client...

Above is the menu of the Twitter client I hacked up with Google Reader. In the meantime I’m calling it Grittr. The menu appears for each rss story in Google Reader. I’ll show you how to set it up in a moment. I was inspired by Guy Kawasaki’s article, “How to Hack together a Twitter Client”. He uses NetNewsWire as his news reader and Twitter Client. I’m a...

May 26th

3 tags

10 things more important than The Idea

If you’ve never gone out on your own, the economic crisis might have you considering it. Yet many feel paralyzed by the lack of a “good” idea. In my experience I’ve found at least 10 things more important than the idea itself… in no particular order. Passion - High Energy and Commitment is required in any setting! Your family and close friends - Can’t do...

May 1st

Apr 16th

Apr 11th

3 tags

Hacking Education: Technology Plan for a...

I remember my first experience with a computer. It was in the 6th grade. We had a class trip to the IBM offices in Manhattan. I nearly missed it. I could not afford the $5 fee for the trip. Just before my class left for the trip, my teacher approached me with a five dollar bill in hand and “told” me I should go. We toured the offices then spent about 2 hours programming in Logo. ...

Mar 31st

3 tags

Hacking Education: My Inspiration

I want to share some resources that have helped mold my thinking about learning and education, but mostly, inspire me to search for new ways to hack education. Below are 3 brilliant hacks. One hacks how we think about education and it’s goals, the second hacks the execution of education, and the last hacks some long held assumptions about learning. These educators and researchers can...

Mar 16th

2 tags

Risk Management : 10 things you must consider for...

I wrote the following post on my consulting site. Given all the chatter about risk management, I thought I’d share here too. fynapse: Risk Management is the top priority for many financial services companies. The reasons are obvious. What’s not obvious is what they should do about it. Our research has revealed that most companies are focused on standard best practices including:...

Feb 23rd

Feb 17th

4 tags

TweetThis for Tumblr

A few people have asked me about the TweetThis button on my blog posts. You’ll readily find this on Wordpress blogs but not with Tumblr. Clicking it will submit a link to the post via Twitter. The Tumblr implementation is based and inspired by the TweetThis plugin for Wordpress. It’s “alpha” and only works with bit.ly. Most of it will however work with most blogging platforms. Most...

Feb 17th

2 tags

Twestival: Twitter Community Mashup for Charity

“Twestival is organized 100% by volunteers around the world and 100% of the money raised from these events will go directly to support charity: water projects.” - http://www.charitywater.org/twestival/ Find your local Twestival and join the party! http://twestival.com/ Most importantly, donate! Many people have donated just $5.

Feb 12th

3 tags

Barack It! 4 Keys of Obama's Social Media Success

We’re all watching President Obama’s moves closely. Fortunately, he’s made it easy for us. He’s invited us in. Obama’s success in engaging the public online is a great blueprint for an Online Social Media Strategy. The unprecedented level of transparency and connectedness will surely yield similar successes during Obama’s presidency. For me...

Jan 28th

Jan 20th

4 tags

Green Screens - Open Idea

Lifehacker recently posted about and solicted ideas for lower energy consumption in laptops. According to the Windows 7 team, the two energy hogs are the LCD screen at 43% and the chipset at 21%. Sticking true to Pareto’s 80/20 rule, I’m suggesting two ideas for new LCD screens. 1. Partially Lit Screens - essentially design screens that can parts of it completely off, thereby...

Jan 17th

4 tags

Thesis Theme for Tumblr

You might already know that this blog uses Tumblr. You may also know that I recently vowed to blog more. Well, during my research to become a better blogger, I kept coming across the recommendation to use the Wordpress Thesis Theme for a blog. Apparently, it has the right look and is equiped with many configuration options. Perhaps you should have a look if you’re a wordpress user. On...

Jan 12th

3 tags

Want to be a Better Blogger? Blogging Resources

One of my resolutions is to become a better blogger. To do that I’m simply going to blog more. I also plan to pick up a few things from the experts. I compiled a list of top blogging resources from blogging.alltop.com. The list is below, but you can also subscribe to them via: My Feed | RSS | OPML | Twitter Blogging Resources About.com Web Logs Alister Cameron // Blogologist Blog...

Jan 6th

Jan 4th

Jan 3rd