dennis yang dot com

Cool.

A few weeks ago, I had a super full day, where I had a baseball game at 11am, and then shuck & groove at 2pm… And, on top of that, it was also Mission Open Studios… Argh! I hate when so many things fall all on one day. Dan and Robin’s friend Mike was showing his stuff that day, and I wanted to go check it out, since I’ve always liked his paintings.. Anyway.. open studios started at 10am, so I met Dan at Mike’s studio at precisely 10am.. perused all of Mike’s work, and then bought this painting. Efficient I am.

This is the second piece in my slowly growing collection of paintings.. The first being ID Index 3 by my friend Ben…

So, I got word this weekend that I was granted an entry into the escape from alcatraz triathlon in June.. I was already planning to do Wildflower in May, so this will be really fun. Awesome. I’m excited and scared at the same time. The drive you out into the bay on a ferry right next to alcatraz and then.. you jump off and swim 1.5 miles for shore.. then, 18 miles of bike riding all around San Francisco’s super hilly parks. And then, 8 miles of running along baker beach. Hmm. fun. I was motivated by this, so this weekend I got things started with some running work with Kristin at Kezar Stadium, and then a 40 mile bike ride with Dana, Dan and Dave along Paradise loop.. I better really stick to the training schedule this year, or I’ll end up as sea lion food. Woohoo. Fun fun fun.

So, I’ve been working from home for a little over a year now, and while I do appreciate the commute, the best part of this gig is that the schedule is ultra-flexible. I only have one scheduled meeting a week, and the rest of the work week basically just happens whenever. I mean, there’s more than enough work to do, and yes, I typically do need to be working during the middle of the day, and I have deadlines and stuff, but for the most part, it’s nice to have the flexibility to, say, go for a bike ride in the afternoon or something.. That is, of course, I get my work done, which is cool, cuz then I can chill when I’m typically brain dead (like right after lunch) and work when I’m most alert (late at night, like now, for example).

The most interesting thing that this work flexibility has affected is my sleep schedule. The only time I really have to set my alarm clock is on the weekends, but otherwise I just wake up whenever my body says “wake up”.. And, if I get too tired and lose focus during the day, then it’s cool to just veg or take a little nap for a bit. But, when I add all of the hours of sleep up I typically get during a 24 hour period, it works out to about 5 or 6 hours, and I’ve actually been feeling a lot more alert than I recall feeling when I had to set an alarm before..

So, my typical schedule is something like:

8am - wake up, eat some breakfast and start work…
10am - mind starts to wander, go downstairs and play some MLB 06
noon - go forage for food and chill or (not lately, admittedly) work out or something
2pm - back at work, ok, maybe lie on the couch and rest my eyes for a few minutes
6pm - take bailey to the park and run her around a bit, then have dinner and go out and do something social or play softball or something (or, if I don’t go out, I might fall asleep on the couch for a little bit after dinner)
midnight - back at work, this is when I get my best coding done
3am - force myself to go to sleep, cuz if I don’t, I’ll just keep going

So yah, it’s a little bit of a weird schedule, but it’s been working out for me quite well I think. I get plenty of work time in, and I still am able to fit in work out time (ok, not lately, I’m getting fat) and social time.

Anyway, I’ve never really heard of it before, but there’s this thing called Polyphasic sleep that sounds really interesting… Instead of this kind of ad hoc sleep schedule I’ve been subscribing to, the Polyphasic plan puts you on a specific, regimented sleep schedule of 20 minute naps spaced every 4 hours throughout the day. You end up getting about 2-3 hours of sleep daily.. Sweeeet. Imagine if you had 22 hours of waking time a day… That’d be awesome. AND supposedly you get to eat 4 meals a day on this whole thing (or you lose weight, which could be another benefit)..

Supposedly the main drawback are that it’s actually hard to stick to the schedule and if you go off it, then you get really really tired. (hey, it’s nice hanging out and all, but I gotta go take my 20 minute nap) And, some people actually report that they get bored with all of the extra free time (great, I’m up at 4am, but nobody else is..)

Anyway, There seems to be lots of people trying it though, so hmm.. I’m intrigued.. Maybe I’ll give it a try…

I mean, it’s gotta be better than just popping Provigil, right?

A few months ago, a friend of mine that used to work with me at CNET, John Roberts, left to join a startup called OpenDNS. DNS? Really? The last cool DNS project I heard about was EasyDNS (correction.. EveryDNS — thanks Mark!), back when I was frantically trying to find someone to be my authoritative name server. Coincidentally, the EasyDNS dude went on to found OpenDNS.

Anyway, I think get how the Internets kind of works, and while speeding up DNS lookup really would in theory make the general experience better.. But I always assumed that DNS lookups were cached like crazy in just about every spot that used them, so I was frankly a little doubtful as to how noticeable a faster DNS would be..

Well.. I’m now convinced. It’s faster with OpenDNS.

Upon immediate installation of OpenDNS… all of a sudden, everything sped up.. Installation is slighty techy — you have to go and configure the DNS settings in your router.. but they provide easy step-by-step instructions, and after installation, I had to hard reboot my router after a harrowing 10 minutes *GASP* without an internet connection.

I was starting to get accustomed to the laaaaaag of certain sites when you first type them into the browser, but I had always assumed that it was the slowness of web servers that I was accessing.. I guess I was wrong.

Not convinced? If you like charts and numbers, this dude measured the speed difference with OpenDNS and published the results. (ok, no charts, just numbers.)

OpenDNS also claims to help make the Internet safer by blocking out domains to phishing sites and such… but I haven’t seen how that’s going to work just yet… I wonder if another revenue source for them would be to block out adult sites and such (for parents watching over their kids’ surfing and such)..

But for now, I’m using it mainly because it makes my Internets faster (cuz, you know.. the Internet is a series of tubes [thanks Audris!])..

Props to John and the OpenDNS folks..

It’s wednesday… so, a little new music for y’all.. It’s a little hiphop mashup live jam from the Blue Scholars, an underground hiphop crew out of seattle… The Inkwell, by Blue Scholars..

Good stuff.

So.. have you ever wanted to be on Jeopardy? But, (unlike my cousin Stephanie) you’re not willing to go all the way to LA to take the test? Well… thanks to the modern marvel known as the Internets, you can now take the Jeopardy tryout test online!! That’s right.. next week, from March 28-30th, you can take the Jeopardy 50 question test and see if you’ve got what it takes to make it onto the show.. The test for the West Coast is on the 30th at 8pm, is exactly when the Her Space Holiday show is… I guess I can take the quiz and still make it to the show though…

[found at tvsquad]

Happy Birthday Andy! Today’s my brother’s birthday… so, if you see him, wish him a happy birthday.

My good friend Chas has decided to quit CNET to join John Battelle’s FM Publishing.. congrats and best wishes Chas!!

Seems like June is the month of change.. I know of four couples that have broken up this month and four people that have quit their jobs…

This Saturday, May 21st, the Life Size Game of Mouse Trap will be shown here in San Francisco… Tickets are 5 bucks and there are three shows, running from 4pm till 9pm..

The life size mouse trap project is a proposed project for the BORG II for this year’s Burningman.. I found their description quite amusing:

The LIFE SIZE MOUSETRAP is a fantastically hand crafted, 16 piece 50,000-lb. interactive KINETIC SCULPTURE set atop a 6,500-square-foot, 2,000-lb GAME BOARD. This giant Rube Goldberg style contraption comes complete with a VAUDEVILLIAN style carnival show, original MUSICAL SCORE, CAN-CAN DANCERS, acrobatic HIJINKS, and other Spectacularly scripted SCENARIOS dedicated to the pursuit of spectacle laden fun!

Interesting.. current forecasts of a dennis burningman appearance this year are running around 30%, but if there are really going to be some cool art projects, that might just change…

grrr..

So, my phone line and DSL have been down since yesterday morning.. I called SBC to ask them what the problem, and supposedly there was some sort of massive explosion somewhere, and lots of cables were cut. So.. they’re repairing the cable, pair-by-pair, and the estimated date that I’ll restore phone and DSL access is.. May 10th. I talked to the SBC guy and he said that it’s a major event, but as of now I see no articles mentioning anything about it at all..

Aaargh.

5 days?!?! That’s insane. I’ve not heard of an SBC outage lasting THAT long. Considering I work from home, this is going to be a big pain in the arse.

Luckily for me, I’ve found that the public library has free WiFi, and that’s just a few blocks away from my house. The library is nice, but I think I might seek out a cafe with free WiFi instead, since I’m getting hungry and thirsty.
Actually, I’m sitting right here near the CD library.. Ooo.. Maybe this is gonna work out just fine afterall…

But.. this means I can’t work until the wee hours of the morning.. and, I actually have to put on pants now.

So, some pics from the vegas bachelor party are finally posted… There’s not many pictures, since I conveniently forgot my camera (what happens in vegas stays in vegas, right?). 2 bachelors + 20 dudes + las vegas. (no, they’re not marrying each other, I know that’s what you’re thinking.) We did some “vegas stuff”, and we also went karting at the las vegas XPLEX. That was super fun. We started off in the smaller karts, that went about 40mph, and then moved up to the big sprint karts that went 60mph.. The track was cool, nice and fast with an assortment of wide turns, decreasing radius turns, chicanes, and one big straightaway. Two of the guys got into a little accident with the big karts and they made us pay for the damage. Oops.

so.. last year, i was watching the mtv: true life episode about surfing, and they played this break from a song that i’ve been dying to find…

can anyone identify this song??? it’s not a very good recording, but i’d think if you knew it, it would be enough…

man, there should be a service where you could call and hum a tune — or just call and hold up the phone to the song that is playing, and it would identify the song and send it to you…

Update Ok, as suggested by masnick, I’m asking lazyweb for an answer to this question… Oh great lazyweb, please tell me what song it is!!!

well… i started my new job today at Techdirt.. Whoopee! busy busy busy day — it’s exciting to start a new job..

I picked up korby at the austin airport, and we headed out to 6th street in Austin for a drink… We saw the r-bar.. and since the r-bar is a beloved institution back in SF, that’s where we headed…

We walk in, and the place is packed with a bunch of cute girls… and a TV crew… I took out my cameraphone and took a quick picture (it’s a really, really, really, really bad picture), after which some really muscular dude came up to me..

muscular man: “Sir, can you please not take pictures?”
me: “oh, um.. ok. what are you guys filming?”
muscular dude: “We’re making a documentary.”

A documentary?!?! Yah.. right! It’s the Real World 16.. in Austin. The hot girl is apparently Johanna, although I really thought the other chick in the white shirt with the long black hair was quite fetching as well… I doubt that korby or I actually got in the shot or anything, but that was quite exciting.. Wahoo.

Just so you know, in front of the camera was a bunch of cute people having quite a great time.. dancing, drinking, laughing.. behind the camera, there was just a room full of gawkers. That said, I always wondered how many people were behind the scenes of a real world shoot… It looked like there were about 6 or 7 real world cast members.. Supporting them, were 2 cameramen, 2 light people, 1 microphone dude, about 2 more dudes running around with earpieces, and the muscular dude. Oh, and 1 cop.

yesterday was my 29th birthday. happy birthday to me… i had a little party at levende, thanks to everyone who came.. pictures posted on flickr..

ok.. this is a pretty kickass way to navigate through flickr friends. w00t!

As for what’s next, here’s my plan.. travel around the country to cross off four states on my “need to visit” list.

tonight, i leave for boston on the red-eye to visit family for chinese new year.. then, sunday, i’m heading to dartmouth to visit my friend ryan. we’re going to go to vermont to look around.. voila.. state #1. then.. i’m headed to brown to visit my friend tina.. brown is in rhode island. #2, check. then… off to NYC to hang out at my friend eric’s house. phil and alan are coming in for the weekend so we’ll party it up there..

then, back to san francisco for my birthday party (february 24th at levende lounge at 9pm — you’re all invited)..

Then.. driving down to LA to see stephanie’s band play at the Cat Club on the 26th.. then.. off to tucson to visit lisa and adam.. then.. hmm.. then is new mexico and west texas, where i can’t seem to find anything to do… but i’ll be there on the way to austin to visit more friends, jen and melissa.. the plan is to pick up korby at the austin airport on 3/2/2005 at 11:35pm, and then to drive to new orleans, where kim (korby’s girlfriend) has a hotel for the week for work. i think tall paul and andy (brother) are going to fly out and hang for the weekend too.. then, i gotta turn back.. i’m planning on driving through arkansas (#3 state on the list) and oklahoma (#4) on the way back.. maybe hit up vegas too since paul will be there for a bachelor party for this dude that met his future wife at one of my new years parties.

and then… back home, i guess. phew. yah, so that’s the tenative plan. 4 states off the list.. 5 to go, after this (which i can handle with one big roadtrip up north)..

well.. i think that’s what the official count is… after 6 years, 6 months and 11 days of working here at mySimon (and then CNET),, i have decided to move on… it’s been quite a trip… thanks for all the memories, mySimon… i’ve been keeping a mySimon archive since we started back in 1998 — it’s wonderful looking back through the years at all of the changes that we’ve been through..

As long as I’m on a nostalgic kick, check this out — back in the summer of ‘95, i started keeping a daily list of “sites that dennis found”. i had a pretty regular readership… as soon as school started back up, i stopped updating it. oops. i guess i should have started a company or something back then.. haha. oh well.

Anyway… drinks at thirsty bear in 26 minutes!!!

google does maps now… and from what i can see right now, it does it very, very well.. it’s super fast, the maps scroll when you click-and drag.. and it has local data integrated with a wonderfully clean looking UI. masnick thinks that this is just like keyhole, with maps. now… if i could only flip to the keyhole view… so so cool..

google has successfully trained me to search for an address in google to get to maps.. so all they have to do now is fully integrate this maps link, and voila.

haha… google labs has this launching on 2/8/2005.. i’ve beat THEM by 6 minutes!!! w00t!

but yah, this is by far the nicest looking map site to date…