January 2012
1 post
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Long overdue catchup post
aka ‘highlights of the last few months’ It’s been quite a while since I posted anything and it’s time I did. The last few months have been pretty busy so I thought I’d write some notes about the main items in one post and then we can pretend that I’m current again. I’m well aware that the sheer size of this post means it’s unlikely to be read...
September 2011
1 post
Infographic of the day - What success really looks...
via Ian Bicking via Kim Sherrell via Jason Keath Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
July 2011
4 posts
1 tag
Snake oil? Scientific evidence for health...
via informationisbeautiful.net Great graphic. I’m surprised to see Vitamins A & E so far down the list though. Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
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Snake oil? Scientific evidence for health...
via informationisbeautiful.net Great graphic. I’m surprised to see Vitamins A & E so far down the list though. Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
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My thoughts on the Seedsummit Term Sheet
A few days ago, Seedsummit released a Term Sheet intended to be (or become) standard across Europe for early stage investment. It’s been several days since the announcement and so far I haven’t seen much in-depth commentary on it (other than acknowledging its existence and how difficult it must have been to achieve consensus). That might be because the announcement seemed to come as a...
1 tag
Tech Company Org Charts - and other cool comics
via bonkersworld.net Just found this and I think it’s great. There are some other fun comics on the site too. Go check them out. Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
June 2011
3 posts
1 tag
Did Google+ Hangout just kill Skype?
Disclaimer: I still haven’t tried Hangout, not enough people in my circles yet. Skype has been great for conference calls and video calls but it’s nearly always been a hassle with more than 2 people. It’s analogous to the way in which phones work i.e great when only two people need to talk but confusing to set up if there are more. Although it’s different, Hangout...
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Solar 3d Printer. Fantastic video
via vimeo.com Wow. I’d love to know how strong those pieces actually are. Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
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On my facebook wall tonight
Ok, so I’ve been busy for the last couple of days. Last night was the CUE Grand Finale and tonight was the CUTEC conference and dinner. Both were fabulous and I guess I should write about them soon (It’s been a while since I actually posted new stuff here). Let the damage limitation begin :-P Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
May 2011
1 post
2 tags
Lego is Amazing
See the full gallery on Posterous I just spent the afternoon playing doing valuable research work with Lego. The pics above show my amazing creation but they don’t do justice to the complexity of it. I really didn’t think I’d need the instructions but I was so wrong. This was actually part of a research study that will be done with 4-5 year old children....
March 2011
3 posts
1 tag
Just found MovieBarCode. Fantastic images by...
via moviebarcode.tumblr.com The image above is from Requiem for a Dream. Apparently some of them are available as prints. Also a news story at http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-03/08/moviebarcodes-interview Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
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Life's Too Short for the Wrong Job
via honeybeeinthecity.blogspot.com Fantastic set of pics for a German ad campaign. Make sure to check out the full set. Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
Richard Stallman on Free Software and your Freedom...
Lecture at Cambridge Computer Lab on 1 March 2011 - Sponsored by Software East (@markdalgarno) [pls excuse the typos & poor grammar. I’m typing this on the fly and unlikely to edit it before posting. Caveat emptor] [edit: It was a long talk and I missed some chunks. Overall, he spoke for just over 90mins. Longer than I was expecting] Bio: Richard Stallman launched the development of...
February 2011
4 posts
Session 4: Using audience insight to drive product...
Nic Newman Story of how they got it wrong and then put it right. History: 2yrs ago, Weather site was pretty dated and had grand ambitions to update site. - Editorially led site - No product manager - No audience research plan - Drew wrong conclusions from research they did do [video] Product took over a year to get out. BBC recorded thousands of complaints. Within 2-3 months it was...
Session 3: What's your Product Mgmnt Persona?...
[Missed session 2 due to Apple Mail + Wireless fail.] Ian Lunn from Product Focus Only handful of ppl put hand up to Q of “who thinks they’re a good PM” :) Product Focus do survey on ProdMgmnt. - Ave PM has been a PM for 8.5yrs (up from 7.5yrs last yr) - 44% of time spent on firefighting and 56% on planned activities “too much time on tactical” - lack of clarity...
Session 1: Data Driven Decisions #pcampldn
Talk by Lucy from LoveFilm (@lucyjspence) Measure change through Experiments. About half the room has done some form of A/B testing before. Different changes, pages etc etc. Next thing to try is multivariate testing (MVT). Radical A/B testing. Taken to an extreme you can have different journeys (separate website, even?). Statistical significance. Important to take note of since you need a...
I'm at product camp London
Will try and write notes and post them up as I go. This could go horribly wrong. Whatever. AC Sent via mobile Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
December 2010
2 posts
Moved desks and discovered spent munitions as well...
I just moved desks from one side of the room to the other. While messing with the cabling I also cleared out a bunch of nerf bullets from under the desk. As if that’s not ominous enough, behind me is what appears to be the weapons stockpile (see pic above). I’d like to think that the New Year will bring peace, love and harmony to this part of the building but that...
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Random things I learned at school
One of the useful but slightly odd things that stuck with me from school came from one of the teachers I really didn’t like. I never thought that particular class would have any relevance to the Rest Of My Life but here I am thinking about it. That one thing was a phrase that the teacher kept repeating, week after week. Anyone from my school will know exactly who I’m talking about....
November 2010
1 post
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Why Obama got the Peace Prize (comic)
via imeveryone.com Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
October 2010
2 posts
How to discourage people from messing with your...
See the full gallery on posterous This is on @nick_wood’s desk. Yes, that’s real hair. Yes, it’s Nick’s hair. So far you can see that it works on iPads and cakes. Not sure how much my therapy* will cost but it’s going on expenses :-P * that’s therapy and a dustbuster Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
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Collective Intelligence in Human Groups (Research...
Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups Anita Williams Woolley,1,* Christopher F. Chabris,2,3 Alexander Pentland,3,4 Nada Hashmi,3,5 Thomas W. Malone3,5 Psychologists have repeatedly shown that a single statisticalfactor—often called “general intelligence”—emergesfrom the correlations among people’s performance on a wide...
September 2010
9 posts
2 tags
Fantastic Eyjafjallajökull time lapse movie
via vimeo.com Another great time lapse movie. This volcano nearly scuppered my travel plans earlier this year but somehow I completely missed this footage. Great work. (hat tip: Kim R) Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
3 tags
PhD Vivas: The Dutch do it better
See the full gallery on posterousI was at a good friend’s PhD viva a couple of weeks ago and I was impressed with the ‘pomp and circumstance’ surrounding it. Basically, the Dutch do PhD vivas/ceremonies way better than the Brits, especially given how much blood, sweat and tears are involved in getting to that stage. There were lots of photos that day but...
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This time-lapse montage will blow your mind #fb
What? Were you trying to use your brain for something right this moment? Please stop that. Stop your multitasking, your conference calling, and your SMS messaging for 2 minutes and 24 seconds, just long enough to enjoy this fantastic time-lapse montage from Mike Flores. It’s worth it. The video was shot with a Canon 5D MKII and various lenses, including the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 II, Canon...
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When girls say I love you...
When girls say stuff like “I love you, but I’m not IN love with you,” I just wanna poke her in the eye. Girl: OW! You poked my eye! Boy: No, I poked you IN the eye. And according to you, there’s a HUGE difference. (image via The Artwork of Siobhan Alcaide) Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
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Woah! Drinking tea prevents testicle shrinkage....
Wow. Random fact of the day. Apparently the recommended daily amount of Manganese is around few milligrams per day (some sites say up to a max of 11mg per day). The average cup of black tea has 0.2-0.8 mg of Manganese. Other sources of the mineral include soy, rice and beans and coffee (though I couldn’t find how much there was in coffee) Posted via email from Amir...
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I guess I'm going to have to play Starcraft 2
Had a slightly bizarre experience at lunch today. Pretty much everyone I sat with was talking about games they’d played in Starcraft II (see below). Words like fast expand, Cruisers and Zerg were being bandied about and for several minutes it felt like a different language (the terminology gets even more odd with things like cheese tactics). I mean, I speak English so I knew all the words but...
What the Facebook Phone would look like
via esarcasm.com “Not surprisingly, the phone is designed for a world in which “sharing is the social norm.” Not only will you be able to scroll through your friends list and call people by tapping a button, Facebook will also record who you called, what you said, and what you were wearing at the time. This information will only be shared with law enforcement agencies and...
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Cambridge ousts Harvard as world's best university
Although Cambridge is ranked No 1, American institutions dominated the list of best universities, taking 31 out of the top 100 places. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Getty Images Both of them have earned fistfuls of Nobel prizes, have educated enough statesmen to table a string of international summits, and inspired eminent scientists, philosophers and...
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Cooking recipes as Gantt charts. Genius!
via kangasbros.fi Fantastic idea! I used to try doing this with recipes to make cooking easier but it always felt like too much effort. If there was a way to add your own recipes and have them presented back in this format, that would be really cool. Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
August 2010
6 posts
2 tags
Paul Graham joins Twitter
He got the name @paulg and @avibryant sorted it out for him. Seems like the update hasn’t filtered everywhere yet since I found the following at http://twittercounter.com/paulg?manual_update=1 Looks like the previous owner was a Paul Gardi. I wonder if he has any idea how many followers his old handle now has (or will have soon). Posted via email from Amir...
3 tags
Base Jumping meets Free Diving (kind of)
via youtube.com Awesome video. The summary say’s it’s an artistic project and I think it came out really well. Almost makes me want to dive. Almost, but not quite. :) Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
2 tags
Gary Arndt: Things I've Learned From Traveling...
via huffingtonpost.com Fantastic write up of a three year journey around the world. I’ve heard of this guy before but never took the time to look him up. Click on the pic above to go to the main story. Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
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Maz Jobrani: Did you hear the one about the...
via youtube.com So funny. This was at TEDxGlobal in Oxford. Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
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A Periodic Table of Visualisation Methods
Upvote on HN (for those who care). Found this great table of visualisations. Below is an image but you have to visit the page at visual literacy.org and hover over the ‘elements’ to see the examples. Neat. Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
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Awesome present for a cool nephew
How cool is that! Came out even better than I’d hoped. :-D Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
July 2010
3 posts
5 tags
Easily aggregate Outlook, Google & iCal calendar...
Summary For those who don’t want to read the rest, here’s what you do. Visit the free service MashiCal & create a calendar Add each of your iCal feeds to your MashiCal calendar (adjust settings as appropriate) Copy the subscribe link (right-click and ‘copy link’ on the aggregated calendar) You now have a link to an aggregated iCal feed of your calendar! Below is the rest of the post for...
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Pics: CfEL Ignite programme - Celebration Dinner
Photos from the final dinner of the CfEL Ignite programme. At Corpus Christi College. See the full gallery on posterous Best wishes, Amir (via my mobile) Posted via email from Amir Chaudhry | Comment »
3 tags
My first 3-way
BCPA Monthly Draw – June I’m the guy in the white helmet. The above was my first attempt at a proper 3-way skydive. If you look closely it becomes obvious that I’m being dragged around. I’ve clearly got some work to do before I can keep up with these guys by myself. We did get 7 or 8 points though! About the video The BCPA is the national student body that promotes skydiving. Every month...