On Sunday the sluicegate of China's Three Gorges Dam will be closed, ten years after work began on the controversial project. Water from the Yangtze River will begin to form a reservoir, eventually flooding 312 million square feet of land. 1.13 million people will be relocated by the project's end in 2009. But the upside is electricity. Generators will be providing power as early as this year, and ultimately 26 turbines will create 18,200 megawatts of power, supplying the energy for China's expected massive economic growth.
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I have to quibble with two of the quotes in this article on the new gesture interface from FingerWorks. First, their CEO says "Unlike having to remember a sequence of keys, the gestures become part of your motor movements, so they are a part of your motor memory in your brain." While I believe that gestures will be a nice, natural way of communicating commands to a computer, it is untrue that key sequences do not become motor memory. Typing is a very rapid means of communication, and much of it is motor movement memory. A better memory example would have been the gesture device's improvement over the mouse. Mouse movement, because you can not guarantee where the pointer will be, is not as reliant on motor memory (though the best-designed mouse interactions with user interfaces like pie menus become motor memory gestures). The second quote is from interaction guru Don Norman who says "Having to move your hand back and forth from the keyboard to the mouse really is an unnecessary activity." True indeed. But you can solve that easily with many alternate pointing devices that fit into your keyboard. Quotes taken out of context can be deceiving, I know, but let's pull out quality reasons for why gestural interfaces will be so useful. How about: typing and mousing is unnatural, but humans gesture all the time!
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Thursday, May 29, 2003

Nagoya TV has a collection of 8000 Japanese wood-block prints and has scanned some into a lovely virtual museum. Most descriptive text is available in English (as well as Japanese of course). (via Yahoo New & Notable)
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11% of the total weight of the cargo accompanying the San Francisco Symphony on tour in Europe is comprised of seven timpani. That's 2,450 pounds of heavy duty percussion. Sheperding not only the musicians but also their most valuable possessions through a ten city, three week tour is a monumental task handled by the orchestra's two operations managers. They are coordinating logistics for train, plane, and bus travel for the players, and truck, cargo plane, and ferry travel for the 11 tons of instruments and other necessities. Twenty-two violins arrived baked in Dublin (rosin cakes had melted and reformed), but no serious damage was found. Missed connections and airport security give the two coordinators much to worry over, but the show always goes on. (thanks Lynn!)
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Wednesday, May 28, 2003

Swerve, a new milk-based drink from Coca-Cola, will be launched this summer to appeal to children and teens. A cow with dark glasses will pitch the new beverage which comes in chocolate, vanilla/banana and blueberry flavors.
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Discussion about ambient devices made the Internet rounds earlier this year, and I was reminded of them again when Gizmodo mentioned them recently. My first ambient device was the LED on my phone when I interned at Lotus Technical Support in college. The color of the LED indicated the length of the caller hold queue. I thought the color ranged from green to yellow to orange -- until the day they opened up all the trunk lines as an experiment and I saw the LED turn a bright, stress-inducing red. When I saw the orb from Ambient Devices, I started envisioning many useful products, most of which I'm sure have been thought of already. A baby monitor for moms who want to do yoga in peace and quiet, a thermometer for the doneness of your roast, a pollen count indicator (perhaps partially funded and branded by an allergy medicine company), moisture indicators for plants, color feedback on your target pulse rate while exercising. Imagine having a customizable glowing light or two on your wristwatch or jewelry that you could set to indicate whatever you wished. The concept also took me back to my minimal encouters with fuzzy logic, where computing doesn't necessarily always result in a one or a zero. Ambient Devices' orb FAQ is a fun read. Here's some speculation on Apple's glowing LED case and whether it will be an ambient device. And there was a Slashdot discussion on building your own device. Ambient technology continues the evolution to make the actual computer less obvious. And think of the potential art projects!
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Tuesday, May 27, 2003

In a superbly unintentional publicity stunt for Meow Mix's new kitty TV show, Meow Mix CEO Richard Thompson was bitten on the posterior by a Rottweiler.
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The Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies was actually founded last year when the U.S. Army awarded MIT $50 million for their winning proposal, but last week they formally launched the institute at the dedication of its new facility. Various corporations (e.g. Raytheon) are kicking in an additional $40 million to fund the center. Their areas of focus in the military uniform/armor realm are "protection, performance improvement and injury intervention." Thus, exhibits at the kick-off included magneto-rheological (MR) fluids which may be used for armor that stays flexible but hardens when hit with a bullet, a "selectively permeable" fabric that can protect against chemical and biological agents, and mocked-up uniforms with futuristic exoskeletons. One day, my raingear will be something more than Goretex, and my husband's motorcycle gear will be something more than Kevlar.
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Friday, May 23, 2003

Warner Bros. is dusting off its Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ownership and remaking the movie. Although author Roald Dahl wrote the screenplay of the original, he was not happy with the end result. His estate has approved Tim Burton to direct the new film. The producers include Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. How will Burton re-envision the Oompa Loompas? They already give me the creeps without a Burtonesque treatment.
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OK, Martha watchers, what's the scoop? Did Ms. Stewart attend Bill Gates' annual CEO Summit or not? A high profile attendee in the past (2001 news item, 1999 photo), one would expect that she was invited, but perhaps she is keeping a low profile. The Seattle Times even brought up the question: "There's no word on whether Martha Stewart, a past attendee, will attend this year."
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Thursday, May 22, 2003

In a case, I dearly hope, of a reporter picking the most ear-catching soundbyte to pass along, a NY Times article about attracting women into computer science, quotes U. of Washington professor David Notkin as saying "Most women think, 'I'm going to be in a cubicle at Microsoft typing next to some guys who smell funny. There's a perception that it's not a good field to be in." As a female CS major told me after reading this: "Yuck!" Her response was cleaner than my entirely unprintable reaction. While some women may certainly be turned off by the stereotype of the male geek, this quote is a horribly inaccurate distillation of the actual problems we face in involving more women in technology careers. It also gravely discredits the ability of women to accurately judge the challenges of a technical career.

If the people who can effect change (and computer science educators fall into that category which is why a quote from a Prof. Notkin worries me so) have misguided views of why women are not entering computer science and enforce those views in interviews with the media, the road ahead is difficult indeed. Women naturally inclined to succeed in computer science are not frightened away by strange geeky men (in fact, many find them intriguing as another interesting puzzle to solve). I would bet that just as many men do not pursue computer science because of the perception of "guys who smell funny." "Most women" are not avoiding computer science because of smelly guys, but because of a misperception of their own abilities, as a result of our culture, and a misrepresentation of how multifaceted and artistic computer science can be. The real barriers for women are covered well in the book Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing.
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To celebrate the series finale of Buffy we had our commemorative BuffyLoaf (buffalo meatloaf). Although buffalo is readily available at our local gourmet markets, our frugal vendor of choice, Trader Joe's, has not been carrying it consistently. We buy it whenever we see it there, but often it is not to be found and we were lucky we had it in the freezer for this occasion. A NY Times article on the entrance of yaks into the U.S. culinary market says that there is actually an oversupply of buffalo, after a period of speculation when prices shot up. Buffalo are ornery, aggressive creatures who don't like fences. Some ranchers are turning to the more docile yak. Yaks need less food, are used to foraging, surviving winter (they eat ice!), and (sorry PETA) their meat is as lean as buffalo and just as tasty if not more so. I haven't tried it yet, but if TJ's starts stocking it, we will be sure to. Now we just need a TV show to match. But not Yakov Smirnoff, please.
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Wednesday, May 21, 2003

T.V. Review Haiku

Martha Inc: Boring
I would rather be watching
My herb garden grow.

Lorelai stays blind
To Luke's hinted interest.
But Lane's mom came through!

Oh poor Enterprise
When will they find a fresh plot?
Save the ship, Porthos!

Buffy saved the world.
Again. I laughed and I cried.
Thank you, Joss Whedon.

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Geek Links

Now that E3 has come and gone, game previews and trailers galore are available on sites like FilePlanet.

If you'd like to go over one of the more intricate exchanges of dialogue from Matrix:Reloaded with a fine tooth comb, here is a transcription of that scene in the room with the video screens. Spoilers of course!

The Matrix Reloaded phone is already sold out. How many did they sell?

I missed another chance to see the Power Tool Drag Races.

Albert Einstein's papers, letters, and essays are now available online thanks to the Einstein Papers Project at Caltech.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2003

A helpful reader sent along some tips on preventing birds from eating my snail bait:
"To protect the birds & other animals from the bait, try the meal instead of the pellets. Dampen it a bit--damp not wet. (It will attract more snails & less mammals.) Then stick it under bits of crockery or under an aluminum pie plate, an old ashtray, some wood...just prop the cover-up enough so the snails & slugs can slither under but the birds can't get to it easily."
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Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns), a documentary about the kings of quirky pop, They Might Be Giants, has its "theatrical premiere" this weekend in New York. It has been making the festival rounds, and will be in "limited theatrical release" this summer. The film looks to be as droll as its subject matter. (via BrainLog)
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Public broadcasting pioneer David Ives died on Friday while visiting family in San Francisco. Ives was president of WGBH in Boston during their formative years. Under his tenure, WGBH became the largest supplier of programming for PBS, delivering such classics as ''Nova,'' ''Frontline,'' ''Masterpiece Theatre,'' ''Evening at Pops,'' ''This Old House,'' ''The Victory Garden,'' and ''Mystery!'' His bow tie and half moon glasses were familiar to local pledge drive and auction viewers. He served as a trustee of my alma mater, Wellesley and spent much of his retirement continuing his work in public service.
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Monday, May 19, 2003

Ever the progressive airline, Virgin Atlantic Airways plans to offer a frequent flier program for cats and dogs. There will be "Bone-us Miles" and a "Frequent Feline club." This new marketing scheme celebrates the UK's lessening of quarantine restrictions for cats and dogs.
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Packed away in wax-covered boxes and long-forgotten in a cellar, these antique seed packets were discovered when the William D. Burt Seed Co. building was torn down. The packets were created using hand lithography, with a limestone slab stippled by an artist for each color in the print. (via memepool)
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Friday, May 16, 2003

A non-spoiler, in my opinion, purely because I don't want you to overlook it: Cornel West has a role in The Matrix:Reloaded.
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Sharing of the Green
Here for your reference are my list of garden-related links with an emphasis, of course, on my Northern CA climate:
You Grow Girl - nifty tips and journals from female gardeners
Container Vegetable Gardening - from Clemson Univ Extension, useful tips on selecting containers, soils, and varieties for vegetables grown in pots.
Trees of Antiquity - Heirloom Fruit Trees for your home; apple varieties you've never heard of, plus fruit like quince, plumcots, pawpaws.
Four Winds Growers - if you want dwarf citrus, start here.
SFGate.com's Green Gardener column archives
Nichols Garden Nursery - herbs and rare seeds
Master Gardeners of California
Great Plant Picks - "a plant awards program designed to help the home gardener identify unbeatable plants for their Pacific Northwest garden."
California Rare Fruit Growers - "the largest amateur fruit-growing organization in the world."
Baldo Villegas' Bugs and Roses page - the many photos of common rose ailments have been very helpful to my novice rose tending.
Plus: a list of garden weblogs from Cold Climate Gardening.
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Thursday, May 15, 2003

Total Lunar Eclipse tonight.
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My spoiler-free advice for viewing The Matrix: Reloaded is to stay until after the credits are over. Also, someone had a little fun writing the captions for Yahoo! Movies' WireImage photos from the premiere. Example: "Jada Pinkett Smith, Keanu Reeves, Hugo Weaving, Laurence Fishburne, Monica Bellucci and Carrie Anne Moss set up a camera and wait for the timer at the Hollywood premiere of Warner Brothers' The Matrix: Reloaded."
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Old recipes and cookbooks are a fascinating source of history. The Seattle Times took a look back at its old "Dorothy Neighbors" columns, the nom de plume of their group of home economists who provided recipes and answered the queries of homemakers from 1928 to 1980. They list a sampling of some of naive old questions. The Times used to hold an annual recipe contest, with hundreds of winners. Their test kitchen, a rarity for a newspaper, was used to verify the entries, but that only began in the 1970s. Recipes from past eras were clipped and saved onto index cards and then stored in a large filing cabinet. One drawer is devoted entirely to molded salads. What a treasure trove of recent culinary history. The oldest recipe on file, "Cherry Preserves with Pectin," is from 1934 and uses 7 cups of sugar and 4 cups of fruit.
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Wednesday, May 14, 2003

If you've got a Windows machine and a webcam, you can install and play the Virtual Theremin. Looks like fun! (I haven't tried it yet.) (via LarkFarm)
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Although the accompanying text is in French (ah, but perhaps you read French), you can still enjoy this lovely collection of Chinese posters from three different eras: the 20s & 30s, the Communist era, and contemporary times.
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Gretsch Guitars ran one of their 1961 models through a CAT scan machine, to rediscover the design of the original bracing. Apparently the knowledge had been lost. Musician Brian Setzer had requested that his signature series of instruments be braced in the older design.
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Tuesday, May 13, 2003

With the Federal Trade Commission's Do Not Call registration revving up to allow you to eat dinner in peace, there are actually deceptive sites up that claim to pre-register people for the federal list. One of them was charging money for the service.
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"But what can I do? I cannot kill him," lamented Wilfried Seipel, director of Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, to the NY Times. He was referring to a security guard who merely turned off what he believed to be a false alarm without investigating the cause. Later Sunday morning a cleaning woman discovered that Benvenuto Cellini's masterpiece "Saliera" had been stolen. One or more thieves had climbed up exterior scaffolding (unsuccessfully designed to thwart such audacious thievery), broken a window, and entered the building, quickly smashing a heavy display case and running off with the 10-inch-high sculpture. Shown in lectures to many an art history student, the gold-plated salt and pepper holder is the famous work of the infamous Cellini, who led an Italian Renaissance life that would stun the imagination of modern tabloid readers, and chronicled it in his autobiography. It is likely that a private collector paid dearly to have own this piece. Perhaps an enterprising underground art dealer decided the time was ripe for a bidding war in the black market. Whatever hands it ends up in or travels through, the Kunsthistorisches Museum director hopes they will take care of this fragile Renaissance artwork.
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Monday, May 12, 2003

Items from the estate of The Who's John Entwistle go under the gavel at a Sotheby's auction on Tuesday. Entwistle's vast collection of over 150 guitars will be up for bid alongside a selection of brass instruments (a French horn, euphonium, tuba, tenor horn, bugles and trumpets). Life-size casts of 30 fish caught by Entwistle (hammerhead shark, marlin, barracuda) are among the more unusual items. Conventional rock memorabilia include band photos and silver, gold, and platinum records.
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The NY Times is running a series of articles following the creation of one Steinway concert grand piano, No. K0862. The first in the series tells of the physical labor of the bending of the rim. There is an accompanying multimedia segment that delves into the mystery of each Steinway's unique sound as Erika Nickrenz, pianist with the Eroica Trio, auditions three concert grands lined up in the showroom. Will the destiny of K0862 be determined by the end of the series? Some Steinways blossom with phenomenal sound while others are just another well-made Steinway.
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Friday, May 09, 2003

Librarian Bill Drew is collecting a list of libraries with wireless Internet access. (via xBlog)
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A Chronicle article on nanotech spoke of "stain-resistant 'nanopants' already on the market." Nanopants? "Nano=Care" pants, available at Eddie Bauer, are made of material marketed by Nano-Tex. The fabric is coated at a molecular level with stain resistant chemicals. The Eddie Bauer chinos were introduced in 2001. For the latest nano-news, check Nanodot, a Slashdot for nanotech.
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Thursday, May 08, 2003

Short bits today:

We know who won't be watching NBC on May 19th. "Martha Inc.: The Story of Martha Stewart" with Cybill Shepherd as the duchess of domestics will air that evening. Review copies of the tape arrived in TV critics' mailboxes accompanied by a nutcracker and two walnuts.

Infogrames is going all the way with their ownership of the Atari brand by renaming their company and their NASDAQ symbol. But Midway still owns the original agames.com domain (not that it has much recognition as an Atari domain unless you are in the know).

$100,000 for one easy day of filming versus maintaining your journalistic integrity? Yesterday, the NY Times ran an article questioning the use of news anchors in public television "news breaks" that are paid for solely by the health care companies that are being profiled. The CNN anchor mentioned quickly backed out of the deal, and Walter Cronkite will likely pull his participation as well.
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Wednesday, May 07, 2003

High on the list of things I took for granted during my Connecticut childhood are the bridges of the Merritt Parkway. Named for Congressman Schuyler Merritt, the Parkway was constructed between 1935 and 1940 as a public works project. Its woodsy 37 miles runs through southwestern Connecticut, and, during off-peak hours, is a lovely alternative to the truck fumes of I-95. It has been featured on Letterman Top 10 lists ("Little Known Provisions in President Clinton's Crime Bill: No speed limit on Merritt Parkway for late night talk show hosts") and is the highway on which most 16 year old Fairfield County residents first drove 55 mph. The 70+ bridges that needed to be constructed for the Merritt were designed by architect George Dunkelburger to fulfill its scenic purpose. Historic motifs and various styles are represented in the bridge decorations. Complexity ranges from a simple "stone wall" to fancy concrete detailing. An ambitious traveler took photos of 28 of the bridges. The Parkway has inspired a conservation effort.

There is one rather reviled bridge along the Merritt route. The "Sikorsky Bridge" forms one end of the Merritt, connecting it up to the Wilbur Cross Parkway, over the Housatonic River. Named, informally, after nearby Sikorsky Helicopters, visible to the north, the bridge has an open steel-grid deck. What it lacks in aesthetics it does not make up for in user friendliness. Driving across the open grid gives me the same feeling I get when I can't get an amusement park bumper car to go where I want it to. It's as if my tires are as scared as I would be if I were walking across the see-through grate, with the river waters clearly visible far below. However, the wheel trembling will be a mere memory soon. The bridge is being replaced and the new structure will have a solid deck of concrete and asphalt.
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Tuesday, May 06, 2003

"Deaccession" is the term used when a museum removes a piece from its collection. I ran across a Yahoo photo of a Degas pastel, "Danseuse", scheduled to be auctioned by Sotheby's this week, and discovered that it is being sold by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. A tiny flurry of news articles immediately followed the MFA's announcement in March that it would be selling "Danseuse," plus another Degas work and a Renoir portrait. The proceeds were destined for the acquisition of a major work, the identity of which the museum refused to divulge, calling it only a "masterpiece". Journalists pressed their sources and the latest news, unconfirmed of course, reports that the MFA is raising money to purchase an 1876 Degas painting titled ''The Duchessa di Montejasi with Her Daughters Elena and Camilla.'' Estimated price is $20 million. Proceeds from the auction of the three works is estimated at $17 million. Some may quibble over the loss of the lovely Degas pastel, but with a $425 million building-expansion campaign under way, not to mention a plodding economy, the museum isn't expecting donors to furnish very high ticket art. There are fewer masterpieces left in private hands, and the MFA is pursuing a rare chance to pluck one out for public view.
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Yuk or yum? I have been fighting snails continuously since I planted some basil last year. Snails love basil. After unsatisfactory investigations into beer traps, copper barriers, and midnight hand-picking, I had settled on iron phosphate bait. Then one morning I saw birds merrily breakfasting on the tasty snail bait. I've just about given up on fresh pesto this year. Culinary cravings brought the brown garden snail to California in the first place. The gardener's hated Helix aspersa is one and the same as the gourmet's escargot. They were imported for food in the 1850s, but never quite caught on here as they did in France. Freed from their culinary prison, the snails proliferated amongst the gourmet California vegetation. You can catch and eat them if you'd like. The ones around our garden at least are already well-seasoned with basil.
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Monday, May 05, 2003

CLACKITY CLACK CLACK! Do you miss the old IBM keyboards that gave your fingers a workout? The ones that actually hurt if you dropped them on your toe because they were made of metal? You can still buy those old workhorses from the original manufacturer. Old ones can be sent in for repair at a reasonable $30. And if you want the quality without the accompanying CLACKITY CLACK, they also have "enhanced quiet touch" models. (via Gizmodo & MSNBC article)
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With Aaron Sorkin leaving "The West Wing", no forthcoming Region 1 DVDs of old episodes, Bravo (reruns Q3 2003) sadly missing from our current cable subscription, and all 45 "Sports Night" episodes pretty much memorized, there's no wonder my mind is pondering what the next Sorkin project will be.
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Annie Lennox returns to the solo scene with a new album, titled "Bare," which will be released in June. Short clips are available on her official website. Owners of her previous solo album, "Medusa," can hear three selections. The process asks for a bit of personal information and then requests that you place your "Medusa" CD into your computer's CD drive for verification. Lennox is currently on tour and her show in San Francisco was reviewed very favorably.
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Friday, May 02, 2003

Photo Friday
Today I get away from words and go for the visuals. I've picked out 13 favorite photos from the past couple years and put them into a gallery. I haven't yet learned about post-processing digital photos to clean and brighten them up, and I do almost no cropping as I spend a lot of time framing my shots. So these are the raw images, reduced for web consumption. Enjoy the photos.
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Thursday, May 01, 2003

The way the band and connector on this USB watch fit together is wonderful. Company morale officers take note: "The dial can be imprinted with logos and trademarks." (via gizmodo)
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Food service distributor Sysco, undisputed king of restaurant supply, may have strong competition coming in the years ahead. The NY Times notes that Walmart may expand their subsidiary McLane Foodservice beyond its current fast food customer base. A battle between two companies famous for "unsentimental business tactics" whose survival depends on logistics management could provide much fodder for a business school case study.
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