Hacking the Good Days... » Fun_stuff

8:33 minutes of pure amazement

cathyma — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:55:15 +0000

Truly amazing performance. Please watch it if you have 8:33 minutes to spare… It’s something that will lift your spirit up should you need a lift today.

Thanks Rob.

The Power of Inaction

cathyma — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:19:42 +0000

Sorry I haven’t been blogging for a while. Having joined a very exciting company with the aim to launch things users love (let’s hope!) means that there is a sudden surge of data. Some can be noise, some can be signals. It’s quite a journey to distill them… Forgot who said it but data is less useful until they become knowledge, and knowledge churning into wisdom.

But I still have time to read and hopefully be inspired, like this beautiful blog post today,

We can, and must have activity. Especially when the activity is one that we blossom in. The ‘thing’ that makes us ‘us’. The gifting and the skills that when we use, we feel connected.

However, to allow the activity to have any depth, it is essential that we allow room for contemplation. It is this which stops our activity from becoming purely superficial. And, in actual fact, the contemplation is the most active because it informs and feeds. Without it, we are running on steam, running on what we once knew and thought but not truly growing with the activity.

It is a misconception that to be still is to waste time, the opposite it true.

How copying democratises the fashion industries

cathyma — Tue, 25 May 2010 21:26:34 +0000

Absolutely genius. A great real life reverse example of how copyrights restrict creativity and innovation.

Quotes of the day

cathyma — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:58:45 +0000

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”—Eleanor Roosevelt

“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drowned your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

Two random quotes from alltop that I found inspiring. And yes, do stay away from the small people, gossips backfire…

Shoulder and wrist pain, anyone?

cathyma — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 22:48:16 +0000

A good friend of mine has been complaining about her wrists that hurt so bad she has started visiting the physios regularly – and she’s only in her twenties! That made me think, how many of us (who sit in front of a computer all day) are constantly suffering from back pain, shoulder pain and wrist pain? I hope you’re not one of us, but if you do, I hope this blog helps.

I have started doing yoga about 6 years ago, and have been a total convert only a couple of years ago when I learnt how to relieve any kind of strain and pain by going into certain poses. I also wrote about the main benefits of yoga for geeks in particular.

But as action speaks more than words, I feel oblige to share with as many of you all my favourite stretches for relieving pain around the wrists and shoulders, so easy that you don’t even go into a class to try! But of course, boring reminder here, when there’s any extreme discomfort or sharp pain, make sure you check with you GP. Otherwise these are great little exercises to give yourself a little impromptus massage. I have linked all exercises back to their source, but I have added my own personal comment to bring out the maximum effectiveness of each stretch.

Enjoy!

1. Basic Wrist Stretch (ninja mask’s optional!)

This one is so simple that you can do it while you’re sitting in front of your desk.

Remember to sit properly with your both feet parallel hip-width apart
Inhale as you extend one arm (or if your neighbour colleagues don’t mind, both), remember to tighten your fingers and arm muscles, that way you can feel the the stretch more intensely
Exhale while you stretch up, on the next inhale point your wrist up
Exhale, return to neutral (hands pointing to the side)
Inhale pointing down, exhale return to neutral
For the creative type – feel free to use this exercise to focus on the breath and try to maintain longer exhale than inhale, that way you clear your mind and come back with more good ideas (sans the caffeine and hello good night sleep!)

* also take time to notice you *are not* slouching – imagine an invisible string pulling yourself up from the tip of your head. No, I’m not trying to imply that you’re the sock-puppet mucking around on Wikipedia, it’s just that in the long run slouching messes up with your spine alignment and exerts prolong pressure in the wrong place. And that can really, really hurt, now we don’t want that, do we?

Great for wrist relief! Once you get into the hang you can start introducing variations, such as rotating your wrists clock-wise and anti-clock-wise, also great for relieving the tight tendons around the wrists.

2. Counter shoulder stretch

Knowing my blog’s audience, I am tempted to make this pose more macho sounding, like, Couching Tiger pose. Right.

As you know, but probably not often think about, that our shoulders are composed of highly intricate joints, muscles and tendons and we tend to stuck them in the same position whole day (arms 90 degrees typing/mouse maneuvering). By now with all the damage done, you are probably like me – a quick test here - if you reach your left arm above your shoulder to the centre back and right arm from below up, do your hands touch touch one another easily? On both sides? heh. After years of trying (definitely not hard enough), I still can’t do that on my left side.

If you are like me, you’re going to *love* the couching tiger stretch,

This pose should bring immediate relief to upper back and shoulders, as well as relieving strains on the arms. Also it clears the head a bit, too. And if you’re good in holding your spine steady and lock your knees, you can get a great hamstring stretch too, great for the cyclists.

Finally! I’ve been building up to this funky one!

3. Funky hamstring-lower-back stretch:

I love this one when I start feeling sleepy – and it’s so easy to sneak into an empty meeting room when you feel stale, uninspired, or just having bad shoulder strain! Easier done than how it looks, too, I promise. Not to mention having all the blood rushing to your head, guess how I quit my coffee addiction slowly and steadily?

Hope you like the stretches, and feel free to share if I have missed something obvious. Now time to show some love to your shoulders, wrists and lower back… and let me know if these poses work for you!

Information Architecture, explained in one-minute

cathyma — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:04:41 +0000

‘Mommy what do you do?’

Pure awesomeness.

What would you look like when you’re 72?

cathyma — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:59:08 +0000

Truly inspirational,

What Love means to a 4-8 year old.. .

cathyma — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:56:22 +0000

Hi peeps, another forwarded email that I like to share but you all know that I don’t like forwarding email, so I’m posting here as I thought you may like it, too. Enjoy. Oh and kindly let me know if you find where to attribute.

—————–

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, ‘What does love mean?’
The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined See what you think:

‘When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore.
So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love..’
Rebecca- age 8

‘When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.’
Billy – age 4

‘Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.’
Karl – age 5

‘Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.’
Chrissy – age 6

‘Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired..’
Terri – age 4

‘Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK..’
Danny – age 7

‘Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more.
My Mommy and Daddy are like that.. They look gross when they kiss’
Emily – age 8

‘Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.’
Bobby – age 7 (Wow!)

‘If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,’
Nikka – age 6 (we need a few million more Nikka’s on this planet)

‘Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.’
Noelle – age 7

‘Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.’
Tommy – age 6

‘During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.
He was the only one doing that.. I wasn’t scared anymore.’
Cindy – age 8

‘My mommy loves me more than anybody You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night..’
Clare – age 6

‘Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.’
Elaine-age 5

‘Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.’
Chris – age 7

‘Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.’
Mary Ann – age 4

‘I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones..’
Lauren – age 4

‘When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.’ (what an image)
Karen – age 7

‘Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn’t think it’s gross.’
Mark – age 6

‘You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.’
Jessica – age 8

And the final one
The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.
Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.
When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,
‘Nothing, I just helped him cry’

How geeks make porridge?

cathyma — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:54:19 +0000

Nerding out on the packaging then write a blog post about it. But bear with me, this might be the next big finding after optical fibre…

One key thing I learnt over the holiday is that health is the most important thing and it’s like most projects, a-little-TLC (Tender, Love and Care)-a-day is way better then regrets towards the end of the ‘deadlines’, quite literally. One of my uncles in Hong Kong has been advised by the doctor that he should start watching his cholesterol, and having porridge would help lower the cholesterol level. Which, by the way, I always thought that was just marketing scam to make us buy more porridge. But having seen him between half a year, with his mild exericise and regular consumption of porridge, his cholesterol reading was really coming down and he was looking really good. So I decided that it’s a lovely habit and it’s probably not too difficult to start young, plus what’s better than a bowl of lovely hot porridge in freezing winter that keeps you full for longer! (Oh for those who know me, yes I can eat A LOT in the morning… enough that slightly scared my developers friends back then in Yahoo!)

Yummy porridge aside, as a geek I study nutritional information of packing intently. Always. And I found the most peculiar thing on the Jordans’ packaging. Would love to see if you think that’s a genuine typo, or, porridge is really this magical:

Sorry for the image quality – it’s taken from my iPhone. Now the fun part, as you can see, a 100 gram of Jordan’s Porridge is only 135kcal more than a 40 gram of it. Good news for the calories-conscious, no? BUT the best peculiar stats – wait for it – the MORE porridge you have the LESS sugar and saturated fat there is (Sugar: 1.0 g per 100g porridge versus 10.3g per 40g), (Saturated fat: 1.8g per 100g verus 3.1g per 40g).

Wow. Must. Eat. Porridge. Daily.

Or maybe I should just ring up Jordan’s and see if it’s just a genuine mis-print on the packaging? My curiosity is killing me. Anyone?

NOTE: kudos to @NeilCrosby: it’s not a paradox. The 40g serving includes milk, the 100g figure does not. See the asterisked statement at the bottom.

Ain’t I silly!!!

What does MIT think about me?

cathyma — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:32:59 +0000

This is very slick from MIT. It’s pretty accurate, too, except I’m not sure where the yellow sport tag comes from unless you count yoga as a sport?

Would you please track back if you are blogging your ‘MIT’ characters, too? I am curious about how the analyser works on you as well So excited! /geek