Zachary Cohn's Blog of Awesome Stuff

May 20, 2013

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Seattle Startup map

A few days ago, I was working with Nick Hughes planning out the next Seattle Startup Crawl. One common bit of feedback about the last event was that the four locations were way too spread out (Queen Anne to Pioneer Square to Downtown to Cap Hill…), so we wanted to find four startups who wanted to participate, but were all pretty close to each other.

Seattle2.0 has an awesome list of Seattle based startups, but there’s no addresses or location data associated with them.

So last night I wrote a quick google apps script to scrape the Seattle20 Startup Index, run all the companies through Switchboard.com, and then export them to a Google map.

And here is the final product!

View Seattle Startup Map in a full screen map

A few interesting things to note. Of the 476 startups in the Index, Switchboard was only able to find addresses for 155 of them. Of the remaining 321 startups, some don’t exist anymore, and some just didn’t come up in Switchboard (For example, I know the Cheezburger Network exists, and I know their address, but Switchboard couldn’t find it).

So this isn’t an exhaustive map, but it’s still interesting to see. If you want your startup added to the map, fill out this Seattle Startup Map Submission Form and I’ll add you.

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Why settle for being mediocre when you could do something extraordinary?

I started programming in tenth grade. I started with a year-long Visual Basic class, then a year long AP Java class. During my senior year of high school, I worked for the National Security Agency (the FBI is who you hear breathing on the other end of the line, and the CIA is the one that topples foreign governments hostile to the USA. We’re the good guys).

One day my manager came up to me and described a fairly complex project he wanted done in Perl.

“But I don’t know Perl.”

“That’s okay. Here’s six books. (He dropped them on my desk) The rest of the O’Reilly books are on the intranet. Take as long as you need.”

3 months later, I had completed the project.

I went to Rochester Institute of Technology to study Computer Science because I really enjoyed programming. I loved problem solving, I loved being able to type some characters, then see something happen. And if I changed a few characters? I could make something completely different happen. It’s like being an architect, but you don’t have to wait years for someone else to build your skyscraper for you. But after a year or so, I realized something.

I wasn’t a particularly stellar developer.

I certainly wasn’t bad – I had a good work ethic, a good attitude, and I really enjoyed programming. I got assignments done in class and I finished a few side projects. But I was solidly in the middle of the pack. And that’s when I realized I had a decision to make.

Did I want to be a mediocre developer, or did I want to be an awesome something else?

I decided I wanted to be an awesome something else.

I started learning about business, marketing, organization, and leadership by actually DOING it through the awesome Rochester parkour community I developed in Rochester. At some point I realized I have a very unique skillset – I understand technology and I can code, but I also understand business, marketing, and how to get shit done.

I walk that line between “tech guy” and “business guy.” And that is something I am awesome at.

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Everything I Know About Finances I Learned From Starcraft

Keep your money low (There’s no point in having money if you’re not doing anything with it).

One of the biggest problems newbies in Starcraft have is when they are “floating money.” This is also referred to as having “Facebook money.” You only get to 3000 minerals and 2500 gas if you’re not spending it, and when you’re not investing your money in SOMETHING (production buildings, units, supply, upgrades, whatever!), it means you’re falling behind. Having 3000 minerals doesn’t win you matches, but if you turn that into 60 marines…

How Much Money You Have

How Much Money You Could Be Spending

Real life is like this too! Piling up money in the bank is money you’re not investing! Having some cash is good, but by converting that money into tangible assets you can make it useful.
Expand, but not when you’re spread too thin (Know when to start new projects or activities, and know when to cut back).

In any macro Starcraft game (and Real Life is all about Macro), you need to expand your base in order to increase your income and survive. But if you expand at the wrong time, it’s easy to get crushed. The timing of your expansion is based on a combination of how far into the game you are, your position relative to your opponents, and a few other factors.

Expand before you're ready and you might find yourself overwhelmed.

Real life is just like this! If you don’t expand into new projects and into new income streams, you risk getting contained and slowing your growth. But if you expand when you have too much going on, you won’t be able to keep up and you will end up in a weaker position than when you started.

Have a plan, don’t just do whatever (have goals, know when you want to accomplish them).

A good Starcraft player starts the game thinking Overlord at 10, scout, 14 pool, 15 hatch, drone to 16, get queen as soon as pool pops, then start reacting to the information you scouted. A bad Starcraft player starts the game thinking “Make some drones. I guess I should make a spawning pool. Oh crap, I’m supply blocked, better make 3 overlords. Oh damnit, it’s 6 minutes in and I forgot my queen. Oh damnit, I attacked with 10 zerglings and 6 roaches at 15:00 and he countered with 6 Thors, 30 marines and 4 medivacs. gg I guess.”

This is your path to eliminating the Zerg scourge

Real life is no different. If you wander through life without a plan, you’ll get surprised when 20 carriers and a mothership show up at your front door. But if you know that at 22, you want to be working for A Company doing B, and then in two years you want to have gotten C promotion so you can get recruited by Company D to do E for twice your old salary, and to do this you should join groups F and G and probably get published in H and I publications… then you’ve got a pretty solid plan, and you’ve got a good idea of how to get there. There will always be a hellion harass, but if you’ve got your goals and your plan you can react and adapt.
Scouting is critical (know what’s going on in the world).

A player who doesn’t scout might go mass zealot/immortal when their opponent is going mass Muta. All it would take is an observer or two to see the early lair + double spire and the Protoss player could have adapted and switched to something that can at least HIT mutalisks. In Starcraft, you’re playing with other people. If you’re going to interact with them, you need to know what they’re doing.

Scout and Gain Intelligence - any way you can!

The real world has more than just a population of you. You need to be aware of what’s going on in your city, in your industry, and in the rest of the world. Events develop, technology is released, and laws are passed that can shut you down like a dark templar rush.
Fungal is OP (all your eggs in one basket).

The Terran Marine Marauder push is a powerful force. Extremely high DPS, their units get slowed down, you can lose a few units without losing a lot of firepower. And then all the sudden, there’s green everywhere and all your units are trapped. Seconds later, more green and they’re all dead. You just got hit by Fungal Growth. Thousands of minerals down the drain in seconds.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket

This can happen in the real world, too. You’ve invested all your money in the housing industry: your tactic is flip a house and buy two more. And then it’s 2008, the housing bubble pops, and your net worth is down 90%. And it doesn’t look like the housing industry is recovering. You’ve lost tens of millions of dollars. If you had invested in the housing industry, but also a few technology startups, a local restaurant franchise, and rare metals like gold, you’d still have taken a hit, but it wouldn’t have ruined you.

Disclaimer: This is mostly tongue in cheek, not legitimate financial advice. Please don’t hate me, and please stop trying to cannon rush me as Zerg.

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Parkour Shoes and Reviews

As parkour has grown in popularity, a lot of companies have created and sold parkour shoes. A lot of people ask me what is the best shoe for parkour, so I’ve put together this guide to the most common shoes people might suggest for parkour. This is by no means an exhaustive list, these are just the most common ones that I have enough experience with to review.

One quick note: I am a big fan of minimalist shoes. There’s a lot of research out there that shows that the more padding and cushioning a shoe has, the MORE damage it does to your feet, knees, and hips. That’s out of the scope of this article though.

Full disclosure: In early 2010 I received some free Ariakes from K-Swiss. This has not influenced my review, but I wanted to be transparent.

K-Swiss Ariake

4159FxC8LyL. AA300 Parkour Shoes and Reviews

K-Swiss Ariake Parkour Shoe

Price:
Around $100

Description:
This was the first shoe created and marketed specifically for Parkour. They’re made by K-Swiss. They sent a lot of free pairs out to traceurs a few years ago to help spread the word about being a Parkour shoe. Many people wearing Ariakes got theirs for free, either directly from K-Swiss or from someone who got them from K-Swiss. They also come in lots of different (and crazy) colors, which can be a pro or a con depending on your preference. :)

Pros:
- Pretty good grip on most surfaces in most conditions.
- Pretty flexible
- Flat, solid rubber sole. There’s no dumb plastic arch or anything like that.

Cons:
-Can be very slippery on wet metal objects (rails).
-Durability. The toe will rip open, and the lacing holes will start to rip. You can still wear the shoe, but it will sustain cosmetic and eventually structural damage fairly quickly.

Overall:
Definitely not a bad shoe. I like shoes with less padding, and while this shoe has some, it doesn’t have a ton. The quality is the biggest problem – the shoe will tear itself apart after 6-8 months of moderate use, 2-4 months of heavy use. The shoe is mostly leather, so it’s a nice shoe to wear to keep your feet slightly drier.

K-Swiss Ariake Lite Mesh

kswis264915 145897 lg Parkour Shoes and Reviews

K-Swiss Ariake Lite Mesh Parkour Shoe

Price:
Around $110

Description:
The Ariake Lite Mesh came out about a year after the Ariake and solved many of the problems with the original shoe. It replaced a lot of the leather with mesh, which made the shoe lighter and breathier. They improved the durability by redesigning the toe and the lace holes so they don’t get damaged as easily.

Pros:
- All the pros from the original Ariakes
- Lighter
- Much more durable

Cons:
- Slippery when on wet metal objects.
- Since the shoe is mostly made of mesh, it will absorb water rapidly.
- Very difficult to find.

Overall:
The Ariake Lite Mesh is one of my favorite Parkour shoes. The biggest downside is that they’re very hard to find. K-Swiss doesn’t sell them directly anymore, so you’ll have to search elsewhere online or get really lucky in a store.

Fiveten Freerunner

4131DEMnV0L. SY395 Parkour Shoes and Reviews

Fiveten Freerunner Parkour Shoe

Price:
$90

Description:
I haven’t owned a pair of these shoes, and so I don’t have extensive personal experience with them. I’ve tried on other peoples’ a few times, and then read a fair bit about them.

Pros:
- The rubber is extremely grippy. 5.10 originally made climbing shoes, so this makes a lot of sense.

Cons:
- The rubber is extremely grippy. This is also a con, because this extra grippiness can and will hide problems with technique.
- When wearing them, I found them to be a bit clunky. I had a lot of trouble “feeling” the ground under my feet, which makes me very uncomfortable. The padding was just too thick.

Overall:
- I’m not a big fan of these shoes (which is why I don’t own a pair). I don’t like the fact the thickness of them, and I think the extreme grip is actually a detriment to someone learning parkour. If I was in a wallrun contest, then I’d wear these parkour shoes, but if I’m just training I’d prefer something more normal.

Feiyue

Feiyue Parkour Shoe

Price:
$15

Description:
These are really interesting shoes. They weren’t created for parkour or ever marketed toward traceurs. These are originally martial arts shoes, and are often found in China Towns and martial arts stores. They have a cloth top, a thin, extremely flexible, and pretty grippy bottom, and they have simple laces. The most outstanding part of this shoe is it’s price – between $10 and $20. They only last 3 or 4 months, but they cost a fraction of the price of any of the other speciality parkour shoes. Many people buy 5 pairs of Feiyue’s at a time!

Pros:
- Extremely inexpensive.
- Very flexible.
- Very lightweight.
- Very little padding.

Cons:
- You’ll wear through the bottoms of them pretty fast.

Overall:
I love these shoes. They’re comfortable, flexible, light, and extremely cheap. Buy a couple pairs and be set for a year.

Vibram Five Fingers

81fQkNGeNoL. SL1500 Parkour Shoes and Reviews

Vibram Five Finger Parkour Shoes

Price:
Around $75

Description:
I love these shoes. I don’t have a pair yet, but they’re going to be my next shoe purchase. The ultimate minimalist shoe, there is essentially no padding, pretty good grip on most surfaces, and forces you to have perfect technique (in running and walking as well as parkour!)

Pros:
- Extremely minimal padding. Expect your landing technique to improve dramatically.
- As long as you get the right size, expect a very snug fit. They shouldn’t be going anywhere!
- Paying a premium actually makes sense for these foot-fitting shoes, as opposed to other shoes that are basically just shells for your feet.
- Will force you to improve landing and precision technique.
- Will improve running technique, which can prevent or fix some foot, ankle, knee, and hip problems.

Cons:
- Can be dangerous if you don’t take it slow. It’s imperative you avoid big drops and precisions, at least until you build back up to them.
- Very little protection if something gets dropped on your foot or if you stub your toe.

Overall:
The Vibram Five Fingers are really great Parkour shoes. Some people like to “go big” and do big drops – I discourage this because it leads to a higher rate of injuries. If you want to go big, these will not be good shoes for you. If you want to improve your technique, if you want to train and prevent long term injuries, these will be great shoes for you. You’ll pay around the same price as other high end shoes, but these are definitely worth it.

Conclusion
For the dedicated traceur with no budget, I’d recommend the Vibram Five Fingers. If you don’t want to spend that much, but still want a great minimalist shoe, I’d definitely look into (a few pairs of) the Feiyues. If you aren’t interested in a minimalist shoe, the Ariake Lite Mesh and then the regular Ariake would be my recommendation.

That being said, if you’re just getting into parkour, you should ignore everything in this article for a few months. Head over to a general clothing store, find a pair of cheap $35 cross trainers and use those for a while. Technique is 90% of parkour, owning “the right shoes” is only going to get you a bit farther, and until then it’ll just mask problems with your technique.

Things to look for in a cheap crosstrainer:
- No plastic arch on the bottom.
- Bottom isn’t slick. If you have to, put your foot in the shoe and rub it against a few surfaces to get an idea of how grippy it is.
- Not too much padding or cushioning.

Now get out there and start training! :)

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On Meeting People from “The Internets” and Networking

My name is Zachary Cohn, and I’ve met a lot of people from the Internet. Most recently I met my doppelganger, Zachary Cohen.

The Internet is a Series of Tubes

Meeting people from the Internet is not a big deal to me anymore, although other people still freak out when I mention it. There have been three primary circles I’ve met people from: Massassi, Parkour, and The Rest of the Internet. The first two really helped me be comfortable with the last one.

Massassi.net started in 1997 and was dedicated to editing and modding a Star Wars game called Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight. The game is now 14 years old, and except for the occasional game for “old times sake” no one has played in five years. But everyone was such good friends and the community was so tight that most people have stayed around. I found Massassi in 2001, and have checked it daily since.

The first person I met from the Internet was through Massassi, and was probably Gebhoq. I found out he lived about 20 minutes away, so we saw a play and grabbed lunch together. After that, I visited Rochester Institute of Technology, where I was going to go to school. There were six people from Massassi that, by chance, all ended up there, so we met up and they showed me around. I’ve met a bunch more people from Massassi, but I had talked daily with most of them for years, so it was more like reuniting with a long-time friend.

The next circle of internet meetings is through Parkour. When I first started training, there was no one experienced in my area. I saw on some local parkour forums that a bunch of people meeting up to train in Washington DC, so I drove down to meet them. I showed up in this park to find a dozen teenage boys, mostly shirtless, jumping, climbing, and flipping around. I was a bit nervous at first – I didn’t even know most of their handles, let alone names or anything about them. Five minutes after introducing myself, I felt we’d known each other for years. Since that first parkour jam, I’ve been great friends with Leonn, Psychosis, Doc_Ahk, Kipup, and RPG.

David Belle 150x150 On Meeting People from “The Internets” and Networking

David Belle - Parkour

After that I was 100% comfortable meeting traceurs (people who train parkour) in person, to the point where I traveled for 8 weeks to 21 different cities one summer, and never spent a dime on housing – I just crashed on couches the entire time. I’d post up on the parkour forums for some city I’ve never been to, say I’m passing through, and I’d have people fighting over who would host me. My favorite meeting was stepping off a Greyhound Bus in Minneapolis at 4:15am, stumbling onto the street and looking at this guy standing by a car. I walk up and he says sleepily, “Happydud?” (My online handle for a while), I respond back just as sleepily “Krat0r?” Then we decide to go back to his place, sleep for another six hours, then formally introduce ourselves later that morning.

After meeting Massassians and spending weeks with people through Parkour, I’ve come to fully internalize the idea that strangers from the internet are no different then strangers in your neighborhood. A few weeks ago after a typo’d tweet, I was introduced to @ZacharyCohen (My handle is @ZacharyCohn). He had the middle name I’ve always wanted (Adam, so his initials spell his name – Z.A.C.). He’s interested in a lot of the same things I’m interested in, and he lived in NYC. Conveniently enough, I had an overnight layover in NYC coming up! So last night I showed up at New York Penn Station and went to my doppelganger’s condo. He opened the door and said “Hello, Zac!” I replied “Hello, Zac!” and it was like we were best friends. We hung out for a few hours, talked a lot, and there wasn’t a single awkward “you’re a stranger from the internet” type moment.

social networking image1 150x150 On Meeting People from “The Internets” and Networking

Networking - It's Dumb

People make a big deal about “networking.” Going to events, meeting people, exchanging business cards, etc. I hate networking. The word leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It feels so fake – like most people want to talk with you long enough to pitch you on what they do, give you a business card hoping you’ll need to call them one day, and then they move on to the next person (Not saying all networking events or all people who go to them are like this, but it’s undeniably the norm).

Instead of networking, I want to make friends. I want to find people who are legitimately interesting to me, and legitimately interested in me. I want to talk to them about WHY they do what they do, what they do when they’re not at their job, what books they’ve read, what they think about the Civil War or China’s concern for the environment or anything. I don’t want to end the conversation with “give me a call, maybe we can help each other out.” I want to end it with “Continue our conversation over lunch next week?”

When I meet people from the internet in person, I guess technically it’s “networking.” But if I thought of it that way, I doubt I’d have half the friends I have today.

Stop networking. Start making friends.

DISCLAIMER: While I’ve had nothing but good experiences with meeting people, there is always the chance you could meet someone with less than honest intentions. Between my decade of martial arts, five years of parkour, and experience meeting people, I am pretty comfortable in these situations. But I am still very aware of potential threats. In the words of Han Solo, “Don’t get cocky.” Be safe.

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Tunnel Under the (NYTimes) Paywall

On Monday, the New York Times’ paywall went live, preventing readers from reading more than 20 articles a month. There are some unusual quarks to this paywall though, such as visitors who click through a Twitter link bypass the paywall. Now, I’m all for the Newspaper industry trying to make money, but this is such a silly way to do it… So I decided to demonstrate how easy it is to “tunnel under” the paywall.

My original idea was to create a Twitter account (@TunnelUnderWall) and stream every New York Times article through Twitter but I found out someone already did this, so I figured I’d turn this into a “How To Build Your Own Free New York Times Newsfeed” post and show how to make personalized ones just for you.

Step 1:
Head to the New York Times website and scroll all the way to the bottom. Click on the “RSS” link.