culture on SWiK

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Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:58:31 -0700

Running Hood to Coast

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:55:01 -0700

When I woke up at 4:00 AM in a dark field, after just a half hour of sleep, I wondered if I was crazy. When I put on my headlamp and running shoes for a six-mile run—my second of three runs that day—I knew that I was crazy. But I was happy about it because I knew that my teammates were just as crazy.

I was running Hood to Coast with the Google relay team. That's a 197-mile Oregon race that starts at Mount Hood, travels through Portland, and finishes on the beach in the town of Seaside. More than 1000 teams participate in the race, with 12 runners on each team running three legs each.

The 12 runners on our team were all Googlers from different parts of the company: AdSense, AdWords, Google.org, Engineering, Search and Analytics, Search Quality, and more. We had runners from a number of offices: Cambridge, Chicago, Mountain View, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle . Many of us had run Hood to Coast before and even won similar races for Google; some of us were rookies to all-night relay races. What brought us all together was a love of running and a desire to get Team Google to the finish line as fast as possible — even if that meant that we wouldn't get much sleep.

We started last Friday night with fresh legs, fresh clothes, and lots of enthusiasm. Over the next 197 miles we wore out our legs, made our running clothes and vans smell terrible, and generated even more enthusiasm by coming together as a team and cheering each other on.

We had a lot to cheer about, because everyone contributed great performances and because we ran faster than we expected. We finished in 19 hours and 45 minutes, which meant that we averaged 10 miles per hour for the race. That was good enough to finish in 9th place overall and in 3rd place in the corporate division—behind a couple of running shoe companies that you might have heard about.

We were more than happy with the result. As we gathered on the beach near the finish line, we enjoyed the sun, the sense of accomplishment, and the camaraderie of our teammates. I smiled and thought back to when I woke up at 4:00 AM in that dark field. Considering all that we had accomplished, maybe I wasn't so crazy after all.

Here's a picture of the Team Google runners and drivers, enjoying the beach at the finish.

Posted by Chris Holstrom, Technical Writer

[from amaah] Luís Paulo Neto

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:59:47 -0700

interesting short story... inexorable progression amid careless flinging of details... Carlos Eduardo de Magalhães is the author

How To Become A Hacker

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:58:03 -0700

[from amaah] Poem Noir Becomes Prizefight Film

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:00:11 -0700

On the adaptation of a hardboiled poem to a film noir... The Set-Up was a suitably cynical work but the original poem was even bleaker. Hollywood.

Open Culture

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:59:02 -0700

[from amaah] Decolonization, multilingualism, and African languages in the making of African philosophy.

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:59:57 -0700

Kwasi Wiredu in Dialogue with Kai Kresse... African philosophy galore... Wiredu expounds on his customary themes: tradition and modernity, cultural universals and particulars... revisit for social living project

Stevey's Blog Rants: XEmacs is Dead. Long Live XEmacs!

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:00:21 -0700

Home | School of Everything

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:58:32 -0700

Stevey's Blog Rants: XEmacs is Dead. Long Live XEmacs!

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:57:05 -0700

Stevey's Blog Rants: XEmacs is Dead. Long Live XEmacs!

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:56:44 -0700

Steve Yegge put up a great blog article (could be called a white paper) regarding XEmacs, its history and its future. A very worthy read for Emacs users.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:52:43 -0700

1998 article on the method and theory of open source software development

Removing the Firefox-3 EULA

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:57:45 -0700

"Firefox is free software and you are free to modify it, either before or after you install it. I chose to modify it before I installed it. I modified it by removing the EULA."

[from amaah] Tales From the Cellphone Tour

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:59:54 -0700

Cellphones played a key role in the recent Maoist insurgency against the Hindu monarchy in Nepal, allowing protesters to quickly organize. They became so effective as a tool of the opposition, the government tried to ban texting twice.

[from amaah] Soccer tactics

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:59:59 -0700

Funny cartoons on football strategy... The Italian plan: iron defense, small ideas in midfield, passes to striker... and... Penalty

Landscape / Portrait - Kevin Carter - Dott Festival 07

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:00:40 -0700

24 Hour Museum - official guide to UK museums, galleries, exhibitions and heritage

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:00:40 -0700

LA7 - Podcast

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:59:18 -0700

I podcast di La7: Otto e Mezzo, Le Invasioni Barbariche e Niente di Personale

The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism, By Jonathan Lethem (Harper's Magazine)

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 10:57:07 -0700

"You can't steal a gift."

YouTube - The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version)

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:58:47 -0700

StupidFilter

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 03:54:29 -0700

Maybe just what the Internet needs...

StupidFilter

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 02:56:56 -0700

Maybe just what the Internet needs...

[from amaah] Un rêve de blancheur

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:59:52 -0700

Sur le seul marché africain, on dénombre plus de 150 marques de crèmes, onguents et autres gels blanchissants ... On skin bleaching in Africa, the US, China and beyond... a.k.a. yellow fever... The spread of skin lightening or skin firming

Free as in Freedom: Table of Contents

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:56:38 -0700

Open Culture

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:56:21 -0700

[from martti] Graphic Evidence Against Steroid Abuse | Wired Science from Wired.com

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:58:11 -0700

8Asians.com : An Asian American/Asian Canadian Blog

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:09:08 -0700

8 Asians is a collaborative blog of Asian-Americans and Asian-Canadians. But once you look past the fact that we fill out the same bubble in a census survey, you’ll see that we don’t have much in common, and as you’ll soon see, that’s not such a bad thing. We’ll be posting about whatever Asian issues are currently relevant in our lives, whether it be pop culture or current events or politics.

Letter from China: Angry Youth: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:05:18 -0700

[from amaah] Obituaries: Jimmy Moxon

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:04:46 -0700

The "Gentleman Chief" who was enstooled at Aburi in later life... interesting trajectory for an English man: "colonial officer, civil servant, tribal chief, writer, bookseller, publisher and restaurateur"

[from amaah] R.K. Laxman's sharp cartoons take aim at India's foibles

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:05:51 -0700

R.K. Laxman's sharp cartoons take aim at India's foibles