Mike Jutan's World

Not much blogging lately

2012-01-27T00:33:00.000-08:00

Wow, just realized I haven't done much blogging this year so far. Pretty crazy.

Let's see, what's been going on. Well a few things: Waterloo posted an awesome alumni article about me which was super kind and very encouraging. Then they sent me a sweet-ass free Waterloo hoodie. Talk about epic win.

What else. I've finally started watching the show "How I Met Your Mother" after literally years of my bro Alex telling me I should watch it. It was so freakin' awesome that I watched 6 seasons on Netflix in about 9 days, which is probably most of the reason why I haven't been blogging.

Also: work is busy (and awesome). And I'm starting to get researching for my trip to Peru/Brazil/Argentina this spring - it's going to be a fantastic trip.

Oh! Big news. I've been going hard at the gym on cardio training (elliptical, specifically) as well as eating much more carefully at home over the past few months. I've been making healthier dinner, trying out a few recipes, making my lunch sometimes and also buying dinner out or ordering in much, much less. This combination is all helping me lose weight in preparation for our Inca Trail hike in Peru this May. It's going to be such an awesome time and I really want to make sure I enjoy it as much as possible - so it's been a good motivator to get my act together and actually make some good changes to push me towards the weight loss goal. Good times. I'll be posting more as that progresses.

I've got another interesting lecture (or possibly 2!) coming up in the next few months. Once they are public I'll send out the details about them.

Oh, and it's tax time! That's always fun (no, seriously, I actually like it - although it's probably because I usually get a positive return) :)

I joined Twitter recently and I think that might be stealing some thunder from my blogging as well, I'm not sure. In any case I'm finding I don't have as much time for it as I used to, but maybe it's also because I just want to use it for different things now. This blog has definitely turned more into a "technology I like" and a "trips I've been on" blog. Hope you all continue to enjoy reading it in any case. :)

Wooooord,
Mike :)
PS We're getting dangerously close to 2000 posts. I'll have to post something cool for the 2000th one!

Testing Blogger connection to Google+

2012-01-27T00:23:00.001-08:00

Fancy. Blogger is now connected to Google+. Testing: 1, 2, 3. :)

Malcolm Gladwell talks about social networks

2012-01-19T10:19:00.001-08:00

Ironically, I'm blogging this. But I won't tweet it, Malcolm! :)

Very interesting thoughts here. It's cool to hear his perspective about this pile of social networking we've got ourselves into.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/malcolm-gladwell-the-quiet-canadian/article1522656

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Prof. Larry Smith's mind-blowingly awesome TED talk

2012-01-15T21:22:00.000-08:00

My unbelievably EPIC Economics Professor Larry Smith spoke at TEDxUW last November. I thankfully managed to catch the talk on the live stream and it really gave me the confidence to "just be Jutan" during my own talk the week later, given how "Larry" this amazing talk truly is!

Larry Smith was my Econ 101 and 102 Professor at Waterloo and I don't think I've ever had a teacher that good - ever before, or ever again. His conviction and passion and skill on the stage is unmatched. It was so cool to see his performance in the short TED format and this is just a total knock out of the park. It instantly shot up my list of favourite TED talks. I just watched this again now for the first time since November, and it's just so, so, so, so great. What a great message, and what an amazing way to say it. At the end of the talk when he is speaking very softly... I bet you were hanging on every. single. word. I know I was!

Watch it, and share it. This is so damn good.

Inc: "Give Your Employees Unlimited Vacation Time"

2012-01-14T21:56:00.001-08:00

Interesting article from Inc Magazine, the idea that having unlimited vacation time will attract the best possible employees. Very cool concept.

http://www.inc.com/joe-reynolds/give-your-employees-unlimited-vacation-time.html

George Lucas on The Daily Show: Red Tails

2012-01-12T01:12:00.000-08:00

Check out Red Tails next Friday! Awesome movie, great story, and some epic air battles. An interesting and relevant history lesson and some great modern themes about tolerance.

Check out George Lucas on The Daily Show earlier this week.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Why our brains make us laugh

2012-01-08T16:16:00.001-08:00

Food for thought :)http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2011/11/20/why-our-brains-make-laugh/l0OWxVcnRpzfyIheFgab5N/story.html- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Steampunk GPS

2012-01-08T11:43:00.001-08:00

Check out my buddy Brian's iPhone app, Steampunk GPS!Very slick visual style, awesome animation and a great and fun idea. Wicked.http://www.digitalmorsels.com/steampunkgps/- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Video: San Francisco in 1955

2012-01-08T11:27:00.001-08:00

Amazing amateur video of my glorious city in 1955!! So amazing. I love the cars, the signage on Market St at night, the amusement park on Ocean Beach. How cool!Check it out here!- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

My buddy Nick donating his hair to charity

2012-01-01T22:47:00.000-08:00

My friend Nick Yow-Woo did an amazing personal project called "I've Never Done That", a YEAR-LONG (yes, 365 days) of once-a-day new experiences which he did and then blogged about. What an amazing feat.

As an epic finale, he donated his amazingly long hair to a hair donation charity. What a guy!

Check out his blog post here, it is just so awesome. Well done, Nick!

In summary: Creating & presenting my first TEDx talk

2011-12-31T13:38:00.001-08:00

The big day

How to summarize my first TEDx talk? Whew. There is so much to say: a huge amount of preparation. An exciting responsibility to represent the change-movement that TED stands for. An opportunity to benefit from the wide view of the TED platform to spread my own personal "idea worth sharing".

Let's start with the preparation, as that was the biggest part. Then we'll get onto the practice, and finish up with a discussion of the event itself. Also, scroll down to see pics of the day, and a re-post of the YouTube video of my talk. (Thanks Mom, Kevin and Kara for taking photos!)

This world works in unusual ways. This past April, I was introduced to my old boss's boss's son's principal, who was the organizer for the TEDxIB@York conference this November in Toronto, Canada. After the initial recommendation, we met via Skype video conference and I spent a solid 20 hours on one weekend writing an initial draft of my thoughts, my personal history - a broad stroke about what I might speak about. This was an awesome opportunity to present my life-view to the world and after submitting my draft, I was so psyched to be accepted as a speaker.

I traveled to Iceland and Europe with my family this May and when I got back to San Francisco in June, I started working diligently on the talk. 5 months to go. I spent countless hours combing old photo albums, asking my Mom to scan pictures from the 1980's, researching myself and my own life history to boil down thousands of possible stories and anecdotes into just 3 solid examples. Over these few months, I agonized over the minute details, iterating over and over and over and over on the thesis, sharpening and zeroing in on my "idea worth sharing".

With 2 months to go, I kicked into a higher gear. Instead of working on the talk 1 or 2 nights per week, I started to work on it every single night after work. I verified all the details with the (extremely patient!) organizers: the slide dimensions for the projector, the minimum font size for the slides, the ability to use Apple's Keynote instead of Powerpoint... etc. After getting all of the ducks in a line, I created the slides.

Uh oh. I had way too much to talk about. I had 80 slides for an 18 minute presentation. Whoops.

The fierce editing continued as I cut and slashed unnecessary details in the stories, tightening the message and enhancing the thesis in the process. I then showed the draft notes and draft slides to a very few trusted advisors (what I call the Jutanclan Exec Team, i.e. family and friends!) At this point I got some excellent advice, flipping a few pieces of the talk on their head and pushing me forward into the final draft stage. I reached a "content lock" and stopped changing the slides with about 3 weeks to showtime, so I could focus solely on my speech flow, emphasis and performance.

Now for the presentation practice. In this final preparation step, I practiced the talk at my computer desk, by myself. I did this about 3 times a night, every night, for the last few weeks before the talk. This allowed me to tweak a few pieces and I added in a few new parts at this point: the part about Pixar near the end and also the trick of putting my goals up in front of me during long homework nights at Waterloo. It was all coming together. I presented it in it's near-complete form only to 2 people: Matthew Lausch and Alex Finlayson, my 2 best friends from childhood. These guys know me so damn well that they would know the stories and the details of I was trying to say, but could give me good critical feedback about the way I was describing it. My parents had seen so many written drafts, they were excited to see the final presentation and didn't want to see an almost-done version; rather, I asked for their advice only on a few critical pieces. My former colleague Kevin was super helpful as well and had some excellent recommendations for pacing and emotional flow.

This shot me forwards to the final 2 weeks and during that time I just practiced, only. No more changes. Just getting more and more comfortable with the flow of the slides, where to emphasize, what phrasing I did and didn't want to use on the final day. During the final presentation I would have no cue-cards, no point-form, no notes - the entire 18 minutes all had to be in my head. It had to come off as well-prepared and with a good flow, but not over-prepared and scripted.

In the last week before the talk, it was ready. I was confident, I knew the speech in-and-out. I could recite it in my sleep (and probably did). The flow was what I wanted and was up to the absurdly high personal standard I was holding myself to. And now... time to present!

I flew to Toronto a couple days before the presentation to acclimatize to the timezone difference and meet up with some close friends. I took my notes and slides in PDF format just in case, but I think I only practiced it once. I was ready.

We did a run-through the day before and I was a bit concerned about doing it for a mostly-empty room: but it was a very good idea to do the dress rehearsal. I had presented the talk in advance for so few people because (as described in this blog post) I was concerned about presenting in any forum other than the actual day-of. The speech was so full of genuine personal emotion that it was impossible for me to emulate "the" speech on any day other than the actual day. But the run-through was a great idea, it helped me get comfortable with the stage space, the microphone, the slide-clicker, and let me get to know all the great people who were helping run the event and thank them in advance. One last minute detail to clear up: all my prep had been with the counter climbing up from 0:00 to 18:00, and so my timing and flow was baked into my brain as a count-up rather than a count-down from 18min to 0. The kind technical crew graciously jumped to help and managed to get the timer to count up for me instead. So many details like this made it really beneficial to do the trial run. After that, I was all comfortable and ready to roll, and I actually slept the night before. :)

Then came the big day!

Months and months of preparation, hundreds of hours of research and thought and iteration, days of practice and mental preparation... the day had finally arrived! In my mind was the phrase, "Here goes EVERYTHING." My parents arrived at my hotel in Toronto, we had a coffee and my Mom took a few photos and off we went to the event. I dropped my stuff in the Speaker Green Room, met a bunch of the fantastic and organized student volunteers and sat down with my family and some of my very closest friends in the world and enjoyed the day of talks before mine. The conference theme was "Passion, Purpose and Perspective", and my talk was the final talk in the first afternoon session: "Passion". My start time was 4:00pm EST. I chatted with some interesting and motivated students and attendees during the breaks and even had a few folks mentioned they'd come specifically to see my talk. That was so cool.

I watched the talks in the block before mine and zoomed out in the TED video portion right before mine just to get some air, some water, and to wash my face and tell myself it would go fine. :) I spent a few moments on my own, calming down and mentally preparing for the stage. I headed back into the auditorium, got Mic'd up and waited for the TED video to finish and for Maureen (the radio host MC) to introduce me.

I got up on stage, the spotlight beaming down on me, the audience mostly in shadow from the stage lighting. Images of my time doing speeches for Student Council and in high school plays bounded through my mind, but this was no time to reminisce. It was time to explode out of the gate. BOOM!

After a jitter or two in the first 10 or 15 seconds (I *always* do that, no matter how much preparation!), I started to get my stride and start my 18 minute long relationship with the audience. The speech itself is a blur, I remember only a few moments like when someone in the crowd said "Woo!" when I mentioned Waterloo and I ran with that. I finished the speech with the planned emotional punch I was aiming for, and I was so happy that all my hard preparation work paid off with a presentation that I was proud of. The audience reception was awesome, and the explosive ovation at the end of the speech sealed the moment in my mind. I'd successfully demonstrated how important enthusiasm is, and I'd proved it's contagious nature by getting the audience on their feet. It was a moment I will never forget.

And that was that! 7 months after being accepted, I presented the culmination of countless hours of preparation and I was so psyched with the result. Even better, I was so glad to be able to share my encouraging message with tons of motivated students, my friends and family, and the online community via TEDx's livestream streaming video service.

Since then, the talk was posted to YouTube, featured on my favourite film blog Slashfilm as Video of the Day, and garnered approx 6000 views in the first week. What an experience.

I recommend this experience to anyone. Even for someone like me who loooooves public speaking and has had many opportunities in the past to do that, it was still nerve-wracking to get up there on stage and present. But if you feel you truly have an "idea worth sharing", I strongly encourage you to go for it with full force. It was such an invigorating experience. Tons of hard work, but worth every second. :)

See my blogs about my TEDx preparation here, and check out the video on YouTube here.

Early morning coffee at the hotel, props (shoes and t-shirt) ready to roll

"I'm really nervous to be here": a few minutes before my talk

The stage

Here goes... EVERYTHING!

The shoes making a grand appearance

Discussing enthusiasm as an essential tool for success

"Why?!": A moment when I took the word "no" as the first in a series of possible responses

Describing the T-1000 robot from Terminator 2, the image which inspired my entire career

Describing the unbelievable moment when my hard work, dedication, and luck all collided

The best email I've ever received in my life

The real goal of enthusiasm

And 18 minutes later... it's done!

Posing with Mom and Dad... and for a 2nd photo at the same time :)

New friends

Some of my closest friends from childhood were able to make it, that was amazing.

"Now, pretend you're all tigers"


Relaxing at the afterparty with David and Conor, the conference organizers

Here's the talk again on YouTube if you haven't seen it yet:

Website update

2011-12-26T02:57:00.000-08:00

A few website updates:

Twitter social network icon links
TEDx YouTube video posted to Media Exposure page
Added link to J Weekly article from Media Exposure page
iMenorah/iMenorah HD links added and updated
Resume update
Where I've Been map update

Finally had a chance to add these few things I've been meaning to update for a while. Woo!

Quoted in Article from JCCSF panel

2011-12-24T22:44:00.001-08:00

I was just quoted in a recent J Weekly article about a Panel I attended at the JCCSF about Spirituality in the digital era.

http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/63756/panel-ponders-spirituality-vs.-tech-overload-in-ipad-era

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Follow me: @jutanclan on Twitter

2011-12-24T03:03:00.000-08:00

This blog and other random 140-character thoughts now on Twitter!

Follow me @jutanclan on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jutanclan

TED Tipping Point

2011-12-20T02:32:00.000-08:00

Malcom Gladwell would be proud.

Today felt like a real "tipping point" sort of day for my TED talk. This morning, my favourite film blog and Time Magazine's Blog of the Year for 2009, Slashfilm, posted my talk. This is so insanely exciting and unbelievable, and I was about to jump over the moon with excitement.

Check out the link to the /Film post here:
http://www.slashfilm.com/votd-ilms-mike-jutans-ted-talk-power-enthusiasm/

/Film post

Not too long after that, my talk was posted up on the TEDx website under Recently Posted Talks. It's also under the TEDxIBYork filter, the Canada filter, and you can just search for my name on the website. Pretty awesome stuff.

Check out the link here:
http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxIB-York-Mike-Jutan-The-powe


My talk on the Recently posted TED site


My talk on the TEDx section

Also today, ILM featured my talk on their ILM Facebook page! Amazing!

Check out the link here:
http://www.facebook.com/ILMVFX

This response is incredible! Thank you all so much for watching and for sharing.

Video of the day on Slashfilm!!!!!

2011-12-19T08:37:00.001-08:00

Oh sweet damn this is absurdly exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you very kindly to Peter at Slashfilm for all of the amazing work they do and for choosing to post my TEDx video today as video of the day. This is unbelievable! My absolute favourite blog giving me a virtual high-five. Insane.

http://www.slashfilm.com/votd-ilms-mike-jutans-ted-talk-power-enthusiasm/

Crazy!!!!!!!!!!!
Mike :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

My TED talk is on YouTube!!!!!!!! TEDxIB@York: Mike Jutan - The power of enthusiasm

2011-12-15T00:56:00.000-08:00

After months and months of preparation and practicing over and over and over... I presented my first TEDx talk in Toronto on November 18, 2011. Today the video went live on YouTube.

Share with your friends!! Please help me spread this message about the importance of enthusiasm in our often-too-cynical world.

Autodesk University 2011 Conference in Las Vegas

2011-12-14T00:40:00.001-08:00

A couple weeks ago I traveled to Las Vegas to speak at the Autodesk University ADN Media & Entertainment conference! It was a lot of fun and I had a great time hanging out with some Autodesk buddies and also presenting some recent work.

I wasn't sure what to expect in Las Vegas (I have been there once before, but it was also for an unusual reason - a rock climbing trip!) but it was really fun. The hotel was fantastic and the room and bed was really epic - probably one of the most comfortable hotel rooms I've ever stayed in. Very fancy!

I got there a couple days early and wandered around Vegas for a few days, dodging the dodgy folks who were handing out flyers on the street and doing some general exploring and wandering. I got tickets to see Beatles LOVE, the Beatles-themed Cirque de Soleil show, and it was a lot of fun. The acrobats were really cool! I wandered to a mall and got a back massage from massage therapists at the mall which was funny.

One of my favourite spots was the mall called "Fashion Show". I found a Pull-In Underwear there, my favourite fancy boxer store from France. They had some crazy designs as usual. I also found a Teavana tea store which I was keen to try. It was great.

The Coca Cola store was really interesting and had cool T-Shirts from Coca-Cola Brazil! It also had a "round the world platter" of different and unusual flavours of soda from around the world. Fun. I eventually found myself at the Bellagio and decided to waste $5 on a slot machine, fully expecting to lose it. Of course, given my luck, I won $50, cashed it out instantly and left. :) And decided to spend it on (most) of my Beatles LOVE ticket. Wahoo!

The Venetian has a restaurant called Bouchon which is run by Thomas Keller, the same guy who owns the French Laundry, that ultra-fancy place in Napa. It was a great spot and I had a nice brunch there.

Oh yes, and the conference itself! The conference had some interesting talks and it was great to catch up with some familiar Autodesk faces and also meet some new people too. My talk went very smoothly and people enjoyed it. It was fun to give the talk and much less pressure than TEDx the week before! Great times. That evening we went out for Tacos, appetizers and drinks with everyone.

The last evening in Vegas I went to see the Muppet Movie as I couldn't hold out any longer - it had already been out for 5 days! Then I decided to waste another few dollars "for entertainment's sake" in a slot machine... and won $100. Of course. Some lady said "Oh, you should really cash out now". haha and of course that was the plan! I got a nice crisp $100 note and put it right in the bank - wondering if I was the only person ever to actually win anything and keep it ;)

A fun time, a great conference and networking opportunity, and lots of tasty food and shopping. A great little trip!

Sweet TV at a TV History Exhibit at SFO

Cool Space Helmet TVs

Amazing pillow top beds at the hotel!! Fancy!!

The hotel room was almost as big as my apartment, haha. Actually it had a few steps and this lounge area, super nice

TV in the bathroom?!!

Venetian from the pool deck

The pool

After wandering for a while I found a Banana Republic in the Venetian Shops with stuff on HUGE sales. These khakis were $11!!!!!! Pretty epic. That's my kind of splurge. :)

Got another pair of sweet pants at Banana Republic

Dressed up to wander around, just for the fun of it

Winter Wonderland at Venetian

Nice tree outside our hotel

Funny Dr. Seuss Pompom flower things at the Wynn Casino

Encore and Wynn

After some further wandering I found a Pull-in Underwear store?!?!!! These are those epic boxers from France that have crazy designs and I love them, and turns out one of their only US stores is in Vegas. Amazing.

Wow, this is my kinda Vegas. Awesome boxers store and Teavana, a fancy tea shop :)

Bellagio Fountains

Cool Mojito Boxers I bought

At Thomas Keller's Bouchon restaurant for Sunday Brunch. Tool Angelique's recommendation and tried the (glorious) chicken and waffles (French style!) The chicken was perfectly roasted (not fried) and the waffles were fluffy and fantastic. Really excellent food. Vanilla Bean butter and Maple Syrup were an excellent addition.

Elvis Suit at Hard Rock Cafe

Round the world menu at the Coca Cola store

I got the Round the World platter to try (no I didn't drink them all!)

This was crazy. Kiwi Mango and Pine Nut from South Africa were the best

The Mint one was super gross!!

Beatles guitar

Ticket people at the Beatles LOVE Cirque de Soleil show

After the Beatles LOVE show finished

Mirage

Cheesecake from the Carnegie Deli in the Mirage!

Time to give my lecture! All suited up in a cool work shirt. :)

Room where I gave my talk

On stage for my talk

Explaining my job history with a photo from Pixar

Cool sculptures

Dean taking a size of his epic "Woody Allen" sandwich at the Carnegie Deli in the Mirage

I love this photo

Kermit Adidas shoes

Animal shoes

Wine and cheese for dinner. After all the eating, just a light dinner was great.

iMenorah HD: Now available for the iPad

2011-12-13T00:53:00.000-08:00

My buddy Matthew and I just released iMenorah 2.0 for iPhone with upgraded graphics, animation, and support for the iPhone 4/iPhone 4S Retina screen.

We have also released iMenorah HD, now available for the first time on the iPad!

Check out our website here, and thanks as always for your support!
http://imenorah.mikejutan.com/

iMenorah for iPhone

iMenorah for iPad

Busy few weeks

2011-12-12T02:45:00.000-08:00

Whew!!

Been a busy few weeks, lots of jet-setting and so ons. Crazy!!

Anyhow, finally had a little downtime to clean my apartment and unpack my suitcase from like 2 weeks ago. I've got a bunch of photos and also thoughts from the TEDx event to post as well as some cool pics from the Autodesk conference in Vegas. I'll try to get those all posted this week.

Hope you are all excited for your December holidays. I know I am!!!!!!!!!! Not too much planned, just chillin' with the fam in SF and we're going to have a great time. Insanely psyched for Mission Impossible 4 and some of the other great movies coming out. I'd love to see Diablo Cody's "Young Adult" with Charlize Theron, Hugo, Sherlock Holmes, Tintin, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Red Tails, The Secret World of Arrietty, The Lorax, John Carter of Mars... and more. Wow. So many great movies coming out soon!

Mike :)

Twin Peaks at night time

2011-12-11T21:35:00.001-08:00

Justin Rose and I took off to Twin Peaks late this afternoon to getsome dusk and night time photos of San Francisco.Pretty awesome results, I was really happy with the night time onewith the Yahoo sign in it.

Mission district

Bird on the tower

Castro to Ferry Building down Market St

Hovering eagle

Eaggllle!!!

These guys were fighting in the air

Alfred Hitchcock would be proud

Market St

Magic Hour

Dusk

Downtown, Civic Center, Market St, Ferry Building

My favourite photo of the night, check out the Yahoo sign

Market St and downtown

Justin's cool method of taking the photo on slow shutter and zooming the lens at the same time

TEDxIB@York 2011: One Stage. One Day. Thousands Inspired.

2011-12-08T02:14:00.001-08:00

http://www.ourkids.net/blog/tedxibyork-2011-one-stage-one-day-thousands-inspired-17697/

What an amazing day it was!

Toronto Tempo

2011-12-07T01:31:00.001-08:00

Epic timelapse of Toronto.

iMenorah 2.0, Development so far

2011-12-04T02:20:00.001-08:00

Cabernet and I got together and knocked out a bunch of stuff today, it was SUPER fun.

The first goal was to get the majority of the artwork done - upressing the images so we would have images ready to support both the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S "Retina" screen, as well as the resolution on the iPad 1 and 2. As part of this effort I realized that the iPad 1 and 2 have the same resolution (a bit surprising) and that the iPad resolution is only slightly higher than that of the Retina screen. Cool stuff.

After some careful painting work by Matt to clean up some stuff on the images, the images looked sooo good and sharp in HD. Very nice.

We then spent a while incorporating those images into the iMenorah code. Not too bad as Apple has a really fantastic method for supplying the high res images - you just make a new image called imageName@2x.png which is a 2x-sized version if imageName.png. If you call the code correctly, the proper image will be swapped in automatically on the correct device. Well done Apple!

The iPad app launch was not quite as smooth as we took a while to figure out that the iPhone Simulator was not actually displaying the most recent code. After taking to my bro and iOS Guru Alex it's clear that we were doing something wrong in the setup file. You really need to make sure you're using a different binary name for the iPhone and iPad version of your app - the iPhone Simulator gets confused otherwise. So after fixing that and learning how to do a clean build, I think we are back on track.

Tomorrow we're fixing a few bugs and then maybe adding one or two new features before hopefully submitting the iPhone App Update and the new iPad version tomorrow night.

iMenorah 2.0: Development starting tomorrow

2011-12-03T00:50:00.001-08:00

Well it sure has been a while hasn't it!

My bro Matthew Parrott and I wrote iMenorah back in November 2008, soon after the iTunes App Store was first announced and in preparation for the first Chanukah that the App Store was live. Since then we've only updated it a couple of times, finishing off at version 1.3 in February 2009 just with some minor bug fixes.

Tomorrow I'm happy to announce (haha, uh, "blog", I mean) that Matt and I are working on version 2.0. We're planning on a few minor bugfixes, and more excitingly aiming for a couple of new features and... dah dah dah dah... iMenorah HD for the iPad!!! Wahoo!!!

This will be our first iPad app and it's going to be fun. The purpose of this app remains the same as it has always been: a fun, safe, match-free, airline-safe, commuter-safe, dorm-room-friendly way to participate in the ancient Jewish tradition of lighting the menorah at Chanukah, and a nice opportunity to donate a portion of the proceeds to a charity of our choosing.

My Mac Mini has more than earned its keep already, but it's still trucking along like a champ. Good news tonight, just got the old code up to iOS 4.3 standards (building in 4.3, not 5.0 so we maintain backwards compatibility with those folks who have not upgraded to iOS 5.0 yet) and compiled and tested. We will be creating a Retina version for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, as well as the new iPad iMenorah HD version. Exciting!

iMenorah compiling with iOS 4.3

More exciting news to come and some discussion of the bugfixes and whatever new features we have time to implement. Good times.

The whirlwind

2011-12-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

The last few weeks have been a flurry of travel. After a whirlwind 4 or 5 days in Toronto for TEDxIB@York, having dinner with some amazing old friends and catching up with some close buddies, I zoomed back to SF for 5 days, a bunch of work, and a glorious Thanksgiving dinner. Then I zoomed off to Las Vegas to speak at the Autodesk University ADN M&E (Media & Entertainment) conference. I just got back from Vegas earlier this week and it was also a fantastic time.

I haven't had a spare moment to blog my post-TEDx thoughts or comments, and I have a bunch of cool photos to post as well. The YouTube video isn't up yet, but I will post it as soon as it is. I really can't wait to see it!!!!

I also took a bunch of photos in Vegas and have a few funny stories which will have to wait for the moment, I'll find time to post those hopefully sometime this weekend.

As the next post mentions, I'm working on iMenorah 2.0 for iPhone with Retina support with Matt this weekend, as well as a new iMenorah HD version for the iPad. It's gonna be fun!

Otherwise just chillin' after a very busy (but super epic and fun) few weeks.

John Carter of Mars trailer

2011-12-01T20:22:00.001-08:00

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet

TEDx: thoughts and photos coming soon

2011-11-24T12:11:00.001-08:00

Wooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was an epic and awesome experience and I loved every minute of it. My talk went exactly as I was hoping it would. People said it seemed "conversational" and "ad-libbed" which is super awesome and exactly what I was aiming for. The only way to make it appear ad-libbed but actually stay-on-point was to prepare like a maniac for 5 months straight, which is exactly what I did. :)

Awesome times. Kevin took a bunch of great photos and I have some excellent ones from the official photographer and a few other folks too. I'll post those and some further thoughts when I get a chance.

The YouTube is currently being edited by the fine folks at IBYork, so I'll be sure to post that when it's available. Sounds like a week or two probably.

What an awesome weekend.

New (crazy) shoes

2011-11-23T00:21:00.001-08:00

I'm joining the Gym at work (finally) and found these crazy shoes in Toronto last week. They are craaaaaaaaaaaaazyyy. And I love them. But checking on Zappos (never bought from there before, it's pretty sweet) and they were only $89 here in the US, no shipping/tax. Pretty sweet.

This is the orange version, very awesome but they are so close to what I have already. So I didn't get these.

This is the one I got, Rainbow coloured. Epic.

Oh man these are insane.

TEDx time! Live at 4:15pm EST/1:15pm PST today!!

2011-11-17T21:04:00.001-08:00

Had the TEDx rehearsal tonight and it went super well. Just got the schedule for Friday and my speaking time is 4:15pm EST (1:15pm PST). If you're logging in to watch the streaming simulcast I'd suggest logging in just before 4pm EST/1pm PST to make sure you have the right browser requirements etc.

http://tedxibyork.com

Thanks for your support!

Here goes... EVERYTHING!!!!!!

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In TO for TEDx

2011-11-16T22:38:00.001-08:00

As Remy from Ratatouille would say... Let's.... DO THIS THING!!!!!

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Moonlighting within Microsoft

2011-11-16T09:45:00.001-08:00

Awesome article about "intrapreneurship" at Microsoft:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/business/27novel.html

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TEDx countdown!

2011-11-14T20:09:00.001-08:00

Whooooa this is the week!!!!!!!!!!!

I was offered the speaking role way back in April and wrote the first draft then over a weekend. Since then it changed many, many times and the last 4 months or so have involved a lot of writing and re-working of ideas. Then I made the slides and tightened them up, shortened them, and sharpened the message over the next couple of months. The last month or so I haven't changed the speech content, and focused only on practice, flow, intonation, emphasis, and a couple of silly jokes :)

I can't believe this is finally the week where I'll be presenting it!! Crazy!!! Like any creative endeavour, getting it prepared, re-worked, and finished up to your absurdly high standards is 99% of the work. Getting it "out the door" is really just the last step, and I of course will have a few butterflies on the day-of, but getting on that stage is gonna be SO fun. Can't wait to see all the smiling and laughing faces (I hope, if the jokes are good enough, haha!) and to have my chance to give my message of the benefits of enthusiasm and hard work in glorious combination - if there is any "secret" to my success, it's this, and I'm so happy that my TED talk is exactly what I want to say to the world.

Oh, happy days.

Also: I completely finished my Autodesk talk!! It's only 10 days after the TED conference so I had to do them in parallel for a little bit. But it's all ready to go, and quite different than the TED talk. It's 50 minutes long, I have notes and a podium and it's for a technical/programmer crowd so the vibe of it is quite different. It was pretty quick to prepare as the focus of that is just on the information. Now that's completely done and off my plate so I can focus only on TED now for the rest of the week! Exciting!!!!!!!! This is gonna be great. Super psyched to present and also really happy that lots of good friends are coming to watch, either in person or online. Thanks everyone for your kind support and encouragement through this entire process, and especially thank you so much to Mom, Dad, Norm, Kevin, Alex and Heev for a pile of great ideas, a stack of suggestions, and for being exceptional sounding boards and advisors through this whole process.

Here goes... EVERYTHING. :)

Dinner at Jutan's

2011-11-13T13:59:00.001-08:00

Had dinner at my place for some friends on Friday. Tried some new dishes, it was fun!

Crackers and Brie

Steelhead Trout, a lot like Salmon

Caprese appetizers

Appetizer area

Making Quinoa, Rice and about to put the fish in

TEDx Speech Time: Fri Nov 18, 4pm EST

2011-11-12T13:09:00.001-08:00

Hello friends!

My speaking time is now finalized for TEDxIB@York next week. I will be speaking at 4:00pm EST (1:00pm Pacific) on Friday, November 18. The whole event will be streaming live via the LiveStream link at http://tedxibyork.com.

My talk runtime is 18 minutes. If you're keen to watch I suggest logging in a 15 min before or so to make sure you have the correct internet browser requirements etc.

If you can't catch it on the day-of, it will be available on YouTube sometime following the conference.

Cheers!
Mike :)

New Math 3 Building at Waterloo

2011-11-10T11:17:00.001-08:00

Awesome!

http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/613278--opening-of-uw-s-math-3-building-a-pink-tie-affair

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New Mobile Blog Template

2011-11-10T01:22:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Blogger's awesomeness, I've now got a fancy new Mobile template. Happy reading, iPhone and Android afficionados!

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Movie Review: In Time

2011-11-07T00:51:00.000-08:00

Well, that sure was freakin' awesome.

I saw In Time over the weekend with my bro Finkel along with my old friend Meagan and her fiance Eric who just moved to the city. For some insane reason, RottenTomatoes is giving it only a 38%, that seems way under what it should have been. It was incredibly fun to watch and I really liked the serious undertones too. The "time"-based puns were over-the-top and so hilarious and I love that they kept using the same joke over and over. Justin Timberlake knocks it out of the park and proves again how well he can act. "Pete" from Mad Men makes a fantastic co-star and Amanda Seyfried did a really solid job too. I thought it was great. This is why we go to the movies: a fun, exciting adventure, some romance, a few laughs, and a few (but not too many) serious things to think about. I thought it was excellent. Probably one of my favourite movies of the year so far.

The movie itself looked beautiful, the credits rolled and top of the list was the Director of Photography, the glorious Roger Deakins (from all the Coen Brothers movies). So that's why it looked SO good. The story was super interesting and captivating, and the parallels to "class warfare" are extremely current with the whole "Occupy" movement and protests happening literally this week. It was incredible, the action was great, there were some nice cars and good chase scenes and some really cool ideas in it. It was exactly like a Bond film but there is actually some serious important issue they are also talking about. Why in the world are all the critics hating on this so hard?!

Anyway, I thought it totally rocked and was definitely worth seeing. Awesome movie. The writer-director also directed Gattaca and The Truman Show, so this totally fits with his usual style. Very cool movie, and well pulled-off. Forget the haters, I say go and check it out and have a fun day out. :)

Dear Japan National Tourism Organization: Please send me back to Japan!!!

2011-11-05T02:22:00.000-07:00

Well this sure is cool.

The Japan National Tourism Organization is apparently considering the option of issuing 10,000 free round-trip tickets to Japan to bloggers/people with social influence of some sort. Their website says the government has not yet approved it, but if they do, they will announce it next year. This is a method to encourage foreigners to come visit Japan (following the natural disaster and nuclear power plant issues) and "report back" to the world that Japan is still a safe and "SUGOI!" place to visit.

Dear JNTO: if you're reading this, I love Japan, and I will blog like CRAZY about how awesome it is if you send me!!!!!!!!!!!

For those who haven't read my Japan tour blog from Winter 2009, please check it out here: http://www.mikejutan.com/travel/japan2010/

Japan honestly remains as one of the best trips I've ever taken in my life and I would definitely choose to go back in the future, irrespective of a free trip or not. It's a really awesome place and absolutely worth the trip. It was so easy to travel around as a foreigner who doesn't speak the language at all, and the people were so welcoming, nice, and helpful to someone who was obviously fully and completely out of his element. I didn't get to explore Sapporo in the far north, or the cool surf islands of Okinawa in the south, I'd love to go there on my next trip. I also sadly spent only 1 day in Osaka! The capseru (Capsule Hotel) was such a funny and awesome experience, but I'd love to spend more time there. I would stay in a traditional ryokan again at a MOMENT'S NOTICE!!!!!!!!!! Even thinking about it makes me want to go back.

Anyway, for those bloggers out there, keep an eye out on the JNTO website in case they announce this, sounds like an amazing opportunity. If they end up doing it, I'll definitely be submitting an application for it.

Sugoiii!!!!!!!!!!

TEDx talk: The Home Stretch

2011-11-03T23:29:00.000-07:00

Right before the release of something big that you really care about (in my world, typically a software product), you would think that you'd be really nervous about it. Turns out the opposite is true.

After months and months of prep for this TEDx talk, I'm really just plain ready and excited for it. I've iterated and iterated on ideas, had several horrible ones and crumpled them up, had a few mediocre ones and crumpled them up too, and then after hours and hours and hours and hours, finally settled on something I am really happy with.

Don't get me wrong - the journey has been super fun too, it's like planning a world trip. You spend days and weeks and months planning and thinking and anticipating. But in the couple weeks before you go, you've prepared so much mentally and emotionally for the trip that all you need to do is pack your bags, jump on the plane, and have the time of your life.

I'm very much in that state right now. It's been a lot of hard work to prepare this, and I've changed and modified and completely remodeled the speech several times over. But the last few weeks have just been practice and minor tweaks. I am now just preparing the cadence of the speech and getting very comfortable with the flow of the slides and with the timing of each section. It's all about the presentation now - the content is locked down and I'm going to submit the slides in the next couple of days. The only thing left to do is the presentation itself. And as I mentioned in the previous post about this, that's the easy and (really) fun part!!! Going back to the travel analogy, preparing like craaazyyyy for my Japan trip was a lot of hard work over months and months. But actually jumping on the plane and GOING to Japan?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!! That wasn't stressful at all. That was the fun part. The hard work (stress, if you want to call it that), is all done at that point. At this point, it's all about straight implementation.

On that note, I'd like to announce the name I've (finally) settled on for the speech.

Mike Jutan: "!!! (and why it's so important)"

If you already know me in person, you already know what I mean by "!!!". If you don't, I hope you understand it after my speech. Tune in live (and free) at http://tedxibyork.com on Friday Nov 18th. I'll be speaking sometime in the afternoon, eastern standard time (Toronto time zone). If you can't make it online to catch the speech, don't worry. Sometime following the speech, a version will be posted online on YouTube to watch at your convenience. Thanks to everyone who has helped me prepare and offered advice, wisdom and direction. I hope you enjoy it.

Mike :)

Weight-loss reward #1: Tea kettle and new tea

2011-11-02T03:25:00.000-07:00

In keeping with "celebrating small successes", I've decided my reward for getting 1/3 of the way to my goal is to buy that fancy new Cuisinart tea kettle I was looking at. A friend at work recommended it and it sure looks cool. I like how it keeps the water warm and also how you can select a temperature for the type of tea leaves you're using, or for french press coffee. Very useful, and very fancy.

I wanted to buy myself something as a reward for losing 10 lbs and I wanted it to be a non food-based reward. Not clothes either as I'm planning to drop some bills on a nice suit when I reach my actual goal. The tea kettle and some new tea is perfect, because it's NOT a food based reward. It's actually one of the things that's helping me lose weight - it's really tasty and good and I'm making a point to have a few cups in the evening. I thought I might do that IF I got hungry to take my mind off snacking, but I'm actually finding that I don't even think about snacking anymore. It's pretty awesome. So that must mean the tea is working so well I don't even notice it. Even better.

So yes, I'm buying that fancy Cuisinart Tea kettle I posted a few days ago, and I'm gonna get a couple of teas from The Republic of Tea to start, as well as probably the British Sampler Pack from Upton.

Minor website update

2011-11-02T03:17:00.000-07:00

Very minor update. Removed the Google Buzz social networking icon due to it's deprecation coming up in the next couple weeks, and replaced it with a link to my new obsessive fun website, steepster - a "tea lover's social network" haha.

For those of you who have been to my house you'll know my tea cupboard is something of an epic nature and it's reaaaaaaaaaaaaally fun to go through each of those in succession and decide which ones I like the best. Haha. I should probably sleep more instead of this. Anyway, it's fun, so whatever. :)

Weight Loss Progress

2011-11-02T00:35:00.001-07:00

This graph is really motivating.

This graph is from the Myfitnesspal app and shows my weight loss progress over the last 2 months. The decline is at a reasonable rate and holding very very steady. No spikes up. No "bad weeks" where I slipped back into bad habits or went off the rails. There are a couple weeks where the weight loss plateaued somewhat, but the longest plateau so far came in right around 3 weeks ago and only lasted for about 10 days.

The real reason this is working this time and why I am going to succeed at reaching my goal is a longer answer, some of which I covered in my previous blog about this. But in short: I've actually made this a priority. I am an insanely goal-oriented fellow - good friends and close blog readers know that. So applying my usual mentality to something like weight loss is bound to work - but why has it never worked before? That's also a much longer and more complicated answer. Suffice it to say: I love traveling. Paying several thousand of my very hard-earned dollars to explore Peru and Argentina next year is going to be so awesome that I wouldn't dare ruin it for myself through my own inaction. The Inca Trail is going to be one amazing hike and I plan to enjoy every minute of it.

But don't expect Peru to be over and for me to return to old snacky bad habits. This is a major lifestyle shift - a permanent one - and once I reach my major goal weight of 180lbs (approx 11 down, 19 to go), I may either set a further weight loss goal or focus more on continued healthy activity like fitness and weight maintenance. It's about time I knocked this weight loss thing out of the friggin park. And it feels really good to be well on my way.

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The Art of Non-Conformity

2011-11-01T23:00:00.000-07:00

My bro Heev passed this site along to me. In a word: "WOW".

This guy's goal is to travel to EVERY country on the UN list of countries - a list of 193 - in the 5 years between his 30th and 35th birthday. Amazing.

His blog is absurdly inspiring and interesting, and it looks like he covers a wide range of topics from entrepreneurship to what he calls "travel hacking". He has a really solid message about living life to it's utmost and I really, really, reaaaaallllly like this message.

Well done Chris. After 10 seconds of reading the first article on here, I knew I'd better add it immediately to my blog roll list so I can read it often. There are some really awesome people in the world.

Check it out, this guy friggin' rocks.
http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/

Tea Social Networking

2011-10-31T02:37:00.000-07:00

I just joined steepster.com (check out my profile here: http://steepster.com/mjutan) It is a super awesome site, basically Facebook for tea drinkers. It's really funny that this exists and I really like it. They have a "virtual cupboard" which is hilarious and I just really love the design of the site. Great forum too that helped me on my search for a tea kettle last night.

Anyhoo I've started to post some "tea reviews" on there so I thought I'd copy one over here too. Good times. :)

Lapsang Souchong by Twinings

This was my first foray into Lapsang Souchong and it is pretty tasty… and pretty, pretty, prettttyyy weird. I heard that Winston Churchill liked this tea and that makes sense, it tastes more like a fine bourbon than a tea. :) It’s awfully unusual so don’t serve it to distinguished guests who have only ever drank PG Tips. This is more like a punch in the face than a tea, so be careful. But it definitely has it’s time and place.

Note that it has a very distinctive odor. Put less politely, it STINKS. So if you put it in your tea cupboard, it will spread it’s smell around like an unwanted college roommate. I had mine in the Twinings Box and it couldn’t contain this power house. I had to eventually chuck out the box and just put the tea bags in their sachets into a ziplock bag. That seems to have roughly done the trick so that everything in my tea cupboard doesn’t also taste like Lapsang Souchong. What a crazy tea!

Anyway with all this yapping it’s still a great tea. Seems like probably some people have gone nuts and made a much stronger version of this tea so I suspect despite it’s insanity that this tea is actually “tame” as far as Lapsang’s actually go. I am keen to experiment some more though. It’s very weird, but it’s a fun and interesting tea. Never had anything like it before and it’s an acquired taste, which I quickly acquired.

Have fun and be careful. Your Grandma (unless she is super awesome) will probably hate this.

Hilarious iPad halloween costume

2011-10-31T01:52:00.001-07:00

Oh, this is so brilliant. Nice job. Hilarious!!!!!

Wrapping up my TEDx prep

2011-10-31T01:34:00.000-07:00

With TEDx now only 3 weeks away I've been keen to get to a point of "content lock".

Looking at this as a software product (yep, I'm a huge computer nerd, this is exactly how I think), the draft in April was just a prototype - most of which has been thrown out or re-imagined since then, but the initial spirit is still intact. About 3 months ago I wrote a few "Alpha" versions, improving and changing things with broader strokes as I went. I'd say the first "Beta" release of the talk was about a month ago, with the structure starting to take shape and major decisions being made. I even had a few "stub methods" in there, slides with a big red "TEMP" across them, awaiting their proper implementation as I gained approval from Pixar PR and PR at my work to include actual production stills from Wall-E and other films.

Beta 1 and Beta 2 moved pretty quickly, as I gained feedback from key players and trusted advisers. Those comments led to a couple of high priority bugs that I needed to change before "ship date". :) In the final sprint towards Beta 3 and now Candidate Gold, I've done some last major tightening of the bolts and ensuring that everything fits together as I had originally intended.

Now of course I've only been talking about the content (speech and slides), not the actual *talk* itself. The presentation is probably the biggest unsung hero of the whole thing, and it only gets one moment to shine on the day-of. There is this large element - I might even say the key element - of showmanship and stage presence that truly cannot be replicated. That (thank goodness) for me is the easy part. Given my absurdly high level of extroversion, I will be so enthused and motivated and excited by the presence of the big audience that the day of is going to be much, much, much, much, much better than any of the demos I've given to people in advance. Feeding off an audience's energy and trying to make a personal connection to the whole crowd at once is one of the absolute most exciting parts about public speaking in all it's forms, and I'm so excited for the day-of. The practice sessions that are the closest to the final product are more similar to my private practicing on my own, just in front of my own computer screen. This allows me to imagine the audience and all their energy, and picture how I'll respond to it on the day of.

I have only demo'd the talk for a couple of people and it's funny, it was more like a read-through and an explanation of different sections than it was of an actual run-through. It's kinda funny. The only person who knows how it's truly going to be said on the day-of is me, and only as I'll be saying it. Very funny. This is like a hyper-well-prepared version of any of my old student council speeches. For those, it was: have a general thing you need to get across. write out a story in point form only. say it through once or twice to myself. go up on stage and try to get the crowd out of their seats and raising the roof. This talk is similar in the execution, but the preparation is not just one afternoon of point-form writing - rather more like several months of hashing and re-hashing my exact points over and over again until they are whittled down to the true core message that I want to give. It's been really exciting to get to this point. But even more exciting will be actually presenting it.

I think the real problem with run-throughs for me is not that I don't want to practice - in fact I've been practicing 2 or 3 times a day for the last couple of weeks. It's more that the emotion is not genuine during a practice. My talk is so emotionally intensive and I'm not a good enough actor to feign emotion - it has to be genuine. And for me the only time the speech will be truly genuine is if I'm giving it to myself, or the one single time I get to give it to the audience. I don't know if this is a common thing with presenters, but for me it's definitely the case. I've really got to read the Steve Jobs documentary. His talks were so well prepared but you could always tell when he really felt the emotional impact of something he was about to say, and that he wanted the audience to feel it too. It was brilliant to watch and you could see how well he'd prepared his speeches, but also how he got to a point where he'd just go for it and feed off the energy of the audience, ad-libbing wherever he felt like it. I love that experience, and I'm so excited to have it so soon.

Whew, anyway that was a lot of words. :) The speech is now at a point where I am ready to "content lock". I made a couple bigger switches a few days ago and a few very minor changes again yesterday but now I think it's finally all fallen into place. (Not that I am at all comparing this to a Pixar movie, but...) John Lasseter always says that his movies are never "done", they are just "released." There is some great truth in there, that you can always tweak and re-tweak a creative endeavor that you really care about or is really personal, but eventually it gets to a point where the slides are due or the movie has to come out and you just have to stop and say, "This is as far as I am gonna take it. From here it will need to speak for itself." I'm really happy to say I think I've reached that point (haha, I'm still not talking in absolutes!!!) but it's basically getting to the point where I need to memorize the order of the slides so I just can't change them or swap anything around anymore. I'm very happy with where it's ended up and I think the central message comes out so loud and clear, and I really hope people will like it (and, more importantly, find some part of my message useful to apply to their own lives). The goal of TED is "ideas worth sharing", and I'm ready to give my central life philosophy and message to the crowd and the world. It's not jaw-droppingly out of the box or something that no one has ever thought of - I wouldn't call this a "ground-breaking" idea. But I think it (enthusiasm) is something that society has undervalued, especially in the current day but definitely when I was a kid as well. I feel like I surrounded myself with a lot of like-minded kids when I was back in high school (through ASG, Student Council and especially OSSSA), and that definitely helped shape my world view a whole heck of a lot. Last I heard OSSSA had folded and that is a huge shame and a major loss for the world, honestly. I benefited so much from the extreme positivity of the fellow attendees there and if I can impart forwards even a little portion of that OSSSA-style pure, unbridled passion for life to this crowd and the YouTube viewers around the world, then I'll really have successfully given my "idea worth sharing."

I don't know the time I'll be on stage yet, but note that it will be streamed live on http://tedxibyork.com on Friday Nov 18th. For those close friends and family who are coming to watch me in person, thank you so much for your support on the day-of, but especially for your encouragement throughout all the years to get to this point.

This is gonna be fun.

Tea Time

2011-10-30T04:31:00.000-07:00

As most of you know I am a crazy tea fiend, which is why I've been up for the past 3 hours researching electric tea kettles with temperature gauges which you can set for different boil temperatures. Something I learned tonight is that when people say they don't like Green Tea cause it's "too bitter" or "too strong", that often means the tea has been "overcooked" as boiling hot water (212F or so) has been poured on it, and it doesn't react all that well to such hot water. Boiling water is meant for Black teas and Herbal, but for Green (and even more so for White tea), a lower temperature of 175-185F is better. Super interesting. I've never really been all that careful in the past with water temperature and I bet it does make a huge difference - especially if you start buying proper loose-leaf fancy teas and not just $2 boxes at the store.

So the tea kettle thing is still undetermined. There is a nice looking one from Cuisinart:

Cuisinart Stainless Steel

It's "variable temperature" which means it has a sensor in it to test the temperature of the water, pretty cool. Kinda pricey at $80 but looks pretty solid. Adagio Teas has one for $49 called UtiliTEA. Then there is one from Chef's Choice, PINO and Aroma that I looked at too. The Aroma one looks cool cause it changes colour as it gets hotter :) Kindof amazing, but probably just a gimmick. The problem is, none of these (even the Cuisinart) came off scott-free in the reviews on Amazon. Some people talked about plasticy taste, some people talked about leakage or rusting or the fact that the "expected temperature" was never actually correct, it was more like a rough ballpark. So a ton of reading and I still don't know which to get. Chef's Choice sound more annoying than anything else, I don't know much about PINO, and enough people ripped on the Aroma that I probably won't get that one. So it's down to UtiliTEA vs Cuisinart probably - price difference of approx $30 but the Cuisinart does have more features - like a "keep warm" button, kinda cool.

I've also been looking at new tea to buy online. My friend Rachel likes Adagio, and they seem pretty good. I'm in love with LUPICIA Fresh Tea, and their Green Rooibos was probably the most awesome thing ever. Though no need to order them online as they have a store here in San Francisco. The Republic of Tea is another local one and I've had their Melon White Tea before and it was pretty darn fantastic. Reasonably cheap and they have really nice tins too, so I think I might try a few of those. Finally, some friends at work just recommended Upton Tea Imports in Massachusetts. While their website desperately needs some better design, apparently their product is above and beyond any competition. So I'll have to try them out too. (Aside: TWG Tea from Singapore is so awesome but I was never able to find it here in San Francisco area. Looks like TWG is sold at Dean & DeLuca in New York City, but they have a St. Helena store in Napa Valley too, and see to sell TWG so I'll have to check that out next time in the north bay).

I have always been a tea fiend but I think I'd like to start drinking more tea at work. I usually defer to coffee cause it's so easy and quick and really I should rock some tea more often, especially fancy tea at work cause that would be fun. I have no idea why I haven't taken in some of my tea choices from home into work! Crazy!!!!

Finally, I never knew about this but should have suspected it - there is a tea social network called Steepster!!! hahaha. I should join and rate my favourite teas. Hilarious. Someone on there gave the Singapore Breakfast tea from TWG Singapore a good rating - well deserved. That tea shop was SO FRIGGIN GOOD. If I ever end up back in Singapore I am gonna drop like $100 at the TWG tea shop before heading back. :)

On that note, tea time! Actually I better go to sleep, why am I up so late about something so unnecessarily stealing my focus away from sleep!??! Oh right, cause this is exciting and when there is exciting stuff going on, I never go to sleep at a reasonable time. Oy. :) Anyway, a "bonny day" to you all, and happy steeping (and/or sleeping).

Apple party

2011-10-29T00:49:00.001-07:00

Awesome night tonight. Party with Apple peeps at the California Academy of Sciences!! Awesome times.

Diver in fish tank

Sushi

Lamb Chops

Dessert table

Flowers

More dessert!!!!

Me and Finkel

Official photo

On the Red Carpet!!

I love this song

2011-10-25T02:26:00.001-07:00

This has been playing in my head all day. I love this song.

Fate Under Fire - On The Water music video

2011-10-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

Congrats to Sean and Charles on this epic video they directed for the band Fate Under Fire. Amazing! Awesome song. Frank, Jess and I are somewhere in the crowd during the night shots!!

TEDx Interview by Rob Sniderman

2011-10-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed by a super-motivated young guy named Rob Sniderman for the TEDxIB@York 2011 conference. Rob's fantastic write-up has been posted and Rob - I really appreciate your kind words. Great job! It's really awesome to see yourself through someone else's eyes, and I'm super impressed that Rob managed to pull so many details out of our short conversation. This was really fun to read. Rob, I'm gonna send this to my parents, they'll be proud. :)

Check it out here (scroll down on TEDx news feed):
Interview of Mike Jutan by Grade 12 Student Rob Sniderman

Mike Jutan's EPIC Hair Cut: Pantene Beautiful Lengths hair donation

2011-10-21T02:17:00.000-07:00

As promised here's the final cut of the whole hair-cutting event!

On Oct 16th, 2011 I cut off all my hair to donate to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths charity to support women struggling with cancer.

For more information about how to donate your own hair, check out http://www.pantene.com/en-US/beautiful-lengths-refresh/pages/default.aspx

EPIC Hair Cut: Trailer

2011-10-17T02:18:00.000-07:00

Here's the trailer to my upcoming film. Coming soon! Enjoy :)

Cutting off all my hair for Pantene Beautiful Lenghts

2011-10-16T04:24:00.000-07:00

Matt is visiting and we went to the hairdresser today along with Alex to chop off all my big, curly locks. I had also grown my beard for the grand cinematic effect of shaving that at the same time and thereby jumping back to looking like a 22 year old all in about 30 min. :)

The purpose of this event was to donate my hair to Pantene Beautiful Lenghts, a charity which provides free human-hair wigs to women cancer patients. This is in honour of Kim Lausch.

The hair cutting went epically well and my hairdresser Andrea was just hilarious and totally into the whole event. I also have a video which I am editing and will post soon. Thanks to Matt and Alex for coming along, supporting the event, and for filming and putting up with my humour for extended periods of time. :)

Anyone who has long hair now and is considering donating it, check out Pantene Beautiful Lengths at http://www.pantene.com/en-US/beautiful-lengths-refresh/Pages/default.aspx It was a very straightforward process and it's a great opportunity to help someone in their time of need. Consider doing it! It was really fun and a great cause to support.

Pre-game lunch of daily grilled cheese at the Ferry Bldg

Getting my hair ready and discussing technique

Looking worried about the cut

Back view

Side view

Andrea, my hair dresser getting into it

Here comes the razor!

Cleaning up the sides

No longer beardin' it up

Almost there...

Done!!!! Amazing job, thanks Andrea!

Posing with my new cut

Excited for my new hair

And we're done!!!

"It gets better" project: Lucasfilm edition

2011-10-15T01:43:00.000-07:00

Congratulations colleagues and friends! I wholeheartedly agree - the diversity is what makes our company so great. I am very glad you are comfortable and able to freely spread your message. Well done!

TEDx progress

2011-10-11T03:48:00.000-07:00

Yep, 3:36am, again :)

With the talk just under 6 weeks away, I kicked into high gear about 2 weeks ago. Previously I had been thinking about the talk and researching/reading/planning mostly on weekends, but starting a couple weeks ago I switched to pretty much every night.

Get home from work, make a healthy dinner, watch a few episodes of Raising Hope (I love that show) to clear my head from a busy work day, get a cup of tea, and then get energized by the work and work from 9 or 10pm straight through to 3 or 4am. Been doing that almost every night!

I'm surprised I'm not losing momentum, but the work really is self-motivating now. I am so excited about the progress and some stuff just takes a while but is so epically fun like sorting through old photos and scanning the ones you like.

Last weekend I trimmed the 2nd draft twice so now I guess I'm at the 4th draft? Anyway I had my (pretty much) final notes ready on Sunday as well as scanning a bunch of photos. Today I spent several hours working on the Keynote slides. It took a while to get started tonight, but I just did 1/2 my slides in one sitting. I'm happy with my choice of font and Keynote theme, it looks badass. Also very glad that I laboured over the decision for a week. :) The "photo" borders look really sharp and I'm VERY happy with my progress tonight. This is really shaping up.

I'm not going too heavy on the transitions and silly animations in Keynote but actually even the silly ones (sparkle, fire) are really well implemented and look great. I may use a few of them for comedic effect. The ones where the letters twist off and fall off the screen is really hilarious and I think I have a funny self-deprecating joke that matches that transition perfectly.

Once the slides are done and I've determined whether or not I'll have Presentation Mode pointing at me during the talk, I'm going to write up the "Speaker Notes" if necessary and then start practicing and possibly cutting out a few smaller pieces if the time is running too long. I want to practice enough to get the flow and timing expectations roughly planned out, but I don't want to overpractice and negatively affect the smooth, conversational, ad-lib vibe I want to have on-stage. I've done so much research, development, writing and slide prep, I don't need to overdo it on practicing. :)

Well I'm about to fall asleep on my keyboard. Oh yes - and for anyone interested in coming feel free to send me an email and I can send you details about how to get tickets. It will also be simulcast during the event and YouTubed after the event. Once I know when I'll be speaking I'll post that for your interest.

Ok time for bed.
Mike :)

Weight loss: This IS HAPPENING

2011-10-09T03:40:00.000-07:00

About 1 month ago I finally got serious about weight loss. It's been something that has never had priority for me and it's way overdue that I get very serious about making some major changes. My first goal is 30 lbs, which will take me back to a weight I was in Grade 12 or Grade 13, before even going to Australia. I am VERY excited to get back there. This WILL HAPPEN.

The weight all started when I got to Waterloo and the stress was very high. The tasty carbo-heavy cafeteria choices I made were not ideal either - poutine and chicken fingers at 11pm Calculus homework sessions sure were tasty in the cold Canadian winter, but they didn't help keep that Freshman 20 (lbs) from showing up within 8 months. After that my continued super dedication to the work, my general unhealthy lack of sleep and continued student pizza-eating patterns continued the downward (or, shall I say, upward) trend of weight gain. By the time University was done I was up at least 25 or 30 lbs. Terrible.

After much pestering for years, whatever was necessary has finally clicked and I am turning up the heat on this chubby briznass. I like the "jolly" vibe people get from me, but rest assured it has nothing to do with me needing to lose 30lbs. I will still be as Jolly, I'm just cashing in this fat keg for a friggin' dirrrtty six-pack. Holler back!!!

Why the recent change in focus? Lots of things, but the big trip to Peru is a big help for sure. I will not enjoy the glorious Inca Trail if I have to carry all this extra weight. And I am not paying this much money for an amazing world trip just to arrive and be a tired whiney jerk about it when I arrive. Frank and Jess are doing amazingly well at their weight loss and my sister is doing amazingly so that's very motivating too. MattP is also doing it so we're all being good influences on each other which definitely helps keep us all on track.

I'm extremely happy to announce that the first month has been a HUGE success. I'm down 8lbs, an average of 2lbs a week. I have been aiming to lose at 1 lb/week but I've made enough major changes that it's going more quickly, which is nice. The main culprit was evening snacking. I must have been eating a crazy amount of extra calories in evening post-dinner snacking food - it's generally healthy stuff, but the quantities add up quickly. Those tiny yoghurt cups are like 180 calories each. So I've dropped this horrible habit completely. I have a proper dinner with more dense foods like Quinoa and more protein and it gets me not to be hungry later which is good. Also if I get hungry I have a small handful of unsalted roasted almonds and a huge cup of herbal tea. It's working very well. I also stopped buying any junk food. I find if I have amazing tasty stuff in my house like candy or ice cream or pudding cups or anything epic like that, I WILL EAT IT ALL IN ONE SITTING. Every time. So I just can't buy it. I just can't. I'll keep that stuff for special occasions only now. I don't have any truly idiotic bad habits like drinking soda all day (or even juice, actually) and I don't put sugar in my tea or coffee, so I didn't have some huge obvious thing to change. It turns out the biggest issue was the evening snacking, and now that this has stopped it's really showing on the weekly weigh-ins.

I'm using MyFitnessPal which is pretty awesome and easy-to-use. I thought it might be too much "paperwork" to do this but it's pretty fast and easy. I'm finding that I'm learning a lot about how much calories are in stuff and that helps inform my decisions too. Sadly Pizza really IS that bad for you. I can't even imagine how many calories it is when buddies and I share an entire large Pizza (or extra-large?!?!) oh man. That should basically never happen. Maybe once a year, and I can't eat anything else that day.

MyFitnessPal - Free Calorie Counter

Something interesting I just found out if you edit your "goals" on this site. It will re-set your calorie count to be based off your CURRENT weight, not your start weight. So that means as you lose more weight, you have to eat less/exercise more to continue losing at the same rate. Makes sense I guess but funny to see it in numbers. So this means the reason I'm finding it "easier" than expected to lose weight is that it IS easier to lose at higher weights. You don't have to work as hard at it and you lose lots. The trick is going to be to rather than keep my effort constant, to INCREASE my effort as my weight continues to drop. Continually improve the healthy food choices, and crank up the exercising much more. Currently I'm only biking to work maybe twice a week, and maybe I'll walk one-way once a week too. Prob not enough. Also I considered joining the gym at work or the Y but the biking is quite a lot of exertion. So I will prob need to re-think my exercise plan as the weight loss progresses and naturally slows down. At that point I'll need to add in exercise to the mix to continually push it rather than attacking the problem mostly from the food angle like I'm doing right now.

AWESOME times. So psyched to finally be making a real, proper, long-lasting change. This has been a loooonnng time coming. It's good to be prioritizing myself a little higher than everything else for a change, usually many other things (work, finances, socializing, education!) all go much higher than fitness on the list. That's all good stuff too, but it's been very unbalanced for a while. Let's DO THIS THING!!!!!!!!!

A few website updates

2011-10-08T03:34:00.000-07:00

A few website updates, mostly to the "work" section. I added in some photos visually displaying my journey from Waterloo to Alias to Pixar to ILM. Fun stuff and it was cool to go through some old pics too.

Also renamed my resume page to Resume (CV). It is getting to be quite long and is becoming a list of varied accomplishments, so it's starting to feel like a CV. Anyhow renamed that as well as updating my resume/cv with some resent conference announcements and the work I've been doing lately.

http://www.mikejutan.com/

Personal business cards

2011-10-05T23:52:00.000-07:00

For TED I didn't want to give out only business cards from work because they have my work email and phone number on it, and they also don't have my email, website, or blog on them. In general it seems like a good idea to have some personal business cards for random people you meet, people you might want to keep in touch with but you'd rather they email you at home rather than call you at work :)

Anyhoo after some research I decided to keep it simple and go with moo.com. A friend showed me their "MiniCards" a while back and they were really effective. I went with the normal-sized ones, but opted to upload my own images - an assortment of photos I've taken on trips (from the "best of" album I chose for my new website.) It'll be nice to have these for the conference and beyond.

Confirmed: TEDx speech in Keynote

2011-10-05T22:34:00.000-07:00

Was hoping to use Keynote over PowerPoint for my TEDx in 6 weeks but wasn't sure about the technical requirements. Also, this will be the first time I'm giving a non-technical presentation with Keynote - usually it's a technical audience that doesn't mind me standing behind a podium and occasionally half-turning to read what's being projected onto the slides!

Not here of course! Just had a thought last night that... oh... right... I'm going to have some sort of monitor pointing back at me with the slides on it. Maybe even the Keynote "presenter mode" where I can have extra point-form notes visible which will help me keep on track and not miss any key points I want to say, but don't want to project. That's a very powerful feature and I didn't remember that this was possible - I always just have detailed slides with lots of technical stuff on them. But this is not that kind of talk. Exciting stuff!

I'm speaking at AU 2011 at the end of November and even though that's a more technical talk, I am going to make good use out of Presenter Mode this time as well. I really like it, it's got a lot of potential. Seeing the current AND the next slide is also very useful.

The crazy ones

2011-10-05T21:47:00.001-07:00

Thank you Steve for leading Pixar to astounding success, and encouraging a young kid in cold, snowy London, Ontario to keep following his dreams to work in California at a company you built into a household name. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to make my mark, and for starting me on my way in the industry I've always wanted to be a part of.

Markets

2011-10-05T03:29:00.001-07:00

Great article. Broad market is now finally starting to sing the same tune that Bill Bonner has been singing for years:

http://seekingalpha.com/?source=yahoo#article/297345-greece-is-defaulting-recession-is-imminent-play-defense/

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Gabe's Star Wars Movie

2011-10-02T15:05:00.001-07:00

A 5-year old's Stop Motion Lego Star Wars Movie. "It's great being on my speeder bike!" haha. AWESOME.Gabe - you are awesome. Keeping making movies, little buddy!

My dream jacket

2011-10-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

Dear amazing Arc'Teryx jacket, one day - not now, but someday soon - you will be mine. I need to save like a madman and earn you. But one day, we will be together. And I'll take you on a trip to South America where you will shelter me from the rain outside. I love you.

OMG this is amazing.

I am hiking the Inca Trail in Peru next May and starting to look for new gear now. I am going to get a smaller pack for the trek itself, and use my larger pack (80 litres) as checked baggage instead.I'm also looking for newer hiking shoes, I have some solid Gore-Tex Merrell's with that solid Vibram sole but I need a taller shoe with more ankle support. Dad and I are gonna go shopping at REI in December.

But my real "dream item"? This Arc'Teryx jacket. OMG it is awesome. This is the Alpha LT, their top-of-the-line GoreTex ProShell and maaaaaaaaaan is it awesome. I heard that some of their lower-end jackets are now made somewhere else? But anyway this one is still made in Canada, the glorious great white north homeland of mine. :) That's what I'm talkin' about. It is a pricey beast but on the other hand IT COMES IN THIS AMAZING PURPLE COLOUR. holy craaaaaaaaaaaaaap.

I am gonna keep a look out for a sale and go to REI to get fitted and choose a size so I'll be ready to pounce the second I see a sale. $499 is a bit rough, though I am absolutely sure this jacket is worth every penny. :)

To quote Napoleon Dynamite: "I wannnnt thaaat"

TEDx prep: My notes, from above

2011-10-01T22:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight I started organizing all the notes I'd scribbled, stuff I'd copied from TED talk transcripts, emails I'd sent myself/others and my previous drafts of this speech.

I've been kicking my prep into major high gear over the past month or so and I'm very happy with the progress. My thesis is solid and almost completely ready, I think. (This stuff can always use more re-hashing in my humble opinion) :)

My ENTJ-ness is helpful with this kind of research/idea gathering/preparation. The "N" (Intuitive) and "J" (Judging) help me tear apart my previous ideas. The "E" (Extrovert) helps me not feel too worked up if I think some of my previous ideas sucked. No need to internalize these thoughts, just chuck 'em out and move on. :) What I have to watch out for is the "T" (Thinking). I will definitely have a tendency to over-think and waaaaaaayyy (over) analyze stuff. I could have written the entire talk from start to finish several weeks ago but it's not ready yet. I've written chunks here and there but I really need to make sure all pieces are in place and completely solid. Then the speech "writing" part will be very quick. It's basically just going to be an amalgamation of all the organized thoughts - I'm not going to be reading it off a paper anyway during the talk, it needs to have a more ad-lib kind of vibe anyway. So the exact wording does not need to be perfect, because this is not an essay - it's a speech. It has to be more conversational by nature or I'm gonna put people to sleep. :)

So anyhow to (over) analyze this paragraph, I don't think I'm over analyzing the importance of getting the speech plan, structure, and flow correct. Once the entire plan is up to my standards, that is essentially the speech. If I had cue cards, that what I'd write on them. At that point (hopefully next weekend) I will actually write out a whole version of the speech just so I have it and so I can tweak some of the jokes. Apparently writing cues only is how Larry David works (not that I'm 1/100th as brilliant as he is, of course) - he has an idea for a scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm and he writes out only an outline. He then writes out a few key jokes or points that the characters must say or must hit upon during the scene. Then they start and let the creative freedom fly as the actors take the ideas and improvise them in "real-time". I think that's a really cool technique and should work pretty well. In my bazillion high school student council speeches, I often worked this way, typing out only point-form cues to myself, which helped me stay on-point and on-topic but also gave me the freedom to just "chat" with the audience. I do have a tendency for rambling though so I need to practice a lot to make sure I stay in the required time limit.

Anyway, enough yapping. Back to work, Mike :)

I've got all my notes together now and I am gonna start typing up the flow/outline/structure formally now. I'm aiming to finish that by the end of the weekend, exciting times!

Notes so far, from above. Bad ideas in the trash :)

I'm speaking at Autodesk University 2011

2011-10-01T01:36:00.000-07:00

Exciting news, I've been chosen to be a speaker at Autodesk University 2011 in Las Vegas this November. I will be speaking during the Autodesk Media & Entertainment API Conference.

This is very exciting and I am very much looking forward to it. This is only a week after my TEDx talk in Toronto, so November is truly conference month this year! I am really excited to be among my peers across the entertainment industry and to learn and share ideas with brilliant minds from all over the globe. Can't wait.

My topic will be "Tips & Tricks for using Nested Referencing in Maya", based on some recent work at ILM. More details to follow in the upcoming weeks. I'll post the outline/bio from the AU site once they put it all up there.

Thank you Autodesk for this fantastic opportunity!

See http://au.autodesk.com/ for more information.

Ol' school Ryan Gosling reppin' Cornwalllll!

2011-10-01T01:00:00.000-07:00

Wow, this is totally awesome. Ryan Gosling, the legendary actor and complete badass from some of my favourite movies (Lars and the Real Girl, Blue Valentine) was born in my hometown of London, Ontario. A buddy at work saw this video and passed it along cause it is SO epically Canadian. This is something I guess from when he was on Mickey Mouse Club? Pretty crazy that a bazillion really talented celebrities today started on that show. Didn't realize he grew up in Cornwall, a fair ways from London, but the vibe in this video is like an exact replica of a London Ontario summer break from school :)

The hockey playing in the driveway is awesome and I love his description about why he loves hockey. Oh man, soooo Canadian.

Way to represent your roots, bro!

[Aside:This reminds me that I should really get the show "Freaks and Geeks" from Netflix. That show looks like it launched the careers of most of my favourite comedians, I should really check it out.]

Desiderata

2011-09-29T22:56:00.000-07:00

Desiderata is a poem with a lot of personal meaning to me. The last few weeks has been a pretty rough time and I've been searching for the best way to properly express my feelings in my TED talk carefully and poetically enough to honour Kim's life and Matt's struggles over the past year. This has been such a hard moment for him and I feel like it's absolutely necessary to make the dedication to them in my speech really count.

Max Ehrmann says some truly beautiful and poetic things in Desiderata, and I'm thinking about using this specific quote. My speech is not totally done yet so I don't want to write down the rest of the closing remarks, but I think I've focused in on this portion of Desiderata to use as a quote:

"Whatever your labors and aspirations,in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Strive to be happy."

This part speaks to the conflicting ways of the world - how there is so much negative amidst the positive. It is deep, it's serious, and it adds some weight to your thoughts - life may go well a lot of the time (hopefully) but there are times where it doesn't. Dr. Seuss's "Oh, The Places You'll Go" has a section like this too. The book bounds along happy-go-lucky for quite a while and then hits a wall. But the part I really like about it is the hopeful turn at the end: "Strive to be happy".

Strive is a really interesting word choice. It implies that happiness is not a given, happiness is not always around ready for the picking. You must continually reach for it, pushing forwards desperately in the hopes of attaining it and keeping it close. "Strive" implies there will always be effort required on your part. You can't just sit around and have happiness arrive at your doorstep - you need to want it and you need to keep working for it. At least that's what I get out of it. And that's a really nice message.

Here's Desiderata in entirety, in case you've never read it.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Digital Dead Sea Scrolls

2011-09-27T02:03:00.001-07:00

WOW, Google just digitized and translated the collection of Dead Sea Scrolls at the Israel museum. Nicely done, Google. Amazing extra-feature: mousing over text to reveal the English translation. Amazing.

http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/

TEDx Prep: Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy?

2011-09-26T00:06:00.000-07:00

Here's another great TED video that is giving me some more direction for my talk. Haha, actually this is a little bit "meta", as it were - Dan Gilbert's talk is helping me narrow down the potential avenues that I could go down during my talk, and hilariously enough, that's basically what his message is that I'm keen to reference from his talk.

He talks about the benefits of "synthetic happiness", a form of happiness that we create in our own minds, a sort of "internal" happiness. I see this as tying into the work of Epictetus, the great stoic Philosopher who questioned happiness. He discussed how we should be aware of what we can and can't control - we cannot control someone else's behaviour, we can only control our own internal reaction to outside stimuli. The phrase, "You made me feel bad" is impossible - someone does not force you to have a certain reaction. Rather it should be "The way I am responding to your actions is negative" - if we could say that without sounding like the android character Data from Star Trek.

Anyway that was an aside, back to my point. Dan Gilbert here talks about creating happiness with our minds, and how that requires different tools than our methods to achieve "real" or "experiential" happiness. Freedom is a natural tool for experiential happiness - you can choose between one of many different outcomes and naturally that makes you feel good. What Dan argues is that freedom is the enemy of synthetic happiness - he says, "The psychological immune system works best when we are totally stuck, when we are trapped." In other words, having boundaries on our choices allows us to pick something, stick with it (since there was no option in the first place), and we just find a way to be happy with what occurs.

This is profound, this idea is damn amazing, and it really is well supported by my own experience. I may potentially reference a couple of his quotes in my talk (which - amazingly - is freely allowed by the TED conference).

One problem I have right now as I develop my TEDx talk, is that I have WAY WAY WAY WAAAAYYY too much choice. I feel like a kid at the grocery store, looking up at the looonnng cereal aisle and having absolutely no clue which one to pick. I have so many random stories from my childhood, all with a little bit of self-deprecating humour, some silly childhood photos to back them up... so many possibilities. Maybe TOO many possibilities. I'm trying desperately to narrow it down so that I can boldly choose some of them and then make those stories really work well in the speech - to be happy with my choice. How I'm choosing to narrow them down is a little tough - some stick out better than others and some have cuter or more ridiculous childhood photos to go along with them. All of these things weigh in on whether that particular anecdote will be usable.

One method I'm using is going to TED.com, filtering existing amazing inspiring awesome TED videos by the few topics I'm going to be covering with my talk ("happiness", "motivation", "success"), and watching and listening very closely. Today I found this one from Dan Gilbert and it's so solid. I can tie this to a story about my Grade 7 art teacher in Oxford, England. My parents came in for a teacher-parent conference and he said in a direct style very atypical for someone of British descent, "Michael is an excellent student. Very motivated, always on time, very excitable, great guy, hardworking, etc. But whatever you do, don't let him be an artist. He's a TERRIBLE artist."

Hahaha. Now, most people would say this seems like it would have been a huge hit to my self-esteem, given that I wanted to "make visual effects for movies". The thing was though, my self-esteem was already too high as my Dad would say, haha, so no trouble there. This phrase from my teacher helped re-iterate things I already knew. My Math and Computer Science marks were through the roof, and I absolutely LOVED that stuff. I was bad at painting, I wasn't motivated by drawing, I found I didn't really have any kind of creativity in artwork. My stick figures were even hard to comprehend. So this helped me with something very important, removing the overwhelming amount of choices in the modern world. I wanted to do visual effects for movies - boiling it down do a very over-simplified, basic core, there are 2 jobs inside of the visual effects industry: art, and science. You can choose one or the other. Some very very very very few, ultra talented, truly awe-inspiring people in this world like my buddy Matthew Parrott have been truly blessed with exceptional skills in BOTH. But that is hugely uncommon. Usually it's one or the other. For me, this moment was very important - it was a call to arms. It was a way to tell me to cast aside the things I was not good on, and put the required time and effort into something that mattered. Something that I loved and something I was already showing a lot of potential in. I could easily have squandered my childhood, sticking to my guns and saying that I *had* to be an artist to work in visual effects. But rather, I researched the positions further, I found out more about it, and discovered that art and science really work hand-in-hand to create visual effects. John Lasseter's famous quote is, "The art challenges the technology and the technology inspires the art." It's a great collaboration, a back-and-forth between the two. This "reduction of freedom" allowed me to narrow down all the potential avenues and put my time and energy where it counted - on something I loved and was actually good at. Removing the choice was a great tool for helping me focus, and commit myself to something that I knew would be worth sticking to.

And then I was set up nicely to be happy with any outcome. I started in a technical role in visual effects and found out there was a real sliding scale of art and science talents. I was bad at drawing, but I had a pretty reasonable ability at forms and silhouettes. So at Pixar they handed me the "paintbrush" (a mouse) and I got to dabble in modeling and shading, a sort-of "technical artwork." Things have a way of working out. My long term career has slid back to where my real talents lie, in the technical world, but it was cool to get a chance to experiment and see that things aren't quite as black-and-white as "you're an artist" or "you're a scientist". But that initial judgement call from my high school art teacher could not have been more helpful for keeping me focused on the best way forwards in my studies and focus at school.

TEDx Prep: Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation

2011-09-26T00:05:00.000-07:00

As part of my TEDx prep I've been watching a LOT of TED videos and picking out some really effective ones and studying them a lot. I have a lot of prior experience with public speaking, but the TED stage is very large (and frankly, pretty damn intimidating!) When you see a speech like this though, WOW. It just makes you want to work even harder and do the best job you can.I watched this speech by Dan Pink on the nature of motivation and... WOW. His speech style is just astronomically better than most of the TED talks I've seen.Looking at the details about him on TED.com - he was Al Gore's speech writer. :) I don't think I'll ever have speech writing or speaking skill to hold a candle to Dan Pink, but wow, am I ever impressed and motivated by his abilities. Fascinating.More videos to come as I keep burning the midnight oil...

A tribute to Kim

2011-09-25T02:39:00.000-07:00

It's been a very hard week for my best friend, Matthew Lausch. You can read the details on his blog here, and I'm sure he'd like to hear any well-wishes that you'd like to send.Michelle, Kim's sister, just posted this beautiful video with photos of Kim's life. It's amazing to see how many lives she touched with her beautiful smile and hilarious personality.

New recording: cover of "Society" (Eddie Vedder)

2011-09-25T02:36:00.001-07:00

It was a good distraction today from all of the sad news of the last week to put some energy into recording for a little bit. I did my first recording with GarageBand, my new Mac Mini, my new-ish sound mixer and awesome condenser mic. It was fun and got my mind on something else for a bit. Fun to practice the solo part too. It feels like it's based on a jazz chord progression.

"Society" (Eddie Vedder)
http://www.mikejutan.com/play/music/

Being Elmo: Trailer

2011-09-24T15:30:00.000-07:00

WOW, this looks friggin' amazing. I gotta see this.

Ben & Jerry's, I love you

2011-09-24T15:18:00.001-07:00

It's been a horrible week and a little humour into the day has been really really nice and welcome.Thank you Ben & Jerry's for this hilarious flavour name, for referencing the hilarious SNL skit, and for this CNN reporter really going to the next level with this. Amazing video.

New Girl is hilarious

2011-09-20T21:53:00.001-07:00

Just watched the premiere of New Girl - hilarious new comedy. It was awesome!! Kinda like an actually-funny version of Big Bang Theory ;p The guys are hilarious, and the comedy combo with Zooey Deschanel really works. So funny.

It's also super hilarious that they are trying to make her plain and nerdy. Haha- it just makes her even hotter :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Chickpea Dill curry

2011-09-20T20:52:00.001-07:00

Tonight's experiment: Chickpea Curry with fresh dill leaves from "5 spices, 50 dishes" by Ruta Kahate.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

More TED thoughts

2011-09-20T02:32:00.000-07:00

Just watched this speech by Philosopher Alain de Botton.

It's really excellent. I love his quote around 14:00 where he discusses how success must be our own. We should "own them" and "make sure we are truly the authors of our own ambitions". This is so good I might actually quote it in my TED speech. The TED rules (cutely called the "TED Commandments") mention that you are allowed to freely quote any previous TED talk in your TED talk, pretty kick ass policy. So anyhow, I really like his message here, and I just recently read one of his books which was fantastic.Given that he's a Philosopher, I'm not completely surprised at his message - he's suggesting introspection. He's suggesting that people do not immediately jump on to one of their dreams and work for it at full pace. He's suggesting we stand back and spend some solid time on self-reflection and introspection to determine the true origin of our goal. We should determine if we want to achieve it for unwise reasons (fame, money, prestige, bragging rights at a 10yr high school reunion) or if we really have a true hunger for this goal. I like that message. I think I can use that as part of the "challenge" portion of the speech.

I'm working really hard on this now, full-tilt. It's 2:30am on a "school night" again, I should go to bed. Anyhow, super psyched about this. I'll prob be posting a bunch of stuff on my blog now about this as I work through my thoughts. I think this is going to help with my planning. Only 2 months to go.

Thanks for reading. :)

TEDx talk prep

2011-09-17T13:53:00.000-07:00

With only 2 months remaining before my TEDx talk in Toronto, it's time to kick preparation into high-gear. I wrote a draft of my speech back in April but re-reading it now there is a lot I want to change. The general biography elements are interesting and there are a couple funny moments but overall my message is not nearly clear enough in that draft. (That's why I'm glad it's a "draft") :)

My buddy Arjun sent along this incredibly helful page too with some great suggestions:
http://www.charlestsai.com/2010/11/how-to-prepare-your-tedx-talk/

My real aim here I think it to try to distill the patented Jutan enthusiasm. I want to show how my wonder/enthusiasm is not just a part of my personality that is good but inconsequential - rather, it's a tool that I've honed and used very intentionally all throughout my life to help me achieve what I want from the world. It has been they key to achieving my childhood dream-job. It was the key to achieving many smaller (and larger) dreams all along the way. It has been my most essential tool to keep focused and determined to achieve what I want, and to be confident in the road to attain these goals. The flavour of this needs to be accessible - I can't go on and on about myself in a biography-style without tying it (even just briefly) back to the thesis. Little stories and anecdotes will be fun to listen to I think/hope, but this doc above has good advice - don't be preachy. I don't want to claim that I've got some secret method for achieving your childhood dreams, or I'm going to sound instantly like an infomercial. Rather I want to discuss a few anecdotes of where my enthusiasm and sticktoitiveness have served me very well, and let the audience distill meaning from my stories into actionable items in their own lives.

Really, I think the fact that I chose Computer Science is a less important point to discuss. What I've achieved with it is exciting (I certainly think so!) but the flavour I think I want to impart is that I would have brought my energy to whatever career I chose. Assuming the same level of enthusiasm, determination, effort and all that good stuff, it's certainly possible (or, maybe there was even a good chance) that I could have been successful in a different career. What I mean to say is, the point is the attitude and the intention, not the specific career or industry choice. In Malcolm Gladwell terms, I would have put his suggested "10,000 hours" (from "Outliers") into whatever the heck I decided to spend my time on. Doesn't matter that it was Computer Science rather than botany or marine life research or astronomy or high-board diving. The intention, the attitude, the determination: that's the message.

I'm starting to get some good ideas flowing here and I think it's starting to take shape. I am gonna spend a bunch more time working through these thoughts, and in the meantime start gathering some hilarious and nerdy photos of me as a kid. This is gonna be fun.

Mysterious guitar recording feedback: solved

2011-09-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

After some more fiddling around tonight on GarageBand with my guitar hooked up I've figured out the cause of the problem. As it turns out there is next-to-no issue with my sound board, powered subwoofer, recording input, etc. The buzzing noise from the guitar is... strangely enough... coming FROM the guitar!

I did a few more tests, unplugging the powered subwoofer to see if that was it and I still got plenty of feedback when listening to the guitar plugged in. Then I started to wonder, my acoustic-electric takes a single 9V battery but the cage where the battery sits has been a little loose lately. The connections in there are a little wonky too and I wondered if something might be causing the feedback.

I finally had the novel idea to connect the guitar to my amp, completely removing the recording and computers from the equation. Sure enough, guitar plugged straight into the amp, there is the same grounding buzzing hum noise!! Found it! The guitar amp is grounded too so that's even better than the sound board I was plugged into which isn't grounded. Interesting. So the problem must lie in some grounding issue inside the guitar's pickup itself. I betcha I can take this into Guitar Center and have them take a look and fix it. Awesome.

When I plugged my electric guitar into the same amp I tested to see if it had the same issue and it very clearly doesn't. I remember that I had some issues with the electrical connection on that a while back and I decided to have a go at fixing it on my own with my new mini screwdriver tools. That worked out great, just tightened up the connections and it's working nicely again. So that's good news, I don't need to take my electric in anymore, but I do need to take in the acoustic-electric.

After fiddling for a while I wanted to get back to fun stuff so I plugged the electric into the sound board and everything works nicely, no gross buzzing feedback and it seems to be working nice and cleanly. The other cool thing is I tried out the "Electric Guitar" instrument on GarageBand... holy cow!!!!!!!!!!! There are some amazing effects and I love the images of the stomp boxes and SO COOL that you can fiddle with the knobs and effects settings. The amps are REALLY friggin' cool too and it's amazing all the presets they have. There was one called Woodstock Haze or something that sounds very Jimi Hendrix. It is really badass. Definitely makes me want to play some electric more!

The acoustic effects on GarageBand are definitely nice (I am a sucker for chorus and some nice auditorium-style reverb) but the electric ones take it up a HUGE notch. I am so glad I have this software, it's really amazing. Definitely encouraging me to play some more guitar. Fun!

Anyway it's been a pretty crazy day so it was nice to change gears a bit and play some fun guitar and work with GarageBand a bit. Also nice to finally determine that my computer and sound board aren't causing the crazy feedback problem from the guitar, I'll just have to take it in and ask them to fix the pickup.

Happy Rosh Hashannah :)

2011-09-16T02:51:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year, only 2 weeks away!

Minor website updates and fixes

2011-09-16T02:15:00.001-07:00

A couple of quick website changes tonight.

I've added in 2 new icons to the Social Networking links at the bottom of each page: Google Buzz and the ATOM/RSS feed from my Blog.

Also fixed tonight was something that's been bugging me for a while, the pop-up images on my page were being rendered behind any embedded YouTube Flash videos. This was most easily seen on the Raytracing and Media Exposure pages. If you clicked on an image and there was an embedded Flash video (YouTube) behind it, the image would render completely behind the video on Internet Explorer 8 and partially behind the video on Firefox 6. This has now been resolved thanks to some random forums on the internet, Google, and my general sticktoitiveness. :)

Ha, that's the first time I've ever written out the word "sticktoitiveness". Is it a real word? Dictionary.com seems to think so, but Blogger is underlining it in red and telling me it's a spelling error. Interesting. :)

New sunglasses

2011-09-16T00:23:00.001-07:00

Thanks to my care for my eyes, the eye doctor said I still don't need glasses at all. I'm a very slight bit near-sighted but not nearly enough for a prescription. So I got some new cool sunglasses today.

They are really epic and from the Ray-Ban "Tech" collection. They have crazy awesome carbon fiber frames!!! They are so cool. I'm excited and it's a good reward for taking care of my eyes by not overdoing the computer time in the evenings after long days at work :) So apparently long hours on the computer add to eye strain, but would not necessarily make you need glasses sooner... but I'll take the compliment anyway and keep up these good habits of taking breaks and so on. Good times.

Also, man these glasses are so badass. The doctor asked me if I still had my previous sunglasses and I said, "Of course! I've never owned a fancy pair before and I took good care of them." She was impressed and said most people break them or lose them - ?!?!? Surprising. Anyway, I took the opportunity to get a new pair for fun, and I really like them. They didn't have the polarized version of these, but my Wayfarers from last time are still in excellent shape so I've still got a nice polarized pair for when I'm driving.

Carbon-Fiber style box, haha cool

Haha, the case looks like Carbon Fiber too

These are awesome


I picked them cause I really liked the blue frames

Image of glasses from the Ray-Ban website

Noisy electrical buzz when recording guitar

2011-09-10T21:06:00.000-07:00

I'm getting back into recording now that I've got my fancy new Mac Mini and some audio equipment. I remember trying this a while back and once I started I realized I still had an issue which was bugging me last time I tried to do this - feedback "line noise", a deep electrical buzzing sound on the track. Bah!!!

It sounds gross and there are a few ways to get rid of it, it seems. The one is to add a Noise Gate filter to my GarageBand project (a Hi Pass Filter), filtering out the low frequencies. Problem there is I don't know exactly the frequency level of the buzz and I don't want to negatively affect the low guitar tones as they really fill out the sound. So that's not the best solution. Also, if you post-filter the noise like this, then if you want to play and have instant "monitor" feedback through earphones, you get the buzz while you're recording which is really distracting.

I realized pretty quickly that it's a grounding problem. If I put my hand on the guitar cable going from guitar to the mixer then the buzz goes away as I am grounding it. So I looked into some grounding methods and one suggests that you fiddle with how your computer is hooked up. I've heard that before as well, that you should make sure everything is on the same powerstrip/outlet to reduce electrical noise on the audio line. That didn't fix it and I tried a few combinations and plugged the mixer in separately to the wall outlet and still had the problem.

Next up I am going to probably buy one of these Radio Shack Ground Isolation (or Ground Loop) Filters. That is some sort of mini transformer that filters out the electrical noise from an audio line. We'll see if that works. I think they are only about $12 so I'll prob just try that out.

As I'm writing this I just realized there's another solution I haven't tried - just attach the guitar DIRECTLY to the Mac Mini's record input port, it's probably shielded and everything so I bet it would give a good signal. The negative of that is I don't get to connect to the nice soundboard and split the connection up into a stereo feed but I wonder if GarageBand can already handle that situation. I might try that too, and then just use the Sound board only for the Mic recording.

[Update: I tried connecting the Acoustic-Electric directly to the Mic input of the Mac Mini via a 1/4" to 1/8" mono connector, then selecting Mono input in GarageBand. Still no dice. I get the same grounding feedback problems as I did when going through the mixer, but without the benefits and ease of using the mixer. So this isn't a good solution either. I am gonna try getting a Ground Isolation filter and see if that solves the issue.]

[Update #2: I forgot I also have a USB interface called the Griffin iMic, you plug your audio input into there and then plug that into a USB input of the computer instead of using the Line In port on the computer. I figured this would be a sure-fire win... and... nope!!! Still get the grounding issue. I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's an issue with the pickup on my guitar or something. Anyway I'm prob gonna try the Ground Loop Isolation filter dealie first since they are like $15 or so and that'll be cheaper than taking my guitar in and less hassle than more fiddling with these wires. So we'll see if that works, I'm a bit surprised that the USB interface still picked up the grounding noise. Guess it's pretty intense!]

Money on my Mind

2011-09-08T01:56:00.000-07:00

I've had the market on the mind for the last few weeks and have been reading like crazy about it.

While the stock market volatiles its way through the summer I've been sticking with my tried-and-true savings plan:

Don't spend money on stuff I don't need
Reduce costs further by minimizing unnecessary (and usually unhealthy) extras like ordering dinner in or eating lunch out at a restaurant
Manage multiple savings accounts with separate, distinct goals
Auto-withdrawls weekly (and separately) to each of the multiple savings accounts
Maxxing out 401k match contributions
Absolutely no revolving debt. Ever. Ever. Ever. There should be no excuse unless I'm buying a house. Not even for a car. If I can't pay for it in cash, I can live without it.

But as usual my savings plan is based upon one major thing:

Stay the hell away from the stock market because a mess of historical proportions is coming. I don't know when (no one does) but the storm clouds keep brewing and I don't want to be in there when the proverbial crap hits the fan.

Yep, I've been reading a lot of Bill Bonner at The Daily Reckoning.

The problem here of course is I'm not diversified, at all. My savings plan is a modern-day version of stuffing it all under the mattress and hoping inflation doesn't eat it all next time I reach under the mattress to grab a pile of it.

But, how to diversify? I'm not gonna just buy some stocks for the sake of diversification when I just said I think they are doomed in the short-to-medium term.

Emerging Markets? Not now. About 8 months ago I was planning to buy a NIKKEI index fund and maybe some Brazil or South America Emerging Markets index ETFs but the unthinkable natural disaster happened in Japan before I could invest there. When I traveled to Japan in 2009 I was really struck by how organized, focused and driven the culture seemed to be, and Japan has had a slump in their stock market for 20+ years. They are bound to go up but sadly it's not the time to buy in yet. Once things settle down some more I definitely believe in the spirit and energy of the Japanese culture and I'm very keen to invest in their future. But not quite yet. Everything is connected to the US, so a crash here will be bad for everyone.

Gold? Well... yes, but not yet. I was considering it at $1500 but waited too long, then reconsidered and decided where I *would* buy it from at $1650... that was the Friday before the week of big losses on Wall Street that sent Gold up to record highs of > $1900. As Gold hit $1700+, I said to my friend Matt, "Am I too late for the party?" If you have to ask, you probably are. So as Gold continued upwards at an alarming rate I decided it was too late to make a smart move before the crowds and I had better wait it out. Bill Bonner and the folks at The Daily Reckoning are backing up my concerns, saying that Gold has risen 33% this year alone and that's "not natural". Now that Gold has become fashionable to buy by Joe Investor is not the time to rush into it. So while Gold looked like a good long-term play at $1500, it's a bit crazy to jump in now that it's nearing $2000. So I'm gonna hold off, hope that some investors get scared and run from it, and buy in at a price that isn't inflated by recent fear-driven purchases. Then I'll hold it for 5-10 years as a good hedge against inflation and a sinking US dollar. So my Gold plan is set.

Another diversification method: Bonds? Nope. Not with inflation ready to soar. As inflation goes up, Bond yields go up and Bond prices (i.e. Bond values) go down. Simple. So, not the right time for bonds either.

I'm starting to run out of options. Did I mention, "keep it in Cash?" Oh yeah, that's what I'm doing already, with 100% of it. I'm looking for other options to diversify, if that's still possible...

Enter the Inverse ETF. I learned about these and they attempt (quite well, historically) to match the inverse of daily returns on an index, say the S&P 500. This is done via short-selling, and the fund then offers the average investor a slice at the shorting pie without having to deal in the sales yourself and without the typical crazy risks of short-selling like losing more than your original investment. Now I don't really believe in the stock market as a good place to grow money at the moment, but I asked myself, "What am I willing to bet on?" Betting on the stock market going down in the short-to-medium term is in fact something I've been spouting for ages. If I want to put some money where my mouth is, then buying an Inverse ETF is a way to do that. Note that there are some major risks still with these inverse ETFs, like the leveraged (2x and 3x) versions are even more dangerous as they multiply wins and losses. Great if you're on an upward swing, but terrible if you're not. And with the market like it is, you've got a 50/50 chance of one or the other every single day. These tend to be viewed as more day-trader style, and I definitely don't have the guts for handling that. An issue is that they aim to match the daily returns of the market, not the long-term returns. So these also suffer from "compounding" which also erodes your investment. So it's complicated, but I feel like the non-leveraged one is a good experiment. I'm willing to bet the market will go down over the next while, and this is a way to "diversify" just a little bit. I'm only putting a small single-digit percentage of my savings into this, so it's a relatively small amount. But it's a way to get at least some exposure to something other than cash, and if it's not a totally ridiculous amount then I won't be too worried if I win or lose a lot with it. At least I feel comfortable making this bet, and if I keep the amount relatively low then I won't freak out if it decreases somewhat.

I experimented with a day or two of day-trading earlier this week and lost a little bit and got a good lesson. I had purchased overnight and then hoped the opening price would be good. But I learned that Opening prices can be wildly different than what the day ends up being. The stock can still "go up" compared to the previous day's close, but if you buy at opening price, it can still fall a lot and "go up" over the day but you can still lose a few percentage points. Not great. Also I've been reading a lot and somewhat obsessing about the news lately and I had wanted to experiment to see if I could make a short-term trade and then just leave it alone for a bit and wait it out. The answer, by clear margin, is "most-certainly-absolutely-definitely NOT"! I checked my account maybe 20 times yesterday, opened up the stocks app on my iPhone about a bazillion times and even woke up in the middle of the night (and couldn't get back to sleep as I was wondering about it). Terrible. The answer is clearly "no", I can't handle the stress of this. But I'm glad I tried, and now I know :) This is a very clear indication that I'm not the kind of person who should try to time the market. If it works out well I'll be too excited and stay in too long and then miss the correct selling point. If I lose, I'll get nervous about losing too much and I'll bail out when the stock is low and I'll lock in my losses. So it's good to have learned these things about myself and I feel like the small percentage I lost is a good fee to teach myself a lesson and also to come to some agreements with myself about what my investing strategy should be in the future.

So if I'm not gonna make any short-term choices, then how about long term ones? Is there anything I can diversify in? Well, I'm going to invest in Gold, very likely. But not now. Bill Bonner suggests it could drop in half of its current values and since I have no money currently invested in it, it seems a silly time to buy now just to make myself feel good about diversifying. The only other choice I'm comfortable with now is getting one of the standard inverse ETF funds (non-leveraged) and riding that out for a while. I believe even the non-leveraged inverse funds suffer from that compounding issue but if it's non-leveraged it's not AS dangerous. And looking at the historical graph of the SH fund (ProShares Inverse S&P 500), it looks like it tracks the inverse of the S&P pretty well historically. So I'm considering this (still considering, it's been several months!) and I'll try to buy in on one of these swings upwards, maybe due to the Obama speech this week or the Bernanke speech in a few weeks. This feels like a negative play, like a vote of no-confidence almost, but it's not really. It's just saying that I think this is a certain Bear market and I don't want to be caught in regular stocks, but I'm a little antsy of being completely on the sidelines in cash only.

Whew. So that's what's been rattling around in my head lately. I figured writing it down would help me get this all off my mind!

Note: I'm not proposing that anyone specifically follow my plans here. Don't take my post here as a suggestion to you for your own portfolio. This is simply an explanation of my thoughts at the moment and I am certainly not a financial adviser. So feel free to read these as points to think on, but please don't make a financial decision based on anything you're reading here. These are just my thoughts, and I could just as easily be making a stupid decision in these markets as not. My real advice is this: be careful, and make sure you stay on top of the news as things are really crazy lately.

Demetri Martin and Bob's Burgers

2011-09-05T01:18:00.000-07:00

Bob's Burgers is in an interesting time slot right now: directly before the greatest show that has and will ever be made, The Simpsons (of course). As I suspect is the general aim, I've been quite easily encouraged to tune in a little early and watch Bob's Burgers. It's pretty frickin' hilarious, and the episodes I've seen have been pretty darn epic. The "mascot race" one was particularly insane/awesome/ridiculous. Great writing and great jokes too. Also the voices are hilarious.

Netflix instant watch has brought several new and awesome shows into my apartment over the last year, the most recent being Mad Men and Important Things with Demetri Martin. Mad Men was glorious, and I destroyed all 4 seasons in like a week. But Demetri Martin's show went even faster, I started Fri night (yes, I know), and now it's Sunday night and I've watched both seasons. It went quick and I hope they have another season planned cause it's pretty hilarious.

As I was watching I started noticing that a bazillion awesome comedians made cameos on the show (David Cross, John Oliver, Ellie Kemper)... a quick Google said that Demetri Martin and some of the other folks all used to write for Conan together. And connections to the Daily Show too. Ahhh, thus the pure comedic magic.

I then realized that one of my favourite actors on the show, H. Jon Benjamin, had a REALLY familiar voice. A quick Google confirmed: yep, he's the voice of Bob on Bob's Burgers. Brilliant.

This leads me to 3 conclusions:

Everything good comes from The Simpsons. (Bob's Burgers is hilarious, H. Jon Benjamin is the voice of Bob and is on Demetri Martin's show, Demetri Martin wrote for Conan, Conan wrote for The Simpsons. Freezer-tight logic.)
It's cool that funny comedians are friends with other funny comedians. I just checked out a few of H. Jon Benjamin's clips from his new show on the Comedy Central website. The first clip had him in a skit with the legend of Mr. Show, Bob Odenkirk.
I don't know how I did anything before Google.

Well, I think my wireless is working again?!

2011-09-05T00:38:00.000-07:00

Today, mysteriously my Linksys router stopped serving sweet, sweet wireless signal so that my phone can download my email at blazing faster-than-3G speeds in my apartment. The usual fix for this is:

Move the chair
Crawl under the desk
Unplug router and modem for 30 seconds ("power cycling")
Laugh to self as "power cycling" sounds more like an Olympic sport than an electronic resetting method
Crawl out from under desk
Bang head on desk
Curse loudly* (*if no children or small animals present)
Go back to whatever I was doing when the wireless internet stopped working

As the XKCD guy would say, "My usual approach doesn't work here" - or at least it didn't today.

I fiddled with the settings, deductively inducing that it must be the Wireless Channel - there were lots of new wireless stations in my list today so I figure a new neighbour must have moved in next door and our wireless signals are fighting for superiority. Always the peacemaker/Canadian, I gracefully put down my sword/access to wireless channel #6 and switched to another non-default option. This worked. For like 5 minutes.

I came back on later and it was playing it's old tricks again, super slow and also I sometimes couldn't even see my wireless station in the list on my iPhone. So more fiddling, upgraded the router firmware (only from 2007?!), upgraded 8 versions up and got a fancy new login page.

Things seem back to normal now, maybe. I reset the router and powercycled (reminds me so much of the movie "Tron 2") again and looks like everything works again. My new theory is the dude next door must have bought a 2.4 Ghz wireless telephone and it's jamming my signal/harshing my vibe. We'll see if this holds up. If not, it might be about time I bought an 802.11N router or even go CRAZY and get a Gigabit one. To be continued... or, hopefully not, and this will just work without me needing to chuck this router out. :)

Hey America, take a break!

2011-09-04T13:56:00.001-07:00

Hey America, take a break!

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/04/hey-america-take-a-vacation/

Cool article on CNN.

Lunch on the Pier

2011-09-03T14:25:00.001-07:00

Tasty times.

Mission Fig

Humboldt Fog cheese, Acme Herb Slab, Blue Bottle New Orleans Iced

Awesome Pixar stop motion ad

2011-09-03T01:58:00.000-07:00

AT&T envisioning 2011 in 1993 - this is awesome

2011-08-26T10:55:00.001-07:00

Holding off on Gold... for now

2011-08-25T09:57:00.000-07:00

Great article by Bill Bonner, the economist who my Dad and I read a lot :)
http://dailyreckoning.com/the-turns-of-the-century/

I have been pondering an investment in gold now for several months, but with this market so absolutely insanely volatile, I was nervous to enter it. Of course the market takes no prisoners and gold bounded upwards, jumping from $1600 to successive record highs, ending at $1910 a few days ago. About 3 weeks ago I was chatting with my friend Matt, wondering if I'd waited to long and missed the boat already. Was I too late to join the club? We figured the answer was "maybe" for short term investing and "no" for long term. I am certainly planning for long term here (say, 5-10 years) but I'd still rather not buy in at a foolish rally-driven price.

Today things started to become more clear - or at least as clear as things can be in times of insane, nervous, trigger-happy market conditions. Looks like people are not expecting Bernanke to make any huge stimulus announcements like QE3 on Friday, and short term gold speculators are selling off these record highs so they can bake in their short term gains. Makes sense. But these trends spell a downward view for gold over the next bit. I was feeling that instinct, don't buy now because everyone else just rushed in and there were reports of it being "overbought". So it's cool to see that my most respected financial writer has confirmed my suspicions. I have no idea what timeframe I should buy gold in, but he's saying in this article that the next jump in gold is maybe still a couple of years out.

Of course no one knows for sure, and we can only do our best to make the right decision at a given time, given all the information we have at that point. For me, I feel like gold is a solid long term investment choice, countries like China and India are starting to purchase it en-masse and in the long term I like the idea of holding it. It's certainly proved it's potential to gain in the last 10 years (when, sadly, I was a poor student with no money to invest). I see it rising over the long term given all the info Bonner discusses in his posts and the general shoddy state of the US Economy, US dollar, and stimulus/propping up of the failing stock prices by quantitative easing. It's bound to break. No one knows when, but I think it safe to bet on it breaking, eventually. And I don't want to be invested in stocks when they crash and burn.

So anyway it's nice to see that the recent rally in Gold is correcting itself now, and I'll wait until it's continued downwards for a bit until I jump in. I've done my research now, so when I feel the time is right to enter then I'll be ready.

Introducing the new mikejutan.com

2011-08-21T16:12:00.000-07:00

It's done!!!!!

After a lot of hard work, planning, design, re-formatting and general staying-up-too-late, I'm super psyched to announce the new mikejutan.com. Available now at - you guessed it - http://www.mikejutan.com!

new look for mikejutan.com

The new site features a rotating banner of images I've taken on my travels, an new travel section, and a much more modern web look. A selection of my favourite photos are available in a "lightbox" gallery and music I've recorded streams to the site. My resume has also been updated along with a new media exposure section, highlighting old newspaper articles as well as random hilarious YouTube media of me (check out the Harvey Norman TV ad I was in when I lived in Australia).

Check it out and let me know what you think, I'd love any and all comments.
http://www.mikejutan.com

Mike :)

Goodbye, old website

2011-08-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

Goodbye old website with your scribbly Mike Jutan handwriting "font" and wordiness and broken photo gallery. We'll miss you. :)

New website announcement in 3... 2... 1...

Old website landing page

Old website "Professional Interests" page

Red Tails Trailer

2011-08-18T03:11:00.000-07:00

New Lucasfilm Movie coming out January 20, 2012!

AMAZING trailer, this is gonna be awesome. I love the style of the film logo too...

Atabet Art: Make Art Help Orphans

2011-08-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

Please support my buddy Matt's art project. The aim is to get 2000 messages. All you have to do to help is add a comment!
--

MAKE ART HELP ORPHANS

‎- go to www.facebook.com/AtabetArt
- add a comment about what gives you hope
- share with friends

Atabet is partnering with Children of Uganda to create a crowd-sourced mural, raising support for orphaned victims of civil unrest and the AIDS epidemic. We're gathering 2,000 messages which will become part of an original mural, the sale of which will support children in need. To help, visit www.facebook.com/AtabetArt and leave a one sentence comment on the original post answering the question "what gives you hope?" If you'd like to help further, 'like' this page and press the 'share' button, adding a personal message to spread the word. Every 250 quotes, a selected contributor will recieve a personalized artwork containing their message.

To learn more about Children of Uganda and the work they're doing, please visit: http://www.childrenofuganda.org/

This is the life

2011-08-14T17:39:00.001-07:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Mic Test, 1, 2, 1, 2

2011-08-09T03:03:00.000-07:00

I'm in mid-development on the new look for mikejutan.com and it's gonna be great. I've really enjoyed planning out and designing the site, and now I'm spending a bunch of time on the content. It's gonna be a lot more professional-looking than my current site, and it's also got a cool RSS feed reader that I just wrote to re-post the 3 most recent blog posts on there. It's in a secret location right now so this is a test for me to see if the RSS feed is in fact working :)

I was going to post up some sneak peaks but I think I'll just wait until it's completely done and then I'll post it all at once. Good times!

Getting ready to start new website design

2011-08-06T01:56:00.000-07:00

I just bought RapidWeaver and the Avante theme from WeaverThemes and I'm gonna get rolling on my new website pretty soon. It's looking more and more obvious that you pretty much have to buy the Stacks plugin for RapidWeaver for quick and solid website development. I also want an RSS feed and it looks like the easiest way to add one in is just to buy Stacks and then buy another RSS ticker stack to add into it. The point of going this way was really to minimize any coding I'd have to do so I could focus solely on content and knock out a nice-looking professional website in only a few weekends of work.

I've sketched out the rough plan for the site and the general navigation, I'm pretty happy with the plan and I think it's gonna look sharp in this new theme, just gotta find enough time to work on it! I'll probably start tomorrow just getting set up and making empty pages and navigation, and then once that's rolling I can start adding content and preparing banner images, photogalleries, and so on. This is gonna be sweet!!