Today marks the fourth blogaversary of the kadavy.net blog. Much more has happened with this blog than was originally expected. I started it with a simple barf-out post that was written just to get myself past the perfection paralysis and intimidation of staring a blog.
Archive for Miscellaneous
Kadavy.net has redesigned, and boy are we excited! This is our first redesign in years, and it’s a doozy.
Over the past 18 months, and through 15 Flatmate Meetups, I have listened to your questions and concerns. You have found the roommate searching process to be frustrating, laborious, and sometimes even lonely - exactly the same reasons I started Flatmate Meetup in the first place. The main tool that you have all relied upon has been Craigslist. The problems I experienced with using Craigslist, and that I have heard from many of you have included 1) having to sort through too many irrelevant e-mails from incompatible candidates, spammers, and scammers 2) “flaking” and no-shows when it did come time to have an appointment with a potential roommate, and 3) feeling all alone in the process, and not having any sense of progress until the mission of finding a living situation was suddenly complete.
Through a Friend broadcasts your needs to your friends up to three degrees away. This way you can find a roommate who is compatible with you, and who will be more likely to keep their appointment with you. Best of all, Through a Friend’s “support” feature allows your friends to get involved with getting your message out, so you won’t feel all alone.
So, if you’re a Facebook user, go check out Through a Friend, and post your announcement to find a roommate you can trust.
I sat down with Nate Voss and Donovan Beery of The Reflex Blue Show to get really geeky on fonts. Give it a direct listen here, or view the post.
I recently played the lead role in Marc Stayman’s “Echo,” a production of Scary Cow. It played on the big screen at the Victoria Theater in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, but I unfortunately missed it since I was wandering through Europe. Thanks to the interwebs, you can enjoy it from the comfort of your internet browser. Check it out!
I think this was his way of suggesting that one smile. From his Compleated Autobiography.
There are two sorts of people in the world, who with equal degrees of health and wealth and the other comforts of life, become the one happy, the other unhappy. Those who are to be happy fix their attention on the pleasant parts of conversation, and enjoy all with cheerfulness. Those who are to be unhappy think and speak only of the contraries. Hence they are continually discontented themselves, and by their remarks sour the pleasures of society, offend personally many people, and make themselves everywhere disagreeable. If these people will not change this bad habit, and condescend to be pleas’d with what is pleasing, it is good for others to avoid an acquaintance with them, which is always disagreeable, and sometimes very inconvenient, particularly when one finds one’s self entangeld in their quarrels.
An old philosophical friend of mine, grown from experience very cautious in this, carefully shun’d any intimacy with such people. He had, like other philosophers, a thermometer to show the heat of the weather, and a barometer to mark when it was likely to prove good or bad; but there being no instrument yet invented to discover at first sight this unpleasing disposition in a person, he for that purpose made use of his legs. One was remarkably handsome, the other by some accident crooked and deform’d. If a stranger at the first interview regarded his ugly leg more than his handsome one, he doubted him. If he spoke of it, and took no notice of the handsome leg, that was sufficient to determine my philosopher to have no farther acquaintance with him.
I therefore advise these critical, querulous, discontented, unhappy people that if they wish to be loved and respected by others and happy in themselves, they should leave off looking at the ugly leg.
Until recently, I was prone to sinus infections - or not so much prone, but rather, I had a sinus infection all of the time. My voice was nasally, I was fatigued all of the time, and I pretty much felt gross. I had seen a number of doctors over the years for my recurrent sinusitis. They tended to test me for environmental allergies, stick a camera up my nose, and ultimately prescribe some bullshit allergy medication that didn’t work, or even convince me to shoot water up my nose - which was actually their best idea.
Then one day I was reading an old book on holistic medicine. Of course, the first thing I wanted to know was how could I prevent being constantly congested. The book said that foods such as wheat, meat, and dairy often contributed to excess mucous production - and thus, sinusitis. I was miserable, and clearly willing to try anything, so I cut out all three of those things the very next day.
Within two days, the difference was incredible. My head had cleared up, I had boundless energy, and other problems - such as a patch of eczema that I had on my eyelid for years - all cleared up. My armpits didn’t even smell - which is an odd observation, but remarkable, so I’m remarking upon it.
I continued with this “fast” of sorts for about a week. Through a bit of experimentation I was able to place the blame for my sinus woes (and that eczema thing) on wheat. Since I re-introduced animal products like meat and dairy, my armpits just smell like a normal person’s.
“Wheat!? You can’t eat wheat!?,” is the usual response of anyone whom I tell this to. Yeah, that’s right - I can’t eat bread, pasta, flour tortillas (burritos), cupcakes, crackers, cookies, brownies, cake, or even drink beer. This means staples such as pizza and sandwiches have been out of my diet - except for the occasional (regretted) indulgence - since I discovered this problem seven months ago. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been quite worth it.
How could you avoid something as ubiquitous as wheat? Good question. Fortunately I had the advantages both of living in the hippie capital known as San Francisco, and working at a hippie company; so knowledge on this subject was pretty easy to find. I discovered grains such as quinoa, and millet, and these other things called “fruits” and “vegetables.” The whole experience of trying to restructure my diet had me looking at food totally differently. Ultimately, I found it easiest to just eat Thai and Indian food every day, but there are websites dedicated to wheat free diets, if one is so inclined.
Not only did the experience have me looking at food differently, it also had me looking at medicine differently. How could I see so many GPs, allergy specialists, ENT specialists, and dermatologists without a single one of them saying “you know, you should look at your diet?” How many other people are out there with health problems related to food allergies and intolerances that are being underinformed by their doctors? I get the sneaking suspicion that somewhere in the depths of that problem lies the fact that there’s so much money to be made pumping people full of drugs.
But keeping wheat out of my diet has just plain gotten old, so I’m seeing an accupuncturist with the hopes I can have that allergy (and a few others) eliminated. You can bet that if she can make it so I can eat pizza and drink beer again, you will hear about it right here.
One of the first web 2.0 type events that I went to when I moved to California was Super Happy Dev House, where I met Vinnie and the other guys from Meetro. At the time that company had as many as 8 guys living and working in a three-bedroom apartment in Palo Alto. It sounds like a totally crazy situation, but whenever I hung out there I found it to be extremely inspiring and energizing - they were passionate to the max about their idea (they still are, but now they have some real office space). Current.tv did a great job of depicting this arrangement and I want to share it with you:
Just can’t afford that designer brand? Or maybe you want the name, but not all of that…class. Well, now you can make your own t-shirt in any brand you want!
- Get a blank t-shirt.
- Order some letters. bonus typographer points if you can piece together something decent from a sheet full of individual letters.
- Spell out your favorite designer brand on the t-shirt, using the letters, and iron them on.
- Wear your stylish new shirt proudly on the street.
SustainLane and I have parted ways. It was fun and rewarding while it lasted. No, I’m not currently looking for work, freelance or otherwise. I’m excited – more things to come from me…
