NevBlog

Neville's Digital Surrogate Brain

Neville

Casio Exilim EX-G1 Underwater Camera Pics

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It’s summer, and in Austin that means a lot of boating and river floating.

Generally this by default means “put all your electronics away because they might get wet”…which sucks because you can get cool pictures while hanging out in the water.

On a recent boating trip I saw a friend had this camera….the first thing I did was go back to my hotel and order it on Amazon.

It was of the Exilim family which I go WAY back with.  I’ve had like 3 different versions of the Casio Exilim in the past, so I didn’t mind buying another (even though I have a fantastic Cannon camera).

The camera is the Casio Exilim EX-G1 and soon as I saw it was waterproof….I was sold.  I’ve been wanting to get a waterproof camera for a while, but the ones I’ve seen look too dorky and clunky.  This is the first one I’ve seen that looks cool, PLUS is waterproof (and shockproof…which is good because I DO NOT treat my electronics well):

So the first step was to take a few pictures with it.  Keep in mind I almost ALWAYS slightly tweak the colors of my photos using Photoshop, other than that, these are close to the originals:

Me showing off and taunting the driver of the boat by STANDING UP whilst tubing:

Wake boarding on Lake Austin:

Blowing underwater ring bubbles (are there such things as ABOVE water ring bubbles)??

This is the VERY FIRST picture I took underwater!

Finding Nirvana….underwater (let’s hope they have oxygen in Nirvana):

And finally here’s the first underwater test footage I did.  This was compressed with Windows Media Maker then uploaded to YouTube, so it looks pretty crappy….but otherwise the quality of video is surprisingly high:

The Homeless Experiment – One Year Reflection

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Roughly one year ago I did a rather odd thing and willingly became homeless.

This was all part of a Homeless Experiment I’d been wanting to try for a while.

It was definitely the most engrossing series of posts I did since I literally LIVED it for 5 days.  It wasn’t exactly a safe thing to do, and a lot of people thought I was going to get shanked, killed or pick up a weird disease from doing it.

It also wasn’t all that fun doing it (at the time)…but I’m really glad I went through with it.

When I tell the story, I get several recurring questions, which are answered here:

Did this make you more compassionate towards homeless people?
No.  In fact I have even slightly more animosity towards homeless people because I’ve seen how true the stereotypes are.  However, I’ve never failed to mention that by “homeless” I mean those CHRONICALLY HOMELESS people that you may see on the side of the road with a sign.  I don’t like them.  They’re like human litter to me.  Most homeless people don’t fit that mold…those are just a very visible minority.

Are you going to do it again?
When I got back home…I was SO DONE with that experiment.  Being around that many homeless people is like being in a room full of failure.  When everyone around you is a failure, it’s likely you’ll pick up their habits.

The conversations I had, the stories I overheard….they’re often so negative and I’m-The-Victim’ish that it starts to poison your brain.  That’s why if I had to make ONE CHANGE to the entire homeless system, i’d play The Strangest Secret on repeat at the homeless shelter.

I also have a very low tolerance for idleness….and there was too much “doing nothing” for me.  I think doing experiments like this do LESS for the world than doing experiments on how to improve.

C’mon…do it again, c’mmmooonn!
No way man.  I explained pretty clearly in this post before the experiment took place that simply anticipating this experiment made me “think homeless” all the time.

“Hmmm…I bet I can sleep in that park.”
“You know…behind that trail would be a good place to poop.”

These aren’t the type of thoughts I exactly enjoy thinking.  So while the experiment was technically only 5 days, it seemed waaaaay longer since I was thinking like my Homeless Alias.

On the brighter side, I thought it was a great example of immersive journalism, it’s a great story, and I even won an award for it!  There were a lot of other small side benefits like people hearing about my blog and learning how to publish a book on the Amazon Kindle (it actually makes sales believe it or not…even though it’s entirely free online).

I also learned something crucial in how I can improve my beloved City of Austin:

Move the homeless shelters away from the epicenter of Downtown Austin! Most of the chronically homeless people travel no more than 8 square blocks from the hand that feeds.  I think it’s an all around bad idea to give such prime real estate to homeless shelters when they could be operated cheaper and less intrusively by being just slightly further.

Guy 1: Hey, where should be keep several hundred homeless people that sit around all day waiting for meals and free services?  Oh by the way, we’ll also throw in a bunch of crackheads, meth addicts and just plain bat-shit-insane people into the mix.

Guy 2: How about right in the heart of the entertainment district!? It’ll quickly turn the surrounding property into a shithole, scare people away, and even create a panhandling problem!

Guy 1: You….are….. a genius.

Obviously that’s not how it went….but you get the point.

I think what will eventually happen is the property will eventually get SO valuable, it will no longer make economic sense to keep the shelters in the current location.  They’ll be bulldozed, new businesses will move in, and I’ll be happy.


Soooo….what’s the name of your blog again?
Pretty much every time I tell this story to someone, they end up going online and checking it out.


Are you glad you did it?
Absolutely.

Being a Parsi Zoroastrian

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Of all the emails and questions I get from maintaining this blog, I every once in a while get this one from the curious:

What ethnicity are you?

I get this question quite frequently in real life also. Technically the answer is: I’m Indian.

Most people think I don’t look “typical Indian” whatever that means….and I’m not.

I’m a Parsi Zoroastrian.

  • Zoroastrianism = My religion, one of the oldest known religious in the world.
  • Parsi = A Zorastrian from India or Pakistan. Both my parents are from India.

I won’t go into great detail about the religious aspects of Zoroastrianism, you can read the Wikipedia entry for more info on that.

I will however discuss the cultural aspects which I think are far more interesting. This is a widely debated number, but there are less than 150,000 Zoroastrians in the world (and that’s one of the higher figures). That means we’re only .0025% of the world population. Not big.

Whenever an inquisitive person begins questioning about the religion and I’m not in the mood to engage in that conversation, I quickly end it by stating, “We’re kind of like the Jews of India.” I see a lot of similarities between Zoroastrians and Jewish people:

  • We have historically been business owners, lawyers, bankers, doctors, accountants etc..
  • We have big noses and are stingy with money. OK OK, that might be a little stereotypical…although for me it’s pretty on the nose (pun intended)!
  • We’ve gone through long periods of religious persecution (in fact in Iran it’s still particularly bad).
  • Had our own version of the Holocaust.
  • We have a Navjote before we’re teenagers which is esentially the equivalent of Bar Mitzvah.

Now one of the main differences of Zoroastrianism compared to the major faiths of the world is that you cannot convert into Zoroastrianism. Whether or not people should be allowed to convert in or not is a harshly debated subject within the Zoroastrian community .

I honestly try not to get myself entagled in this incessant debate, but with such dwindling numbers and a birth-t0-death ratio of 1:5, it’s a mathematical certainty the numbers will be reduced to nothing with the current system.

Anyhow, those are longer term predictions. Within my lifetime it’ll still be around.

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I think it’s been an inherently very positive influence on my life to have grown up a Zoroastrian with a large base of Zoroastrian friends.  Some of the things I like about it:

  • When you meet another Zoroastrian person, it’s highly likely you’ll know some mutual friends.
  • The bond between a newly met Zoroastrian person is automatically extremely high.
  • No matter what part of the world you meet in, it’s very likely you’ll see that person again.
  • People help each other out in tight-knit communities.
  • Very high sense of belonging.

So if you ever meet another Zoroastrian….drop my name.  There’s actually a strong chance they’ll know me!

An ode to good parents

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…I think I have a pretty good life….and there’s two people I primarily owe that ALL to:

My parents.

I had a great childhood because of them.

I was taught I could pretty much do anything.

My parents never forced choices on me like a lot of my other friends’ parents.

They were unbelievably fair with me.

They were never overbearing.

They always had their own lives and didn’t make me and my brother the center of their whole universe.

I grew up in an extremely loving relationship.

They always have fun with everything they do.

When I was younger talking amongst friends, I would hear, “OMG I never wanna be like my parents”.  I told everyone the opposite.  I DO want to be like them!

Warren Buffet always attests much of his success to being born into a winning hand of the “The Ovarian Lottery” because he was born at a certain time, to great parents in a nation that rewards hard work and innovation.

I feel I got the same :-)
Love you mom & dad (I know you read this)!

Accountability

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I’m trying to brainstorm ways of keeping myself accountable…(or others for that matter).

I’m in the slightly unique situation of not having to answer to anybody. This means I have no boss or anyone who will yell at me if something doesn’t get done.  If I have a bad month in terms of how much money I made, it’s literally 100% my fault. I also don’t have people which depend on me getting certain things done.

I analyzed some situations where things get done, even when you’re lazy about them:

  • In school, if I didn’t finish my homework I’d get a bad grade.
  • In a company, if you don’t finish certain things you can get fired.
  • In a company, you might have people who depend on what you’re doing, so if you don’t finish, they get mad at you.

These are all great reasons to get something done before the deadline even if you don’t want to.

So each of these has a:

  1. Task that needs to get done.
  2. Someone expecting or dependent on the task getting done.
  3. A negative consequence that happens if you DON’T finish.

I make monthly goals all the time, but I realized until I decided to blog everyday there is NO ACCOUNTABILITY for each of my goals (you may recall I openly set that goal with NevBlog readers, and in addition set a negative consequence if it doesn’t happen).  So that goal has all the elements of a task that WILL GET DONE.  But what about the others?

So I’m brainstorming some ways that I can get all my goals done:

  • Posting each goal on this blog (but what if it’s something I don’t want to be public)?
  • Get a Business Coach to discuss each goal and call me about its progress and due date (kind of like the accountability MyBodyTutor gave me for the 6-Pack Experiment which worked BEAUTIFULLY).
  • I could set a negative consequence for each goal, but it’s missing the #2 part of the formula (someone expecting or dependent on the task).

Hmmm…..so it looks like the best way is to have some sort of business coach that I speak to several times a month that keeps me accountable.

Has anyone found some great ways of keeping their goals and ALWAYS getting them done?

Alpha State of Mind

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Somewhere in my adventures in reading random books at the library I came across this little trick:

Getting into a hypnotic-like, Alpha state of mind.

The steps were:

  1. Wake up in the morning.
  2. Quickly go to bathroom if needed.
  3. Immediately get back into bed.
  4. Lay down, close eyes, and slowly count down backwards from 100 to zero (2 seconds between each number).
  5. BAM! You’re in the “alpha state”!

It seemed like a pretty easy process and was worth a try…just for fun.

I gave it a try the next morning, and the damndest thing happened….IT WORKED!!

After an almost excruciatingly long count down from 100, I realized that (and yes, this sounds a little weird), that I was kind of having a conversation with myself…in my head.  It was like I could ask a question to myself and get a very quick, non-censored answer instantly from my subconscious.

Wow…that sounds like I’m on drugs!

I do it every once-in-a-while, and it’s actually been a pretty useful tool for helping me sort out my day before I officially wake up.  I can also “ask myself” a question about a problem I’ve been having, and the mind generally spits out the answer you already know is right…but might not want to admit.

How to get published on anything

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Back in college, to write for The Daily Texan (#1 college newspaper in the country) you had to:

  • Generally be in certain classes
  • Apply for the job
  • Go through interviews
  • Submit writing samples
  • Be a “staff” writer for a year
  • Get promoted up to a writer

I wanted to publish some business-related stuff in the newspaper, and  all that BS above seemed useless and time consuming.

Figuring that EVERYONE who applies says, “I want to write for you guys”, I tried the opposite (kind of like this mentality).

Before I ever talked to ANYONE at the organization, I went ahead and actually wrote out three full, quality articles. I even went out and got quotes from experts and copied the typical newspaper-story format.

I then printed out four copies of each news story and brought them along with me for my very first talk with someone at the newspaper.

I literally walked into the office and asked, “Who do I speak to about publishing something, I’ve got articles ready to go.”  The person in the office was a little intrigued that I had ALREADY written the articles BEFORE I’d even made an arrangement and took a quick glance at them.  Deciding they were decent enough, he walked me over to the “Special Features” editor and told him I had three good articles ready to go.

Now a newspaper has to pump out quality content every day, that’s hard, and I somehow KNEW they would accept my articles quickly, but I didn’t realize HOW quickly!  They asked me to come in later for an editing session….me and editor sat down for two hours brooding over every sentence (a process I didn’t really like), and the 1st article was ready for print that week!

BAM…I was a published newspaper writer in two days :-)

The next several articles were the same story.  Editing session –> publish.

Some good advice Linda?