The other day I went down to the South End to buy a bike off of Craigslist. I don't really know my way around the area too well, so I used the MBTA's trip planner to figure out how to get there. (A lot of people have had problems with the trip planner giving them bad directions, but it's always gotten me where I want to go.) The directions it gave me were good enough, but there was something about them that just didn't seem quite right.

According to the directions the trip planner gave me, I was supposed to take the Red Line train from Porter Square to Park, and then get on the 43, a bus that goes down Tremont to Ruggles. That's all well and good, but the icon shown for the 43 isn't the bus icon, but the ferry icon. Has the MBTA accidentally let slip with their plans to turn Tremont St. into a canal? Perhaps they're developing some sort of land ferry to replace the buses. At any rate, it's hardly a major problem, but an amusing MBTA misadventure nonetheless.

(It still does the same thing, I wonder how long it will take them to fix it.)

Screenshot of MBTA trip planner.

Half of a pig.

I just learned about Tumblr, a free tumblelog service. What's a tumblelog? Well, it's basically a really basic form of blog that involves no writing. For example, I now have a little bookmarklet in my bookmark bar labeled 'Share on Tumblr'. When I click it, I get the window you see to the right. It let me very easily and very quickly throw whatever random things I want, be it a link to a website, an image, or a YouTube video, onto my tumbleblog.

I spent a lot of time online. It's kinda my job. As a result, I find and am sent a lot of interesting/funny/strange/weird things. In particular, as many of my friends can tell you, I find a lot of interesting/funny/strange/weird videos, which I love to share with my friends. The problem is that while pretty much all the video sites out there have a mechanism to share videos with people, they still require you to manually enter the people you want to send them to, and they're all diferent, and they don't actually all have that feature. So I now have a tumbleblog at joshourisman.tumblr.com where I can easily share all the strange and funny videos I have with whomever wants to see them. So far it has three of my favorite YouTube videos on it, and there will definitely be more to come (and probably other non-video things as well). Enjoy!

The window you get from the Tumblr bookmarklet.

This video is a bit on the dry side, but watch it all the way through. It's a demonstration of a new 3D facial rendering technology by Volker BLanz and Thomas Vetter of the MPI for Biological Cybernetics in Germany. It does a lot of amazing things, but the most striking is the ability to map a 2D photograph (or even painting) into a realistic, pose-able, 3D model. In the video, stills of Tom Hanks, Audrey Hepburn, and DaVinci's Mona Lisa are used to create very realistic looking 3D models of the heads. They're even able to change the lighting and have added elements to the pictures (such as a hat) cast realistic shadows.

Combining this technology with rapid prototyping could lead to some very cool physical reconstructions of historical figures. I imagine it could also have a lot of potential for forensic reconstruction. I wonder what would happen if they applied this technology to the image on the Shroud of Turin. Very cool.

Today we took our cat, Pigpen, in to the MSPCA clinic over in Boston to be spayed. (Apparently the vet in Illinois where Jessi got her didn't spay her as we discovered when she went into heat for the first time a few months ago...) Thanks to SNAP (Spay-Neuter Assistance Program) the procedure only cost us $60. That, of course, does not include the cost of having a cat who we didn't let eat since midnight last night (she was searching all over the condo for food this morning), stuffed in a box (which she hates), drove in the car (which she hates), and then left alone with strangers (which she hates), in a strange place (which she hates), full of other cats (which she's never really experienced before), where they did all sorts of strange things to her. She is not going to be a happy kitty when I go pick her up this afternoon. I imagine she'll go straight to her hiding place under the bed and not come out for a very long time. The only real consolation for her is that our good friend Brian works at the MSPCA so there will at least be a familiar face around. We also, a little while ago, got a call from the MSPCA clinic saying that in the course of her surgery they found a mass near one of her ovaries. They think they were able to remove it all, but we're still paying another $50 for a biopsy. Hopefully it will turn out to be benign and we won't have to subject her to the indignity of a car ride again for a long time.

In other news, you may notice a new, big, grey thing in the sidebar of my blog. It's the beta version of the AutoRoll widget from Criteo which I was informed about in an email from Peter, a project manager at Criteo. Apparently it works by tracking which blogs (that have installed the widget) each unique user goes to, and then displaying for each user a list of blogs that they're likely to enjoy. Seems like a really cool idea to me, so I'm giving it a shot. Of course it can only really be any good if lots of people install it on their blogs, so give it a shot!

Hmm, I think that's about it for now. I've got some work to do before I go rescue our poor bewildered cat from the clutches of the evil veterinarians.

I started this blog largely with the intention of it being a marketing tool for my business(es). Well, that's what I said anyway. In reality, I didn't have much of an idea of what that meant. I'd spent enough time in the worlds of technology and public relations to know that blogs were a big deal and could make a huge difference when it comes to marketing yourself. But as I'd always been solely on the technology side of things I discovered that, while I had learned a lot about what to do to market myself, build my brand, &c;, I didn't really know anything about how to do it. Fortunately that's never really stopped me from doing anything before, and I've found that I learn the best by doing anyway. So I just created this blog and started writing my story in my own way like the stubborn individualist that I am.

And I've certainly learned a few things in the process. For one, when I started out I didn't really have any idea of what sort of things I should be writing in order to make my blog as effective a marketing tool as possible. I also didn't know in what ways my blog would drive or be driven by my efforts to grow my business. I started out writing pretty much only about things that were directly relevant to this blog: the process of essentially starting over from scratch in a new city with nothing but my wits, my skills, and Jessi to keep me alive. This was actually surprisingly successful. Within weeks of starting this blog I had already started to build a reader base rather than just having a few people randomly stumble onto this site through technorati. I like to attribute this to the fact that the basic story-line of my life since then has been fairly archetypical, and, I'd like to think, one of the private fantasies of just about everyone who's grown up in America. Regardless of why, my blog has been pretty successful; my daily hits are measured in the thousands and I currently have around 30 subscribers. But a successful blog does not a marketing strategy make.

I suppose that my original, and somewhat far-fetched, strategy was that I'd start writing my blog about what I was doing, people who were interested in my services would find it, and I would suddenly have business coming out my ears. Clearly I was being a bit idealistic, as that strategy has an underwear-gnome-sized gap: how do people who are interested in my services find it and why do they bother reading it? Fortunately, I had actually already solved that problem before I had even realized that it was a problem. Whenever I post an ad on Craigslist, or respond to a Craigslist ad, or send an email to anyone about anything, or post on a message board, or do just about anything online, I also make sure that there's a link to my blog in my signature or profile, or whatever. My blog address in the contact info on my resume, and a permanent fixture of my business cards, and I always make sure to fill out the 'website' field when commenting on other blogs. So without even thinking about it I can ensure that anyone I contact, no matter how large or small their interest in my business, can easily find my blog and read it. And that, I've discovered has really been the key.

I've never had anyone call me or email me because they found me through my blog and wanted me to do a job, but nevertheless this blog has most definitely been a useful tool in my business for the simple fact that it's a distinguisher. There have been several situations where a new client has told me that they had gotten several bids they were considering, but after reading my blog they knew that I was the one they wanted to hire. That, to me, seems to be the best indication that I could get that my blog is fulfilling the purpose I laid out for it. It also, I think, carries with it an important lesson. It tells me that it's not actually all that important that this blog be about my business or that I restrict my posts to the things I'm doing business-wise. What's important is that I express myself clearly and accessibly so that when a potential client is comparing me one of my competitors and clicks the link to my blog, they'll feel that they've gotten to know me a little bit and learn a little about who I am beyond the dry facts and numbers in my proposal or the list of experience and awards in my resume. And that, I suppose, is the whole point of public relations to begin with.

Pi, pi, mathematical pi. 3.14159...

Treehugger has just run a story about carbon sequestration; a name for techniques which reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by putting them into other places. Personally I've always been a little skeptical of the idea, due perhaps to a limited understanding of it. But the recent Treehugger story has, for me at least, really driving the point home about how it can be a good and useful thing.

Why did this seemingly innocuous story about a popular subject among environmentalists make so much more of an impact on me than others?, you might be asking. Well, the answer is that this story has a direct relation to another interest of mine: pre-Columbian American civilizations.

The story talks about one method of carbon sequestration that brings about other benefits beyond reducing our emissions. It's referred to as 'incorporating bio-char into the soil', which is another name for creating terra preta (and you'll notice a similarly named link at the end of the story). Terra preta is the name for a type of soil found in Amazonian regions of South America. Ordinarily the soil in the Amazon is nearly completely devoid of nutrients due to the near constant 'rainfall' caused by the rainforest. There are, however, patches of earth which not only defy this trend but are incredibly fertile. These patches, termed terra preta, or 'dark earth', because of their uncharacteristically dark coloration for the region, are believed to have been purposefully created as a soil management project by pre-Columbian American civilizations perhaps as early as 720 B.C.

I was already familiar with the nature and benefits of terra preta due to my archaeological interests, and so the mention of using it as a form of carbon sequestration really brought the whole concept into focus for me. An important component of terra preta is the high levels of charcoal in the soil (hence the term 'bio-char'). Charcoal, as we all know from our high school chemistry classes, is a form of carbon, and therefore one possible destination for the carbon that would otherwise be forming carbon dioxide to be pumped into the atmosphere.

This, I suppose, is the perfect example of why I'm interested in archaeology. Not only are ancient cultures fascinating in their own right, but they can actually have important lessons, and even technologies, to teach us that can help us with our own modern problems.

A Massachusetts politician, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino no less, may actually be doing something in a way that isn't completely moronic and doomed to fail! Menino's wireless task force, charged with coming up with a solution to providing a free wireless network for Bostonians, has created a new 501(c)(3) non-profit entity called openairboston.net that will be in charge of providing this service under the leadership of the former CEO of Lightbridge Inc. Pam Reeve.

Now, I'm not going to make the claim that this is the best way to provide a city-wide, free wireless network, or even that Boston should provide a city-wide, free wireless network, but I am going to claim that this is the first time that I've every heard a plan that sounds even vaguely reasonable and designed to succeed come out of Massachusetts politics at any level. This is not, of course, to say that this new 501(c)(3) won't fail miserably, but at least the approach seems well thought out and maybe even good.

Way to go Mayor Menino! Now if you'd just stop trying to prevent Bostonians from being safe in their own homes and decrying the state of parking in Boston while simultaneously—and hypocritically—actively working to make it worse, I might even put you on the list of reasonable, if not good, politicians.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may recall my mentioning that myself and two friends of mine were planning on starting a company to work in concert with some amazing web designers that we know. Well, that has now happened, and the three of us are now managing partners of Triworks America, LLC. We are working in concert with Triworks, a Portugese based web design company who, in my opinion, are by far the best designers I have ever seen. If you don't believe me you can check out not only their web page linked to above (which will soon be updated to include information on our little triumvirate), but the College Poker Association (a project by my two fellow triumvirs by which they discovered Triworks' amazing talent), and any of the sites in their portfolio (the link's at the bottom of the Triworks.net page). You can also, of course, consider the fact that every single Triworks site that has been submitted for an award has won that award.

This venture, I think, will turn out very well. As is blatantly obvious, Triworks has absolutely amazing talent when it comes to design. The only thing holding them back in the past, I think, has been that they're located in Portugal and, while they can speak English well enough, doing business in a non-native language is not easy. My friends and I (and yes, I'm pushing to have the title 'Triumvir' included on our business cards) should hopefully be able to provide the cultural and linguistic bridge needed to help bring their amazing talent to the US. Incredibly enough, we've already receive and RFP a very big name international client. Hopefully this augers well for our future success. (Yes, I've probably been watching a little too much Rome. Blame Titus Pullo.)

In other news—also oddly Portugal-related—you can vote for the New 7 Wonders of the World, which is pretty cool. My votes:

• Angkor Wat
• Roman Colosseum
• Easter Island Statues (Moai)
• Great Wall of China
• Kremlin
• Petra
• Stonehenge

Sadly of those I voted for I've only been to the Roman Colosseum (which ranks as by far the coolest thing I've ever seen), the Great Wall of China, and Stonehenge (probably the second coolest thing I've seen). Of those I didn't vote for I've only been to two: the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty, both of which, though iconic, I don't think quite rate as Wonders of the World.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may remember that shortly after I moved into the apartment in Central Square that we were living in previously there was a shooting right across the street. One of the reasons Jessi and I were so eager to move out of that apartment and into our new place in Porter Square was because the apartment was in a fairly high crime area. While Porter Square is certainly safer and has less crime than Central Square, we're not completely free of crime here, sadly.

Our condo is the top floor of a triple-decker. The other night, someone broke into the first floor unit in our building. Apparently they broke a lock on one of the windows to get in, took whatever they took, and then just waltzed out the back door (actually, I imagine they probably snuck more than they waltzed, but waltzing is just so much more poetic). I'm not sure, but it may have been the same incident reported on The Bachelor in Porter Square: Crime in Porter Square. Sadly our first floor neighbor had taken his dog to work with him that day, or this probably wouldn't have happened. What makes it a little scary, however, is that at the time of the break-in the woman who lives on the second floor was in the shower (she heard the thieves talking in the back stairwell when she got out). I was also home, on the third floor, but was busy working and didn't hear a thing sadly.

There are, of course, a lot of easy things we can do to prevent this from happening again. First, we can replace the locks on the first floor windows and doors with better ones. Second (and this is something we want to do anyway) we can put better lights at the front and back doors, and put them on motion sensors. Despite this one incident, I don't really think an alarm is necessary, but it's also always an option. We could also get some NRA stickers to put on the windows (and I, for one, wouldn't mind backing those stickers up with fact).

I'm now banking with Wainwright Bank. Well, technically I'm now banking with Wainwright Bank in addition to Bank of America (not going to put all my money with Wainwright until I get my ATM card...). I decided that the few small things against the smaller banks weren't really that big a deal. And I actually decided that I don't care that they don't have e-Bills, because I've realized that it's been much harder to keep track of my spending without the paper copies. As for why I chose Wainwright over Leader, well it was really just a gut decision. Wainwright has a few more locations near me, which is nice, but in the end I just felt a little better about them. Highly scientific, I know.

I also took this opportunity to finally open some business accounts. Wainwright offers a free small business checking account, which is nice, so I went ahead and did that. I've been meaning to do it for a while as I want to make it easier to keep my business and personal finances separately, and it was pretty easy to do since I was already in the bank opening personal accounts. Another fun perk of having done this is that I can now accept checks made out to Derivative Technologies Consulting. (If I really wanted to, I probably could have done that before by just showing them my business certificate, but it's just easier this way.)

I've only been with Wainwright for a day now, so I can't really say much about them yet. But when I went in and spoke with a banker about opening my accounts they were very friendly and helpful. Their online banking is a bit basic, but it does all the important stuff. I do have to say that it will be nice to be finished with Bank of America. Even if they hadn't screwed me over on that $10,000, I prefer working with smaller, local businesses. Hopefully thing will go well with Wainwright, I've certainly heard nothing but good things about them.

Recently I posted about solar power and a company called Citizenrē. It turns out I had a few inaccuracies in that post. Maika Hoffmann, a member of their sales team, was kind enough to contact me and give me a clearer picture of Citizenrē and what they do. Rather than try and re-hash everything, I'll just copy and paste the relevant portion of the email:

STATEMENT: "For a pretty small security deposit ($100/kW, with a 5 kW minimum)"
REALITY: The smallest system size is 2 KWp.
Also, regarding the deposit:
"The Security Deposit is $500 for all REnU systems with a nameplate capacity of 5 KWp DC or less, and for REnU systems with a nameplate capacity larger than 5 KWp DC it is $500 plus 10 cents per Wp DC for every Wp DC greater than 5 KWp DC." (FRA Terms & Conditions, Section 7.2. Security Deposit)
STATEMENT: "cover the costs of equipment and installation by paying per kilowatt as you normally do."
REALITY: With the current offering, the panels will be rented for the length of the contract. As far as the customer is concerned, it will seem as if they were "paying per KWh as they normally do". However, it is important to keep in mind that this is really a rental rate. Citizenre is a solar service provider, not a utility.
The price per KWh is determined as follows:
Citizenre utilizes the average rates published by the utilities to the utility commissions. This means they look at the gross sales published by the utility and divide them by the number of KWh distributed. Unfortunately that means the KWh price includes those base fees and taxes. That being said, as a self generator, the customer will avoid those charges in the future. Citizenre considers this aforementioned average cost as the true cost of the electricity though, and so the rental rate is based upon it.
STATEMENT: "let you lock in a per-kilowatt rate that will never go up"
REALITY: The longest contract duration is 25 years.
STATEMENT: "will be lower than what you’re currently paying your electric company"
REALITY: A lot of utilities charge tiered prices, with a low baseline rate and incremental price increases for higher consumption. As Citizenre uses an average price, people with low energy consumption can actually find themselves paying more with Citizenre, because Citizenre's rate is higher than the baseline rate.
On the other hand, Citizenre's offering works great for customers who do get charged in the higher tiers. As a matter of fact, if a particular customer is really only concerned with saving money, a partial system that brings their net consumption with the utility down to baseline prices would be the cheapest. Personally, I believe spending a bit more to lower emissions as much as possible are always worth it though.
STATEMENT: "Presumably, if you’re generating more than you’re using and some of it is going back into the grid you’ll be getting money back on that as well."
REALITY: The system size is determined based upon the customer's historical usage and/or an energy audit. Many net metering laws only require the utility to credit the customer for self generation, but not actually buy back the power. In addition, the customer pays Citizenre based upon the energy production of the system. Hence, if anything, it will always be under rather than overengineered.
Finally, Citizenre's offering is really best explained at http://renu.citizenre.com. The solar calculator in the bottom left corner lets customers check whether their utility is within Citizenre's service territory, and what the rental rate would be. Clicking on the FAQ icon in the bottom right of the site leads to a page with a thorough overview of the entire life cycle of the service.

I checked out that solar savings calculator, and put in my own info. According to it, my current electric rate is 16.7¢ (per kW, I assume), if I were to get a Citizenrē solar panel system, they would lock that rate in for the length of my contract. They estimate that doing so would save me $257.35 over 5 years, or $8,931.06 over 25 years. If I were to invest that money and receive the 'investment grade bond yield average of 9.44%' I'd have nearly $20,000 at the end of that 25 years. I would also, 'eliminate 116 tons of CO2, 378 lbs of NOx, 998 lbs of SO2, 24 lbs of PM, 9 lbs of VOC, and 46 lbs of CO. That is equivalent to taking approximately, 20 automobiles off of the road, or planting 341 trees'. If the numbers hold, it definitely seems like a good deal.

I did a little math of my own. Assuming that my electric rate remains at the current 16.7¢ for the next 25 years, and that my electric use also stays at the same level, I'll be spending about $30,000 during that time period. In reality, I'll obviously be spending more than that. Buying a solar panel system that would meet those needs would (based on my estimates helped by this website) would cost about $40,000. If that's actually the case (though I'm sure my numbers are horribly inaccurate), Citizenrē actually seems like a pretty good deal. Of course an even cheaper and more efficient way of doing it would be to get a bunch of investors together and just build one huge solar array somewhere that's hooked into the grid and just sells the power back to the utilities.

As you may remember if you've been reading my blog for a while, I'm currently using Bank of America for my banking, but, as they've really pissed me off, I want to switch. I've basically narrowed the choices of alternative banks to Wainwright Bank and Leader Bank, both of which have a lot going for them. However there are still some issues that leave me questioning whether or not I really want to go with either of these banks:

• Neither Leader nor Wainwright have a branch in Porter Sq. They both have branches in Central, and Wainwright also has a branch in Davis, so it's not a huge hassle, but it's still an inconvenience if I need to go in for something.
• Another issue is the lack of ATMs. Obviously neither Wainwright nor Leader are huge banks that can afford to have an ATM on every corner like Bank of America, Sovereign, and Citizen's are (around here anyway). They are, however, both on the SUM ATM network, which means I'd be able to use any SUM ATM without worrying about fees. There is, fortunately, a SUM ATM in Porter Sq. (Cambridge Savings Bank has a branch here and they're also on the SUM network), and I know of a few others, but I'm concerned about whether or not there are enough of them to actually make it worthwhile. I don't want to be having to pay fees all the time because I can't find any SUM ATMs.
• The last issue is with online banking. Bank of America really does have fantastic online banking, and I've grown very used to having the features that they offer. I'm sure most other banks will have most of the same features (Wells Fargo did), but there's one feature in particular that I really like and am not too fond of the idea of giving up. That feature is e-Bills. The e-Bills program, if you don't know, let's you arrange to have your bills come directly to your Bank of America online banking page. You get an email alert letting you know a bill has arrived, and when you log in it shows you the bills that have come in, your balance, the minimum payment, and the due date. You can then schedule you're payment directly from the page. It's an incredibly convenient system, and I quite like having it. Losing it wouldn't be a deal breaker, of course, but losing it on top of less convenient ATMs and locations makes things a little more questionable.

Now that the whole mortgage thing is taken care of I'll be doing more research into the matter. Hopefully it will turn out that my fears are unfounded and there are plenty of SUM ATMs around Boston to keep me happy. And, if I'm really lucky, one or both of Wainwright and Leader will have the e-Bill system or something similar to it.