Happy Thanksgiving! Back on Monday.
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Not many Washington state wineries take on the huge effort to make ice wine, but during the recent cold snap, the ones that do brought in their frozen harvest and ran the presses. Ice wine is a very sweet dessert wine, concocted from the super concentrated sugars and acids that remain unfrozen when the water in grapes turns to ice. First made in Germany, eiswein production began in Canada in the 1980s and is now spreading to other suitable climates. Ohio wineries have discovered that their long autumns and late November freezes are ideal. A few wineries bucked standards and froze harvested grapes in freezers instead, but the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has ruled that only wine made from grapes frozen on the vine may be labeled "ice wine." Demand for this sweet concoction is high and supplies are low enough to fetch excellent profits for the winemakers who have to tough out freezing overnight harvests and the scary experience of running the equivalent of ice cubes through their valuable grape presses.
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Wednesday, November 26, 2003

I've watched the Pepsi commercial with the dog and the sandwich (oh and the Pepsi too) over and over to make sure that the last part is a special effect (I won't spoil the ending if you haven't seen it yet). At first I thought it just might be for real, but my husband has convinced me otherwise. We will probably not be undertaking scientific experiments to make absolutely sure, which a certain member of our family should be very happy with. The ad is currently available on Pepsi's ad page, titled "Just Lunch."
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When last we visited Steinway No. K0862 in the N.Y. Times' ongoing series, woodworkers had built out the rim and added the keybed. Now it's time for the intricate installation of the hammer and key mechanism that will ultimately define the precision "action" of the Steinway. The motion of the keys, the action, is what a pianist will feel, the heartbeat of the instrument itself. The action must not be too light or too hard. "Two grams, plus or minus a gram" is the tolerance of the force to move the hammershank. Behind each of the 88 notes, each of the 88 keys, are 54 parts that make that one tone happen. The piano I played growing up (not a Steinway) had a few keys that would stick in humid weather. At one point in time, Steinway used Teflon bushings to avoid that problem. But the Teflon solution caused clicking noises and was eventually dropped in favor of soaking the bushing material in Teflon, which seems to help. Surrounding the technical details of the continuing construction of K0862 is coverage of contract negotiations between Steinway and its workers, and the company's plans to stay ahead in an uncertain economy.
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Tuesday, November 25, 2003

It's Thanksgiving week and you know what that means: time for the Presidential Turkey Pardon. This year, White House website visitors voted for the names of the fortunate turkey and its alternate. Stars and Stripes are now headed off for a comfortable farm life.
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The venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has been behind a multitude of major high tech companies in its 30 year history. Working at a startup funded by Kleiner Perkins lends some cachet to your cause, as their successes are famous. Sun, AOL, Lotus, Intuit, and Compaq are some of the names in their older portfolio. Then there was Netscape, Amazon, Macromedia, and Genentech. Now there's Google, Friendster, the Segway, and possibly the Next Big Thing. Eugene Kleiner, the first partner in the list, died Thursday. Kleiner was one of "the Traitorous Eight" who left William Shockley's group to form Fairchild Semiconductor. Prior to teaming up with Tom Perkins, Kleiner also invested in Intel Corp. He was truly one of the founding fathers of Silicon Valley.
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Monday, November 24, 2003

Christie's gem auction last week was a success with the 63.93 carat diamond going for $4.2 million (apparently to a husband bidding on it for his wife) and the 478 carat sapphire going for $1.5 million to an anonymous phone bidder. However, Sotheby's failed to auction off the gigantic 103 carat diamond the following day, as no one was willing to go above the minimum $8.5 million price. In other auction news, the catalog for the British Airways Concorde Charity Sale, to be held on December 1, includes instruments such as Ice Detector Heads and Fuel Pressure Indicators. There's also passenger seats and a captain's seat. At Air France's Concorde auction, the nose cone went for $500,000.
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Alas, the N.Y. Times has proclaimed that Hartford, Connecticut is no longer "the insurance capital of the world." In 1810 the Hartford Fire Insurance Co., now called the Hartford Financial Services Group, was the first to form, and is one of two remaining insurance firms still headquartered there. The Phoenix Companies, established in 1850, is the other. Mergers and acquisitions caused five companies to move their headquarters out of state. At least Hartford gets to hang onto the title of capital of Connecticut.
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Friday, November 21, 2003

Glass artist Josh Simpson's Infinity Project is still going strong. His scrapbook lists a growing list of recipients of his glass "planets" which are being placed around our planet in a myriad of locations. (original post 1/11/01)
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During a time when I watched infomercials because I could not get to sleep, I thought up two ridiculous cooking gadgets that I could sell to Ron Popeil and see on TV during my next bout of insomnia. One was a machine that could make Chinese stir fries. It would be shaped like a small barrel, suspended like a spit, with a heated area inside. You'd put your stir fry ingredients in and turn a handle on the side, and your food would cook as it turned. It would be marketed with different flavors of sauce packets ("lemon chicken! just add chicken and veggies!"). The other device was a self-stirring pot that would make risotto for you. Risotto requires wrist and arm stamina. There is enough tending and stirring to make you reach for the box of Rice O' Roni, but the creamy results are always worth it in the end. Well, I started sleeping again and the world was safe from my madness, but I can't save the world from everyone else. Now there's StirChef. It's a paddle device that fits on your saucepan and does the stirring for you. It reportedly makes a mean risotto. You still have to tend your risotto, pouring in the liquid as it is absorbed, but your arm can now rest up for the more important task of lifting forkfuls of yummy arborio rice to your mouth. Will this gadget show up on late night TV? I hope I don't find out. Incidentally, these folks are headquartered in Connecticut. (via Gizmodo)
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Katharine Hepburn's home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut is on the market for $12 million. It's a lovely brick home which includes three acres of land and a 600 foot stretch of Long island Sound waterfront. It was in the Hepburn family for over a century.
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Thursday, November 20, 2003

After re-reading the first year of my four years of archives, my favorite link of all is still Amy Winfrey's Traffic Cone Preservation Society. It embodies much of what I love about the World Wide Web and what life on the 'net was like before corporations caught on. Celebrate randomness. (original post: 5/23/00)
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One of our big hurdles in moving to Seattle from the Bay Area was, of course, the weather. Contrary to popular belief, it's not the rainfall that makes a difference, it's the number of overcast days. Although there have certainly been stretches of time when I wished for the sun to make an appearance, and the cat often looks at us with a mournful, sun-deprived expression, the general consensus is that the weather so far has been Not Normal. When we arrived in the summer, we were greeted with hot, dry days that stretched on and on, just like home. As we lamented over our terrifyingly high water bill, everyone told us "this is Not Normal." Then the rains did arrive. "Ah, at last!" we thought. "The rain is here!" But it would not stop. Basements flooded. Streets flooded. That's to be expected, right? It rains here. But the response was "Not Normal." Then we had a some lovely autumn days, crisp and cold, reminiscent of my New England youth. Apparently that was also Not Normal. The mass of rain returned. Natives spoke fondly of the "mist" that they missed. Then yesterday, it snowed. I've decided that I am enjoying Not Normal. It translates to real weather.
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Wednesday, November 19, 2003

In the quest to deliver smell over the Internet, Digiscents got a lot of PR and then went out of business in 2001. AromaJet's website, however, is still up, though I can't find any recent mentions of it in news coverage. They may be still making a go of it, along with competitor Trisenx. (original posts: 3/13/00 & 12/4/00)
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In February 2000, I wrote "How many home furnishing ecommerce sites can the market support?" Then I listed six sites that sold furniture online and three related home furnishing sites. Out of the six URLs, only furniture.com still actually sells furniture. The rest are either dead or repurposed. Out of the three related sites, one is now under Amazon.com, one is dead, and one is still Sur La Table. (original post: 2/15/00)
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Do you want a turkey & gravy soda? I know I don't. But if you're having one, I'll try a sip.
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Tuesday, November 18, 2003

For the Fourth Anniversary of this weblog, I've added a link to an RDF version of the main page for syndication purposes. It is generated by Blogger and includes the entire content of the posts. Use it wisely, and thanks to those of you who sent me your views on weblog syndication. I've also updated the About page slightly. Thank you for your continuing support.
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Pulled from my archives, here are my two favorite works from the programmer mythos: The Monkeybagel Document (Monkeybagels do taxes in an hour!) and The Tao of Programming.
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Perhaps the most eye-opening discovery from my January 2000 archives was that back in those dark ages, I was still operating on 56K modem speeds. I had to dial out on my one phone line in order to get on the Internet. Egads! Suddenly I remember why it was very important for my home phone line to automatically forward to my cell phone.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as the governor of California with wife, Maria Shriver, holding a 192-year-old Kennedy family Bible. However, it was not the bible used when John F. Kennedy took his oath as President. That one was actually a Fitzgerald family Bible, brought over from Ireland. It is described on the Kennedy Library website: "The Bible is an 1850 Edition of the Douay English translation containing a handwritten chronicle of the Fitzgerald family from 1857, including a record of the birth of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on May 29, 1917."
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Monday, November 17, 2003

Tuesday marks the Fourth Anniversary of GirlHacker's Random Log. That's a lot of posts. All this week, I'll be wandering through the archives to follow up on topics that catch my eye.
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Four years later, dotslash.org no longer redirects to slashdot.org. However, someone did purchase the domain backslashdot.org, though they haven't turned it into the "renegade DOS news log" that I facetiously proposed. (original post 12/16/99)
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Dateline November 29, 1999: Wired reports that Montblanc refuses to sell pens online. Authorized retailers with online sales operations were ordered to cease selling Montblancs on the Internet. Montblanc marketing exec Eric Werner said: "Luxury by its very nature is not ubiquitous, and that's why by its very nature it doesn't make sense for it to be on the Internet." Any changes four years later? Still plagued by fakes and feeling the need to control their luxury image, Montblanc's website states that their products can be obtained only through authorized retailers, and that any products purchased online, advertised as Montblanc, may be counterfeit, second-hand, or damaged. I found a few official retailers with online stores who do include Montblanc in their listings, but they are accompanied by directions to "please call for more information."

However, luxury online retailer, Ashford.com, which survived the dot bomb, at least in name, is still selling discounted Montblanc pens, Cartier & Piaget watches. Ashford survived an SEC scandal in 2002. Amazon.com took a $10 million stake in Ashford in late 1999 and in March of 2000 essentially helped Ashford make their numbers look better by writing up their deal a particular way. The SEC was not amused, but did not charge Amazon with wrongdoing and merely gave them a slap on the wrist. Ashford.com execs paid penalties. The company was eventually purchased by Global Sports (later renamed GSI Commerce) and then sold in 2002 to Odimo Incorporated, owner of sites such as diamond.com. Amazon has just launched a beta of its own jewelry and watch shop. (original posts: 11/29/99 & 12/1/99)
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Friday, November 14, 2003

In his Manhattan loft, violinist Joshua Bell has a specially designed round table that pops up to reveal four music stands, perfect for hosting a string quartet. Bell is an avid collector of music memorabilia, with a violinist focus of course. Autographs, photos, letters, and manuscripts are displayed like works of art. He owns a wooden Art Nouveau music stand that belonged to the renowned violin teacher Ivan Galamian. But until he makes a dent in payments for his apartment and $4 million Stradivarius, he's been holding off on adding much to his collection. (source: N.Y. Times Home & Garden)
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For the first time ever, women made up the majority of applicants to U.S. medical schools for the 2003-2004 school year. 17,672 of almost 35,000 applicants were female. Since 1997, the number of male applicants had been declining, but it leveled off this year. The National Library of Medicine has an online exhibit devoted to Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman to receive a medical degree.
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Thursday, November 13, 2003

Blogger's "scheduled maintenance" of "a few hours" started at 11pm on Wednesday and outlasted even my tolerance for staying up to the wee hours. Here's my (unarchived) link of the day: A scientist from Spain's Basque region has invented electronic finger nails that change color electronically. It's done with "layers of different electrochromic polymers" and the system includes a color-matching camera and pre-visualization screen. But will it have that perfect pearly shimmer? (via Gizmodo)
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Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Here's another photo of a cute baby hippo, just six days old.
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A new item for my book wishlist: A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove by Laura Schenone is "A History of American Women Told Through Food, Recipes, and Remembrances." Fifty recipes and numerous historical photos accompany the stories of women throughout the history of America, from various backgrounds, ethnicities, and eras.
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Apparently my home state of Connecticut has attracted a number of boutique chocolate makers. The N.Y. Times rounded up five chocolate makers for an article titled "Home Sweet Home to Chocolate Makers." Closest to my hometown are Deborah Anne's Homemade Chocolates in Ridgefield where butter crunch, truffles, caramel and turtles are most popular, and Knipschildt Chocolatier in Norwalk where elegant ganache-filled truffles are available to wholesalers. Further afield are the Belgique Patisserie & Chocolatier in Kent, Bridgewater Chocolate in Brookfield and Munson's Chocolates in Bolton. All hail the chocolate nutmeg state.
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Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Filed under "questions I never thought to ask," Yahoo responds to the query: Why is the "manila folder" called "manila"? Answer: they're made from manila hemp, which is indigenous to the Philippines.
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Car DVD players are not so rare nowadays. But why limit yourself to recorded videos? Now there's a satellite dish you can stick on top of your car. TracVision gives you access to DirecTV satellite channels while you're on the road, tracking satellites while you are in motion. It uses gyros and GPS to track the vehicle's position and keep the signal. Hook it up to your in-car video system and your passengers can forget about playing punch buggy to keep themselves entertained. Current price for the equipment is $3,500, and maker KVH Industries is hoping to reduce that significantly in the years to come. But remember, it's illegal to watch TV while you're driving.
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Monday, November 10, 2003

An enormous cushion-cut sapphire, formerly owned by Queen Marie of Romania, will be auctioned off by Christie's on November 19 in Geneva. Weighing in at 478.68 carats, the gem is estimated to go for $860,000-$1,300,000. Christie's claims it is the largest sapphire ever offered at auction. The same sale features two other significant sapphire jewels and a few D color, flawless diamonds as well. Bidders who haven't depleted their funds can stay in town for Sotheby's auction of a 103.83 carat flawless diamond the following day (reported here earlier).
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With an original estimated schedule of twenty years, "the dictionary to end all dictionaries" was completed in sixty-eight. Simon Winchester's new book The Meaning of Everything sets the scene for the void identified by the creators of the Oxford English Dictionary with a history of the English language and its unwieldy growth patterns, triggered by foreign invasions. The OED's ambitious goals to catalog not only meanings of words, but also their histories, quotations, and synonyms brought a complexity to a project which ultimately outlived many of its creators. Project managers from all disciplines will relate to the pressures of budget, estimated schedule, and resources that plagued OED editor James Murray. The vast effort needed to properly catalog the English language proved the worth of the task itself.
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Friday, November 07, 2003

Zookeepers in Milwaukee were surprised by a baby giraffe, born after a 15 month gestation period. Let's assume mom giraffe was not as shocked as the zookeepers were to find a new animal in the pen. Baby will be sleeping a little more often than the 30 minutes adult giraffes need in 24 hours.
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There will be a total lunar eclipse Saturday evening. The weather this week has been crisp, cold, and clear, just like autumn should be.
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The Concorde arrived at the Museum of Flight on Wednesday. And it has a new hat: "the Concorde, when traveling at supersonic speeds, is heated by atmospheric friction. This causes the airframe to expand. Inside, the expansion is visible only as a gap that opens in the paneling behind the cockpit; then, as the aircraft slows and cools, the gap closes. So, while the jet streaked at 1,350 mph over Canada, one of the engineers aboard stuffed his hat into the gap. And there it remains."
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Thursday, November 06, 2003

Are you looking for answers in all the wrong places? Perhaps a Ouija board will reveal the guidance you seek. The Museum of Talking Boards contains galleries of previously manufactured boards and planchettes, and those currently in production. And if your question can't wait for a trip to the toy, errr, mystical supply store, there are online boards ready for your query.
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In college I would sometimes argue with other Chinese students about which won ton wrapping technique is best (the right answer: however your mom did it). There was, however, agreement on the proper method for creating a pot sticker. So I wasn't surprised to find that the SF Chronicle's detailed description of the pot sticker pleating technique was entirely familiar. The accompanying drawings clearly illustrate the various steps. Of course the key tool you may be lacking is the specially shaped rolling pin my dad made me, patterned after the one my mom brought with her when she moved to the U.S.
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Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Information I've never needed before: Winterizing your Irrigation System. There are different specifics for different sprinkler systems. Brrr.
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Remember when the swirly logo and the swooshy logo were all the rage? Are they looking dated yet (flush!)? Graphic Design:usa has gathered up the latest round of logo trends. Evolving from the swoosh is the "slinky" and from the swirly is the "natural spiral." (via xBlog)
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It's a boy! Weighing in at 9 pounds, 11 ounces, Harry Joseph Letterman arrived in fine late night fashion, two minutes before midnight. His dad was back at work the next day.
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Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Paul Shaffer took over hosting duties for David Letterman on short notice Monday evening. Presumably little baby Letterman, due in "early November," was making an entrance. Hopefully by the time you read this there will be happy news.
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In a carpeted warehouse on a farm near Mount St. Helens, Wayne Sutton has amassed a collection of 1,000 chain saws. Some came from retired lumberjacks or their wives. Nowadays he also bids against other saw collectors on eBay. And it's not just the saws that he loves, but the idea of having wood at the ready on a cold night for a toasty fire.
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Wander through the well-stocked pantries of twelve ethnic cuisines and compare them to your own. The item unfamiliar to me was ackee, the Jamaican national fruit.(via Pop Culture Junkmail)
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Monday, November 03, 2003

When the N.Y. Times asked "eleven prominent men and women" (and it was actually 8 men, 3 women) what technology or gadget they would like to see invented, the selected group was nicely eclectic (Margaret Cho, Donald Trump, Scott Adams) but they should have rounded it off with a prominent homekeeper (male or female). Unfortunately, there aren't any. Or are there? They should do a followup piece on normal folks with regular jobs who don't have assistants. (via gizmodo and Techdirt)
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DeBeers' Heavy Right Hand

Long-time readers know a recurring topic here is shedding light on the marketing of diamonds and the manipulations of DeBeers. An ad campaign recently began pushing the diamond "right-hand ring". Launched over the summer by the Diamond Trading Co., the message is aimed squarely at women and entices them to buy their own diamond rings as a symbol of their independence (the DTC is "the rough diamond-trading arm of De Beers," essentially their marketing arm, so you can substitute "DeBeers" when you read DTC).

An article in Professional Jeweler clearly spells out the DTC's campaign goals and design directives. The target woman is 35-64, has "been married at some point, received diamond jewelry before and needs only her own permission to treat herself." The campaign seeks to promote right hand rings for women to express their "independent, worldly, assertive sides," distinct from the left hand ring, which is of course reserved for DeBeers' big moneymaker: diamonds emotionally connnected to your family commitments. The strict design edicts state that "Ring designs should be oriented in a north-south direction and use a lot of open, or negative, space; should fit in one of four categories: modern vintage, contemporary, floral and romantic; rings can contain a mix of round or fancy shapes and should include at least one diamond of 20 points or more".

Perhaps realizing that the diamond "cocktail ring" had aged beyond chance for a retro-style comeback, DeBeers started promoting right-hand rings in 1999 with a design competition. Since then, they've savvily crafted the distinct design guidance, and honed the emotional message of independence for women. Jewelry designers and the fashion industry are jumping on board.

Despite losing some of their monopolistic market share, bad publicity over conflict diamonds, and the trend towards "branded diamonds" DeBeers continues to act as the dominating marketing power. From the very beginning of the "a diamond is forever" engagement ring to their "three stone diamond jewelry" campaign (one stone each to represent past, present and future), and now this "right hand" ring concept, they have been the sheperds of the public mindset towards diamonds, creating opportunities to sell even more while retaining remarkable cachet. Will their generic advertising fall by the wayside as other suppliers gain market share?
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