Monday, March 15, 2004
"The president's feet are not to touch the dirt." This is so insane I have to doubt that it is true. Does the man not own a pair of boots? If not, he could certainly buy a pair for a small fraction of what is being spent to landscape the park.

One thing I find interesting about IM technology is when you have a conference call containing multiple people, and subsets of those people are having IM conversations with one another. The most interesting example I've seen is Tim Bray's account of a conference call with himself, a journalist, and a Sun PR coach, in which the PR person was helping him with his phraseology via IM. Besides occasionally being useful, it has a certain naughty passing-notes-in-class feel that is sort of fun.

Thursday, March 11, 2004

Wednesday, March 10, 2004
I've always wondered if there was a method to the way ferris wheel cars are numbered, and I've assumed that they were ordered such that the operator could fill them in order and the wheel would stay balanced. However, I copied the numbers off the ferris wheel at a local traveling carnival a while back, and they are shown in the image at right. Clearly, loading in this order does not balance the wheel. So, is there no order at all, or some order I cannot discern? Or is it desirable not to have the wheel quite balanced?

Tuesday, March 09, 2004
In a secret laboratory at Condé Nast, scientists discovered that if they put four or five issues of Wired in a centrifuge, they could precipitate out all of the intellectual content. What is left is a magazine full of ads and articles that look like ads; they named this magazine Cargo. It's completely male-oriented (think Maxim without the cheesecake) and completely, unapologetically devoted to crass consumerism. Still, it's cheap (about a dollar an issue), and sort of fun to read (using the word read loosely: more like you "read" a catalog than like you read a book). Some of the advice would be useful in principle if it weren't so ridiculously upscale; for example, I could use a cotton blazer, but the one they recommend is $905. The technology/gadgetry sections are closer to the mark: For example, in the first issue, a pretty good survey of the state of the art in camcorders, and a set of mini-reviews of every cellphone that exists. One clever touch: A page of sticky-note tabs to mark pages you want to investigate further.

Monday, March 08, 2004
An episode of Hey, Remember! last night talked about Corelle dishware. I've always thought this was the perfect dish technology; it is inexpensive, durable, and ... um ... not ugly. My mother is still using the Corelle we had when I was a kid, which must be at least 30 years old. It still looks brand-new, and I don't think we've broken more than two or three pieces in 30 years. However, my wife dislikes Corelle's aesthetics, so I have to settle for prettier, but technologically inferior, dishware. (On seeing this post, my wife points out that these tradeoffs are inevitable; aesthetics aside, she says, paper plates are probably even better technology than Corelle.)

Thursday, March 04, 2004

Monday, March 01, 2004
A self-portrait of sorts:

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Monday, February 23, 2004
I just love this WP article about a woman who organizes tiny NYC apartments to increase usable space. Thought I don't practice what I preach in either regard, I'm quite enamored with both small-space and urban living.

Tuesday, January 20, 2004
When I was a kid, I remember reading about a Native American (or perhaps Mexican/Mayan) legend of a spirit who was so thin that it could only be seen from the side; when it turned toward you, it was so narrow that it seemed to disappear. A web search for all the likely terms I can think of turns up nothing. Has anyone else ever heard of this?

Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Big loss for Microsoft. Ed Fries interviewed me when I interviewed at Microsoft in 1992; had I taken the job, it would have been in large part because I was so impressed with him.

Thursday, December 11, 2003
Ah, a trip down memory lane. We used to get hours of entertainment out of these cheap little guns, which were (and apparently still are) called "Tracer Guns." We had an elaborate paintball-like game where if you got hit in the head or torso, then you were out, and if you got hit in a limb, then you couldn't use that limb any more. Now that I have kids of my own, it really puts this kind of play in a different perspective. Still, that was a lot of fun. Not surprisingly, these don't seem to be made in the USA any more (probably someone put their eye out and sued), but they're still made elsewhere and available from eBay.

Thursday, December 04, 2003
We saw a movie the other day (Love, Actually, which was pretty good), and I arrived with a fresh Starbucks Eggnog Latté (it's a good thing these are only available in December, or I'd be broke and in cardiac rehab). It was a really early movie, like 1:00pm. Nonetheless, the teenaged ticket-taker said I couldn't bring the coffee in the theater. I asked if they sell coffee, and he said no. I told him that I wasn't going to buy one of their overpriced sodas whether or not he let me bring the coffee. Still no. Grrrr.

Wednesday, December 03, 2003
I finally rode a Segway the other day. I have been, and remain, a big skeptic of its practical potential, but putting aside practicality and weighing pure geeky technolicious goodness, it's a hugely cool toy.

A coworker and I were wondering why you couldn't make a laptop that is nothing but a small box that uses a Canesta light-projection keyboard and projects its monitor image onto a convenient flat surface. My best guess is that the projection hardware is too big; certainly the projectors we use for meetings are much too large. (Aside: The CTO and co-founder of Canesta is a former coworker of mine -- Hi, Cyrus!) Update 2-26-04: Apparently this idea is entirely possible: here it is.

I just saw the movie The Game, which was quite good. People who enjoyed that movie should read The Magus and The Mind Game.

Wednesday, November 26, 2003
New essay: Rebublicanism Reconsidered.

Friday, November 14, 2003
We had really high winds all day yesterday. Apparently the space immediately in front of my garage door is an aerodynamic dead spot, because all of the leaves in my entire yard seem to have collected in a neat pile right there, which I was able to simply sweep into the trash in about 10 minutes. Thanks, wind!