I must have more and more Starbucks coffee!!!! I used to think starbucks was the 2nd worst coffee in the world. Now I must reorder the worst coffees in the world 1) Navy coffee 2) Sam's Club Coffee 3) Starbucks coffee

"In hopes of recapturing the "bigger is always better" spirit of the previous decade, Starbucks has reportedly been test-marketing a new cup size that allows customers to guzzle 32 ounces of its iced beverages in one fell swoop. Called the "Trenta," it could provide the caffeine-needy with more than enough caffeine to power through their increasingly stressful days, or at least an hour or two of them." from The Coffee Wars Will Not End Until America Is A Shaking Heap Of Overstimulation | The Awl

"UCI's Donald Patterson discusses the good and bad, current role and future of social media"

The Orange County Register
#1. “To shut off my mobile social media when I am with the people I care about. I want to experience my life without worrying about what I’m going to say about it.” – Don Patterson, quub.com

"Q. What will be the social media surprise of 2010?"

"A. Growing number of things which aren’t strictly people on your buddy lists. Suddenly I think we will see people friending their laundromat to see when machines are available, the roads they use to watch traffic, and groups of their friends at once. The latter will be interesting because you will only see updates when all of your friends agree.” – Don Patterson, quub.com

The rest of the article is here

The dark side of social networking - OCRegister.com

"Here’s some advice from Dr. Donald Patterson — director of the Laboratory for Ubiquitous Computing and Interaction at UCI and the CTO of quub.com, a social networking site — about pondering the dark side of social networking."

"Consider how the software will use your location and whether or not you are making yourself vulnerable by letting people know where you are — or where you aren’t — before giving software permission to use your location information."

Just to reiterate USAA is totally beawesome. I just used my iPhone to deposit a check. Someone wrote me a check then I used USAA's app to take a photo of the check. The app uploaded it and credited it to my account in about 10 seconds. It worked better than the system they have for depositing checks using a scanner. After the process finished, I tore up the check. Makes the check itself seem almost silly.

Okay, so I don't get out much, but last night I was at South Coast Plaza and stumbled across this iPod vending machine. I had heard that such things existed before, but I didn't think I would run into one unless I was in an alley in Japan. It turns out that there is one in Macy's.

It is iPod branded, but has Sony and other other company products in it also. There is one screen in the upper left with marketing videos running in a loop and a touch screen on the right for picking your gadget.

There was clearly a security concern as there was a special video camera watching it and it was in the middle of a Macy's, not in an alley in Japan.

So now, if it is too much trouble to get your iPod from the Apple Store 50 feet away, you can use the vending machine instead.

While poking about on the internets tonight I discovered a new word, "Gastropub". My Father's Office is a gastropub. The Crow Bar is a gastropub. All the cool hang-outs are now gastropubs

The Dictionary thing on my computer clues me in:

"gastropub |ˈgastrəˌpəb|
noun Brit.
a pub that specializes in serving high-quality food. ORIGIN 1990s: blend of gastronomy and pub."

You learn a little something every day.

I predict white wall bike tires are going to be cool very soon.

Someone at CalTech looked at correlations between the most popular books at various colleges (according to Facebook) and then looked at the average SAT score at that college to see which books are correlated with high SATs and which books are correlated with low SATs . The high SAT books are on the left. The low SAT books are on the right. The results are from here.

The UC Irvine Office of Institutional Research released an interesting statistical portrait of UCI on 9/24/2007. Here is one of the highlight graphs which compares the number of undergraduate applicants vs. undergraduate admissions. The drastic increase in applicants is probably a combination of effects: high school students are applying to more schools and UCI is increasing in stature.

I got to see Richard Stallman speak today at UCI. He is the founder of the free software movement (FSF) which has completely changed the landscape of software programming. In my opinion his work on the GPL has caused the computer software ecosystem to advance by leaps and bounds. It is at the expense of people being able to make money off of writing software, but has created an industry in software support services.

Stallman comes across like a quintessential computer programmer. Crazy facial hair and all. His presentation reminds me about how fine the line is between homelessness and brilliance.

The biggest takeaway point that I got from his speech was the observation that software patents are only hurting small software developers. Small software developers may patent their work, but they cannot go after say, an IBM, for using their patent because IBM will turn around and sue the small software developer for one of any of tens of thousands of patents which cover parts of what the small software developer is doing. So the small developer is forced to sign a cross-license agreement which gives IBM the ability to compete with the exact same technology. So in effect the patent system has actually served to create a paperwork drill which ends up invalidating the threat of software patents, but only for the large companies which hold patents.

This was just another great opportunity that I've had in the last two years. It's curious that going to Cornell I got to be exposed to lots of political leaders. In contrast being at UCI has allowed me to be exposed to lots of technological leaders: Bruce Sterling, Cory Doctorow, and now Richard Stallman. It is another good day to be a professor in Southern California.

Cory Doctorow, known for many things but notably an author on boingboing.net, spoke here at UCI today. No one had any questions for him, so I spoke up and got to have a decent dialog with him about Net Neutrality.

Cory clearly is for net neutrality which, in a nutshell, means that all packets are delivered with equal effort by the people who control the internet (ISPs and communications companies like AT&T, QWest, etc.) without regard for their origin, their destination or their content.

This movie, Amazing Grace, looks awesome. It's the true story of the events surrounding the abolition of slavery in England. It draws on the life stories of John Newton the slave trader who penned the song, "Amazing Grace", and William Wilberforce the abolitionist politician who pushed to outlaw the slave trade in England. For all the mistakes Christians have made in history, this is a story about which we should be very very proud.

What's really cool is that it doesn't end with the story. The movie is promoting a movement called "The Amazing Change" campaign which aims to eradicate slavery in the modern world. One of the many things Christians should be all over.

I've been a customer of TD Waterhouse then TD Ameritrade for several years. In that time I grew increasingly unhappy with their services. There were tons of nickel-and-dime-you-to-death fees and assorted issues getting things to work right. Not everything was bad. They had good support for online trading. Oh, except for that day when I couldn't log in. That was the moment when I realized that I needed to change brokerages. Not being able to trade on a moment's notice is really bad in today's world. I even heard a news report that said that the electronic exchanges now view 10 seconds as too much delay in one's ability to act on information.

So, I am switching all my services to USAA, which I've blogged about before. They do a good job at almost everything they do.

In a bizarre attempt to make me a happy customer once again, TD Ameritrade just sent me a combination flashlight and multi-way screwdriver kit. This is very confusing to me. Maybe it's a metaphor and I'm supposed to fix the login problems with their website, because that's what would make me a happy customer again.

What better way to await the arrival of one's offspring than by watching a zombie comedy? We saw "Shaun of the Dead" last weekend. I really thought it was great. Most of the pregnant people in the room were grossed out. Basic premise: British slacker and friends fight off zombie hordes.

Although most of the time the Focus on the Family's public face bothers me, they have a really good movie review site called, "Plugged In Online", which in the review of the movie makes the following comments:

"In the end, though, Shuan isn’t really about zombies. It doesn’t reveal how the zombie infestation started, and it doesn’t offer any sci-fi fixes to the problem. Instead, the story is always about Shaun’s struggle to be more than a zombie himself. Writer/star Simon Pegg told moviecitynews.com, 'In our film, if they're anything, [the zombies] stand in for apathy, and urban living, and becoming ... an anonymous automaton in a collective, where you don't have any identity.”"

Mars Hill also has a good film and theology deconstruction of the movie, here.

Aaahhh... Pat Robertson. I have a soft spot in my blog heart for ridiculing everything P.R. does. (See here).

In this, his latest stunt on CNN, Pat warns us of a terrorist attack in late 2007 that will kill lots of people. Yawn, it's a scary possibility, but hardly that big of a revelation and honestly, that's like saying there is going to be a tornado which hits a trailer park this year.

More importantly are the following interesting tidbits from the article:

"In 2005, Robertson predicted that Bush would have victory after victory in his second term. He said Social Security reform proposals would be approved and Bush would nominate conservative judges to federal courts.

Lawmakers confirmed Bush's 2005 nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. But the president's Social Security initiative was stalled.

'I have a relatively good track record,' he said. 'Sometimes I miss.' "

Fact of the day: 2.6% of the homes for sale near us are affordable by people who make the median income. Median income is $78K! More info on CNN.

Learn how to control your roomba with the accelerometers in a Mac.

Click on image for link to video tutorial.

Click on the image on the left for a great 90-second Flash-based infographic about who has conquered the Middle East over the last 5000 years. In particular it puts the rhetoric about Christian Crusaders into perspective.

Let's review: I live in Orange County. I am therefore obsessed with real estate. I did not buy a house a year ago because the real estate agents were talking crazy talk. Now I am vindicated. Thank Jesus I didn't jump into the fray.

More info from infographic at CNN by clicking on the image on the left.

Check out the last drink on the Algonquin Hotel's signature bar menu

You either want this badly, or you don't have children:

" The Babykeeper by Mommysentials, LLC :: Infant carrier style seat for Moms on the go

The BabykeeperTM is a patent pending infant carrier style seat, that hangs from the stall wall in most public restrooms, and can also be used in many public fitting rooms."

And for the record "Dad's on the go", so to speak, need one too.

It smells like smoke all over Irvine this morning. It reminded me of commuting in Japan this morning. The sunset was beautiful as a result. Click on the image on the left for the CNN photo gallery of firefighting photos.

Coming soon to a blog near you... Google announces that they are going to start running video ads in their banners. (Like the one on the side here). Unlike other ads, though, users have to start them. Video ads for the masses, at last.

From UK retailer Selfridges & Co. comes this very expensive sandwich, which I would be happy to eat for you.

"This sandwich has been created to offer a truly gourmet experience. Each sandwich contains rare Wagyu beef, the finest fresh duck foie gras, black truffle mayonnaise, brie de meaux, rocket, red pepper and mustard confit with English plum tomatoes in a sour dough bread."

"An early Christian manuscript, including the only known text of what is known as the Gospel of Judas, has surfaced after 1,700 years. The text gives new insights into the relationship of Jesus and the disciple who betrayed him, scholars reported today. In this version, Jesus asked Judas, as a close friend, to sell him out to the authorities, telling Judas he will "exceed" the other disciples by doing so."

From: 'Gospel of Judas' Surfaces After 1,700 Years - New York Times

Is this a big deal? I guess it's news from the perspective that it does suggest that there was, as there is now, a diversity of faith in 300AD. That sort of explodes the nostalgic thinking that the "olden days were better," which permeates a lot of our modern American (and Christian) thinking (the 1950's ideal for example or the "early church" ideal).

Orange County has the third highest number of millionaires in the U.S.. We are beaten by our neighbors to the north in Los Angeles County and are being threatened by number 5 - San Diego County. No wonder houses cost so much.

Soure:
Report: Number of U.S. millionaires reaches record - Mar. 28, 2006

Roma-Victor is apparently a historical-fiction game that puts players into Rome around 180AD. It is a MMORPG like World of Warcraft. These games have a social component which makes them more fun than old-school RPGs. However, social is good and social is bad and now, when people engage in anti-social behavior, Roma-Victor will crucify them.

ROMA VICTOR:: Home of the historically authentic Roman Empire MMORPG: Crucifixion is to be used as a form of player 'ban' within the virtual world of Roma Victor, with the length of the ban reflecting the severity of the punishment. For cheating by exploiting a bug and advancing his or her character's skills unfairly, for example, a player might typically receive a seven-day ban; multiple or more serious offences will result in a longer (or even permanent) ban.

The most famous crucifixation was that of Jesus Christ. He was killed through a complicated political process which started with him offending the religious leaders at the time by claiming to be the Son of God. This was then presented to the ruling Romans who didn't find anything criminal about such a claim, but through a strange cultural process he traded sentences with a murderer and was then crucified - reflecting the greater purpose which his crucifixion served, that of trading sentences with those who ask to.

I hope that the focus on crucifixion causes players to think about what social ill Jesus committed, because there wasn't one. In fact, among the many things his crucifixtion accomplished, was exposing worthless and corrupt spiritual leadership. It would be kind of cool if your character in the game could get politically manipulated into a crucifixtion for speaking the truth.

"Gawker Media has put up a Google Map that shows the realtime locations of celebrities in New York City. The Google Maps mashup is called Gawker Stalker. Users can email their sightings to a gawker address and those tips are then mapped out for other users to follow. Some are calling it the killer celeb tracking app, while others (A PR Agent was interviewed on BBC World) say that it pushes the personal privacy envelope."

Gawker Stalker
News from: Google Maps Mania

DailyOlive.com: Got $1,000? Why Not Try a Golden Opulence Sundae?

"5 scoops of the richest Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream infused with Madagascar vanilla and covered in 23K edible gold leaf, the sundae is drizzled with the world's most expensive chocolate, Amedei Porceleana, and covered with chunks of rare Chuao chocolate, which is from cocoa beans harvested by the Caribbean Sea on Venezuela's coast. The masterpiece is suffused with exotic candied fruits from Paris, gold dragets, truffles and Marzipan Cherries. It is topped with a tiny glass bowl of Grand Passion Caviar, an exclusive dessert caviar, made of salt-free American Golden caviar, known for its sparkling golden color. It's sweetened and infused with fresh passion fruit, orange and Armagnac. The sundae is served in a baccarat Harcourt crystal goblet with an 18K gold spoon to partake in the indulgence -served with a petite mother of pearl spoon and topped with a gilded sugar flower by Ron Ben-Israel."

When will the madness end? Google has started to fill the unsold space in the Chicago Sun-Times with their own ad content. There is no apparent monetization of this for them yet, but it's clear that this is huge! Google is moving into real world advertising. ClearChannel better get ready to fight.

Source:
Sun-Times nets Google ad deal | Crain's Chicago Business

Now, in the Sun-Times, Google is running ads in proximity to relevant content. On Dec. 12, for instance, Google ads touting ticket brokers, White Sox apparel and Chicago Bears memorabilia ran in the Sports section.

This is entirely speculation, but it is curiously close to reality and too juicy not to mention. Rumors are flying on the internets that Google is considering launching their own home-PC box of some sort. The most interesting part of the rumor is that they are replacing Microsoft OS with their own. It will probably leverage all the Google tools that are available online and become the home-media center, because what good is a rumor like this that doesn't center on a "home media center".

The source of this rumor appears to be a predictions for 2006 article (which used to be) located ( "http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-predict1jan01,0,3503327.story")here, in the LA Times. It is far from confirmed, but dangerously believable.

I was in the grocery store the other day and saw a confusing new roll-out of a bazillion new types of "diet" Coke. Including Diet Coke (classic with nutrasweet), New Coke Zero (with nutrasweet and something else - and a new flavor), New Diet Coke with Splenda (instead of Nutrasweet), Diet Coke with Lemon, Diet Coke with Lime, Diet Caffeine Free Coke, Diet Vanilla Coke, Diet Cherry Coke. What is the world coming too - wheeze - wheeze.

Just don't forget the ad-itude:

"Diet Coke is my style. Diet Coke is my sass, it's doing what makes me happy. Diet Coke is the perfect drink to accompany my strong sense of self. So flirt, laugh, prance, dance, wiggle, giggle - do what feels good. With Diet Coke close at hand, who knows what kind of scenario I might get into!"

I'm so crazy with my Diet Coke.

Seatac airport here in Seattle, just instituted this totally cool parking lot. It is called the "Cell-Phone Waiting Lot" The idea is that you go and park in this parking lot while you wait for the person who you are picking up to call you on their cell-phone. Then you zip over to "Arrivals" and pick them up.

This is great because it gets rid of people endlessly circling around the airport loop while they wait for the late plane to show up. It also reduces the burden on the cops who are always yelling at you to move your car. It also increases security by lowering traffic volumes. It gives me a place to park that isn't too far away while I wait for the phone call (In the past I hung out suspiciously in the Denny's parking lot). Anyway, it's not often that things like this get better. Here is an example of a transit thing that did get better.

Here's a link to a cheese-ball parody of star wars called Grocery Store Wars. Its a viral video produced by an organic food association to draw attention to the benefits of organic food. Even though it has a hidden agenda it has some very funny puns. "Obi-Wan Cannolli" for example. (Thanks Nate)

Click on the image on the left to see a cool slideshow of laptops that have transparent screens. They aren't really transparent, but the photographers did a funny trick where they set the background of their computer desktop as an image of the area behind the screen.

The website is called Flickr and it's the hottest thing in photo sharing right now. Basically every photo gets tagged with some phrase and you can search for all the photos in the entire repository with that tag. It enables lots of cool automated tools.

Can't find a decent cup of non-corporate coffee? Try searching the Starbucks Delocator for an indy coffee house near you!

Giant Computer Key Seat

"This unique stool is a great low-tech item for any computer geek. Insert this eye-catching seat in the dorm, game room or even an internet café . The contoured shape holds your backspace just like your finger rests in a key."

This is an awesome selection of the Office Space movie soundtracked synced to classic Justice League of America clips. Office Space is rated "R" for a reason, so be forewarned. Nonetheless, I think its funny.

So I just want to go on the record saying that I think that the new cool neighborhood in Seattle is becoming "Blakeley Alley" (that's my name for it). This is the area just north of University Village Mall and East of the U-District. Here is a map

It's hard to describe what makes it cool, but here goes: It is a collection of funky, independent shops like the phenomenally good University Zoka coffee shop. It is close enough to U-Village to get the benefits of having the chain retails stores, but without having to participate in the homogenization of the outdoor mall culture. There isn't a ton there yet, but there is space to grow. But on top of that, these really cool software start-ups are emerging in the area, like Omni which makes OmniGraffle and makes Visio look like old-school WordPerfect software. Another start-up is Delicious Monster, a company with a ton of buzz because of their software, "Delicious Library". To be honest, I don't get what is so cool about Delicious Library, but I won't ask or else people will think that I don't get it. Finally there is All for kids, a kids bookstore that is funky, independent and loosely affiliated to a part-time advisor of mine. The Burke-Gilman trail runs right by it and TiCycles is right there also.

This is so hilarious. I was rolling on the floor laughing. It is a spoof of "Baby's got Back", that seminal work by Sir-Mix-A-Lot, but instead of talking about girls with big butts, it's talking about girls with big books (and in particular big Bibles). I'm still laughing...

"I like big Bibles I can not lie,
You Christian brothers can't deny,
When a girl walks in with a KJV
And a bookmark in proverbs, You get stoked."

Original-original in many formats here

• Sailworks
• Rivendell Bicycle Works
• Chipolte (McDonald's please don't destroy them)
• ING (good privacy policies)
• Honda (they don't want to pave the world)
• Starbuck's (they do good things, and have consistent coffee (not good, just consistent))
• Google (they're not evil yet)

• Best Buy (does any company suck more?)
• Safeway (we also sell groceries)
• U.S. (extra fee) Bank
• All airlines
• All gas stations

Planet Twinkie - Recipe Box

Hostess Twinkies Sushi

The Human Clock is this cool collaborative site in which people send in photos of a particular time. Like a photo of Scrabble letters spelling out "Nine Twenty-One". Then when you go to visit the website, it chooses a picture based on the current time. So it's a huge collaborative photo taking exercise to take pictures of every time in the day. Cool project: humanclock.com

"These durable spheres can be hung from the trees as shown, making a treehouse. They could also be hung from any other solid objects or placed in cradles on the ground. There are four attachment points on the top of each sphere and another four anchor points on the bottom. Each of the attachment points is strong enough to carry the weight of the entire sphere and contents.  "

How cool are these!

Buy one now!

This is a great little animated movie about procrastination. I had to upload it before I could get my stuff done. I'm not sure where it came from, but there are some credits in the beginning. Download movie

This is so great! It's an action figure set that lets you create your own cubicle farm. I want. I want. It even comes with stickers to create your own wierd office titles like "Domestic Marketing Processor" and "Inter Information Specialist". There is a terrific website for them also. Click here.

There is a great page up at the Atari Times showing a modern adaptation of the classic Atari game "Adventure". The old version was a low-res masterpiece, in my opinion. The modern version recreates low-res in high-res!

The Online Computer Library Center has compiled a top 1000 list of the most widely held library books in it's member's catalogs. The complete listing can be found here: OCLC Top 1000

If the value of intellectual worth is considered on the basis of what people are willing to buy, then the top ten intellectual works published as books are:

1. The Bible
2. The Census
3. Mother Goose
4. Divine Comedy
5. The Odyssey
6. The Iliad
7. Huckleberry Finn
8. The Lord of the Rings
9. Hamlet
10. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The academic wallets have spoken.

Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: What, you mean you don't KNOW??????

This French dude has made a shoe with an imprint of an alien from the classic arcade game, "Space Invaders". When you walk on the beach you leave a trail of aliens littered on the beach. See more at the Space shop.

The BBC has created this cool website where you can mix your own Doctor Who theme song. They have lots of familiar samples including "OO-EE-OO". I never really got into Doctor Who, but it's fun to create your own mash-up with the samples.

There is now a company called RideMax that will plan an itinerary of DisneyLand for you. They ask you for the rides that you want to go on and then they pick a timing and ordering of the rides that minimizes the amount of time you spend in line based on historic patterns of line lengths for a particular day and hour.

It's a cool idea. If everyone used it then the lines would be much shorter everywhere in the park. But the more that people use RideMax, the less it can help. So it's a business that if successful will be worthless. Kind of like accurate stock market prediction would kill itself.

NOAA has published a 3-D animation of the tidal wave that's killed 22,000+ people around the Indian Ocean. Watch it (in QT) here

Order your very own nativity set made out of smore's today

This is a screen shot of an ad that Google displayed when I searched for tap water. Ebay, Amazon and others often put ads into Google that are generated by computer programs. This tap water ad is one of them. If you search for the word "Dead" you get an ad for "Sexy Dead Singles". Or if you search for "Famine", ebay will tell you how fun and easy it is to find famine on ebay.com. It's a good way to waste an hour.

This is a virtual actress that a small team of people put together to try and push the limits of virtual characters. It's so realistic that it is creepy. There is also a fake screen test that shows great animation skills also. It isn't completely convincing yet, her lips are a little too stiff, but it's very good. Check out the website here.

I'm sorry, this is just wrong.

Okay, so this is a flash movie that is made with ASCII art that tells the story of a war in haXor to the music of some hard-core techno group called Rammstein. Its one of those animations that seems really profound to me, but I can't exactly put my finger on why it's such a seminal thing.

Watch it here.

The Blackspot sneakers that I ordered earlier arrived yesterday and I'm trying them out today. The styling and fit is really nice. So far I'm still into them.

I'm a little confused why a sneaker called a "Blackspot" sneaker would have a white spot on them, but <sarcasm>I guess if it makes me feel good who cares if it makes sense.</sarcasm>

The basic idea of these sneakers is to provide an alternative to the Nike version of cool by creating a non-brand. The sneakers were made in an environmentally sound way with skilled well paid labor in Portugal. I think there is hemp involved also - any subversive clothing has to have hemp.

Here's more on the meme.

Here is a link to a video of a Citroen car that makes like a Transformer and does a funky hip-hop-disco dance. I'm amazed at how someone could make a computer model do that.

Part of McDonald's new "I'm loving it campaign" includes a Tomato McGrand sandwich being debuted in Japan. What is the most freaky of all is this commercial being aired in Japan to promote the sandwich. I think McDonald's actually has done a really good job of hitting the young Japanese market with this promo.

Cross-reference this blog post.

"And they sell things for apartments smaller than mine
As if there were apartments smaller than mine "

Or the praises of the Mandelbrot set. MP3
Some of the lyrics:

"Mandelbrot's in heaven, at least he will be when he's dead
Right now he's still alive and teaching math at Yale "

So here is a reason why I like Mac better than Microsoft. I bought this cool new album, "The Light of Things Hoped For" by Brave Saint Saturn (click on the image on the left to buy it). It's about as hip as I get. I pop it into my Windows box and the obnoxious Windows CD player launches and tries to go to some "partner" to get the track names and album information. Of course it fails because it is an obscure album. Does this happen on the Mac also? No. It uses the community supported database GraceNote and everything works the first time with no effort.

It's just a pain to use Windows

U2 has a new video out for their "hit" single Vertigo. It's a cool video. I like the whole iPod-video effect, but the U2 song isn't really a dance-able song, so the people in the video who are dancing with iPods don't really work for me. Nonetheless I'm waiting for the whole album to come out on the iTunes music store so that I can slurp it into my iPod.

How is it that U2 can continually be so cool? They are always fresh and edgy and pop-artistic. Someone is very talented.

This is a hilarious film-short on Atom Films about a valley girl Jedi. Favorite quotes:

"This is so cool, because they almost never let me fly"

"I sort of zoned out during the briefing"

"Why don't you talk. All the other robots talk - it's not like it's that hard."

Click on the image on the left to go to Atom Films and watch Pink 5.

Jan Krist rocks. She is a talented singer and songwriter whose music I enjoy. Sort of a folksy rock sound, although anytime I try and genre-ize music someone always comments on how badly I've done it.

Click on the image on the left to go to her website.

I like Noam Chomsky. He thinks about what he says. He has facts to back it up. He has a philosophy which guides his critique and he refuses to back down even when the pressure gets high. Don't be tricked into thinking he's a Democrat though...

Click on the picture on the left to go to an archive of some of his writings.

I heart foosball.

Foosball is becoming an addiction, fortunately I'm not the only one so it's not dysfunctional by definition.

If you're at the University of Washington, you can click on the image on the left to go to Jon Ko's foosball scheduling page to schedule a just in time foosball game. It's hot!.

Strangerhood is a new machinima series from the guys who are making "Red vs. Blue." It is a web movie which comes out weekly and is "filmed" by playing The Sims 2 video game and recording the video. Then the video is overdubbed. Hilarity ensues. The Red vs. Blue series was/is really funny, so this looks promising.

Click on the image to go to Strangerhood's website.

What is the deal with this "good herb"? Apparently it is the name of a variety of mint that is used in making the rum cocktail called a mojito. (Click on the image on the left to see the recipe) Why United Airlines felt like they had to subject me to 30 minutes of discussion about the mojito is beyond me. Then I saw an ad for a jazz festival featuring a band called, you guessed it "Yerba Buena". Bacardi must have paid a pretty penny to get that subtle meme put in all of our airline cattle's heads.

The best coffee in the world is at Zoka coffee shop in Seattle. It is so good I beg people to send me bean from there when they visit. In addition to top-notch coffee, they have free Wi-Fi, good Dessert, and invite excellent musicians like Kenny Meeks to play.

Click on the logo to go to Zoka's site.

It is very hard to explain why I love my PowerBook G4 to other people. It is just such a better experience than using a Windows based laptop. The graphics are smooth, the power of open source is harnassed, but the fonts friggin' work (unlike all the Linux distributions that I use) , the laptop is portable and it all just works.

I think the people who have to maintain their own equipment like the PowerBook more. It costs more upfront, but in the long run the time you save more than makes up for it. For example how long does it take a Windows PC to connect to a Wi-Fi hot spot in a coffee shop that its never been in before? 10 minutes of futzing? the Power takes about 2 seconds.

Click on the image to go to the Apple Store.

Kenny Meeks is the first country artist I've ever liked. He played a gig at U-Zoka in Seattle which I attended and thoroughly enjoyed. I wish I had enough disposal income to invite him to play for my friends.

Click on the image to go to his site.

During a recent trip to England I was introduced to a disturbing new development in Dubai called "The Palm". It is an artificial reef/island made in the shape of a palm tree on which are built luxury homes, resorts, spas, theme parks and restaurants. Around the edge are reams of beach front property. It disturbs me because it is such a manufactured experience designed to create a manufactured existence, and also because it is catering to class of people who are so fabulously wealthy that their priorities become secrecy and discretion.

First of all if you are not aware of Dubai, it is a small kingdom-like place in the United Arab Emirates. I spent some time there when I was in the military and, believe it or not, it really is a nice tourist destination despite being in the heart of the Middle East. It is very cosmopolitan and has lots of high-end hotels and gourmet restaurants.

Along with being cosmopolitan, though, is a weird libertarian we-don't-ask-and-you-don't-tell ethos that comes through subtly in the video promo above. My understanding is that a very small percentage of the people that live in Dubai are citizens and if they are, they are the beneficiaries of enormous oil wealth and are mostly related to one another. The majority of the population is extremely cheap labor from India, Pakistan, etc that are allowed to stay there a short period of time (2 years maybe) before being required to leave. In fact the labor doesn't mind because they go there to make money and bring it home to their family. Cheap happy labor means everyone wins.

I also met at least one guy who worked for Sony in Dubai. He was from India and he was trying to do a great job for Sony so that they would transfer him to Canada. Then he could potentially immigrate and settle in a place other than India. This is sort of the business equivalent of the computer science escape-from-your-home-country route. The computer science route involves getting a C.S. degree in the U.S. and being such a whiz-bang-hacker-theorist-bright person that a U.S. company snaps you up immediately and you get to stay in the U.S.. Everyone but your home country wins.

So Dubai also has these extremely expensive resorts and hotels including The Burj-Al-Arab hotel. It is truly a stunning hotel. But to get a sense of what I'm trying to say about Dubai consider this: this hotel has in-room check-in, a separate reception desk at every floor, chaffeur-driven Rolls-Royce services, personal butlers and can cost $3000 a night. Everything that an extremely rich person who wants to remain discrete would need. Who are these people? Celebrities? Multi-national corporate CEO's? Rich Arab oil men/politicians? International criminals? Maybe it's all one and the same and if you care then maybe you aren't the type of person they are looking for. To their credit though they make the lifestyle look attractive.

Now enter "The Palm" development. This is billed as a place for rich expatriates to be as far away from the rest of the world as they want. But if you watch the promo video - it has this really sinister Blade-Runner-in-the-sun feel to it. Extremely high security, sunglasses, families happily playing in the surf. The undercurrent is that they need to be there because they are in danger and they are in danger because they are so fabulously wealthy and/or notorious and/or famous that they can't be out in public.

And as a final note, they have a new development in the works called "The World." Same concept but shaped like a world map rather than a palm tree.

Living on an artificial island, in a world full of restaurants and entertainment, protected from all the dangers of the world where every detail is taken care of. A world pre-built to perfection. And yet nothing is organic about this existence. It didn't occur naturally. It's not authentic. It has no substance. There is no community. There is no history. There is no dirt. It is trying to erase or remake reality, but it can't really do that because it's impossible. How long before the pollution in the water makes the beaches unbearable? How long before the displaced ecology causes sea-snakes to jump in the swimming pools? How long before the cocaine use causes someone to commit suicide and someone else to get murdered? How long before the smoke from the burning oil rigs and exploding mosques gives all the kids asthma? You can't escape this broken world with wealth.

"We won't ask if you don't make a scene" - The Palm.

Update (4/25/2005): Just to clarify, for all the people who leave insulting comments to me because they think I hate Arabs, I don't. I also don't think I know everything. Read what I am saying. If you have something substantial to say I'll post your comment. Otherwise go rant on your own blog.

Fortunately they are temporary, but here is the latest rage for the preteen set. Tooth Tattoos!

Click on the image to go buy some!

This is one of the adbusters commercials that no television station will air because it is counter to their interests. It is illuminating to understand what their interests are. Basically they portray themselves as purveyors of information, but in fact, their economic interests like squarely in separating you from your money in any way possible.

Click on the image to see the short commerical.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) released a very interesting MP3 (16 MB here) of its oral argument on the appeal of a case which pit recording studios against a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing network. From the EFF's web site:

California - Today the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals made a crucial decision in support of technology innovators by declaring that distributors of the peer-to-peer software Grokster and Morpheus cannot be held liable for the infringing activities of their users. The Electronic Frontier Foundation argued on behalf of Streamcast, the creator of the Morpheus software, in a case that pitted dozens of entertainment conglomerates against two small software companies. The Ninth Circuit decision is based in part on the fact that P2P networks have significant non-infringing uses, and that they can help artists earn money. The ruling is similar to the Supreme Court's decision in the 1984 Betamax case, which determined that Sony was not liable for copyright violations by users of the Betamax VCR

I'm really into primary sources. It's very interesting to evaluate the source of the CNN/blog news summaries for yourself. Unfortunately this takes time, which is in short supply, but critical thinking requires practice. This is the first time that I've ever heard a real oral argument and it's the first time I've seen one distributed as an MP3. It was good bus listening on my iPod