If you’re aware of any events which should be added, please let me know!
3 things I’ve learned about distance running
1. The more you run, the easier it gets
Like everything else in life, practice makes things easier. There are two primary things that starting runners struggle with – legs and cardio. The more you run, the easier the cardio aspect of things get, and over time, the stronger your legs are. Variety when running also makes things easier – integrating in hills, alternating between road and trails, doing lassos and fartleks, all make you a stronger runner.
2. The more you run, the harder it gets
As you get past a certain distance, cardio actually gets pretty straight forward and your legs are the biggest challenge. The secret to the legs, in my experience, is to increase your distance gradually rather than too quickly. The rule of thumb is to increase no more than 10% total distance per week (and on your longest run) – it doesn’t sound like much, but adds up pretty quickly.
3. Fuel is important
I’ve played with a variety of different fuel sources, but here is a summary of what I’ve learned:
If you’re going to be doing a long distance run, you’re going to need fuel 45-minutes into your run, and every 15-20 minutes after that. My personal fuel of choice these days is a combination of Clif shots (these are little gel-like candies that come in easy to chew/swallow bit sized chunks with just the right amount of glucose/protein/etc) washed down with a Vega sport drink. This seems to be fuel my body can easily process, and keeps a good amount of energy flowing during my runs.
I made the mistake of not taking my stuff during my run of the BMO half-marathon and using the fuel stations instead. That didn’t work so well – the timing of the stations was off, I didn’t know how the gel they provided would impact my body (not well).
I’ve also learned for shorter runs it is good to run on an empty stomach, although it is common for longer runs for people to carb-load the day/night prior. Apparently, running on an empty stomach is a good way to train your body to burn fat which helps you on longer runs.
That’s it – the three things I’ve learned. Good luck with your running.
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How to use standing bank orders to prevent eBanking theft
Online bank theft is a really common problem these days. In order to understand how to prevent it, first we need to understand how it happens.
1. The criminal will infect your computer by means of a piece of malware, often a trojan. This piece of malware will use keyloggers and screen scrapers to steal your online banking credentials. Alternatively, they’ll use a phishing attack to steal your credentials.
2. Once they have your online credentials, they’ll login to your account, and transfer money to themselves directly, or to mules, who will be responsible for using their accounts to transfer money onwards. The purpose of the mules is to get around banking restrictions that make it more difficult to transfer money overseas.
So – how do we stop this?
One way is to make certain we don’t fall victim to the malware or the phishing attack. There are all sorts of pieces of security software – anti-malware, browser security plugins, etc, to help reduce the likelihood of you falling victim to this sort of attack.
Another way is to break the chain of the attack at the bank. The simplest way to do this is to use a ‘standing bank order’. Most people aren’t familiar with these, as they aren’t advertised by most banks as one of the services they offer. A standing order is basically a special instruction to your bank. For example, you can issue standing orders to:
1. Pay off your credit card balance in full on the due date every month (reducing the risk of getting bitten by interest rates!)
2. Transfer money to your savings account every month on a certain date
3. Require confirmation prior to allowing any money transfers to new accounts
It is the third which we can use to help prevent eBanking fraud. Basically, you issue a standing order to your bank to only allow a money transfer to a new account AFTER an out-of-band confirmation has been completed. An example might be a phone call confirmation to an account manager who knows you (and thus the sound of your voice).
Many banks in Europe are starting to use two-factor authentication to help reduce online attacks – text messages to cell-phones, etc, and this approach is basically a custom two-factor authentication for your bank account. Because it is custom, it is more difficult for a criminal to discover and circumvent.
While this takes a bit of time to set up, and makes performing money transfers a little less convenient, most people perform these so infrequently that it a very worthwhile approach to reduce the risk of theft. You can issue these standing bank orders on business accounts as well – many of the significant small business thefts that have occurred in the last few years could have been prevented by similar orders.
Thanks for reading, and stay safe online.
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4 easy steps to twitter presentation magic!
At a recent presentation at Technocon, I decided to have a little fun with the audience and incorporate some twitter magic into the talk. It worked pretty well, so I thought I’d share my approach.
Steps to achieve twitter magic:
1. You need two screens – one for your main presentation, and one for your twitter feed.
Shortly after I made the comment 'cameras are everywhere' this pic was posted to the live twitter feed at #tcon11
2. You need a hashtag to get people to tweet with – in the case of this conference, we used #tcon11. Something short, easy to squeeze into tweets. Give the audience guidance on when and how to tweet.
3. You need to use a service like twitterfall.com on the second screen, with a search set to your hashtag. This way, all new tweets will automagically show up on your second screen.
That’s it for the simple magic. I decided to try something a little more.
4. You need a tool like Hootsuite, to pre-schedule tweets with. Prior to your live event, time your presentation, and schedule relevant, or related tweets to go out while you’re doing your live event. This makes for a little surprise while you’re giving your live talk.
The Hootsuite scheduling interface. Could stand to be granular to the minute, though.
One of my favorite tweets from my talk...
Those are the four simple steps. I really enjoyed doing this, and hope that my instructions encourage others to try it as well. Twitter is a great audience participation tool, short and sweet, and it’s also really nice to have a bit of a live record from the talk.
Things I’ll consider for next time:
1. This worked because I had a reasonably large (approximately 300 people) audience of technical people (IT professionals in this case). It helped with audience engagement overall. My topic specifically covered mobility, security, privacy and social networks, so it was a natural fit.
2. You can’t really ‘watch’ the tweets and talk at the same time – it might work better if you have a screen in front of you?
3. Twitterfall is nice, but not perfect. It’s a little laggy, can get hung up sometimes. I’d love suggestions for alternatives.
4. Engaging with an audience this way is a good way to get new followers. I got about a dozen new followers during and after the event – since I don’t have very many in the first place, that’s a nice bump.
Hopefully you found this interesting, good luck with your events. And, if you want to follow me, you can @michaelargast.
Good tweeting!
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Grouse mountain covered in plastic…
I did my second Grind of the season today, finally managing to squeeze in a sub-hour time. The running and the weight loss are really paying off.
For those of you who don’t know, about 2 years ago my wife and I started a green products business called Fill Your Own. Our first products were stainless steel water bottles, and since then we’ve branched into food containers and reusable bags. I’m a big fan of reusables – it ties together green, lower impact, cost savings and more.
So, I’m a little distressed with Grouse Mountain. Not only is the Grind littered with plastic bottles (which honestly is the hikers fault more than the mountains) but they do little to discourage it. At the bottom of the mountain are vending machines encouraging disposable behavior. To their credit, there is a recycling box at the top of the hill, and I would have likely let it go at that if it wasn’t for my experience today. Buying my download ticket, the lady at the counter kindly informed me I could save 3 dollars on my ticket by buying a bottle of water from the concession for $2.75. Seriously, what the hell? I’m at the top, by fountains, etc, and the company that runs Grouse Mountain wants to lose money by getting me to buy a single use bottle of Whistler Water?
Boo, hiss!
Raccoons…
Last night, a new family of raccoons passed through my backyard on their way across the neighbourhood. Usually, I’m seeing raccoons in my yard when they’re after some particularly juicy morsel which has been left in the garbage.
I’ve been seeing a lot of wildlife lately – both on my runs and in random encounter. In the last month or so I’ve seen a young black bear running in Campbell River with my mom, a coyote at the base of Burnaby Mountain and a beaver swimming along the creek running through the central valley greenway.
Review – Linchpin by Seth Godin
Earlier this week I finished Linchpin by Seth Godin. Seth and Clay Shirky* are two of my favorite bald internet luminaries. I think between them they are capturing a lot of the best thoughts on the future of work – and Seth’s book Linchpin is no exception.
In Linchpin, Seth is laying out a vision of exceptionalism in a post-industrial world. One where it simply isn’t sufficient to work harder, to do what you are told – but a world where you need to unleash your creative spirit, your art – to thrive. I’ve felt for some time that the future of work depends on creativity and connection – that not only manual labour but the manual forms of information work eventually get outsourced to the lowest bidder – or eventually better programs.
The other thing that Seth is promoting is the necessary step of shipping – it isn’t the critics and the whiners who move us forward but those who create, who make something and put it out into the world. The book is written in a sort of ‘rah-’rah go change the world style, which can get a little much at points, but does have a lot of gems buried throughout.
Rating: 3 1/2 stars (out of 5). Opportunities for improvement would include better layout of thoughts and summaries of key points (maybe as an appendix to avoid drawing away for his storytelling style). Recommended for anyone who is looking to make a bigger personal impact (at work or elsewhere), people in creative fields (and if you’re not, you’re likely not in the right job), and those who like to ruminate on the future of work.
* Clay’s Ted talk on collaboration is by far one of my favorites. If you haven’t watched it yet, you should – it’ll give you new ideas on how to capture value from groups.
iPad is a great airplane device
I travel a fair bit. To be honest, I’ve never really liked working on planes with my laptop. I don’t have the luxury of flying business class, which means most of the time I’m in cramped little seats. Working on your laptop is impossible when the person in front of you decides to recline their seat – but the iPad fits really nicely in this space. As a personal device, I also like the mix of games, video, music and reading material combined with productivity apps like Keynote and a new personal favorite – iThoughts. Great for casually capturing ideas (I often have a lot of these on airplanes for some reason – I think the disconnect helps).
Definitely recommended for the frequent traveller.
By the way, if you hadn’t already guessed – this post was written on my iPad with the WordPress application (which I only give 2 stars, but that’s for another article).
BC Ferries to offer free wifi
Starting soon, BC Ferries will start offering free WiFi service. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or bad – one more place to be connected (good) or one more place to stay connected and never unplug (bad).
Generally, I’m a fan of ubiquitous free WiFi – I’ve loved it at YVR since they rolled it out, and wouldn’t mind seeing it in a few more public spaces (Skytrain please!). Of course, that may be because I’d like to be cheap and avoid a data plan for my iPad.
Story here:
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Ferries+offer+free+Swartz+route+first/3167858/story.html
T&T no longer selling shark fin…
I was out at the local T&T grocery store yesterday (for those of you unfamiliar with T&T, it is a large chain that targets the Asian/Chinese community, and is well known for a diversity of seafood. There has been a lot of recent discussion in the green and local press about trying to end the practice of eating share fin soup – which is a common dish during weddings and other high profile events in the Chinese community. The scale of this consumption is not to be overlooked – an estimated 38 millions sharks are killed every year for their fins (the rest of the shark is simply left to die in the water).
Sharks have been around for over 400 million years (predating even the dinosaurs) and it is being written that many species are being threatened with extinction as a result of this practice. So, T&T, a prominent grocer no longer selling these fins is a great and progressive step. Of course, it isn’t just shark fin, but many other types of seafood (bluefin tuna being another example) which are being harvested unsustainably from our oceans. Every little step counts, but this is a huge problem, exacerbated by the scope and scale of our population.
