Useful and neat! "ShapeTape is a fiber optic based 3D bend and twist sensor, that knows where it is continuously along its length, providing accurate position and orientation information, even when in partial or variable contact with an object or person." The product fuels creative ideas for new methods of human-driven computer input. When used with a foot pedal, special software helps users create 2-D and 3-D shapes in drawing software. (via nooface)
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These look awfully familiar. Old dinosaur books won't help you converse with the latest crop of dinosaur-obsessed five-year-olds, but they are fascinating archive material. I feel hopelessly out of date when I play with kids now, as I do not know the updated names and behaviors of the Giant Terrible Lizards that used to walk the earth. If they ever change the alphabet or rename the colors, I'll be truly sunk. (via LarkFarm)
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Tuesday, April 29, 2003

If your PowerPuff Girls fanatic is having a birthday, consider baking him or her a lovely cake in the shape of his or her favorite PowerPuff. Here are instructions and a printable template for Bubbles (she's the joy and the laughter, y'know).
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Hi-tech chain mail? Well, it won't protect you in medieval combat, but X-Static metal-based fabric will keep you smelling fresh after a long day of jousting. X-Static is composed of a layer of silver bonded to fiber. The fabric eliminates odor-causing bacteria and transfers heat away from the body. You can get X-Static socks, anti-static gloves, t-shirts, and all kinds of sportswear. The fibers are also being used in dressings for wounds. X-Static has used in industrial products for many years.
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Monday, April 28, 2003

Mailbox use is tightly regulated by the US Postal Service, which is not a surprise, but while I was researching whether or not it is legal for non-postage items to be pushed through our garage mail slot (it appears it is), I noted that they do give a tiny bit of leeway: "Generally, curbside mailboxes are to be used for mail only. However, publishers of newspapers regularly mailed as Periodicals may, on Sundays and national holidays only, place copies of the Sunday or holiday issues in the rural route and highway contract route boxes of subscribers if those copies are removed from the boxes before the next scheduled day of mail delivery." How considerate of them. (from DO41 PDF file)
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A newly designed nickel will be released by 2004 in commemoration of the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis & Clark expedition. Thomas Jefferson, who was instrumental in the "purchase" and expedition, will stay on the front, but the reverse will be changed from the familiar Monticello image to one that evokes the Lewis & Clark history. Fearful of losing the prestige and free advertising afforded by an image of a state landmark on the coin, Virginia politicians made certain that an item was added to the bill guaranteeing the reinstatement of Jefferson's home in 2006. The bill, signed into law by Bush last week, also dissolves the Citizens Commemorative Coin Advisory Committee and replaces it with a new Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee. I can't help but wonder if there is an active Lewis & Clark lobby responsible for the nickel design and the Sacagawea dollar coin.
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Friday, April 25, 2003

Where'd she go? Blogger blew up on me last night and I lost about an hour of research because I still haven't learned my lesson to save early, save often. I'll be back on Monday.
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Thursday, April 24, 2003

I spotted my first Subaru Baja on the road today and drove recklessly (which for me means going about 5 mph over the speed limit) to catch up for a closer glance. It was dark out so I was unable to ascertain exactly how shocking the yellow paint treatment is (it is available in other colors). I did notice that its license plate was of the commercial plate number sequence, same as my husband's Ford pickup. Federal agencies have had some fun classifying the Baja. The Environmental Protection Agency has designated it an LDV (light-duty vehicle). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration lists it as an MPV (multi-purpose vehicle) for safety purposes and a truck for fuel economy. California has been notoriously strict about slapping pickups with commercial plates and higher fees. Despite the Baja's passenger vehicle origins as essentially a sliced open Outback wagon, it's still got a dinky open bed for hauling cargo, and as far as California is concerned, that makes it a commercial vehicle.
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The USDA has released their nutrient database in convenient searchable format for Windows PCs and PDAs. The nutrients for more than 6,000 food items are listed. The database was already available online, but now you can have your own local copy. The PC version has better filtering with support for "not" and filters for various food types, such as sweets, snacks, baby foods. Various name brand products are included. Although the database is representative of the typical American palate, support for non mainstream foods is not entirely lacking. For example a search on "mushrooms" brings up data for "oyster", "Crimini", "enoki", "portabello", cooked and dried "shiitake." Wasabi is also listed. I found listings for various game meats (elk, buffalo, and yes, muskrat, squirrel, and raccoon) but nothing under "frog".
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Wednesday, April 23, 2003

College students have hopped on the foodie bandwagon, digesting their Food TV and chatting online about new places to eat. The NY Times' Amanda Hesser heads to campus and discovers "Campus Cuisine" a public access cooking show starring a Yale senior, sushi in the dining halls at University of Alabama, organic milk at Oberlin, dining clubs, wine tasting clubs, and restaurant chatrooms. At many colleges there are no shortage of opportunities to educate your palate in nearby cities and with students from different cultures. I remember my second day of college when I discovered that our delivery pizza had herbs in the crust. This was long before the foodie trend swept the nation, but the memory comes back every time I add rosemary to pizza dough.
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When visiting homes for sale in the Bay Area, you'll run across a few that are a little too pristine, a little too sanitized, perfectly appointed, yet devoid of the sellers' personality. These are the "staged" homes, interior decorated for a faux family to create a warm feeling for prospective buyers facing sticker shock. The founder of this area's staging industry keeps 8,000 square feet of warehouse space chock full of furniture, art, pillows, lamps, and so on. You'll find staged houses at all price ranges. Tricks include using smaller furniture and strategic placement to make tiny rooms appear spacious. Bad views are hidden behind beautiful windows treatments or big plants. Although I can usually spot a staged home from the sidewalk through the windows, I have two clear indicators: the closets and cupboards are empty and the bathroom towels are always layered with the top one tied in the middle to form a cute bow-like effect. And often there will be a tea tray in the master bedroom, waiting for its mystery owner to come home and enjoy a steaming cup of Earl Grey while her impossibly perfect children ponder how to dry their hands on the unusable bathroom towels.
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Tuesday, April 22, 2003

Is there a book you remember from childhood, but you don't know the title or author? Try to Stump the Bookseller with your remembrances of books past. (via Larkfarm)
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Baby teeth have valuable stem cells. "Dear Tooth Fairy, Mom sent my bicuspid to a research lab. Do you do cash advances? - Timmy"
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Monday, April 21, 2003

HP and Scholastic are sponsoring a Create a Calculator Contest for students. There are three age categories in the K-12 range. The criteria seem remarkably open; students can focus on the look and feel of the calculator or its functionality or a combination. The lack of restrictions allows kids of all types to get involved, as creative types can dream up impossible, fantastic devices and scientific types can create new handy functionality. The variety will certainly make judging interesting and perhaps difficult. (via BrainLog)
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It's Patriot's Day which means it's Marathon Monday in Boston. As usual, I will be screaming at the Wellesley halfway point in spirit. Patriot's Day commemorates the "shot heard 'round the world." The British and Minutemen fought the battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775.
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Friday, April 18, 2003

The well-crafted book "Holes" is now a movie. A Disney movie. You must forgive my initial reaction wherein my brain conjured up a dull scene of several round holes in the ground tightening up into a montage of many sets of Mickey Mouse ears. But my fears can be put on hold. According to Glenn Lovell of the Mercury News, director Andrew Davis was able to push through a faithful adaptation of Louis Sachar's novel by repeatedly reminding the studio that the award-winning and beloved book contained all the questionable scenes already. Some concessions were made for graphic violence and language, but with a screenplay by the author himself, the movie may effectively shed its cute mouse ears.
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Nothing buys publicity like controversy, and Justin Lin had already maxed out ten credit cards and received $5,000 from MC Hammer to create his film "Better Luck Tomorrow". So when Roger Ebert unexpectedly stood up after a Sundance showing to defend the film against a critic who pronounced it "empty and amoral to Asian Americans," Lin's six-figures of debt fell by the wayside. After a remarkably successful limited release, the film seems guaranteed to pull in profits for MTV Films, who paid a reported $500,000 for distribution rights. The film spirals through the dark side of overachieving "model minority" high school schoolers who embroil their lives in crime. Such, dare I say, mainstream criminal behavior from Asian Americans in a film not involving opium, kung fu, and dragon lady madams is rare. The central theme of defying the perfect student stereotype is echoing well with the very students who are achieving the high expectations typically set for them by their parents. Lin thought carefully about not only the general stereotypes but also the lesser known class conflicts between Asians of different backgrounds. Tired of Hollywood's Asian status quo, the actors participated in the film for little pay. Actor Jason Tobin's resume lists the same role over and over: Chinese delivery boy. May this film be a fruitful break in the cycle for everyone involved.
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Thursday, April 17, 2003

If you're an American ceramics nut and in Seattle, make sure you visit Laguna, a vintage pottery shop in Pioneer Square. They also have a bridal registry, making it possible to sign up for discontinued ceramic dinnerware patterns.
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Pages from a 1949 candy salesman book. Vintage yummies! (via Pop Culture Junkmail)
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Another unaired Firefly script is online for reading. The upcoming DVDs will include unaired episodes so if you want to watch them unspoiled, don't read.
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Wednesday, April 16, 2003

The Newark Museum (in New Jersey) is currently running an exhibition called Great Pots: Contemporary Ceramics from Function to Fantasy. The 175 studio ceramic pieces illustrate the various methods of decoration and form that potters use to give shape and meaning to their works. There are functional pots and pots created purely as art. Some pots are plain in form but fancy in decoration. Others are simply glazed but elaborately shaped. Within the simple definition of a pot, there are infinite bounds for artistic expression.
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A very neat bookshelf in the shape of a man. (thanks Brad)
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Tuesday, April 15, 2003

French fries cut no thicker than 0.28 inches. No more than six patties on a grill at a time. These were just a few of the contributions to the McDonald's operating "bible" from Fred Turner, a former long-time employee. Now 70, he is back on the job, brought in by exec Jim Cantalupo who himself came out of retirement to shine up the golden arches. Turner is in charge of product improvement, meaning he's working on ways to make their products more appealing, and also trying out new items. Perhaps he will bring back Julia Child's favorite beef tallow fried french fries.
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Every year in Montana, the Big Mountain Resort has a Furniture Race on the last Saturday of the season. Participants attach skis to various pieces of furniture, are towed to the top of the slop, and then hurtle down. It appears that they have a broad definition of the word "furniture" as evidenced by this year's photos of a satellite dish, spaceship, and giant banana.
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Monday, April 14, 2003

The Hartford (CT) Courant is running monthly articles in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' flight. This month's offering is a look at the history of Sikorsky, a helicopter manufacturer based in Connecticut. Igor I. Sikorsky's first dabblings with helicopter design were unsuccessful enough that he instead designed a few fixed-wing planes before traveling to Berlin with Charles Lindbergh and witnessing a demonstration of Focke's twin-rotor helicopter. He was granted permission to design a helicopter for the U.S. Army and found success when granted a contract in 1942. The original vision of the helicopter as a personal transportation device has not come to fruition, but their roles are important nonetheless.
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Thankfully, the music library of the bankrupt San Jose Symphony was purchased by an association of former members of the symphony. Donations were collected from local patrons and other symphonies to win the successful $64,000 bid. The sheet music includes works back under copyright again as of 1997, meaning expensive rental fees for those who do not own their own. And money can't really pay for the years of markings and corrections that have made the music an integral part of the symphony's 123 year history.
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Friday, April 11, 2003

Jason Kottke imagined how the marketing meeting for Titanium cards went, but those "more precious than platinum" cards have been out for a few years now. And, not surprisingly, Citibank has already trumped Titanium with a new Diamond card. What's next? As envisioned in this Atlantic commentary: "Ultimately there could be a Uranium card, with a debt load whose half-life is 700 million years." I'm thinking that with the conflict diamond image problems, the next steps will be to run through the rest of the precious gems. You know I'd sign up for the Sapphire card.
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Conde Nast publishing conglomerate has started up a business selling their vintage magazine covers as fine art. The reproduction prints are all priced at $350 framed, $250 matted, which seems a bit steep until you consider that the target market for their House & Garden, Gourmet, and Vanity Fair ads is probably accustomed to paying much more for prints. But are these the same people who will buy cover reproductions or will it be more of the middle class masses who buy the magazines and dream of a color coordinated, fashionable, and well-seasoned life? Gazing through these paintings makes me wish for the return of abstract artwork to replace the celebrity-ridden rows in todays newstands. (via Pop Culture Junk Mail)
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Thursday, April 10, 2003

The 2003 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced this week. The intense photographs from The Rocky Mountain News Photography Staff's coverage of Colorado's forest fires are most striking.
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Prompted by yesterday's New York subway token mention, reader Mike P. wrote in to relate his recent Las Vegas experience where he had to use bills instead of coins in the video poker machines. And it isn't just paper in, paper comes out too. The payoffs are printed out on tickets that you can give to the cashier or continue to use in other machines. An article from May 2001 reveals some reluctance on the part of casino executives to roll out cashless machines. But financial analysts predicted that casinos would eventually turn away from coins. Many patrons prefer not to get the hands dirty on coins, and the turnaround time is better for business. More recently, Las Vegas Life reported that MGM Mirage is acquiring 7,000 new slots and video poker machines with the new "ticket in, ticket out" technology, and retrofitting 11,000 existing ones to accept it as well. The other major casino companies are in line, with mogul Steve Wynn opting for a completely coinless operation for his planned 2005 opening of La Reve. One day, people will wonder why slot machines generate a strange electronic clinking noise when they pay out.
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Wednesday, April 09, 2003

After fierce competition, the cuddly koala has triumphed over the penguin, walrus, and cobra to be the newest Barnum Animal Cracker.
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The Toaster Museum Foundation wants to, you guessed it, create a museum for toasters. For now, enjoy their online museum. Find out how a toaster works and view the toaster art. (via memepool)
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I was fascinated by automats when I first read about them in the book "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." A NY Times article discusses a museum exhibit on automats and its accompanying book. Fueled by the nickels of new legions of white collar workers and immigrants who could not speak English and therefore could not order at a restaurant, the automat prospered in the early 1900s and handily survived the Depression. But the nickel slots trapped the business into 5 cent coffee for too long. They did not want to go to ten cent coffee, so they took a loss on one nickel coffee for many years. The last New York automat closed twelve years ago. In other NYC relic news, the New York subway token is being retired.
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Tuesday, April 08, 2003

Babar the Elephant first appeared in a bedtime story told by Cécile de Brunhoff to her children. Her husband put her story to paper and pictures and the rest is history. Mrs. de Brunhoff passed away yesterday.
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Anita Borg, founder of Systers, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, and the Institute for Women and Technology has passed away. Thank you for your tenacious vision, Anita. You will be greatly missed.
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The SF Chronicle takes closer look at MRE development, a common food topic these days. The MRE weight needs to be under 1.5 pounds. It has to supply 1,250 calories and be edible for up to three years, stored at 80 degrees. It must be waterproof, vermin-proof and able to survive a 100-foot drop without a parachute. Because there are more women eating the MREs, folic acid and iron are now part of the added nutrients. Morale-boosting snacks (often used as poker currency) include M&Ms, Lorna Doone cookies, Skittles and Jolly Ranchers.
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Some links related to Friday's entries:

BusinessWeek's article on OLEDs, with more information on their invention and current use in small displays.

A Wired news piece on Wireless sensors for measuring vineyard air temperatures.
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Monday, April 07, 2003

No, I just love my hand-me-down 500mhz desktop PC, why do you ask?
A review of the iPod-like Lapvantage Deluxe Dome and, in rather related news, CNet has a handy list of their reviewed and recommended ultraportable notebooks and "thin-and-light" notebooks. (via Gizmodo)
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Erasure of Peter Gabriel
"Solsbury Hill" is my favorite Peter Gabriel song, not only for its intensely personal lyrics, but for the jaunty quirkiness that comes from the tune being in 7/4 time. I have difficulty explaining my reaction to first hearing the Erasure cover of the song. I can't say I was appalled; I give covers of my most admired performers' songs a fair chance, the best result being my fondness for Kurt Cobain's acoustic rendition of David Bowie's "Man Who Sold the World." The Erasure treatment of "Solsbury Hill" left me ... confused. I recognized it as Erasure ably spinning a song they respect into a dance tune. But something about it wasn't quite right. It wasn't until the second time I happened upon it that I realized the problem. It was no longer in 7/4 time. In turning it to a danceable 8/4 rhythm they completely lost the appealing lilt of the song. As this interview with the duo reveals (scroll down to "Changing Times"), it was indeed the dance nature of their drum work that led them to change the song to 8/4.
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Friday, April 04, 2003

If you've ever dreamed of a romantic, idyllic life as a vineyard owner, read about the real life trials of a year in wine country. First comes pruning, which has to happen in the dormant winter season, except not while its wet for fear of fungus. When the buds come out in early spring, your cell phone or pager may go off in the middle of night with a message from your frost warning system. Time to go out and operate the heavy machinery, wind machines and sprinklers, that keeps your vines from freezing and dying. One vineyard manager contended with 22 frost nights in a row; a toll that would cause even an all-nighter-pulling college student to pause. When warm weather finally takes a hold, you get to contend with mildew, disease-carrying insects, root-eating insects, and bigger things like moles, gophers and rabbits. Vines that grow too quickly may produce grapes that fall off too easily. From summer through fall, the crop needs to be carefully monitored for proper irrigation and nutrients. Birds arrive as the grapes mature. Then harvest must be carefully timed. After the grapes are safely tucked into wine barrels, the fields must be prepped for the next year. And the cycle begins anew.
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The future's so bright, you'll be wearing glowing shades. ZDNet's Tech Guide gives us the lowdown on OLEDs, organic light emitting diodes. "As well as having the potential for many different forms of display, the technology can be much brighter, thinner and more efficient than any other type of flat screen." The drawback right now is that they will easily degrade when in contact with oxygen or water, the two things we humans can't live without. So the encapsulation technology for OLEDs will need to be improved. But the applications are exciting, especially when compared to the backlit, energy draining LCDs in common use now. Once dynamic color displays are cheap, they truly will be everywhere, competing for our attention.
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My husband finally wrote about his GameBoy Advance SP -- except it is really about when he was working at Apple on the Newton. But it's good.
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Thursday, April 03, 2003

Tired of waiting for your sweetener crystals to dissolve in drinks? Sugarshots is liquid cane sugar which will sweeten your beverages instantly and evenly. I thought it was merely bottled simple syrup, the stuff I cook up for lemonade, but they claim it is different. Their proprietary brewing method ensures that the sugar will never recrystallize and it does not need refrigeration. The sugar to water ratio is also better. Sugarshots comes in Original, Organic, Turbinado (for all you "sugar in the raw" users), and Free! which is a "proprietary formulation that binds natural grain dextrins to fruit juice so it metabolizes steadily." I'm going to stick to my first choice of sweetener, liquid or otherwise: honey.
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I never questioned the reality of MIT's swim test requirement for graduation, as I knew first-hand of its existence from friends who had to take it. But most people give me skeptical looks when I try to convince them that swimming was part of the physical education requirement at MIT. Well, turns out there's a reason for the skepticism as there are urban legends connected to college swim test requirements. The detailed story concerns a female student whose rich parents donated a swimming pool to the college after she drowned. The condition for the donation was that the school must have a swimming requirement for all students. This isn't the only urban legend built on odd benefactor requests, but it is one that is at least based on some truth, which is that many colleges used to have swimming requirements, and a few still do.
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Wednesday, April 02, 2003

The Fan Museum in Greenwich, England has a collection of more than 3,000 fans. Closer to my home there is the Hand Fan Museum in Healdsburg, California. Within are decorative fans, functional fans, fans for advertising, commemoratives, and ceremonial fans.
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Buried in the world of tech news yesterday was the announcement of the acquisition of Motorola subsidiary Starfish by Pumatech. Most notably, this deal brings together the makers of IntelliSync and TrueSync, two software products that synchronize data between computers. Less notably, this deal reminded me that I once owned a Rolodex REX device. Designed by Starfish and manufactured by Citizen (the watch people), the REX was marketed by Franklin, and eventually sold to Xircom who discontinued it in 2001. The tiny size of the REX was wonderful. It took up no space, and held all the data I really needed to take with me. To sync it, I just stuck the entire thing into my laptop's PC Card slot. Small and convenient. Too bad I couldn't stick it into my cell phone too.
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Tuesday, April 01, 2003

If not for the other smart-aleck patriots of the United States, today would have marked the debut of the April Fool's project SendBackLiberty.us. Instead, the creators were trumped by another site and had to announce early. Said other site received much attention, and eventually sold its original domain name for $199 on eBay. But capitalism and competition are foundations of our nation, so there will be no whining. I just want to say, for the record, that in times of crisis, it is good to look for some humor. The site was not meant to hurt anyone on any side, but to give a chuckle. We incensed some people who thought we were insane and drove others to further anti-French sentiments. But the wonderful part of participating in this project for me was that it took place across country boundaries. The collaborators came from 3 different nations and many parts of the U.S. Some of us have never met in person before, and yet we successfully collaborated across timezones and space. That is the true beauty of the Internet, and that is no joke. (thank you Neale and secret cabal!)
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The Federal Trade Commission is rolling out a national "Do Not Call" registry this year. They will be taking online registration requests this summer, phasing in regions starting in June to better deal with anticipated demand. Many states already have unsolicited phone call legislation, and some have their own online registration sites. Some charge a fee, some don't. Others refer you to the DMA registration page. Here's a list of states with online registration:
Alabama
Arkansas
California (prereg for FTC list)
Colorado
Connecticut
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine (sends info to DMA)
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Missouri
New York
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Texas
Utah (coming soon)
Wisconsin
(You are welcome to note that I wasted some amount of time compiling a list that may be obsolete when the national registry goes online. Consider it a recognition of the work of the many web programmers who keep our government sites operational.)
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