Blog Posts

October 2006

• 2006-10-06

  Book report: A million little pieces

  I don’t know if you followed the spat a few months ago. This book, “A million little pieces” by James Frey was chosen by Ms. “O” (Oprah) for her book club. A lot of fanfare, a lot of press. It’s a memoir about one man’s experiences as a totally out of control addict, then joining a rehab program and getting on the road to recovery.

  The problem is / was that after Oprah made all this fuss about James Frey, it turned out that certain details of the book were fictionalized. It was not exactly clear whether 10%, 20% or what were not from his real life experience...

  Read more →

  #books
• 2006-10-03

  Capitol Reef

  

  Continuing my series about my recent trip through 5 National Parks, here’s Capitol Reef. This is a little known National Park in Utah.

  Interesting cocktail party tidbit (if what the rangers tell us can be believed): in the “old days” the explorers, trappers, and homesteaders tended to use nautical metaphors for land masses, and when they encountered a geographic feature which blocked their passage, stopped their progress, they would refer to it as a “reef....

  Read more →

  #travel
• 2006-10-01

  [GEEK] Playing with Ruby on Mac

  I’m getting a little fascinated with Ruby and Rails so I’ve been getting acquainted with it. Just want to share a handy link with detailed instructions on how to build and configure all that stuff on a Mac. Handy if you are in the .01% of the world who cares 🙂

  #ruby #apple

September 2006

• 2006-09-29

  Why do I blog, anyway?

  While I was on vacation I often had an idea pop in my head and feel the urge to write about it my blog. Why, why, why?

  I think I’ve been writing this blog for over three years. Here is my very first post. Since then I must have spent innumerable hours writing. It is *almost * like an addiction.

  Why? I’ve given this thought over the months and years, and also have had to answer the question more than once. Here’s what I think:

  When you work on your own like I do, you miss the usual outlet of popping into someone’s office to tell them or show them or share with them something interesting, cool, funny or great that you experienced or saw. Writing it on my blo...

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• 2006-09-28

  Bryce Canyon National Park

  

  Bryce Canyon National Park As promised here is the first of the collection of posts inspired on my recent trip. All I can say is “Utah is an amazing place.” This is one of my favorite pictures taken at Bryce. It looks otherworldly to me… If you check out Flickr you can see the other pictures that I took while out there. I actually took over 400 so this was my first attempt at identifying the 100 best. Still sorting. Anyway, as you can see from the ...

  Read more →

  #travel
• 2006-09-27

  Best little Inn in Maine

  If you’re looking for a really wonderful place to stay while in Bar Harbor, you should check out the Bass Cottage Inn! Here’s a review:

  “Had he recognized my name when I registered? Did he know I was there to review his inn? Why else would he be so welcoming? It turns out my suspicions were misguided; the man simply loves his job.” (from “A welcoming inn by the bustle of Bar Harbor”)

  #travel
• 2006-09-27

  Tivo Tidbit

  You happen to have a Tivo

  and you happen to like HDTV

  and you are thinking of ordering a Tivo Series 3

  and you’ve had a ‘lifetime’ subscription for years now

  and you are wondering whether you will have to give it up if you upgrade

  Then: fear not! I just found out that “for a limited time” Tivo will transfer your lifetime service subscription to the new Tivo for a “mere” $199. Which isn’t a bad deal if you’re a hard-case Tivo addict like me. Thought you’d like to know!

  Technorati Tags: tivo

• 2006-09-26

  That’s gotta hurt!

  Click here to see the picture. OUCH! No additional words needed!

• 2006-09-25

  Back from away

  I just returned from a trip in the American Southwest, starting in St. George Utah, to Bryce Canyon National Park, Capitol Reef Park, Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park and ending in Mesa Verde National Park. A spectacular trip. I am now back, invigorated and ready for action.

  http://wikimapia.org/s/#y=38324420&x=-110401611&z=7&l=0&m=a

  One of the funny things that happen when I am away is that I get ideas for new blog posts which I can’t actually post. So here’s the backlog that I hope to unleash on you in the coming days and weeks:

  Why do I blog, anyway?

  ...

  Read more →

  #travel
• 2006-09-08

  Ultimate virtual classroom

  David Weinberger reports that now you can go to Harvard University (or at least attend a single course in the lawschool) in the Second life: Joho the Blog: Go to Harvard in Second Life As David says, “Be sure to make your avatar look smart. Or at least interested :)”

• 2006-09-07

  Wired vs. Unwired

  For you Wifi junkies, here is a list of America’s Most Wired Cities – Forbes.com and another list of America’s most unwired cities. Thank Jayne!

  #technology
• 2006-09-06

  After the nuclear war

  Actually this is a fascinating photo essay of an abandoned city in the Soviet Union, left to gradually die off while the USSR collapsed. Check out An Abandoned City” href=”http://englishrussia.com/?p=276″>An Abandoned City

  Here is a little photo-session of an abandoned city. When the Soviet Union collapsed, government didn’t have much funds to support some small cities around strategically import objects. People of these cities were left all by themselves. Nobody could support them because any communication with this places terminated after the army decided that they now don’t have money to support those objects.

August 2006

• 2006-08-30

  Interesting article with a catchy title: “Surprising Truth about Ugly Websites”

  Someone forwarded this to me the other day. You might have seen it, but I still thought it was worth mentioning, because I had not come across it before. In fact I didn’t even know about the site where the article was published, SiteReference.

  Here are a couple of brief excerpts:

  “That’s right – ugly websites are surprisingly effective in making money. As a person who puts business before technology, a profitable website is a website is an unbelievably attractive website to me.” (from ...

  Read more →

  #design #business
• 2006-08-27

  links for 2006-08-27

  How to get people talking about your product

  Interesting article about how to build buzz

  (tags: buzz PR publicrelations geeknewscentral)

  #business
• 2006-08-26

  Self Parking Car?

  This one is totally cool for you gadget freaks: Lexus Self Parking Car Video and Review – Gizmodo

  #technology
• 2006-08-26

  Falling woman (edited)

  Test edit: One more in the category of 'you can find everything on the internet' check out this "falling woman" flash animation.

• 2006-08-25

  links for 2006-08-25

  Dashalytics: A Google Analytics Widget For Your OSX Dashboard

  If you use Google analytics (like I do) this is WAY COOL!

  (tags: cooltools google analytics)

  Widsense – Adsense Widget for Apple Dashboard

  And if you use Adsense, this one is very cool too!

  (tags: cooltools google adsense)

  #apple
• 2006-08-24

  links for 2006-08-24

  Bad Astronomy Blog

  Looks like this might be interesting

  (tags: interesting astronomy)

  #science
• 2006-08-23

  Keep an eye on the Curacao in the Little League World Series

  Curacao has in the past won or gotten very close to winning the overall Little League World Series! So far it looks like the Curacao team has won the Caribean title. Take a look at the standings so far: Little League World Series Standings

  Oddly enough the way the overall World Series is structured is that the US always makes it to the Semi Finals. Seems a bit rigged don’t you think? At least it’s better than the big leagues where the “World” in “World Series” means US and Canada 🙂

  #curacao
• 2006-08-21

  links for 2006-08-21

  Prevent further “participation gap” between have’s and have not’s

  interesting set of links about legistlation that impacts social networking sites

  (tags: soflow interesting)