I ordered a bunch of books recently. I really need to get on reading all these books instead of buying more. Here’s one I just got today. I’ve been working on a new health tool at work and need to revamp its data visualization. I’ve been looking at this book for a while but decided this was a fine occasion to make this purchase.

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Edward Tufte is a data visualizations god. He takes real solid human factors and psychological research and turns data visualization into a hard science. His books are exceptional in content as well as actual print and materials quality. The images he packs in his books are nothing but aggregations of data and concepts, but the result is beautiful works of art. This is his first legendary book attacking the raw mechanics of graphing. I have his next two books, Envisioing Information and Visual Explanations, as well.

On a related note, check out Junk Charts, an information visualizations blog. They take dava visualizations and redo them much nicer and is a great way to see some data visualization transformations in action.

Just found out I can’t put Google Ads on my Wordpress blog. I found that to be pretty dissappointing now that I’ve gotten my blog up and running here. Their reasoning is that they don’t tolerate Spam Blogs that are often created to drive traffic to each other and generating money. After learning more about Google’s Adsense program from reading The Google Story, it’s really an admirable system. It’s a win-win system where you put Google ads on your page and you split the revenue. It gives the little guy a way to make a little cash through advertising, which would never have been possible without a system like this. It’s a great incentive to make a really great blog and get some return for your hard work. I was thinking of moving over to Google’s Blogger before I get to entrentched in Wordpress, but the Wordpress interface, look and feel, import/export options, all seemed so much nicer than Blogger, so I think I’ll stick with Wordpress for now.

PS. It’s not like I’m going to be making big bucks with this blog anytime soon, but I just think it’d be freakin cool to get a check for just writing in my blog, even if it’s a few pennies.

I watched this video before my Epi-LASIK procedure. It’s a closeup view of the actual procedure in all it’s glory. You can now see Exactly what I went through. I can’t speak for how you will respond to it, but I think watching it helped me get a little more comfortable with the procedure. Believe me, I was squirming massively while watching this video (don’t say I didn’t warn you). But by the second viewing I was a bit more comfortable (just a bit). But my philosophy is the more information you have the better. Hard to beat an actual video of the operation. Good luck getting through the video if you decide to hit play…

Note: In this Epi-LASIK video, you’ll see that the surgeon cuts an epithelial flap and then replaces it afterwards. According to my surgeon, this is being phased out in the Epi-LASIK procedure. The consensus among leading surgeons is that recovery is actually better if the flap is not put back. So the surgery is actually completed significantly faster than seen in this video. That’s good news for you!

It’s no secret that I am not a fan of recommendations for people to eat large of amounts of “Healthy” or “Clean Burning” grains in their diet. These recommendations come more from economic forces than anything as the huge US grain industry pushed lots of research and for it’s insanely high contribution to the original USDA Food Pyramid (you’ll notice the recommended grain consumption on the new pyramid has dropped greatly in the new version).

However, attacking grains as a whole is for another day, but I think the latest health findings are coming to agreement that refined grains (white rice, white bread, most pasta) are not good for you. But I don’t think the message is really getting out. A visit to any grocery store will still reveal that whole grain products are a very small minority. This is really unfortunate as refined grains have been linked to a whole host of health issues from obesity to cancer. I think that effecting change in people’s eating habits is a matter of how we present this food to the public. Refined grain should be called what it is, Junk Food.

Refined grain is grain that has had its outer bran shell removed, as well as the germ. The bran has certain vitamins and fiber contributing that “heaviness” to the grain, both in weight and that feeling of satiety after eating a smaller amount. The germ contains some protein and good fats and other good nutrients. What you have left after removing these are nutrient void calorie bombs that do not fill you up (low satiety). What other food can you think of that can be described as nutrient-void-calorie-bombs -that-never-seem-to-fill-you-up? Junk food. Chips, popcorn, cookies, and other processed unholiness. Besides the extra toxic chemicals in traditional junk foods (coloring, preservatives), both foods offer you a boat load of easy-eating calories with little nutritional return. The worst part is the lack of satiety. Just think about how much white rice or white bread you could potentially pack away before achieving that same fullness of a few bites of chicken breast or beans. That and the refined grain will make you hungry again much sooner because your body digests refined carbs just about as fast as pure sugar, another similarity to junk foods. We often make the differentiation between “fattening sugar” and “healthy carbs”. However, when you really look at these two, it’s all just Junk Food.

I finally got around to linking this page up to my homepage at http://www.randomdestiny.com so you can now come in through the main site.

Google made a cell phone application that accesses your gmail faster than through your phone’s browser. It prefetches messages so navigating your mail isn’t as excruciating as going directly from a mobile browser (ugh). Unfortunately, my phone apparently doesn’t support the app even though it’s a java enabled phone. I’m still not a fan of mobile browsing at all. It’s especially hard on me as I’m used to my new 23 inch monitor at work and 24 at home. The phone’s screen is just painful.

Been a while since my last eye update. My vision has stabilized since my last post, and my bandage contacts were taken out a few days after my last post. This time, I made sure to keep them really moist the first few days after taking them off to avoid any more bits of epithelium from detaching. There was probably little chance of it happening again after giving my eyes a few more days under the bandages, but I just wanted to be sure.So the big question you probably have is, how is my vision? Well, at my last visit, my eyes measured 20/20, so by most accounts, that’s “perfect” vision! However, in my opinion, I think my vision is a little less than perfect still. While I could see the 20/20 line, the letters were kind of blurry, so I’m probably more around 20/25 or 20/30 (I have no idea what those actually look like, just guessing here). I feel like I was able to read those last lines just through extra focusing power, but unless I look hard, things aren’t completely sharp without me having to try to focus on something. My vision still varies a bit, though, sometimes when I get some tears going everything gets a bit sharper, and other times I don’t focus quite as well. I think this is what they mean by “quantity comes first, then quality”. For the most part, my prescription is right now, but it takes a bit longer for everything to “smooth out”.

So how about those stars and halos in the night you always hear about? Not to bad at all. Not really much worse than before. I’m thankful they turned off the light and flashed a light at my eyes to show me how much I had before, because comparing it now, I see that the level of starring and haloing is about the same, just a slight bit more now. But again, this varies, too. However, I was able to drive home just fine from Pittsburgh with the last few hours of the trip at night.

The freedom is amazing. For a non contact wearer, it doesn’t seem like a few seconds putting contacts in and out matter much, but it does. It adds up every time you do it, having to clean your hands, put them in, experience that constant feeling of something in your eye, the end of the day gunkiness, carrying around gear when you travel. Contacts are just an overall hindrance. The best thing is the “get-up-and-go” ability I have. I can just sit up in the morning and do stuff, and I can jump into bed when I want to pass out late at night after writing a long blog post. Plus, with pretty severe myopia like I had, there’s a nice psychological component of not being totally reliant on contacts and glasses. When I went to Pittsburgh, I felt “lighter” as I packed and lived out of the bag. Just one less thing to worry about in a busy life.

I doubt I will go for a correction if it does turn out I’m not quite at 20/20. I’m pretty much fully functional now (except I can’t cut onions without crying profusely, still a little sensitive I guess) with the level of sharpness I have, though it’s a little less than what I had with my contacts (which apparently got me to 20/15, so I was a bit spoiled). Maybe I’ll try some of those natural vision improvement exercises. I have a book on them and I do believe they work for small corrections. They were out of the question for me when I was -7.0 diopters, but I hear they work wonders for people with a less than a couple diopters off.

All in all, the freedom is worth it. That’s all there is to it. The cost is totally worth it as it comes out to about the same over the long run. The safety is great these days with a good surgeon. It’s arguably better for your eyes than wearing contacts on top of your eyes for years. The pain of Epi-LASIK is a bit tough for the first few days, but is nothing really unbearable, and if you are not into contact sports, you can go for the more common, less painful, LASIK operation. So what it boils down to for me is the lifetime of freedom and “lightness” you get for those few days of discomfort. I feel it’s a good choice, and I am pleased with the results.

Kudos to Dr. Rubinfeld (surgeon) and Dr. Davis (post op care) at Washington Eye Physicians & Surgeons. They have my full recommendation. I will probably post some more intermittent updates from here on my vision, but I just wanted to leave you with a quote from Dr. Rubinfeld at my last visit regarding my new vision: “Now make sure you use your new powers for good, not evil!”

Saw a new startup called Scrybe who will has a new online office suite offering in beta. It looks like quite a web application with new innovative ways to manage scheduling and collaboration tasks. They’ve released a video on their site showcasing the new features which look thoroughly impressive, as is the marketing technique of releasing this video out on YouTube and other viral video networks. Very smart. My favorite feature was the ability to print all your scheduling and to-do data onto a specially formatted piece of paper that folds up in a smart way to fit in your wallet. That and the ability to access your documents while offline (I’ve never seen that on any web app yet, not sure how it’s done) make this tool accessible and seamless enough to work into everyday life. Can’t wait to try it out.