Pondicherrypie
July 30, 2010
Hey, all you math whizzes out there, solve this one!
How does
plus
plus
equal
?
Riddle me that, hmmm?
Cupcake 2.0
July 30, 2010
Now, listen, I LIKE cupcakes, don’t get me wrong. What’s not to like? They’re cake. They’re frosting. They’re portable. Portion-controlled creamy-sweet goodness you can stick in a lunchbox. With sprinkles.
But…high-fashioned eats? The hautiest of haute cuisine?
C’maaaaaaaan. They’re CUPCAKES, for heaven’s sake. Yet I kid you not, there are at least three specialty cupcake shops in Portland, and more coming. Some of the best bakeries in town are pushing cupcakes as the wedding dessert of choice.* [Read more]
Device wars
July 28, 2010
Apparently there IS such a thing as having too many gadgets, and I’m there.
I’m a huge fan of wireless, if only because it reduces the mass of cable snaking through my office.* Of course, the number of cords attaching something to something can grow almost infinitely, and the only thing you have to worry about is losing the desk, or tripping over a cable and breaking your leg or something.
Get out of jail free card
July 26, 2010
Yowza. US copyright protections just got a LOT more interesting for tech and iPhone folk, thanks to the Library of Congress.
For those of you who don’t know, LoC is a key arbiter in US copyright law. Since they work with the intellectual property of US citizens all the time, and presumably can move faster than USPTO or Congress, they also can rule on what does or does not constitute US copyright violations.
So tomorrow (Tuesday) they’ll publish a new copyright exemption that acknowledges some key advances and problems in technology. [Read more]
Beaverton Farmers Market
July 24, 2010
Can you tell I FINALLY had a free Saturday for the farmers’ market? Whew. I thought I was gonna get stuck eating grocery store produce for the whole summer.
Search discrimination
July 20, 2010
“All web search engines give identical results, so there’s really no reason to use anything but Google,” she said.
I was participating in a “web for artists” seminar, and that declaration came from a fellow speaker. Being a mini-nerd, I couldn’t, oh, realize that it would embarrass the lady to contradict her in front of her audience, so I spoke right up.
“Uhm, ‘scuse me, but that’s not really true…” and got glared at for my pains.
But then I got to thinking: Is there really that much difference? If you made the same query in the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing), would you get that much more (or better) information? And would those results differ materially from results delivered by lesser-known engines?
In other words, does extending your query to other search engines increase the quality of your results? [Read more]
Berry red, berry blue
July 20, 2010
“If you’ll take the whole flat you can have it for $10,” the berrylady said, pointing to gorgeous heaps of blackberries.
I’d come late to the Portland Farmers’ Market AGAIN–I keep having early Saturday appointments that mean I don’t arrive until 2 or 3 in the afternoon, when everyone’s closing. The berrylady was one of the few still open, and she was trying to lighten the homeward load with a great deal: Huge, ripe blackberries for about 83 cents per pint (in grocery stores right now, they’re about $2.75/pint)
Derrick the Droid
July 17, 2010
“Uhm, Cynthia, you know how I said you’d be getting a Droid X on Friday?” the voice on the phone was tentative, “Well, demand is a leeeetle higher than we anticipated. It might take a week or two. But I’ve got the last one right here, and if you can get over here in the next hour or so…”
Thirty minutes later I walked out of the Verizon store with Derrick, the Droid X. After 24 hours, do I want to keep him?
Surprisingly, the answer is “Maybe not.”
Moods and studios and berries
July 15, 2010
There are moods in which you write, and moods in which you’re glad you wrote yesterday. I’m in the latter, not because I can think of nothing to write about, but rather because there’s so much it’s hard to know where to begin.
First, the art. Haven’t so much as touched the studio (aside from helpless shoves to see if it’s still there under all the mess) in nearly two months. Apparently I left out a key element of studio design, i.e., where you put the stuff for AFTER you shut off the kiln: Packing and transport materials. Brochures. Booth furniture and setup kits. Signage. Display stands and hangers. Etc.
The rubber met the road…
July 12, 2010
…and got skid marks all over its butt.
Sorry for the vulgarism, but I’m watching the whole iPhone thing and thinking “whoa–now THAT’S a crash.”
The Wall St. Journal just reported that Consumer Reports (love it when the media reports on the media) will not recommend Apple’s brand-spanking new Droid-killer, the iPhone 4, to its readers.
Apparently the venerable reviews mag tested three iPhone 4s, found troubling issues with the design and didn’t buy Apple’s dismissive explanations. Along with other revelations, it’s beginning to look like the iPhone doesn’t play well when there’s real compeition. I’m wondering if we’re not kinda getting to a “mighty have fallen” scenario w/iPhone4.