Jamison Kissh » Blog

Why are there no iPads in the NFL?

Jamison — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:26:47 +0000

Have you ever wondered why there’s no iPads, or really any tech, in NFL games? Maybe not, but I’ll be you’re wondering now. Well an article by Eric Elias very clearly and concisely points out why there’s not iPads allowed. The big idea is that by adding in technology you’re able to take away the human element of the game. If you think about it we have enough data on games to be able to gather data to build algorithms to predict what the other team is going to do. Once you do that the statisticians become higher paid than the players/coaches. It then begins to become a war of the algorithms, then all of a sudden you don’t need the players (or drones at that point), and then we end up just watching a giant screen. Basically allowing tech in would create a WarGames like situation.

LED Snowboarder

Jamison — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:03:30 +0000

Ever wonder what would happen if you put on a suit covered in LEDs and went out snowboarding? Well Jacob Sutton took care of that for us, check out the freaking beautiful video below

Jacob Sutton’s L.E.D. Surfer on Nowness.com.

iOS “Splitable” Keyboard Useless

Jamison — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:43:09 +0000

Today I was working on my iPad in class and used one of the features I was most excited about, the ability to split the keyboard so someone with tiny hands like myself can hold the iPad and efficiently type. My gripe however is Apple’s shitty implementation of this. Splitting the keyboard does not affect the application like the normal keyboard (see below)

The app thinks it has no keyboard in the way and puts text under it which is freaking useless. Back to typing with one finger I go…

Boston “Hacks”

Jamison — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:15:31 +0000

Curious about some tips from local Boston residents to help make moving around the city easier? Well today there was a post on Reddit that contained exactly that information, below I’ve included some of the more helpful tips and a link back to the original post.

“They never lock up the mall in the Prudential Center. Great late-night short cut, especially in the winter.” – Oligarch
“When you take the Silver Line to Logan always get off at the first stop at terminal A no matter where you’re going.” The author, claims he works in Logan and by doing this he is able to arrive at terminal C much more quickly than if he were riding the silver line the entire way.
“Buses. I don’t know why so many people are hesitant to take them. Even when they go along the same route as a train, there is a good chance buses will be faster during rush hour.” - what_comes_after_q
To the above “hack” folks strongly suggest that this works well with the 57 and 39. Another suggested the usefulness of the route 66.
“The commuter rail runs between Porter Square and North Station, and costs the same as a ride on the T but will only take about 10 minutes.” – naughtyspaceship
“There is an underground tunnel connecting Back Bay Station to Copley Place. This means that you can get to Back Bay from Prudential without going outside.” – naughtyspaceship
And the last one: “You can walk from Park St <-> Downtown Crossing underground.” – From an older post

The original post with full comments. Older post referenced above.

Is Twitter Rebranding?

Jamison — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:56:33 +0000

Today a Twitter update was released for Android that included a lot of new terminology. Is Twitter in the midst of trying to rebrand features? For example, what’s “connect?”

The People of Massachusetts

Jamison — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:17:05 +0000

The people of Massachusetts in the handy form of a map…

PS: I shamelessly stole the image after a bunch of other people reposted it, no idea who the original creator is

My Time with Ubuntu (2 Months)

Jamison — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:13:14 +0000

Well I promised that I would follow-up when I had been using Ubuntu for a little longer and how I was liking it. It turns out I’ve learned a lot and I’ve changed quite a few habits of mine. Over the past 20 days or so, being a college student, I’ve had a lot of papers due and LibreOffice was simply not cutting it for me since it wasn’t handling styles or headers correctly or as expected and going with the lazy college student style I didn’t allot enough time to deal with the quirks. That being said I had been dual booting mainly to play Team Fortress and other games so I finally got my hands on a license key after running a “trial” version of Windows and started using that and my familiar Microsoft Office. This has actually led to me primarily using Windows out of laziness and in hopes that I will get my papers done by not having to switch OS’s. Regardless of my Windows use I do still love Ubuntu and I’d like to expand a little on what I’ve like and what troubles I’ve had.

Things I’ve liked:

It’s pretty, being a former design student I’ve come to appreciate pretty and Ubuntu certainly is
Holy shit is it fast. Working in Ubuntu with everything being so responsive and switching back to Windows is somewhat painful. Switching back to my dual core MacBook running Lion earlier this week was even more painful
Wicked easy but it certainly isn’t hard to get your hands dirty. People that know me know that I like to take things apart and tinker, that’s certainly not hard in Ubuntu and the community support is great, there’s a good chance there’s someone else who is willing to help you take your first baby steps into tinkering.
The ability to work with a live OS is fantastic

Things I haven’t liked:

Although everyone said the upgrade to 11.10 was perfectly fine I managed to have it fail twice
Wine is nice, but the performance sucks. I know it isn’t Ubuntu’s problem but it’s still a thought

Those are my primary thoughts, although I’ve yet to have time to really tinker I look forward to when I get a chance to (these coming weeks). After all, we’re approaching finals time which means it’s time to clean the apartment, do laundry, and pick up a new obscure hobby in the name of procrastination.

Step by Step Droid 2 Global Root

Jamison — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 02:01:13 +0000

This was a very popular post when my blog and portfolio were combined, since I’ve since shifted gears and gotten rid of that WordPress install I figured I’d go ahead and repost it below:

When I first got my Droid 2 Global I had a horrible time trying to find instructions that simply outlined how to root the device and get any recovery partitions to boot and to flash my own ROMs. So below I’ve made a reasonable step by step guide.

Download Z4 Root using some method either on the device, or on your computer and pushing it via Bluetooth or USB
Download and install Astro File Manager
Open up Settings, head to Applications, check “Unknown sources” so that you may install Z4 Root
Using Astro browse to the apk file that is Z4 root and install the application
Go ahead and open up the application
Select the option that best applies to your situation
Let the application run
Voila, your D2G is rooted

Now for most folks you’re going to want to play around with Clockwork Mod and probably install some custom roms. So here’s how to get Clockwork Mod running.

Download and install Clockwork’s Droid 2 Recovery Bootstrapper [$2 USD] many sites will tell you to use Clockwork’s ROM Manager but it doesn’t do the trick for the D2G
If you’re installing many ROM’s you’ll also need to use Team Get~R~Done’s D2G converter tool to make many ROMs work with the D2G

Good luck and if anything goes wrong, I’m not responsible for it. I’m just providing these instructions for informational purposes.

Our Leaders Can’t Pass Economics 101

Jamison — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:12:20 +0000

Ever wonder how the people who want to lead our country would fair in a college economics 101 class? Well The College Investor has broken it down for us. They state that the average 101 class covers

Interactions between consumers (you and I) and producers (factories) that determine pricing and the distribution of outputs (which includes goods and the wages paid

This is Supply and Demand 101. People pay more for scarce goods, and less for abundant goods. Suppliers determine their pricing based on this. Wages are similar – more workers for a job means lower wages. Have a special skill, you will probably make more.

How gains from specialization and exchange (i.e. trade), whether domestic or internationally, exceeds any losses by significant amounts

This is all about trade. Basically, free trade is good for the entire population. Not to say that specific individuals or groups won’t be harmed in the short run, but over the long term, specialization and trade will be beneficial as the price of goods will come down.

How the decisions by consumers, producers, and the government determine domestic and global prosperity

This highlights the impacts of taxes and tariffs on the prices of goods. The idea is that the higher the price, the less consumers will buy it. So, you can artificially inflate a price by taxing it. You can make trade less favorable by putting up tariffs. Tariffs are designed to protect the home industries that could be harmed by trade, but they do cause higher prices for others.

How efficiently or equitably economic issues are resolved through markets or government policies (i.e. which is better, the market, government policies, or a combination of both – based on specific issues like fisheries, global warming, etc.)

Where do our future leaders fail? Check out the original post below:

http://THECOLLEGEINVESTOR.COM/1855/our-leaders-cant-pass-economics-101/

The Surveillance Catalog – The Wall Street Journal

Jamison — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:27:17 +0000

A cool look at some of the surveillance tools that the US government is using in an article compiled by the Wall Street Journal.

http://projects.wsj.com/surveillance-catalog/
from Hacker News http://news.ycombinator.com/
See original post on Zootool