June 2010

Moving mural on Pine Street

Route 66 moving truck on Pine Street

Park at 90 Degrees with pride!

Here’s a t-shirt just for you, San Francisco. Inspired by our own “Park at 90 Degrees” signs. I love this shirt

I’m famous! (on a Brazilian futebol site)

Can you guess where? Look closer… Closer still… Yup, another website has used my QR Code in a product demo (previously: I’m famous in a random MeeGo demo). Just goes to show that the fidelity of a QR code holds…

Sailing around the Bay

The novelty of taking a boat under the Golden Gate Bridge has always appealed to me, but I’ve never had a reason to do it until Stephanie’s mom came to visit. I figured we’d just take one of the ferries…

Stephanie’s Jarlsberg

Stephanie made Jarlsberg cheese two months ago, and we finally cut it open last week. It had holes, and lots of them! Of all the hard cheeses we’ve made, this one is by far the best. Stephanie’s holey cheese

The Karmann Ghia

The incomparable Volkswagen Karmann Ghia

Fête des Mères

Stephanie’s Mom happened to be visiting us during Mother’s Day in France (La Fête des Mères), so we celebrated with a lovely brunch at Olea, just around the corner from our apartment. Justin, Stephanie, and Chris at Olea

A birthday barbecue in Santa Rosa

The last weekend that Stephanie’s mom was in town also coincided with Eva’s birthday, so we spent the day up in Santa Rosa, enjoying the warm weather with friends and family. Patrice showing the kids how to pop a cork…

Cheese and Rosé Wines

Our latest class at the Cheese School of San Francisco, pairing nine cheeses with four rosé wines, was taught by Kirstin Jackson of It’s Not You, It’s Brie and Solano Cellars fame. The “Cheese and Rosé Wines” cheese plate Starting…

All Creative Work Is Derivative

I love this video by Nina Paley (of Sita Sings the Blues fame).

MonoTracers spotted in Austria

Nope, I didn’t jet off to Europe last weekend. Stephanie’s dad sent in an email with photos of two Peraves MonoTracers he saw at a gas station in Switzerland Austria. I wonder if they come in baby blue? Gray and…

A Russian warship in San Francisco

Yesterday I noticed the unusual sight of a military ship from Federated Media’s kitchen windows. Turns out it’s the Russian cruiser Varyag. We’re friends with Russia these days, right? More at SFGate: Russian warship makes rare SF appearance. The best…

Whitewater rafting the American River

Stephanie and I went whitewater rafting on the American River’s South Fork with Gold Rush last Sunday. The photos were taken by Scott Ligare of Fluid Light Images, who followed us around in his whitewater kayak while we ran the…

Smart Fortwo on Pine Street

A blue Fortwo

Julia’s Life in France

I was surprised to find out that Julie & Julia the movie was not solely adapted from Julie & Julia the book (which itself is based on The Julie/Julia Project the blog). The parts that were set in France of…

Franglish of the day: No Par Core #

I thought there was something fishy about those kids: Oakland students raising money or ‘panhandling’? #

Whoa: What does it cost to raise a child in the U.S.? (I’ve always kind of wondered about this) #

I’ve said this before, but were I to work for Google, I’d probably have more fun in operations than engineering: Hello from the Hiveplex #

Eyjafjallajökull Volcano time-lapse (if you haven’t seen this, it’s worth a watch) #

QR Codes in the news: Bar codes get around town and get more useful #

You stay classy, NY Times:

Pulse iPad App Gets Steve Jobs’s Praise in Morning…Then Booted From App Store Hours Later After NYT Complains

Apparently you can’t sell a feedreader that is also able to read the NY Times’ feed. #

Why work on a farm when I can read Terrie’s blog: Morning Milk Line #

Oh man! A web to snail mail service: Postful (with an API!) #

Well said:

The absence of any mention of copyright law in Glee illustrates a painful tension in American culture. While copyright holders assert that copyright violators are “stealing” their “property,” people everywhere are remixing and recreating artistic works for the very same reasons the Glee kids do — to learn about themselves, to become better musicians, to build relationships with friends, and to pay homage to the artists who came before them. Glee’s protagonists — and the writers who created them — see so little wrong with this behavior that the word ‘copyright’ is never even uttered.

Question. If I use the word “string” in the sense of “strings up to 255 characters are treated differently from strings over 255 characters” do most people (as in non-programmers) know what I mean? #

Perspectives of Poverty:

Out of this came the idea for a photography project, which I am tentatively calling “Perspectives of Poverty”. I am taking two photos of the same person; one photo with the typical symbols of poverty (dejected look, ripped clothes, etc.), and another of this person looking their very finest, to show how an image can be carefully constructed to present the same person in very different ways.

More here: Balancing Perspectives #

My morning was like this XKCD strip (I’m also pretty good at SQL) #

One of the presentations I enjoyed most from WordCamp 2010 was Karl Fogel’s “Bodysurfing the Blogosphere” about Nina Paley’s film Sita Sings the Blues (which I still need to watch!) #

Just got bit by an annoying WP bug: Doubleclicking comment text results in comment reply data-loss

To reproduce:

Go to the Comments page in the WordPress admin (/wp-admin/edit-comments.php)
Click the “Reply” link to respond any visible comment and begin composing your reply
Realize you want to copy a single word out of the original comment, doubleclick the word to select it
Surprisingly, this opens the comment’s “Quick Edit” view
Click “Cancel”
Click “Reply” and notice that whatever you were originally typing above is gone

Ouch. #

Ubercool visualization that shows Where Americans Are Moving by county #

Hot, I think: Eizo: Pin-up Calendar 2010 #

Glad this made the NY Times:

The Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates. The oil pours out nearly every week, and some swamps are long since lifeless.

Previously in the Guardian: Nigeria’s agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it #

Crazy photos of flooding in Draguignan, France, not far from where Stephanie’s family lives.