Everest blogs

Mount Everest has always fascinated me, ever since I read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer several years ago.  Since then I've ready many other accounts of the 1996 tragedy, and still have them if anyone wants to borrow those books.  Don't get me wrong - I have no desire to summit Everest myself.  It's way too cold, for starters.  However, I think it is still an interesting subject.  In this post, I'd like to highlight some of the blogs about the current year's expeditions, which are currently on the mountain.

First, I found this page on the blog of Alan Arnette that shows the locations of all of the teams on the mountain. Click on the map links for a better description of the routes.  National Geographic has a team on Everest, but sadly has already lost one climber.  The Mayo Clinic also has a research team on Everest, who are going to monitor a team of climbers to learn more about the human body at high altitude.

The following blogs are the ones I've found from some of the individual groups going for the summit.
Adventure Consultants
Alpine Ascents International
Kenton Cool
Eight Summits
International Mountain Guides
Mountain Trip
Chris Klinke
Sierra Mountaineering International
Peak Promotion Nepal
Summit Climb / Summit Trek

Single Dad Laughing

This week I want to highlight a blog that I've been reading for a while.  One of the posts in 2010 caught my attention and one of them a few months ago caught the world's attention.  I'm talking about Dan at Single Dad Laughing.  The blog is about Dan, a single dad, Noah, his son, and Buddha, their adorable dog.  Except... it's more than about them.  It's about life.  

The first post that caught my eye was one called "The disease called Perfection".  It explores this word "perfection" in relation to today's society and culture.  What is perfection?  Is it ok not to be perfect?  "If you actually stop to think about some of these, you will cry as I did while writing it. If you don’t, maybe you’re infected with way too much of this ”Perfection” infection."   Read it.  Then read it again.  Let me know what you think.

The second post that caught on throughout facebook and the internet is "I'm Christian, unless you're gay."  The title itself hurts a bit just reading it.  The post is about love, unconditional love for each other.  “You don’t know what it’s like, man. You don’t know what it’s like to live here and be gay. You don’t know what it’s like to have freaking nobody. You don’t know what it’s like to have your own parents hate you and try and cover up your existence. I didn’t choose this. I didn’t want this. And I’m so tired of people hating me for it. I can’t take it anymore. I just can’t.”    Once you're done reading the original post, go ahead and read these three followup posts too.  Comment with your thoughts.

If you're interested in more of Dan's stuff, here's his top posts.  

So you think you're a geek?

Hello fellow geeks and geek-friendly peoples!  Want to know more about geekiness?  Read on!

Neatorama, beyond being awesome, also has NeatoBlogs that cover all types of geek styles.  Similar to this is GeeksAreSexy which has daily deals from amazon mixed in with videos of people texting walking into bears. 

LifeHacker, while more of a news site, has been on my blog feed for a long time.  There is a lot of information but almost every article is interesting and relevant from technology to gardening.  Even more news-y is Slashdot which delves into politics along with technology and science.  Gizmodo is like Slashdot, but focuses primarily on technology and electronics.

And what geek doesn't know about Reddit?  Just brace yourself for the volume of posts. Related are Rage Comics.  Though from the cheezburger site, rage comics are frequently posted to Reddit and describe the daily trials and fails of geeks.

While all geeks know about the ThinkGeek shop where you can get chop sticks shaped like lightsabers, most don't know that they also have a ThinkGeekBlog.  Along the same lines, you may know about BoardGameGeek, but not know that they too have GamingBlogs.  Suddenly, blogs.  Lots of them!

If you're a Star Wars fan, like me, check out the official StarWarsBlog which features artists tributes as well as Disney crossovers (awww, Stitch with lightsabers!).   Last, but not least, a guy named Steve realized that there are many nerds out there who wanted to get in shape, so he named himself the rebel leader of NerdFitness.  There are workout plans related to AngryBirds and the ZombieApocalypse.

Have a great, geeky day.  And remember, as the NerdFighters say, Don't Forget To Be Awesome!

Hey bro, I heard you like charts

In the information int0rnetz age, data is everywhere and some people are going out of their way to organize it.  Even when it seems like it doesn't need organizing.

For the minimalist, there is This is Indexed, a graph on an index card.  GraphJam is from the Cheezburger family, and shows graphs with frequently humorous results.  I Love Charts gives us interesting displays such as the Pie Chart of Pies.

Further up in complexity there is Information is Beautiful which has visualizations that are informative and pretty.    Flowing Data has graphs that go into politics, NBA positions and Character Relationships in the Iliad.  The most complex is probably Graphic Detail, from the Economist.

While not an actual blog, but updated every hour, the NOAA Weather Forecast shows the graph of your local weather.