Sports are Cool – The Oakland Athletics Edition

Today the Oakland Athletics won the American League West. There are so many cool things about this, I don’t know where to start. I guess we’ll start at the beginning of the season.

Going into the season, the Texas Rangers have played in back to back World Series, had a $121 million dollar payroll, and are expected to win the division. But then in the Angels went on an offseason spending spree because they were tired of losing to Texas. They came in to the season with a $155 million dollar payroll and ready to finally knock off the Rangers. No one bothered to discuss the Athletics.

The Athletics were thought by the experts to be rebuilding. In the offseason they traded away their top two starting pitchers. And their closer. Basically they traded away everyone good for a bunch of players with very little major league experience. They came into the season with a $49 million dollar payroll – the smallest of all 30 major league teams.

And yet they kept winning games. They are so young they don’t even realize they aren’t supposed to win these games. They finished the season with 5 rookies making up their starting rotation. Somehow they went 94-68, finishing ahead of the Rangers (who they swept 3 straight to end the season) and Angels.

One more amazing thing to leave you with: today is the FIRST day of the entire year that they have been alone in first place. Finally, after 162 games they made it. Good time to end the season.
 


 
If you want more cool baseball stuff, check out this old post.

How to Be Interesting – Irrational Passion for Unconventional Things

Here’s a little secret for you. Anyone who actually enjoys making small talk is boring. Do you think I really want to talk about the weather? I don’t have the patience to wait and see if you have anything better to say. Life is too short, there are too many interesting people out there for me to be wasting my time with you.

You don’t want to be Susie Smalltalk, you want to be interesting. What makes someone interesting? They have a passion for things. More specifically, they have an irrational passion for things. It’s far too common to be into cars, fashion, or football. Boring. But being passionate about something that is so random it seems irrational to be so excited about it, now that is interesting.

All you have to do is drop superlatives about a subject the person you’re speaking with has never thought about. Then back it up with supporting arguments that could logically make sense.

“The greatest travesty in the textile industry is that wool has been replaced by inferior technologically advanced materials.”

“A Knight’s Tale is the only chick flick guys actually enjoy more than girls.”

Ice is the greatest luxury that people take completely for granted.

“Run DMC is the most influential music group of all time.”

This naturally lends itself into teaching them something, which interesting people will enjoy. It also gives your conversational partner the opportunity to challenge you – it is these people that you want to clench on to. Don’t worry if you lose the debate. Yes, the Beatles were also quite an influential band. Good for them. The important thing is that you are having an stimulating conversation and discovering whether the person is worth speaking with again.

Let’s get to thinking … what are some subjects that you are irrationally passionate about?


Photo: Noukka Signe

6 Things You Don’t Know About Costa Rica

I am back from two glorious weeks in Costa Rica. The beaches, rainforests, and wildlife made it an unforgettable trip and made me want to explore the rest of the Central America. Rather than turning this into a travel blog, I think the pedantic readers would appreciate some knowledge. So here are some things you probably don’t know about the country – pura vida!
 

  • Costa Rica is one of the greenest countries in the world. Yes, the vegetation is thick and vibrant, but I mean the environmental friendly type of green. A whopping 25% of the land is protected by national parks and wildlife reserves (for comparison sake, the world average is around 10%). On top of that, the government put forward a plan to be 100% carbon neutral by 2030 (already 90% of energy comes from renewable resources).
  •  

  • Costa Rica has a tiny pocket of malaria in a remote part of the jungle. The Red Cross has a policy that you should wait 12 months after traveling to “an area” where malaria is found before giving blood (because blood donations are not checked for malaria). Thus, it could be difficult for travelers to Costa Rica to give blood for the following year (although you can show your itinerary and see if they will accept you weren’t in danger of being exposed to malaria).
  •  

  • The Nicoya Peninsula has been identified as one of the five regions in the world where people regularly live to 100 (written about in the book Blue Zones). These regions share the common characteristics of putting family first, non-smoking, plant-based diet, constant moderate physical activity, social engagement, and eating legumes.
  •  

  • Costa Rica abolished its military in 1948, immediately following a bloody civil war, and made it permanent by adding it to their constitution the following year. Instead, the budget is spent on education, culture, and security (they still have Police Guard forces responsible for ground security, law enforcement, counter-narcotics, and border patrol). Costa Rica is one of the largest of the 19 countries without a military and one of the few that is a democracy.
  •  

  • But those Costa Ricans can be shady as well. China built Costa Rica a $105 million dollar stadium earlier this year as a “gift”. Hmmmmm, why is China giving out gifts? Why is a country known for its kickass lifestyle getting so buddy-buddy with a country known for its human rights violations? Check out this story to learn this and why a bridge was unofficially renamed from “Bridge of Friendship” to “Bridge of Backstabbing”.
  •  

  • The country is only 19,653 square miles (imagine a 200 mile by 100 mile plot of land), yet it takes a long time to get anywhere. Many of the roads are still dirt. The roads that are paved are two lane highways – its not uncommon for a bus to stop in the middle of the highway or a cart pulled by oxen to slow down traffic. Despite this, it is one of the most developed countries in Central America.

 


 
Apologies for the lack of blogging. I will be bringing my computer with me on my next trips so that I can stay connected and write blog posts. Thanks for the patience!

If you liked this post, check out this one about the Netherlands (I haven’t been there, but did have a few facts to share).

Photo: Rafael Alverez

Brogramming 101: What Is It and Why Should You Care?

Oh brogramming! What a beautify made up word. It is a combination of two words I hold near and dear to my heart. BRO + PROGRAMMING = BROGRAMMING. Yes, the meaning matches your current mental picture – a sickass dude programming a computer.

What does this involve? It is up to interpretation, but it definitely involves wearing your sunglasses indoors while using the computer. Lifting weights is important – and don’t forget your protein shakes. Drinking alcohol while programming is encouraged. The more caffeine consumed the better.

You may be absolutely puzzled right now. How the heck did these two worlds collide? Well, in the land of software, the Silicon Valley, pretty much the coolest thing you can do is code. And to show how sweet you are, instead of pictures on your desk of your loved ones, people here decorate their desks by displaying the largest and most intense energy drinks you can find. Yes, it is a unique place.

Starter Kit

Now that I have you excited, how do you join the team? Copy this desk setup:

You must be concerned about health – at least to an extent. Eat healthy food and be sure to pair it with a workout regiment that focuses on the beach muscles. Bicep curls, bench press, calf raises, repeat. Next, (this may seem in direct conflict with the previous point, but just go with it) drinking a ton is cool. Beer, vodka, or Jager. You can drink while at your computer, or alternatively you can return to coding after a wild night in the club. Be sure to have powerful energy drinks within arm reach to stave off the inevitable crash when it arrives.

Congrats, you have passed Brogramming 101 are now a brogrammer! This answer on Quora provides some addition reading material for those of you that want to advance to 201 next semester. Let me give a sneak peak for the Pedantic Post readers that don’t click on links…

Here is a flow chart to study before next semester (programming logic is similar to the logic of flow charts so they are useful for communicating how a program should behave):

If you are ready to start writing code, here is a pretty solid example. Do the same for the song Lip Gloss or any Little Wayne jam and email it to me for extra credit:

 

Why should you care?

Nerdy and cool are colliding whether you like it or not. Need evidence? Chess-boxing is the fastest growing sport in America (I always thought it was hilarious how many sports claimed to the fastest growing in America, so what’s one more claim?):

This collision is great news for everyone. If you are a nerd, you get the opportunity to battle the jocks that made fun of you in high school. If you are a hella chill dude, you get the opportunity to compete with people way smarter than you on a slightly more even playing field. What a great opportunity!

Faithful readers, what bro-sports and dude-tivities can we invent? The top idea gets to challenge me for slammers and/or pink slips.
 


 
Everyone is trying to hire programming talent these days. But the smart start-ups are trying to hire brogramming talent.

If you liked this post, join the mailing list to receive weekly email updates.

My Latest Project – The Save Our Balls Pocket Shield

I don’t think everyone is aware of the huge problem facing mankind. No, not global warming. This one isn’t talked about for some reason, but soon it could be an even bigger problem than global warming. I’m talking about infertility, specifically male infertility.

Children of Men is an excellent movie about the world in 2027, 18 years after the last human was born. That’s right, the human race became sterile – the scary thing is that this scenario is not as ridiculous as you would think. In the movie it is due to a genetic defect in women, but in real life it is more likely to be men that are the downfall.

Sperm counts are dropping like middle school girls running hurdles. It’s bad. In the last 50 years it is estimated that sperm counts have halved. Even worse, they show no signs of stopping – every year sperm counts around the world are dropping 1 to 2 percent. Do I need sources for this? No. I don’t care what the exact numbers are – there is so obviously a correlation, it doesn’t matter if it is only half as bad as I just said. The fact remains, we are doing some real damage.

So what is happening? Unfortunately there isn’t one answer, there are numerous environmental factors that contribute to this decline. Things like plastics, pesticides, soy products, obesity, sitting in an office all day, and more. Pretty much everything in our lives …

There is one that has come up in the last 15 years that should be more publicized – leaving a cell phone on in your pocket! Even a limited exposure of an hour a day has been shown to immensely kill sperm and lower testosterone. Luckily, this is an easy problem to fix. Enter the Save Our Balls Pocket Shield. This is a simple product I am producing that will protect your cojones – simply clip the shield to your pocket before putting on your pants and it will block the radiation from hitting your boys. Perfect!
Keep reading…

Richard Branson vs. the Pilots Union

Richard Branson is the man (not quite all that is man, but he may make the cut someday). Earlier this week he wrote a letter to all the Virgin Atlantic pilots that are threatening to go on strike. The reason for the strike? The union isn’t happy with a 4% pay raise after a 3 year pay freeze. Richard isn’t the CEO or even involved in running the business anymore, but he is stepping in to try to save his baby.

First, he took an objective look at the company to see if the offer is fair:

In the last week I have spent a lot of time trying to understand whether the management team at the airline has treated everyone fairly and whether the company can afford to go further with its pay offer.

Then he offers to share the information with them that led him to believe it is a fair offer and the best that can be extended:

The management have told me they are happy to share up to date corporate accounts with your union so they can understand the financial context from where the offer has been made. As shareholders we’ve also got to ensure the airline is strong enough to withstand the many challenges it faces in this constantly changing market.

Keep reading …

The Lofty Goal of Eradicating Polio

Almost a year ago I wrote a post titled The Concept of Infectious Disease Eradication. It was all about how the everyone has come together to fight to rid the world of certain diseases forever. The only time this has been accomplished was with smallpox from 1950 to 1979, but we are getting very close to doing it again with polio.

Armies of volunteers are mounting a heroic effort to get rid of polio forever. We haven’t had polio in the United States for many decades, so you may not even be aware that it is even still around. But it is a terrifying disease that leaves many paralyzed and is still hanging on in the poorest areas of the world. The picture above is of four people in an iron lung to allow them to breath.

There are millions of volunteers delivering the 30 cent treatment to every child in the most remote and destitute communities. Highly recommended and inspirational video:


 


 
On a completely separate note, my good buddies Tom, Kyle, and Rainer are launching their premium short shorts business, Chubbies. It’s going to be huge. Follow them on Twitter and definitely sign up for their email list for fun launch events coming this summer.

Intro to Hacking Part 3 – How Passwords Are Stored

Every website these days has a log in – it is mandatory to be “social” and allow comments or other user interaction. Popular sights like ESPN, IMDB, Weather.com, PedanticPosts as well as more obscure sites like PassiveAggressiveNotes and HotOrNot. But you can’t have just anyone comment, no no no, they must be validated as an actual person, capable of entering a username and password.

Do you know how your passwords are handled? It’s obvious not every site has the same policy – some websites require at least 7 character passwords, some don’t allow special characters, some require a number or uppercase letter, and some have no requirements whatsoever. Do you trust every website equally with your password? Should you?

Almost all websites have databases which contain the data needed to run the site and store the user information. One important part of the user information is the password. But hardly any website will store your literal password – if your password is “r0xysUrfrGrl” and “r0xysUrfrGrl” was stored in the database, anyone with access to the database would know your password. This would mean that you would have to trust every website administrator with you password. And if a hacker every got ahold of your database (which we will see is quite possible) then they would have everyone’s passwords. Ouch.

Instead, it is common to store a hashed version of the password generated by an algorithm. An example of a dead simple algorithm would be to simply reverse the order of the letters and then replace the vowels with the vowel’s number (i.e. a=1, e=2, etc.). So the password “BeerBuzz” becomes “zz5Br22B”. Not too bad, I doubt you could look at “zz5Br22B” and guess what the password is. Keep reading…

Intro to Hacking – Real Hacker Stories Are Even Better than the Movies


This is the first post in the Intro to Hacking series. In future posts I will go into technically how hacking works and how you can protect yourself, but first I’ll whet your appetite with some interesting stories.

Hacking is a broadly defined word with so many different meanings: writing clever computer code, creating an ugly yet effective solution, finding a shortcut, playing a practical joke, or the act of breaking into a computer. Guess which one I am interested in? Well I guess I’m interested in all of them, but I will be writing about breaking into computers. This subject is chock-full of incredibly entertaining stories and interesting things to learn.

There are a zillion different types of hackers. Some are good guys (white hat), some are bad guys (black hat), some it’s even hard to tell (grey hat). Some know only one way to hack and some are computer wizards who seemingly have no barriers holding them back (1337). And some technically know very little about computers and instead rely on tools built by others (script kiddies).

AIM Punters
I remember my first introduction to this world. The year was 1996 and I was finally online. America Online. AOL. And the best part about AOL was the ability to chat instantly with friends or strangers thousands of miles away. Oh the possibilities!

What does this have to do with hacking? Back in the early days of AIM (AOL instant messenger) the program wasn’t exactly robust. There were tools called punters (or IM-bombs) that exploited these weaknesses – you could use them to kick another user off AIM or even make their entire computer crash (they worked by sending HTML code or tons of invalid characters that would cause the other person’s computer to explode like the fembots in Austin Powers when he touches himself). Did I have any idea how it worked? No, and that’s the best part! The barrier was so low – all you had to do was download a program and you had incredible power over your buddies (or strangers). These AOL punters were a likely starting place for many script kiddies.

Anonymous
The motivation for this post was a hack that was recently in the news. It was so bad ass I felt compelled to share it with a larger audience. Keep reading…

Secret Recipes Revealed – Does it Matter?

There has been a lot of buzz recently around the possibility that Coke’s secret formula has finally been revealed to the public. Is it true? Does it matter?

Did you know only two Coca-Cola executives are allowed to know the recipe for creating the sugary syrup that goes into Coke? And that those two execs aren’t allowed to fly on the same plane for fear that it may crash and the formula will be lost forever?

But don’t think Coca-Cola is unique. There are similar stories for Dr. Pepper’s 23 flavors, KFC’s blend of 11 herbs and spices, and many others. Did you know KFC’s 11 herbs and spices are mixed at two different locations and then combined at a third so that the mixers don’t learn the formula?

Does it actually matter? I love all the secrecy, but I hate to break it to you, Coke isn’t successful because of their product. It’s their brand. It’s their advertising. It’s the memories.

And Coke knows this. All the secrecy is good publicity, so they aren’t about to publish the formula in the New York Times. But they know their true assets. As any good product manager knows, it is not all about the product.
 


 
This all reminds me of when one of my friends worked at a cookie store in town with a top secret cookie recipe that yielded the most delicious cookies of all time. When he was quitting, we asked him for the recipe. He said, “No problem, I have it memorized. 2 pounds of butter …” We didn’t have that much butter so we lost interest.
 
It turns out Coke has another secret weapon up its sleeve: one of the ingredients is illegal in the United States, unless you’re Coca-Cola. That’s right, one of the ingredients is fluid extract of coca, taken from coca leaves that have had all the cocaine removed. The DEA currently only allows one plant in New Jersey to import these leaves and I bet you can guess the company with whom they have formed an exclusive deal.
 
Sources:
  • Snopes.com on the Coke secret formula
  • ABC news on the possibility of the formula recently released. Check out the second page for other food industry secrets and rumors.

Photo: Morgan