Month: May 2011

Deano’s answer to: “What diet produces the least feces?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

To me this is two different questions – which produces the least feces, and which is most absorbed.

There are various real-life situations in which reducing fecal output is a necessity. In those situations, a diet that induces extreme constipation will, in the most literal sense, "produce the least feces", for a while, at least (potentially days up to a week or more). Banana Fried Rice, anyone?

The latter case, diets in which foods are most absorbed, are really much more likely to be "diets in which most of your food is water"… Things like watermelon, or celery (remove the strings first). Though there are some standouts in the "real foods" category – rare red meat, eggs, and goat's milk are all highly nutritive and add little to your "southbound mass". Raw, as opposed to cooked corn is also said to be highly digestible, though I refuse to believe it based on local outputs during the season. Certain starches, like potatoes (peeled), also have some potential to approach a high absorption ratio, though a lot of it depends on the means of preparation. Oh yes, and blending just about anything down to liquid form will help, you know, a LOT (though really you're just trading the door for the window, so to speak).

I'm hesitant to work up anything approaching a full diet plan, though careful study of the Atkins and South Beach diets should get you about 2/3s of the way there… Then just work to balance what they see as the "gainers" with those foods that are hard to absorb. And, you know, don't do it!

There's a great reason your body wants to push waste through you on a regular basis, and when gamed for long periods, colo-rectal health issues may arise. I'm not a doctor(*), but with the exception of avoiding embarrassment during an imminent anal porn shoot, there are very few – if any – good reasons to use fecal reduction as a goal in one's diet.

What diet produces the least feces?

Deano’s answer to: “Why does Open Site Explorer count DMOZ links so high in its page authority?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

A few reasons DMOZ carries a lot of Authority Weight:

  • There are lots of sites that link to DMOZ, raising its own native PR/authority
  • DMOZ is entirely human-curated, and getting past the site editors to gain placement in a relevant category is exceedingly difficult these days – this prevents a lot of bad/spammy links showing up in the directory
  • As Glenn Friesen mentioned, there are several other directories that scrape/reuse DMOZ data, so getting a DMOZ link will, over time, cause additional automatic backlinks to appear without further effort
  • DMOZ will turn 13 years old on June 5th, 2011. The domain age of DMOZ also increases its authority, and the authority of sites it links to in its directory
  • Google and other search engines recognize DMOZ's unique place in web history, and weigh sites that show up in the directory differently than normal site backlinks

Why does Open Site Explorer count DMOZ links so high in its page authority?

Deano’s answer to: “There are 152,000,000 blogs on the Internet. Are bloggers still relevant?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

There are ~6,900,000,000 people on Earth. Are humans still relevant?

Sheer numbers do not equate to relevance, only to a perceived or real difficulty in filtering by relevance in a given context.

For blogs, that means that while it has become very easy to find blogs about making ice cream, it is much harder to find the best blogs about ice cream making, especially those targeted at making really good chocolate ice cream – because most search tools we have today will start mixing in popular blogs about chocolate ice cream generally, or even those dedicated to making chocolate candy… Not to mention all the blogs that refer repeatedly to chocolate ice cream manufacture as a means to sell me more Viagra. Got enough for now, thanks!

Perhaps the way in which blogs have best maintained relevance is at the individual blogger level – it still makes a lot of sense to use a blogging tool to write regularly, to document one's experiences and thoughts in the moment, if only for later personal referral. In that sense, blogging is simply an umbrella term for all such diaristic activities, including Quora posts, TwitPic and Twitter entries, and even Facebook updates.

Further, when such a personally-relevant blog takes off, and is maintained regularly, one can build immense writing skill, gain authority in one or more topic areas, and in some cases – as seen here and via the personal blogs of users like Mark Hughes, Jonas M Luster, and Lou Imbriano – it can even lead to professional gigs, either writing, appearing in the media, or within one's industry. Oh, for that day to come for this poor rambler… But I digress…

Long story short – like everything else in life, blogs are what you make of them, and relevance is earned largely based on the effort exerted.

There are 152,000,000 blogs on the Internet. Are bloggers still relevant?

Deano’s answer to: “What is the best place to sleep in Tokyo?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

Shin. Ju. Ku. Nowhere better to hang your hat. Shinjuku! Let’s go!

  • Huge station.
  • Buses and Trains direct to/from the airport(s).
  • Yamanote line will take you to at least half the places you’re determined to go, and is very easy to get the hang of, compared to the myriad subway lines.
  • That said, the subway lines will get you to the “other half” of your travel destinations very quickly.
  • Vast selection of little shops, medium chains, and full-on department stores.
  • Mind-bogglingly awesome nightlife in some of the neighborhoods, including the infamous Kabuki-cho.

As for accommodation… I recommend the Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku:

As you can see, it’s clean, modern (only 4 years old!), and welcomes foreign guests with open arms and reasonable prices (no, no, REALLY).

Rooms are on the smaller side, but include internet access, and even Wifi (still not common enough in Japanese hotels):

For best results, make sure to pack your own Ethernet cable!

Location-wise, you can’t really do better in Shinjuku – it’s a quick walk up the street to the central shopping areas and department stores, and just across the street from Shinjuku station itself:

That said, it’s still somehow tucked just far enough back from the main thoroughfares that it has a very quiet/peaceful ambiance while you’re in the lobby/your room.

It even has it’s own fairly swanky bar, if you’re too tired to venture out:

For those who really miss home, there’s even a 24 hour McDonald’s 100 meters from the front door, when “cultural exposure” starts to overwhelm:

I realize I may have a different idea of what “best” means for this question… But unless you want to luxuriate in your hotel room rather than see Tokyo and all it has to offer, you really can’t go wrong with staying at the Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku.

Disclaimer – I’m pretty sure no hotel would ever hire me, but I definitely don’t work at or get kickbacks from the Sunroute. 😉 But, you know, tips appreciated!

This answer originally appeared on Quora: What is the best place to sleep in Tokyo?

Deano’s answer to: “Can I use an LED TV as my Apple computer display if it has an HDMI port?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

Maybe?
(Mac Mini to TV setup courtesy Dean Blackburn‘s messy living room)

In all seriousness, it’s totally possible to set up your computer with just about any kind of TV these days… If it has HDMI, it’s a no-brainer (though, in truth, nothing beats DVI to DVI when you can get it, or HDMI-HDMI failing that).

As others have mentioned, it’s a pretty clear-cut issue of image quality and resolution – expensive computer monitors push a LOT more pixels, with MUCH better overall color/black quality than almost any TV/video monitor out there.

The easiest way to think of it is this: no matter how big the TV set, it’s an 18″ widescreen computer monitor running 1920×1080 resolution, tops. Bigger size means bigger pixels… And a lot of the time, that means a computer image that looks a little “hazy” or downright blurry.

This will not always be the case – Digital film and TV production is no operating at much higher resolutions, and 2K/3K/5K resolution tv sets are anywhere from technical prototypes to production stage already. The only problem is, when you start pricing those sets, they start looking like… well… computer monitors.

Long story short, a television is not a replacement for a computer monitor, but a large enough computer monitor could easily replace a (smaller) television set. In either case, though, you’re bound to sacrifice some of the featureset of a single-purpose device in order to get the cost/space savings of a dual-role unit.

Can I use a LED TV as my Apple computer display if it has an HDMI port?