Noah Coad

Hipster Chill, a Spotify Playlist

Thu, 02 May 2013 15:16:00 -0500

Wana get some chill off-the-billboard-100 indie tracks? or whatever. Hipster Chill

And here are some other people’s lists: Hipster International by Sean Parker, Hipster playlist 2012 by Madeleiné Stamminger, and World Class Hipster by Guillaume Kerbiriou

Iced Tea Maker

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 21:58:14 -0500

This is one of our families most used kitchen items. The $26 Hamilton Beach 40911 2-Quart Electric Iced Tea Maker. We brew about two pitchers a day on average.

It’s literally this easy to have fresh brewed iced tea:

Fill pitcher to line with w water and pour in top
Fill pitcher w ice to 2nd line
Place one ‘family sized’ tea bag up top
Press the one button

It works like a coffee machine, boiling the water and using the water vapor. This means you end up with distilled water, which removes much of the impurities in tap water.

We use regular Lipton iced tea bags available at any grocery store in the south, or $12 for 144 bags (only $0.08 a pitcher) on amazon.

p.s. You may be able to pour melted sugar in to make ‘southern sweet tea’, but we keep it unsweetened.

How to delete ALL Voice Memos from your iPhone

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 01:23:47 -0600

What to remove all the voice memos from your iPhone? The iPhone app doesn’t have a ‘remove all’ option, but it is easy with the help of this little 3rd party app.

Install i-FunBox, it is free, legit, and works on PC and Mac
Select all the files (not the Sync folder) in the Voice Memos section (click the first item, hold down shift, click the last item), then right-click an item and choose “Delete” (see this screenshot)
Close and restart the Voice Memo app
In iTunes, there is a “Voice Memos” playlist. Similarly, select all items in there right-click, and “Delete”

There are a lot of posts out there with people asking. I just removed over 1,600 voice memos recorded over the last year with this technique. It’s been bugging my for two years. The iPhone user’s guide says you can just delete the items from the iTunes Voice Memos playlist, sync, and they’ll be removed from the iPhone, but that never worked for me. Hope it helps, cheers.

$30 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones (Kinivo BTH220)

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:02:58 -0600

These are a great little pair of Bluetooth headphones for only $30 (when this was posted) with like 4.5 stars w over 2,100 reviews on amazon. They fold up nicely, have good battery life, decent volume and bass response, good noise cancelling phone mic, support A2DP and headset profiles, are easy to control with one main button plus +/- volume and next/previous track buttons. Not the highest fidelity of course, but of the half-dozen pairs of bluetooth headphones/buds I’ve purchased (from $200 on down), they’re my favorite for the value for the dollar.

(one last time, don’t expect Beats Audio, Bose QuiteComfort, or wired Sennheiser quality audio, but they do sound good and for $30 wireless headphones they’re a great deal)

Phineas and Ferb

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:25:19 -0600

What a fantastic kids cartoon! This is by far our family favorite to watch together. Every few nights I watch an episode with the kids before bed. Here are some of the qualities of the show that jump out at me. Not many cartoons I can think of that hit on these positive attributes:

Intelligent: the characters think through issues
Positive Attitude: the main characters keep an up-beat, positive, can-do outlook in life
Respectful: the characters all are respectful of their parents, and other kids
Encouraging Creativity: they’re always proactively making amazing stuff (it’s the ‘maker generation’s’ cartoon)
Teamwork: the kids work together, even the bully, nerd, girls, etc
Musical: every few episodes has a musical number, which is actually witty and entertaining
Sub-plots: each episode has the pet secret agent detective platypus Perry ‘Agent P’ take on the ‘evil’ Dr. Doofenshmirtz keeps the show fast. Inline with the above points, even those rival characters are occasionally helping each other out

Watch online via Netflix or disney.com. And don’t take just my word for it, see what Wired Magazine had to say. It’s #DadApproved by me. If you’re a parent and haven’t seen this yet, check it out.

p.s. The cartoon creators themselves have the philosophy that a kids cartoon can be uplifting, have positive values, and still be entertaining. Contrast that with SpongeBob Square pants, while entertaining, its creators firmly believe cartoons can’t be educational and entertaining at the same time, and must be stupid and nonsensical to be enjoyed. <I’ve seen both creators talk about their shows on TV interviews, need to find videos online and link here>

4-Channel Mini Stereo Desktop Mixer Behringer MON800

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:56:32 -0600

Got multiple sound sources at your computer desk? Like laptop, mobile phone, other music player, desktop, etc? Use desktop speakers and/or headphones? This is a great little mixer for the desk, I use one at home and one at the office.

See at Behringer Website, or reviews and price on Amazon

geeky animated gifs

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 18:50:00 -0600

entertaining videos

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 18:48:00 -0600

Playlists of some of my fav entertaining videos:

World of Warcraft, what my friends think I do…

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:57:01 -0600

World of Warcraft, what my friends think I do…

Snap Circuits

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:32:00 -0600

These are great kits to introduce little ones to electronics. They use regular ‘pant snaps’ to connect, much easier than the old spring wire connectors. My 4-yr old loves doing these w Dad. They’re good for small hands and quick to put together.

Here are the main kits, but there are many more…

Snap Circuits Jr SC-100, $21, what we started with to make sure my boy would be interested, a good starting place for a low price

Snap Circuits SC-300, $45, the medium sized kit

Snap Circuits SC-750, $79, the mac-daddy w computer interface and some more significant modules

Comedies Not to Miss

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 23:03:00 -0600

9 South Park Episodes Not to Miss

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 22:46:00 -0600

Some classic South Park episodes…

Facebook & Tron
Wrestling
Jersey
Mormons
World of Warcraft
Sad Panda
Men’s Secret
The Economy
Shake Weight: for real official TV ad, the SNL skit, and South Park’s Crème Fraiche

What others should be on the list? And remember, South Park is crasp, uncouth, and highly offensive, don’t watch if offended.

The Hobbit, my takes

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:49:00 -0600

Just watched the The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey, wow. Honestly, I was impressed. It surpassed my expectations. In fact I liked it more than the trilogy!

Pros

The pace was steady. Not too fast, not too slow, better pacing than the originals in my humble opinion.
It didn’t feel ‘over the top’ like the trilogy, which felt like it was trying to be the ‘ultimate middle earth story’ with so many wars and things ending and people dying. Whereas The Hobbit felt like just a good story admits the backdrop of Middle Earth. Of course this is due to the writing and books, but the movie reflects that well.
I liked the extra bits of story. I think they really added to the depth, trilogy tie-in, and was just extra middle earth goodness. Brought some depth, character, and fill to the overall story.
Instead of removing content as in the trilogy (like Tom Bombadil), they were able to add more, which was fun, like Radagast and the council at Rivendale.
The 48 fames-per-second format was fantastic!! Made the movie feel more ‘real’. And the extreme detail was gorgeous. (if you didn’t see it in 48 fps, only 450 theaters out of the >4000 the Hobbit is playing at, you’ve got a reason to go see it again, here are the 48 fps theaters)
The depth of the locations was felt more as many of them were actually really built out this time. For example Bags End looked and felt more real, with depth and character, not just like a partially built set (because it really was fully built out for this movie). This really came across to me, made me feel a real Hobbit’s life. (I can see why they were Tolkien’s favorite, such a comfortable life!)
There was a great deal amount of actual dialog straight from the book. That was fun to identify. Some of the better writing. :) Still, this screenwriting was better than the trilogy.
I had expected part 1 to end at Bilbo finding the ring, but it kept going! Which leads to a con…

Cons

There was a lot in this first part. Most of the actual Hobbit book was covered. Makes me wonder what they’ll cover in a part 2 or 3. It’ll have to be either a lot of new content or really drawing out the last part. Hope it’s the former.
I didn’t like some of the script changes. I understand the writers were trying to build character and interplay, but the troll interaction was all wrong. There was no fight, the dwarves didn’t give up for Bilbo, it was Gandolf that threw his voice around to confuse the trolls, not Bilbo talking to them for 3 min till dawn. Oh well, there wasn’t too much of this re-writing.

p.s. Oh yes, of course Ian McKellen and Martin Freeman were fantastic.

Okay, that’s my take for what it’s worth. :) -cheers

Clean the 80%

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:42:40 -0600

When cleaning a pile or messy area of the house, the first 80% of stuff takes about 20% of the time. I’m talking drawers, cabinets, stacks of papers, toys, gizmos, any of that stuff we have to manage in our lives. The last 20% is the hardest to triage (trash, put away, make decisions about, etc), and can take like 80% of the total cleaning time. So I say, just clean the 80%, take that last 20% and put it back or stick it in a box to sort later. Move on to another area to clean. Sure it won’t be 100%, but more often than not, next time you clean that area that 20% will be far easier to deal with since it either (1) won’t matter anymore or (2) your mind has thought about it in the background and now knows what to do with it.

Where's the money? Visual map of votes by states.

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:36:38 -0600

Where's the money? Visual map of votes by states.:

Quick visual on how little a vote in some states (like Texas) really matter. Of course every vote is important, but people’s votes in some states make a much larger difference in the outcome.

Dear Sophie, google ad, Dad writes to daughter

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:32:56 -0600

Dear Sophie, google ad, Dad writes to daughter:

This really touched me when I saw it on TV a few months back. Just came to mind again today and took the opportunity to create accounts and write my kids. :)

"A players hire A+ players. Actually, Steve believed that A players hire A players—that is people..."

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:16:25 -0500

“

A players hire A+ players.

Actually, Steve believed that A players hire A players—that is people who are as good as they are. I refined this slightly—my theory is that A players hire people even better than themselves. It’s clear, though, that B players hire C players so they can feel superior to them, and C players hire D players. If you start hiring B players, expect what Steve called “the bozo explosion” to happen in your organization.

”

- Guy Kawasaki’s Blog, What I Learned From Steve Jobs

Handcrafted Ceramic Tea Mug with Organic Loose Leaf Teas Gift...

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:58:48 -0500

Handcrafted Ceramic Tea Mug with Organic Loose Leaf Teas Gift Set by The Tea Spot, this is a single-serving tea mug that is awesome. It has three parts, the mug itself, a peculator that goes into the mug to hold the loose leaf tea, and a cover which also serves as a holding spot for the peculator when removed. My wife and I both have these and use them several times a day. We can brew just the tea we want w/out extra dishes to clean (like a tea pot or french press). This set also comes with some truly excellent teas.

TeaSpot Bolder Breakfast Loose Leaf Tea, this is by far my...

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 11:58:19 -0500

TeaSpot Bolder Breakfast Loose Leaf Tea, this is by far my favorite hot tea, it has a deep mix of teas including pu’erh w chocolate notes that gives it a robust, sensual, and complex flavor and aroma. So good I drink it w/out cream or sugar. Goes great with a good tea cake.

2-Quart Electric Iced Tea Maker, we use this many times a day,...

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 22:59:51 -0500

2-Quart Electric Iced Tea Maker, we use this many times a day, just add a single large Lipton Iced Tea bag, ice, water, and push the one button and 5 min later you’ve got perfectly brewed Iced Tea