Archive for May 2009

The monthlies.

• The view from my window.

• AMS

  Sitting in the Amsterdam airport. Schiphol. Pronounced Skipel. People-watching. The flight was one of the better ones I’ve been on, except they served too much food. I never thought that that would be an issue, but apparently it can be. We have a four-hour layover, and no free wifi. Fifteen minutes costs three euros. I [...]

• Share

  One more thought on Twitter before I am shown the exit… If it helps people communicate, god bless. And I mean that for all sorts of web services that are widely available to everyone and anyone.
  The Facebook photo application is horrible. The best photo sharing service is clearly Flickr (and for most users, the free [...]

• Twitter Haze

  I know that I just blogged that Twitter is “as substantive as a pet rock,” and although I think that that is true, Twitter nevertheless can be an effective way of communicating, albeit 140 characters (spaces included) at a time. It is akin to walking into a crowded bar and hearing what everyone is saying. [...]

• iPhone Daze

  The iPhone is a toy. I do not say that in complete disregard to its status or its potential as a platform. The iPhone is a platform, just as the laptop computer, BlackBerry and Wii are platforms. In fact, it may even be the future of Apple and possibly the entire computing world. Who knows? [...]

• Absentee

  For the first time in my voting life, I will be voting absentee. I do have the option in California to permanently vote absentee, but I have never been an outright supporter, so I rely on the practice on an as-needed basis. In comes the California special election in two weeks, where six highly-contentious measures [...]

• Gotcha Captchalism

  This was one of the most difficult CAPTCHAs I have ever faced…

  I ended up using 3/4 as the fraction at the end, and it worked, but now I think that maybe 3/anything would have worked; just the fact that it took effort by the user proved that I was not some sort of bot. By [...]

• Frog Bog

  I am not sure why, but the San Francisco Chronicle listed what it considered to be the most bizarre video games of all time. The list included…
  Frog Bog (1982; Intellivision): The first console games were reasonably straight-forward: two tanks shooting each other, two cowboys shooting each other, two spaceships shooting each other. … This stoner [...]

• A GOP Makeover

  The GOP does need a makeover — and quick. If you were to ask people to name members of the GOP, based on what they see on television and read in the news, they’d say: Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, Norm Coleman, Michelle Bachman, Rush Limbaugh, Eric Cantor. That is not the greatest crop of [...]

• Handling Your High

  From Fodor’s online guide to Amsterdam…

  To answer the question, yes, I’m looking forward to this trip.

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