nick gaydos > thynk

Finally relaxing

We're finally settled in at the vacation home in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. The weather is excellent: a few clouds in the sky, but is very comfortable in the mid eighties.

The photo above is of the pool and terrace in the backyard and the house is very slick - large screened doors open to the pool and surrounding land.

(way to late for christmas) gadget consumerism

• DealExtreme
  Super inexpensive, super cheap electronicy gadgety products, shipped free. Can't vouch for ordering or quality at this time, but may give it a try someday.
• X-Treeme Geek
  is a nifty gadget retailer. Lots of interesting stuff.

Always Almost There

Gina Trapani, of Lifehacker, wrote about Practicing Simplified GTD (Getting Things Done) today that really struck a chord:

"David Allen's complete GTD methodology, as he writes it, is still an elusive ideal for me. I regard it kind of like I do Buddhism: a big, mysterious, and wondrous way of living and thinking that you really want to get, because the people that have seem so bright and fulfilled. But you keep falling on your ass no matter how many inboxes you set up or mind dumps you do. The perfect is the enemy of the good, as the saying goes, so instead of giving up on GTD completely, take the parts that work for you and work them."

I'd love to completely adopt GTD, but it's never 100% for me.

As much as I'd like it to be, it's like exercise - you are better off for doing it and should feel good that you do what you can, when you can.   

a moment of web zen

• YouTube - Grote Kunst Voor Kleine Mensen: Chocolade haas
  'Chocolade haas' is an episode from the preschool art project 'Big Art For Little People', made by Lernert Engelberts. [via Kottie]

Video of Pleo Hatching

On Wednesday, our friends, Anne and Marty, came over. Anne brought her un-opened Pleo that had just arrived.

Well... I'm amazed. It's pretty darn impressive - a small machine / computer that fools you into treating it like a pet cat. We couldn't get enough petting and scratching in!

I've posted the video on youtube. Be sure to watch for our 7 month old's reactions.

lots of interesting things to link to from the past few days...

• Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby from Royal College of Art - Interview (Core77 Podcast)
  Dr. Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby are faculty members in the Design Interactions department at London's Royal College of Art and have gained somewhat of a cult following for their provocative and future-scenario-based design work.
• Shelfari
  A website that let's you catalog your book collection and share your thoughts and recommendations with other people.
• Set Up a Self-Cleaning Mac with Hazel
  Hazel can keep your Mac's hard drive free of files you don't need anymore.
• Summize
  Summize crawls reviews and blog discussions on the web to create summations of reviews of music, movies, and books. Summize uses a colorbar to show the distribution of ratings.
• Add More Functionality to Leopard's Screen Sharing
• David Allen's Weblog
  The Getting Things Done guru has a weblog on Huffington Post.
• Lifehacker's 2007 Guide to Free Software and Webapps
  A nice selection... I don't agree with every one of them, the free stipulation leaves some important ones off.
• Clever Nut Bolt and Screw Salt and Pepper Shakers
  The threads are really a spring. Bend them to let the pepper and salt through. Very Cute.
• Winterbells
  An addictive little game - guide your bunny using your mouse to jump from floating bell to floating bell.
• TYPEflake*
  Slick typographic flash greeting cards.
• Release 1.0 Back Issues - O'Reilly Radar
• Hidden Network Cards
• Email client agnostic templates
  Outlook 2007 friendly email templates.

Sleeping and Dreaming

The Wellcome Collection, a gallery in London, is hosting an exhibition on "Sleeping & Dreaming."

This seems to be a perfect fit for an organization that focuses on Medicine Life and Art.

Themes include:

• Dead Tired
• Traces of Sleep
• Dream Worlds
• Elusive Sleep
• A World Without Sleep?

The show runs November 29th, 2007 through March 9th, 2008 and is free to the public.
Gallery: 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE

[via boingboing]

A Christmas Tree Lighting

I just finished uploading a few pictures of this year's Christmas tree to Flickr.

This was the first year in a while that we've taken the time to put up a tree. This year's is particularly straight and the first we've put in our new place. We love the blue-white glow from the LEDs. It's strange how having a child can make the season new again.

In a few days, I'll probably get around to posting pictures from Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa Hart's. Grandpa Hart has an aging Christmas Tree farm and although many are much larger than we could fit in our living room, there is something special about tromping through the snow to find the perfect one.

shrinky links

• DOPPLR
  Lets you share your future travel plans with a group of trusted fellow travelers that you have chosen.
• Cool Tool: Millepede Cable Ties
  Millepede is a refastenable cable bundling tie
• Fluidforms
  Products include a Fluid Earth Bowl - topographically milled bowl based on your location
• The Extreme Presentation(tm) Blog: Choosing a good chart

Leo Kottke and Turtle Island String Quartet

Last Sunday, Tammy and I left Ahnika with my parents and did something on our own for the first time in months. Although we've had to scale back the number of UMS events we're attending, we did manage to sneak in Leo Kottke and the Turtle Island String Quartet.

The concert, at Rackham auditorium, in Ann Arbor, was excellent. After listening to some of the finest musicians around, we stopped for a quick bite and headed back to Rochester in the sleet.