The first thing that comes to mind is the ol' 'unlock device' scenario. That's boring. But if the device recognizes independent fingers on the fly, then we can map individual fingers to secure data in the cloud.
eg. Using a friends phone (and your recognized finger) you can call and text using your private address book, the second we detach the data dissolves. You could pull up your favorite songs on the index finger, and store draft documents to your pinky.
My heart goes out Boston, one of my favorite cities. Be well.
Everyday it seems we're bombarded with stress. Sometimes it's current world events, other times it's our jobs or family – everyone's list of stressors is different, but I'm sure you can relate.
Over the years I've become an fan of meditation to help reduce stress. The only problem is that (for me) it's really hard to sit still for 30+ minutes a day. So when I say I'm a fan of meditation, I really am just that, an outsider fanboy that likes the idea, but never really does it.
Recently I was having a conversation w/ my friend Philip Rosedale. Philip is a tech genius (don't believe me?), and he's also a big fan of counting as a form of meditation (check out his twitter, he counts to 10,000 every single day). Philip was sharing with me the positive and relaxed mental state you can achieve with counting meditation, so I thought I'd give it a try. …and… I can't do it. For me, counting to 10,000 or even 1,000 is next to impossible. But it got me thinking, what if I took traditional 'following the breath' meditation and combined it with counting. I gave it a shot and noticed some immediate (calming) results.
100 Breath Meditation
Eliminate distractions, shut off the TV, turn off your music, and minimize your real-time bitcoin currency tracker (I'm a buyer at 50). Close your eyes and follow your breath. Don't try to change or influence your breath (faster or slower), simply observe the inhale and exhalations. Now, after you've settled (3-5 breaths), start to count each breath in your head:
– inhale/exhale, 1 –
– inhale/exhale, 2 –
Your goal for the day is to hit 100. If you make it to 10 and the phone rings, start with 11 later that day. Ideally you'd go to 100 in one session, but somedays (like today for me, I'm at 50) it will require going back a few times. If you find your mind wondering, don't get upset or agitated – gently bring your mind back to your breath and resume counting.
Join me
Starting today, I'd like to challenge you to 30 days of 100 Breath Meditation. To join the fun, download the Lift iPhone app, then search for and join “100 Breath Meditation”. This app allows you to track positive habits in your life (sorry no android version yet). It's been a couple weeks for me and I'm really seeing very positive results, I hope this helps you on your path to enlightenment. Cheers.
Because of Twitter’s recent enforcement of token limits, we only have a limited number of tokens available for Tweetbot for Mac. These tokens dictate how many users Tweetbot for Mac can have…Once we use up the tokens granted to us by Twitter, we will no longer be able to sell the app to new users…This limit and our desire to continue to support the app once we sell out is why we’ve priced Tweetbot for Mac a little higher than we’d like.
For some reason I'm using Facebook less and less*. I think it's because my social graph is out of date. The people I friended three years ago in passing I hardly know and un-friending is hard and socially awkward.
I thought I'd never create another social graph, but now w/ Instagram and Path I find that creating new graphs every few years is a must.
No one has yet created a dynamic social graph. Facebook and other social graphs represent a rolling timeline of relationships that are out of date the instant they are created. I have a fight w/ a friend, I lose touch w/ an old college roommate, a work relationship grows stronger – existing graphs have very little visibility into these situations with an on or off boolean friendship model.
Why do we move from one service to another every few years? Maybe it's because these services don't accurately mirror our real social lives. Maybe it's the allure of a new product. I'm not sure.
*Full disclosure: I own a metric shit ton of Facebook stock, so it pains me to write this.
I live in San Francisco, a dense and transient rental city. Because people move every couple of years, I’ve never really spent the time to get to know my neighbors very well. I know the person who lives under me, but I have no idea who lives to the left or right. I communicate more with my Twitter followers than I do with the people who live and sleep nearby.
With the web, this is starting to change. A few weeks ago, I signed up for a new service called Nextdoor, which calls itself a “private social network for your neighborhood.” After registering, I claimed my address and then proceeded to browse around the map. And wow, 10% of my neighbors are on this thing. I can talk to them with a simple Twitter-like dialog box.
Imagine the possibilities when this kind of service has a fully populated neighborhood graph. It’ll enable real-time neighborhood watch programs (with phone alerts), neighbor-to-neighbor commerce (goodbye, Craigslist), business recommendations from real locals, etc… the list goes on.
I like this space. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
