Jonah Lehrer discusses the results of a new study that confirms what Thoreau already knew: Spending time in nature is good for the brain. I think the study is interesting, but I’m not alone in having already been a believer before there was scientific proof - just based on personal anecdotal evidence.

I’ve found that a weekend out of the city, whether it’s camping in Canada, car camping at a state park, or just visiting my parents in the country does a lot to recharge me. It helps me to put things back into perspective. Aside from sleeping enough, I think it’s one of the most important things that keeps me sane.

While I’m on the subject of what’s good for the brain, don’t forget how important play can be for the brain and for keeping your creativity alive.

I use a lot of key commands daily and most of them have been committed to muscle memory where I just think about what I want to do and I don’t think about how to do it. I use cmd-tab and cmd-~ to change applications and windows. In text editors, I’m always using ctrl or cmd with the arrow keys to jump across words and lines of text. In TextMate I use cmd-T to open files, and I use ctrl-opt-V for pasting from JumpCut. In GMail and Google Reader I use j, k, y, [, and ] to navigate (1) through my messages and rss feeds. Amazingly (to me) I seldom confuse these different commands across different applications because their meaning is tied (in my mind, apparently) to specific contexts.

But today, I experienced some bleed-over.

I was just looking at The short - but eventful - life of Ike on The Big Picture and I tried to use j to move to the next picture, rather than scrolling with my mouse wheel. And when it didn’t advance to the next picture, I tapped it a couple more times before realizing that it wasn’t going to help. I think it would be a good feature to add, but for the most part, I just thought it was funny that I kept trying to advance to the next picture without actually thinking about what I was doing.

(1) - GMail & Reader: j = next; k = previous; GMail only: y = archive, [ = archive and move to previous message, ] = archive and move to next message

The Plastic Logic Reader looks like an amazing device. I’m excited to see one in person. I’ve already heard people bandying about the term “Kindle killer.” To me that seems a pretty bold assertion.

The device itself looks like it could definitely be better than the Kindle - mainly in its use of full-device touch screen. However, if you do much input, the real keyboard of the Kindle might be better (but if it’s truly a “reading” device, the keyboard wouldn’t be used much at all).

I hope the Plastic Logic Reader has wifi, as I’ve mentioned before about the Kindle. To be a “Kindle killer” in the consumer marketplace, however, Plastic Logic will need to be able to get books and documents on the device wirelessly. As easy as it may be, people won’t want to plug this device (or any device) into their computer if they don’t need to.

Personally, even as incredible as the device looks, for me to choose it over the Kindle 2.0 (where are you, by the way?), it will need wifi, a browser, and an easy way to get documents onto the device. Count me still hopeful.

Jesse alerted me to engadget rumors about the Kindle 2.0 coming out. Needless to say, I’m excited. To start with, a price of $249 would be much easier to justify.

Looking back at the questions (and complaints) I had about the first generation reader, my biggest hope for 2.0 is wifi. In addition to reading books, I would definitely use the device to read online content. Because of that, I would like the ability to browse the web at home over wifi, rather than EVDO.

In talking about what I’m hoping for, it’s easy to skip over what Amazon has already done right. First, even though I really want wifi access, EVDO is a brilliant idea. Being able to get a book wirelessly any time you want is genius. The readability of text on the device (even over longer periods of time) is great. Since it’s not back-lit, it doesn’t tire the eyes. This is based on online reviews as well as those of friends, rather than the little I’ve actually used the device. I really like the device in theory, I just need a little more (like wifi) before I run out to buy one.

Finally, BusinessWeek quotes a source as saying “They’ve jumped from Generation One to Generation Four or Five. It just looks better, and feels better.” If I were the product manager, at least one of those generations would have wifi, so I’m hopeful.

Bex Huff says that work-life balance is nearly impossible for good computer geeks. I couldn’t disagree more.

There’s a distinction between creative work that people do for “work” and what they do outside of work. Work/life balance for computer geeks, knowledge workers, or artists has nothing to do with not being creative or solving problems. It’s about giving your brain a break from the same, constant grind and giving yourself time to think and be refreshed.

Like Bex, as a programmer and computer geek, when I go home, I still talk about and think about technology. But that doesn’t mean that I’m still “working.” I may be solving similar types of problems, but I get a lot of relaxation and enjoyment from not working on the same exact problems. Outside of work, I do iPhone development, personal Grails and Groovy projects, AppleScript, play with bayesian algorithms in perl, tinker with embedded linux, spend time with my family, and more. Those are all geeky technology things. But that’s my point - that’s still work/life balance because it gives me a break.

Finally, Bex quotes Isaac Schlueter as saying “An artist doesn’t stop being an artist when he goes home.” It’s true, but that artist doesn’t always work on the same projects when he gets there.

When I initially ran across the Simile Timeline project, I was pretty impressed, both by the power and flexibility of the framework and also by how well it works. What’s more, it’s really simple to use and the site has a good tutorial for creating your own timeline.

After seeing the example timeline of the JFK assassination, I was inspired to create a timeline of my own. My first thought was to create a timeline displaying wars that the US has been in - mostly because I was really curious about how that would look: war-time vs. peace-time, etc. However, for a couple years now, that project never really got off the ground (mostly out of general laziness on my part) … until now.

To show it off, we’ve also created a playground at play.refactr.com, so that we have a sandbox to try out new frameworks or ideas - and share our experiences along the way.

I used data taken from the wikipedia entry US Wars to create the timeline. Right now, I have two separate timelines using the same data. The first timeline is just a straight-forward representation of the data. The second timeline uses the same data, but utilizes the framework’s zooming ability to warp specific periods of time. In this second case, I chose to compress the boring peaceful non-war years of US history, so we can scroll right to the interesting parts of the timeline.

The data that I’ve captured from the various wikipedia entries is pretty sparse - it’s by no means exhaustive or even representative. I just tried to grab a couple major highlights of each war to show off the timeline framework and more should obviously be added. I’m also working up another example, so stay tuned for more timeline goodness.

In a rare moment of downtime, I am able to live blog from this session about WordPress as a CMS. I was very happy with the panel discussion (that could have rune for 4 hours) about the State of the State of Technology in Minnesota. I was able to get in on the tail end of a discussion with Luke Francl and Robert Stephens of GeekSquad fame. He had some great ideas for next year’s event and some ways to really move the Minnesota tech scene forward.

The Refactr offices are humming as of late with activity on several fronts. In addition to our client-based software development work, we have been toiling away, putting the last few touches on our first product*, an agile project tracking app we are debuting this Saturday at Minnesota’s very own barcamp, (un)conference, minnēbar.

We are also busy getting our thoughts together for the various panels and sessions we are a part of this weekend. If you ever wanted to hear Scott, Jesse, or I discuss some of our favorite technology and design topics, you could either by us a beer just about any night of the week, or catch us at this year’s minnēbar.

Jesse is presenting a session on developing applications for the iPhone. Scott is leading a session on metaprogramming using Groovy as well as participating on a panel discussion about some of the trials and tribulations of agile development. And I am going to be doing a talk on getting big things done with small teams, participating in a panel with other “design coders“, and moderating a panel discussion about the state of technology here in Minnesota.

If you have yet to sign up for minnēbar, I suggest you get on it and add your name to the wiki (the super-secret passcode is ‘c4mp’). It is going to be off the hook.

* Drop by on of the Lightning Demo sessions for a 5-minute run-through of our new web-based project tracking software and get in on the public beta action. If you can’t make it to minnēbar drop us a note to let us know of your interest.

If you are interested in learning about Groovy and Grails and would like to see the new Refactr offices, tonight at 6pm is your opportunity to do both.

Robert Fischer has offered to present on Spring Builder and Hamlet D’Arcy has been playing around with the JSecurity plugin to Grails and can show that off.

Come on by. Our address is 11 NE 4th Street in Minneapolis (suite 300).

This is a great idea: DHS is paying to scan open source software for security bugs and then fix the bugs.