Monthly Archives: February 2008

Papers, Please

What is that? Oh, that’s is the Playmobil Security Check Point. It is out of stock currently at Amazon, but I think I need one for my desk. I could scrutinize wee little passengers whilest on conference calls. Some other things on my mind … Caucusin’ Is Hard. Which is why, I suppose, that there

Considerata Dentata

Things I expect my dentist to tell me this afternoon: You need to floss more. No doubt. Everybody needs to floss more. I guess there are a handful of folks who floss and floss like there is no tomorrow, but I suspect that such people are usually avoided in social settings because of their overall

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Morning

Thank God for my iPod. Without it, I’d have to hear the noise of The World’s Loudest Vacuum Cleaner. As it is, I have Alice Smith cranked up to the stratosphere, and that’s better by far. Why is The World’s Loudest Vacuum here? Good question. And while I’m not going to say out right why,

1983

Twenty-five years ago, I wanted to be as cool as Michael Jackson. We all did. Everything he did was worthy of our attention. I missed his appearance on the Motown special, the night that he debuted the moonwalk, but I sure did hear about it the next day at school. “Did you see that?” The

On Design, Rebuilding and Audio-Surfing

Dieter Rams was director of design at Braun from 1962 to 1995. He designed watches, clock radios, cigarette lighters and countless other products, and all according to his own ten principles of design. Good design is innovative. Good design makes a product useful. Good design is aesthetic. Good design helps us to understand a product.

Happy Valentino’s Day?

Unenforceable

(You know, like that Beyoncé song …) Once again, the inhabitants of our Gold Dome make us all so very proud to make our homes and livings in the great state of Georgia. SB59. It doesn’t have a fancy little catch name yet, just the unwieldy filing title of “Social Networking Website; illegal for owner

Still Alive

Really. Just been so busy. (Doing science, of course.) We spent the weekend in New Jersey. For the first time, I arrived at Newark Airport for the sole purpose of visiting the state that hosts it, rather than just using it as an often cheaper access point for New York City or even Philadelphia. (And

Impending Server Nap

Got a notice from Dreamhost that the web server that hosts my blog (that’s this blog, this one right here) is going to be undergoing a physical move from one data center to another on Friday night, from 10pm PST until 6am PST the next day. In all likelihood, this isn’t going to be a

Hydrogenated Whatseed?

.flickr-photo { border: none 0px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Nutter Butter Bites, Now With …, originally uploaded by grabbingsand. We’ve been paying closer attention to what we eat these days. As a result, even the ingredient list on a lowly