Matchbook goes live! Super proud of Digital Store Platform and the teams we worked with across Digital to bring this to market. I'm buying!

Today, Amazon launched Kindle MatchBook, a new benefit that gives customers the option to buy--for $2.99, $1.99, $0.99, or free--the Kindle edition of print books they have purchased new from Amazon. Over 70,000 books are enrolled in Kindle MatchBook, with more being added every day. Now customers can visit www.amazon.com/kindlematchbook to see all of their print books that are eligible for the Kindle MatchBook edition. Customers can also see when a book is eligible for Kindle MatchBook on the book's detail page. 

The program was announced on September 3 with over 10,000 titles. Since then, thousands of popular books like Heaven is for Real, The Things They Carried and The Way of Kings have been added from major publishers such as HarperCollins, Macmillan, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Amazon Publishing, Wiley, Chronicle Books, and Marvel, as well as thousands of titles from Kindle Direct Publishing authors like The Walk by Lee Goldberg and Falling Into You by Jasinda Wilder.

Inner Critic Inner Success - Stacey's Book Hits the Streets!

Inner Critic Inner Success: Claiming Your Success While Taming the Critics by Stacey Sargent
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Outstanding book. Almost as good as being in class with Stacey. What I love about Inner Critic Inner Success is the very pragmatic way it covers key topics; the case studies are invaluable examples of real life situations we've all come across before. I found the book to be a great refresher on a number of topics that Stacey has taught me and my team. I'm also recommending the book to friends and colleagues with little formal background in the areas cover by the book as it's a *very* approachable read. Makes my stocking stuffer list very easy for this year's holidays! Congratulations Stacey - an awesome book filled with your personal passion!

View all my reviews

Boomzilla Occurence in the 4 billion digits of Pi

search string = "boomzilla"
45-bit binary equivalent =   000100111101111011011101001001011000110000001
string does not occur in first 4 billion binary digits of pi 

:-(

http://pi.nersc.gov/

But there is an ass in position 130396475.....

Seen above a urinal at the Goodreads office in San Francisco...

WTF? Seriously. W.T.F.....

Space Needle

Of one thing I am confident; the Space Needle has been photographed significantly more than 8 times. Notwithstanding the ubiquity of it's image across the city (heck I can even buy Space Needle imprinted underwear) I felt drawn to take my shot and awesomize the heck out of it. Behold!

Kindle Fire as Secondary Laptop Monitor

There are plenty of times when I need additional real estate for my laptop: when I'm on a call using OCS and want to have the controls front and center; Amazon Cloud Player etc. Rather than hauling a monitor with me Ive been using the Air Display app for the Kindle Fire. It’s $9.99 and works over Wi-Fi ( both devices must be on the same network). You also need to download and app for your Mac or PC from the Air Display website here.  If you don't have a Fire you can use any Android device, iOS device, Windows computer, or Mac as your second monitor.

LAN Party?

Not been involved in a LAN party for, well, a very, very long time. Now, this is not quite a LAN party in the traditional sense. Evan and two other guys are playing League of Legends. All three showed up with their desktops. monitors, keyboards and mice - no laptops here and definitely no laggy wireless connections. I ran three cables from my HP ProCurve switch (yes - it's still running fine....) and off they went. Seem to be kicking ass last time I checked in.

Eagle Scout Ceremony - Troop 222 Menlo Park

Video I made for Evan's Eagle Scout ceremony last year. Congrats Evan, Ian and Will!

Giving a lecture at HMC on March 5 are part of the Annenberg guest lecture series. Look forward to seeing you at Mudd!

Chickadee Trail Restoration

Evan's completed his Eagle Scout community project, restoring the Chickadee Nature Trail at Huddart Park.

Congrats!

Zappos; Pre-M&A vist

During the Zappos M&A due diligence I took a tour of the offices in Henderson. Super group of folks there who really rolled out the red carpet. I found this picture from the tour. if you've been there you'll know what this is about. If not, I highly recommend that you take the tour.

Andromeda. Military Inspired Tri-rail Lamp

Andromeda, the world's first ever, military inspired tri-rail lamp. It utilizes the picatinny rail system (aka the MIL-STD-1913 rail or "tactical rail") allowing customization of the shade and leg positions. It's the latest project to which I've committed funding on Kickstarter. Check out the funding page and join in!

How much are three eggs?

If one egg is $2.50, and two eggs are $4.00, how much should 3 eggs cost. Hint: not $6.50.

It is difficult......

Upton Sinclair, the author, once said:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Emma in the New York Times

Emma made the New York times on April 2 in an article entitled Giving Women the Access Code that covers Maria Klawe, Harvey Mudd and women in engineering and computer science. The irony of course, is that Emma is attending Harvey Mudd but is wearing a Cal Lair of the Bear hoodie in the picture...

Laser Cut Mikey Jewelry Box

Quick holiday project: Mickey-themed jewelry box. Pre-made acrylic box from Tap Plastics (why make one yourself when they do it cheaper!). I cut twin Micky heads with flat bases and acrylic-welded them to the box. A simple and swift project that looks rather fine. Could be scaled up to a full-size end table (although I'd have to manufacture the box component myself as Tap don't have an off-the-shelf version that large).

(Note: Not for commercial use/sale; personal enjoyment only)

Kindle Fire - Laser Engraving

Ah - the power (literally) of an Epilog laser. I dialed down the power to 15% and set speed to 100%; didn't want to wind up cutting my Fire in interesting ways! Took about 30 seconds to raster my name into the rubberized back of the Fire. Depth is about half a millimeter (or so). Nice compliment to the Kindle logo just above it. You see the detail of the rastering in the picture below. Click on it for a enlarged version.

Destruction of Time: The Videos (Finally!)

And a slightly longer video showing hours and minutes:

Facebook Video Calling: Fail

Facebook Video Calling was announced on July 6th. It's now July 9th and all I've seen so far is the "will be available soon - Please check back later" (and I'd much prefer that Facebook notify me when its available rather than me acting as an unpaid click farmer for them....). Is this actually working for anyone????

Maker Faire

Maker Faire this weekend at the San Mateo Fairgrounds showing "The Destruction of Time". Evan and I are in the Expo Hall location 10 (North east corner of the building). Hop over to The Destruction of Time blog to see construction details. I have a few videos I'll be uploading when the show is over). What is it? An over engineered, expensive, doesn't-tell-very-good-time, clock. (HM:MM) built from ink jet printers and paper shredders.....