The Markos Giannopoulos Blog

Reminder, you’re always giving information to Facebook

In case you were wondering how much information you’re providing to Facebook’s advertisers, there is a page for that. To access the page, you need to bump into an ad on your feed, click the arrow icon on the top right, select “Why am I seeing this?” and then “Manage your ad preferences”. Or click [Continue reading]

YouTube adds Contacts and Private Chat features

Every app/platform in today’s world should have every feature possible so since you already have contacts/friends/connections in Facebook/Twitter/Google+/etc, you might as well have them in YouTube as well. And since you have contacts, you need to have chat, otherwise, what’s the point? So in case there was some debate about whether YouTube was a social [Continue reading]

Tracking writing goals: Scrivener + Dropbox + Beeminder

I’ve been tempted to try out Beeminder’s URLminder integration after their most recent blog post, and for added procrastinating fun time, I went out looking to make this work with Scrivener. If you’re not familiar with it, Scrivener (Mac, Windows) is a widely used application for writers, both fiction and non-fiction. I highly recommend it [Continue reading]

How to take a Multiple Intelligences assessment test

It’s quite easy actually, just answer this online list of questions :) Dr. Howard Gardner, a professor of cognition and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, developed his theory of multiple intelligences which argues that people employ several different types of intelligence, rather than one general type. Warning: this is an anonymous test, [Continue reading]

Be positive to be healthy to be positive

Positive emotions, positive social connections, and physical health influence one another in a self-sustaining upward-spiral dynamic. From a 2013 paper: The mechanisms underlying the association between positive emotions and physical health remain a mystery. We hypothesize that an upward-spiral dynamic continually reinforces the tie between positive emotions and physical health and that this spiral is [Continue reading]

A RescueTime alternative, Memory from Timely

There are plenty of software approaches to tracking who one spents time for billing and productivity (or just plain personal improvement) reasons. Memory is a new app from Timely, that aims to be an improvement over widely-used RescueTime in that it offers a better presentation of were you spent your time and that it intergrates with the [Continue reading]

Abundance is our future, some optimism required

If you’re looking for some optimism for the future, look no further than Peter Diamandis. He runs the X Prize Foundation, which offers large cash incentive prizes to inventors who can solve grand challenges like space flight, low-cost mobile medical diagnostics and oil spill cleanup. He is the chair of Singularity University, which teaches executives [Continue reading]

How to make your job easier

Copying from the Productive Living Newsletter by Get Things Done author, David Allen Get your life back to widget-cranking! Oh, for a widget-cranking job again! Ever have gigs like that, where all you did was crank widgets? Like a summer job in college? Remember how bored you were, and how psychologically healthy it was? All [Continue reading]

My first 2017 resolution: do this “8,760 Hours” thing

If you’re looking for a practical guide to do a “data dump” of your thoughts, wants and future planning, try out the 8,760 Hours: How to get the most out of next year free PDF from Alex Vermeer Contents 1) Introduction. Why plan at all? To get more out of life, to take responsibility for [Continue reading]

Apple captures top revenue spot in holiday sales for wearables

Chart and report from the The Information For all the skepticism about the Apple Watch’s prospects, the new version appears to be selling better than the first one. Apple raked in nearly half of the revenue generated online in the U.S. wearables market in the monthlong lead-up to Cyber Monday, new data shows, a big [Continue reading]

Apple is second only to Rolex in revenue from watches

The watches industry is still in denial though. From a watch-enthusiasts blog: All of this is not meant to reignite the debate, “is the Apple Watch a watch?” I am simply saying that for those interested in fine, long-lasting mechanical wrist watches, be they from Seiko or Patek Philippe, an Apple Watch with its inherently [Continue reading]

How to be like Zorba

Some food for thought: Despite continual romantic, financial, and familial disasters, he says, “Zorba can dance in the present moment, because he knows that stress— the full catastrophe— is not good or bad, but just part of the way life is. You’re in it, so how can you best relate to what’s happening, both for [Continue reading]

The importance of keeping score

It’s fun when you practice something and it turns out that there is science backing it! In this case, keeping an account of small accomplishments. “[B]y keeping score during the most important periods of challenge and growth in your life, you’ll better remember exactly what you did to get stronger—making it more likely you’ll do [Continue reading]

How to fail successfully

Nine weeks ago, a friend set out to get back into a more fit state and asked people to publicly bet against him. I ended up joining with a bet of my own. Specific goals were set on losing overall weight but also fat, along with the commitment to post regular updates. Here is the [Continue reading]

This would reduce all internet and office communication by at least 50%

This would also improve the progress of the human kind tenfold. It takes some practice (responding to shit is quite addictive, you put in a tiny effort and feel like you have accomplished something) and some self-awareness (“what do I really want to do with my life” is a quite hard question to answer). David [Continue reading]

Algorithmia uses Algorithmic Intelligence to colorise your photos

Web app of the day: Algorithmia’s auto-colorization service allows you to colorise black and white photos. The results are interesting with varying levels of success (see an example above). Colorful Image Colorization is an algorithm originally developed by Richard Zhang, Phillip Isola, Alexei A. Efros, which takes black and white pictures, and returns the image [Continue reading]

Prisma iOS app promises to add variety in your photo filters

I’m trying out the Prisma app that’s gone viral the last few days. Although we have had Photoshop filters that turn photos into “paintings” for more than two decades now, the creators of the app seem to have done a good job with their algorithms. The outputs (which the developers claim that are coming from [Continue reading]

Against motivation: 3 elements for success

There is no need to always search for motivation. Any goal will do the same job along with planning and monitoring. However, all three elements are required. Just setting a goal is not enough because it only takes a second to take the decision but there is nothing to trigger you to specific action after [Continue reading]

The Art of Letting Others Be Right

Lately, every time I get into an argument, and the distance of online communication can make this rather easy, I am reminded of an article by James Clear. Some key parts: I gather I have a long history of arguing my views, even when I’m not sure why I’m doing it. One time I was [Continue reading]

How to kill Facebook’s News Feed

Find yourself spending too much time on Facebook? Eradicate distractions by removing the news feed content. Chrome: News Feed Eradicator for Facebook Firefox: Kill FB Feed Safari: Quiest Facebook These solutions will allow you to still use messages and do posts of your own. To block Facebook (and other distracting sites) completely (or even better, [Continue reading]

Jukedeck: Royalty free music for your videos

Web app of the day: Jukedeck uses algorithms to create tunes (or even full songs if you allow a bit more flexibility on the definition of the word) based on a set of parameters of your choice (genre, “mood”, instruments, tempo and duration). The end result is a royalty free soundtrack that you can use [Continue reading]

Obama on how to achieve change

In a recent commencement address in Howard University, Barack Obama talked about his favourite topic: change. While he was talking about working to fix the issues that the US is currently facing, about the injustices that still exist, they can be viewed in a broader way. Excluding any discussion on his policies and implementations, here are [Continue reading]

Vivoactive vs Vivoactive HR: First 3 days

So as of last Friday I’m the happy owner of a Garmin Vivoactive HR (will refer to it as VAHR, shown on the left on the photo above). Already owning the original Vivoactive (VA, shown on the right of the photo) model, here are some impressions between the two. This isn’t meant to be a [Continue reading]

Focus is about saying no

Steve Jobs was asked (WWDC’97) about some of Apple’s choice at the time in cutting off features, and had this to say: “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that [Continue reading]

How to export and manage all your Kindle highlights

Web app of the day: Clippings.io (free) is a handy service allowing you to export/backup and manage your highlighted texts from your Kindle device. You can: – Browse your Kindle highlights online – Import your Kindle highlights from any device – Edit and annotate your Kindle highlights and notes – Search your Kindle highlights online [Continue reading]

Choose your colours and thresholds wisely

When creating a visualisation of data, the colour choices and classes that your assigned too can change the message you’re trying to present. In a world of fast moving readers and quick social media sharing, all that can be left from your data analysis will be a visualisation that might give the wrong message. Read [Continue reading]

Vega-Lite: producing complex visualisations with minimal amount of code

Here is an interesting visualisation library released just a few days ago from the University Washington Interactive Data Lab. Vega-Lite is a high-level visualization grammar. It provides a concise JSON syntax for supporting rapid generation of visualizations to support analysis. Vega-Lite can serve as a declarative format for describing and creating data visualizations. Vega-Lite specifications [Continue reading]

Adobe Post: Easily create social media/blog graphics on your iPhone

Adobe continues its release of free/freemium mobile apps. Adobe Post makes it easy for anyone to turn their photos and text into “beautifully designed graphics,” the company says, then share them on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. The app is easy to use, allowing you to select a single image from your [Continue reading]

Your free 2015 fitness infographic

If you’re a Strava user, VeloViewer will create a visual overview of your running and/or cycling. VeloViewer seems like an interesting service: VeloViewer Tour Notes (Restricted to 25 activities for free users. Upgrade to PRO to see your entire Strava history.) Your Activities page provides a fully filterable and sortable list of everything you’ve uploaded to Strava. [Continue reading]