Random this, miscellaneous that, etc., etc. http://www.seanohagan.com Most recent posts at Random this, miscellaneous that, etc., etc. posterous.com Thu, 17 Mar 2011 22:14:00 -0700 AppSumo Lean Startup Challenge: unVault http://www.seanohagan.com/46361010 http://www.seanohagan.com/46361010

Dear AppSumo Lean Challenge,

(http://appsumo.com/leanchallenge)

For your consideration...

Feedvault

I decided to make unVault (www.unvault.com) to solve my problem of starring items in various places (Google Reader, Twitter) and marking other items to read later (Instapaper, Delicious), but then never getting back to reading them. (video of motivation here: http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7953875/unVault)

Perhaps because I enjoyed reading a few classic novels using DailyLit, I had the idea of combining daily emails with read-later items.

Is unVault cool? Hmm... Well, I'll tell you what's not cool. Bookmarked items that languish, unread, on some forgotten site. I thought DailyLit was cool, and the various read-later/readability sites are increasing in coolness daily. Two cool things unVault does now are 1) automatic detection of multi-page articles; 2) automatic splitting of long items into bite-sized parts (so you can read long articles or html e-books like with DailyLit).

Lean: unVault's first version was built in about 2 weeks. I work on it after my day job, and really work on it when my wife goes back to her hometown once a month. I use jQuery, PHP, and MySQL. I use SimplePie to handle RSS feeds. I use the text parsers from Instapaper, ReadItLaterList, and a PHP port of Readability to extract text from websites. I try to release something new at least once a week. Thanks to your Lean Startup Bundle, I'm about to start using Postmark to handle daily emails to users.

Funding: more powerful webhosting, better design, our own text parser, etc. Yes, funding is welcome.

I have plans to offer similar subscriptions as Readability but also to offer users who create popular reading lists a percentage.

From the landing page:

You have too much to read.
Read the timely stuff right away of course, but what about the other stuff? The stuff you want to read someday, what do you do with that?

Reading it later is not good enough.
You might have "read it later" or "to read" lists strewn about the web. That's great, but what if you actually never get back to those lists? It's like you're throwing newspapers, essays, and books into a vault which you forgot you had the keys to.

Let's "unvault" all of those great articles.
Or essays. Or online manuals. Or classic books. Whatever. unVault will send you an email a day (or more if you have free time) containing one of the articles you intended to read.

Connect to your existing lists.
unVault can connect to almost any web service: Instapaper, Read It Later, Delicious, Twitter, Google Reader, etc. (Anything that has an RSS feed is okay too.)

Use unVault's bookmarklet.
Similar to other "read later" bookmarklets available, the "unVaultlet" saves an article that you want to read later. (We are working on ways to make our bookmarklet even easier than pie. Stay tuned.)

You have control.
unVault lets you control how you receive items: randomly, chronologically, size, in custom orderings that you create. If you want to receive more than one item a day, no problem. Want to take a break? You can't yet, but that feature's coming soon.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Tue, 15 Mar 2011 21:36:25 -0700 9.0 http://www.seanohagan.com/90 http://www.seanohagan.com/90 I was sitting at my desk on the second floor of my small English
language school when the earthquake struck. At first, I felt some
light shaking, nothing out of the ordinary. When it didn't stop after
a few seconds, I moved to my office's doorway, but quickly realized
that it wasn't under a supporting wall, so I moved to the main
doorway. Again the shaking didn't stop, so I decided to go outside.
All of this behaviour was probably counter to what I should have done.
I probably should have just gone under my desk and stayed there.

Once outside, I rushed to the neighbouring parking lot and tried to
position myself in a safe spot. This was difficult as there were
numerous power lines in the air surrounding and passing above me.
There were also 4-storey buildings on three sides of me and a train
line on the last.

The shaking increased in intensity and I held on to one of the short
pillars that stand near the top of each parking space. I watched as
electrical lines swayed back and forth, antennas on tops of buildings
shook rapidly, and more and more people got out of their homes and
shops. Nobody knew where the quake had occurred or how large it was,
but it felt big and it felt close.

The ground was shaking violently and the thought passed through my
head that this was IT. This was the big earthquake that the Kanto
region was predicted to get. Six years ago, a student in a city in the
west of Japan, far far from Tokyo had said to me: "Within the next 10
years, there will be a huge earthquake in Tokyo and millions will
die." Six years later, here I was, remembering those words, wondering
if what that student had said was coming true.

All of this is describing about an interval of about a minute or two.
With the ground still moving, I called my wife. She was at home in our
5th-floor apartment. The shaking must have been a lot scarier up there
than what I experienced.

Once the shaking stopped (for a bit) I ran back into my school,
grabbed my coat, ran out, jumped on my bike, and raced back home to
collect my wife. It's only a few minutes bike ride from my office to
my apartment. I ran up the 4 flights of stairs to the 5th floor into
my apartment, grabbed a few things, ran back down with my wife, and
biked to the flattest, calmest, least-urban part of our town we could
think of: the big Cemetary Park.

We bought a few drinks and some food from a 7-11 and entered the
cemetary. We found a wide area of lawn lined with trees and benches
(http://goo.gl/maps/MjT7) and finally relaxed. Old men were walking
dogs, the sun was shining, and everything seemed normal.

Shortly thereafter, we jumped to our feet and ran to the centre of
this area as we felt one of the first aftershocks. A small nearby
wooden shelter started to shake and the trees were making creaking
sounds as we held on to each other and wondered if the ground was
going to cave in. Maybe 20 seconds later, we were again sitting down,
drinking our water and eating our rice balls.

We started cancelling the day's classes. At this point, people didn't
really understand the magnitude of the problem. We and the students
both probably felt a bit reluctant cancelling but it turned out to be
for the best.

The aftershocks continued through the afternoon and evening and into
the night. We spent some time at our school but then decided to head
home. We didn't know which building would be safest. They're both a
bit old. My school is on the second floor of a 4-storey building and
my apartment is on the top floor of a 5-storey building. We finally
chose home because it would be less likely for us to be crushed by the
floors above us.

We were glued to the TV all night, finally going to bed after 4am. On
this night, the number of casualties being reported was something like
40.

I taught two classes on Saturday. Some brave middle-aged and senior
students came for their lesson. I had offered to cancel in case they
were worried about aftershocks, but I guess nobody had checked their
email. I also taught a woman who lives in Shizuoka using Skype. She
hadn't felt the earthquake at all, her town apparently being on a
different tectonic plate. Within two days, she would feel a 6.2 quake
in her area. (Luckily for her, the quake felt like a 4 in her town.)

We thought we should stock up on food and drink. This must have been a
thought shared by many others as many of the shelves were empty (milk,
bread, meat, etc.) We bought some canned food, some drinks, and
anything else we thought would be useful. At home, all doors between
rooms remained open at all times, most lights were off, our power
consumption was at a minimum, our showers were quick.

The footage of destruction caused by the tsunami was simply incredible
and horrifying. Watching enormous objects being torn out of the ground
and tossed around by the water was astounding. The few videos showing
people trying to escape the oncoming wave were heartbreaking. We
wondered why these tiny specks on the TV screen weren't sprinting
away. Perhaps they were gathering their belongings, or perhaps they
were old and frail. Whatever the case, some of them didn't move fast
enough. I wonder why they weren't warned earlier by the
earthquake/tsunami alerting system to evacuate. The previous reports
of 40 deaths had ballooned to hundreds and soon would reach a few
thousand.

My wife was scheduled to fly out of Tokyo to her hometown on a monthly
business trip on Monday. On Monday morning, we both decided (well, my
wife decided) that she would cancel her plane ticket, and that we
would rent a car and drive across the country to her hometown. I was
quite surprised that a car was available. That morning we had seen
long lines of cars waiting to fill up at the local gas stations. I
expected the roads to be really bad, but they were not. Perhaps we
were overreacting in taking off so soon. But as we heard of more and
more aftershocks and news of the worsening nuclear problem, we quickly
agreed that we had made the right decision.

We stopped for gas whenever we could. The first gas station told us
that there was a 20-litre limit. As we bought gas each time we stopped
at a service area, we rarely spent more than $20 dollars to fill up.

On our drive two earthquakes happened along our route. The first
occurred before we passed by the affected area and the second after we
passed by its affected area. After we arrived, the aforementioned
Shizuoka quake hit.

Even across the country in Tottori prefecture, some of the shelves in
the supermarkets are becoming bare. The government is warning citizens
not to overreact or to stockpile food or water. But this is probably a
difficult urge to resist. Seeing the empty shelves makes people want
to buy even more.

We are now at my wife's brother's house, watching the TV. Every hour
or so, the news is interrupted by an emergency broadcast, detailing
some new over-5 magnitude quake. We just saw reports of two such
quakes which occurred off the coast of Ibaraki and Chiba, south of the
original big quake.

We have two connections to people who were directly affected. A
coworker of one of my students was visiting her family in Sendai when
the quake occured. They are okay but their house was completely
destroyed. The grandparents of one of my young students lives close to
the Fukushima plant. Yesterday, they were being advised to stay
indoors. I hope they will be okay.

(My experience of the quake was really not at all bad. Our hearts go
out to all those who truly experienced the quake and the tsunami. We
hope they can somehow reclaim a sense of peace and normality soon.)

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:40:03 -0800 NSFC: Depressed Jesus http://www.seanohagan.com/nsfc-depressed-jesus http://www.seanohagan.com/nsfc-depressed-jesus
Yeshua

(Not safe for Christians)

What if Jesus had died another way? Bizarro cartoonist Dan Piraro has contemplated this. And so have I. Having just seen Piraro's cartoon handling the electric chair, I thought I'd post my own similar unfinished comic. It doesn't seem original now, but here it is anyway.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Wed, 26 Jan 2011 05:44:49 -0800 Homemade spring rolls! http://www.seanohagan.com/homemade-spring-rolls http://www.seanohagan.com/homemade-spring-rolls
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Sun, 09 Jan 2011 04:37:59 -0800 Homemade gyoza! http://www.seanohagan.com/homemade-gyoza http://www.seanohagan.com/homemade-gyoza Mouth is salivating.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Sat, 08 Jan 2011 19:52:00 -0800 thoughts on the appreciation of music http://www.seanohagan.com/thoughts-on-the-appreciation-of-music http://www.seanohagan.com/thoughts-on-the-appreciation-of-music
a recent morning as i woke up (i was listening to "the rite of spring" by stravinsky) i started to think about the appreciation of art, including literature, music, fine art, etc.

my parents are both english majors, and thus can appreciate shakespeare and other great writers of english both old and new. they tend to look down on pulp fiction and stick with higher literature.

however, with regards to music, it's a different story. they, like many others, tend to go for easy listening music, and avoid the great modern works, or any works that are hard on the ears.

i think "hard on the ears" in some cases, simply means "unfamiliar with". for example, i'm sure if people listen to stravinsky's aforementioned piece, they would quickly turn it off. however, it is recognized as one of the great compositions of the 20th century. if one of my parents' friends took macbeth down from their bookshelf, flipped through a few pages, and then tossed it on the coffee table saying "bah, this is incomprehensible", what would they think? they would probably feel sorry for this person; sorry that they were unable to appreciate such a wonderful piece of art.

it's the same with music. but with music, study and analysis is not really necessary for appreciation. the trick is simple: repeated listening. after a while, those very parts that were hard on the ears become the most beautiful and spine-tingling sections.

in the realm of "classical music", if one appreciates mozart, and beethoven, and some of chopin's more accessible pieces, then one has made a few baby steps into the appreciation of classical music. does mozart make you feel elated? then prokofiev or bartok will too, but probably only after "repeated listening". i think we automatically love mozart et al. because of the repeated listening "enforced" on us by society. we have all heard dozens (if not hundreds) of pieces of their music in movies, on television, in commercials, etc., by the time we are adults, hence we appreciate them almost by nature.

so, my advice is to choose some modern classical music (ignoring the oxymoron of course) and listen, listen, listen... soon, you will be loving it, perhaps more than some of your favourite pop songs. good luck!

some suggestions (all are excerpts):
prokofiev piano concerto 3: 
ravel's gaspard de la nuit: 
stravinskly's rite of spring: 

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Sat, 08 Jan 2011 04:30:53 -0800 Sanchuu http://www.seanohagan.com/sanchuu http://www.seanohagan.com/sanchuu
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Thu, 06 Jan 2011 03:35:58 -0800 Uncut mochi pizza http://www.seanohagan.com/uncut-mochi-pizza http://www.seanohagan.com/uncut-mochi-pizza
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Thu, 06 Jan 2011 03:31:53 -0800 Mochi mochi pizza http://www.seanohagan.com/mochi-mochi-pizza http://www.seanohagan.com/mochi-mochi-pizza Umai!!!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Sat, 01 Jan 2011 02:01:08 -0800 New Year's Day dinner http://www.seanohagan.com/new-years-day-dinner http://www.seanohagan.com/new-years-day-dinner
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Fri, 31 Dec 2010 19:16:23 -0800 Maple leaf carrot! http://www.seanohagan.com/maple-leaf-carrot http://www.seanohagan.com/maple-leaf-carrot
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:43:37 -0800 Half the tree still has leaves http://www.seanohagan.com/half-the-tree-still-has-leaves http://www.seanohagan.com/half-the-tree-still-has-leaves
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:36:17 -0800 Me hitting the big drum http://www.seanohagan.com/me-hitting-the-big-drum http://www.seanohagan.com/me-hitting-the-big-drum
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:34:16 -0800 Big drum at shrine http://www.seanohagan.com/big-drum-at-shrine http://www.seanohagan.com/big-drum-at-shrine
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:32:33 -0800 Warm fire near the shrine http://www.seanohagan.com/warm-fire-near-the-shrine http://www.seanohagan.com/warm-fire-near-the-shrine
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:30:56 -0800 New Year's black beans http://www.seanohagan.com/new-years-black-beans http://www.seanohagan.com/new-years-black-beans
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:29:33 -0800 New Year's soba! http://www.seanohagan.com/new-years-soba http://www.seanohagan.com/new-years-soba
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:26:06 -0800 New Year's food http://www.seanohagan.com/new-years-food http://www.seanohagan.com/new-years-food
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Fri, 10 Dec 2010 06:49:42 -0800 My first homemade tonjiru miso soup http://www.seanohagan.com/my-first-homemade-tonjiru-miso-soup http://www.seanohagan.com/my-first-homemade-tonjiru-miso-soup My wife is sick so she coached me how to make it from the bedroom. Not bad!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan Sun, 28 Nov 2010 05:07:54 -0800 Me at Fuan Bar http://www.seanohagan.com/me-at-fuan-bar http://www.seanohagan.com/me-at-fuan-bar
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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/449282/sean_sakura.jpg http://posterous.com/users/3sIVslZhyc9z Sean OHagan seanohagan Sean OHagan