“Johan Bollen, associate professor at Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing, tells me how he discovered one possible edge: he’s done research that shows you can predict stock market moves from Twitter. You can measure public sentiment and then model it. ‘Society is driven by emotions, which it’s always been difficult to measure, collectively. But there are now programmes that can read text and measure it and give us a window into those collective emotions.'” via theguardian.

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” Apple Inc. motto

What e’er
thou art,
act well
thy part.
~ Shakespeare

One of the greatest struggles in research is determining what you really want to know. If you can distill your curiosity and define a few specifics, it will be far easier to design questions that elicit the responses you are seeking.

When you make someone feel like an appointment, she/he is less likely to see you again.

Michael! Best directions evah! I found the room in record time. Thank you! #HowToGiveDirectionsToMountainClimbers

Wow. Although not as exciting in slow mo, I do enjoy analyzing the biomechanics of a stunning slam dunk.

“No matter how long you work, it’s always going to end sometime. And there’s always going to be things left undone. And it wouldn’t matter if you lived until you were seventy-five. There would still be new ideas. There would still be things that you wished you would have accomplished. You could work for several lifetimes….Part of the reason that I’m not having trouble facing the reality of death is that it’s not a limitation, in a way. It could have happened any time, and it is going to happen sometime. If you live your life according to that, death is irrelevant. Everything I’m doing right now is exactly what I want to do.” ~ Keith Haring (via @Nitch)

Thank you to the staff of Cheakamus Centre for the tour! Amazing property and programs!