From the Online Journalism Review, an interesting look at why NBC took limited advantage of online streaming video coverage during the Olympics. I'd say it boils down to simple economics. The audience was only on TV unless NBC fully took on the investment of a comprehensive online strategy that would result in more income. The BBC offered live streaming of several events with positive results. I wonder how much will change over the next four years as broadband becomes more prevalent.
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Although I wish I didn't have to be so pleased about it, I'm extremely happy about MIT selecting its first female president. The college has a 42% undergraduate female population and an annoyingly low 18% of its faculty is female. President-elect Susan Hockfield is a neuroscientist, a plus for the necessary future of bridging the disciplines of engineering and the life sciences.
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Friday, August 27, 2004

Dairy farmers in various states (California, Vermont, Connecticut, and Idaho) are generating electricity from decomposing manure. Straus Dairy installed a methane digester earlier this summer and also took advantage of the power company's program to hook into the grid. Their bi-directional meter can now run backwards. Vermont is implementing a similar program.
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The Muppets are making their own "Wizard of Oz" movie for ABC television. Kermit will be the Scarecrow, Gonzo the Tin Man, and Fozzie the Lion. Reports have Miss Piggy playing both good witch Glinda and the bad witch. No word on whether Frank Oz will play "the great... and powerful... Oz." The movie "will feature several music numbers but will not be a musical." (OK...) In other Muppet news, Jim Henson and the Muppets will be featured on U.S. stamps in 2005 (as expected, Ronald Reagan is on the list too).
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Wednesday, August 25, 2004

They look a little weird now, but maybe they won't in a year or so. Aluminum beer bottles are debuting this week from the Pittsburgh Brewing Co. It's a joint venture with Alcoa. Back in 1962 the two companies worked together to introduce pull-tab beer cans.
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Powell's Bookstore is coming to Seattle, but it's not what you'd think. The "legendary independent bookstore" is setting up a temporary shop to buy used books from the Seattle populace and bring them back to sell in Portland (and online too, I suppose). Much as I love Powell's, there's some interstate book economics going on here that doesn't sit well with me.
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Tuesday, August 24, 2004

If you love wasabi peas, you may want to try making your own. It starts with dried whole peas and of course uses wasabi powder or paste, the amount of which can be adjusted to your taste.
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Reader Marc sent in a fun weblog written by a violist in the Minnesota Orchestra. Sam Bergman chronicled his orchestra's European tour in February. Interesting details of life on the concert stage emerge, such as what happens when the principal cellist breaks a string, coping with the acoustics of unfamiliar halls (one of which he likens to "performing on the inside of a giant SuperBall"). Then there are the necessary details of life on the road, finding time to sightsee between commitments, washing socks and undies with Woolite in the hotel sink. Add in the rituals of plane travel and the logistics of transporting a full orchestra and instruments through Europe.
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Monday, August 23, 2004

Shhhh, it's a secret. But Seattle Times food writer Nancy Leson wrote about it anyway -- even though she won't reveal too many details. A secret underground restaurant, code-name Gypsy, has hit the Seattle food scene. Dreamed up by Seattle chefs who noticed the underground dining phenomenon in other urban locales, the Sunday night dinners are held in private homes (with gourmet kitchens of course) and have "suggested contributions" for the food and wine (plus there's the tip), cash preferred. You pay $5 to get a membership in this secret club, but she won't tell you how. Invitations then arrive by email and the reservations go fast.
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They don't actually mow grass or even ride on it, so participants in National Lawn Mower Racing Competitions remove the blades from their riding mowers. Many of the racing mowers are actually junkers brought to life for the race. Various classes of competitors take 10 laps around the dirt track to qualify for the 20 lap trophy races. The U.S. Lawn Mower Racing Association began on April Fools day in 1992 after a visit to their British counterpart.
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Thursday, August 19, 2004

Cufflinks on display at a music library? UC Berkeley's Music Library has a new home, the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library, with room to set out the cufflink collection of jazz pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines. Of course there's music too: a collection of Gregorian chants, manuscripts from the school of Giuseppe Tartini, two operas from Alessandro Scarlatti, and a manuscript of Stravinsky's Orpheus "written in the composer's alarmingly fastidious hand".
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It's a tough search but someone's gotta do it. Every Olympics it's fun to seek out photos of winning athletes biting their medals on the podium. I had to peer through a stack of sports photos to finally find someone biting their gold medal at the Athens Olympics. I saw a number of medal kissers but no biters until Valentina Vezzali obliged. Then I realized I was being dense and searched on "medal bites" and found more: Michael Phelps, Lee Wo-hee, Brice Guyart, Ilias Iliadis, Yana Klochkova, Marcel Fischer, Tony Estanguet. Plenty more to come, for sure.
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Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Credit card companies' new "no signature required" policies are increasing card usage at places like Starbucks and fast food restaurants. Only retailers with typically small transactions such as video stores, parking lots, and fast food have been allowed to use this speedier method. A signed receipt is not required of credit card holders and debit card users do not need to enter their PIN. The policy has convinced McDonalds, a holdout in accepting cards because of wait time, to embrace credit card use. Another big advantage is that without signed paper receipts, there's no need to store paperwork away for years in case it is needed for alleged fraud. Credit card companies claim there has been no increase in fraud with the no-signature situations since stolen cards are used for big ticket items.
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Seattle area dog owners have been enjoying al fresco dining at fine restaurants with their pooches in support of a no-kill animal shelter. The "Dine With Your Dog" events are produced by the local Three Dog Bakery which of course also supplies the canine portion of the meal, including an after dinner mint. Humans get to order off the regular menu.
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Tuesday, August 17, 2004

The final tally is in on the September Vogue issue, proving the rumors true: 832 pages with 647 ad pages. That's 4 pounds of fall fashion. The inclusion of a new advertiser, Kmart Holdings Corp was newsworthy. J.C. Penney is another more affordable retailer sitting next to the Louis Vuittons and Yves Saint Laurents. Also notable, the cover features actual models instead of a celebrity, unlike the past 3 years (and on many non-September covers as well). Vogue sits alone in breaking with the celebrity cover girl trend with Elle, Glamour, and the like continuing to use actresses. The N.Y. Daily News found it prudent to offer a guide to locating the elusive table of contents in the fall issues (for Vogue, pages 44, 60-76).
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Seattle gardeners will have to make do without Woodland Park Zoo Doo this fall. The composted animal droppings have been contaminated with the herbicide clopyralid. Zoo officials are blaming straw from Eastern Washington used to line cages. Zoo Doo is so popular that the zoo holds a lottery every spring and fall for appointments to buy it in bulk. They expect the spring crop to be clopyralid-free.
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Monday, August 16, 2004

An acrylic chair alongside a mahogany dining table? "It's a new day in home decorating." The '70s aren't back (in this plastic furniture world anyway), but plastics have evolved their way into the realm of "fine" furnishings. There's Kartell's Louis Ghost Armchair by Philippe Starck, priced at $308. And custom furnishings such as lighting fixtures are even being ordered in acrylic. The look of that handy architectural element, the glass block, can now be found in acrylic. The plastic blocks are lighter, lending themselves to more applications, and easier to install. As the article points out, however, plastic still has the drawback of showing fingerprints. Maybe someone's working on that.
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Although I'm not a redhead, I can relate to the difficulty of finding makeup in the mainstream world. Cosmetics catering to the unique redhead complexion have begun to spring up. Black mascara need no longer weigh down reddish or even lighter eyelashes. Warm peach, pumpkin and brown tones are available to color the lips and cheeks of those with naturally auburn tresses or those who've had some red-pigmented help. And freckles need not be covered up.
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Friday, August 13, 2004

A professor at RPI has created a three-layer reflective coating for LEDs which magnifies their output 20-30%. Hopefully the technology can be commercialized and further hasten the energy reduction brought on by replacing incandescents and flourescents with those efficient light emitting diodes. The coating, known as an omni-directional reflector (ODR), consists of a semiconductor, a dielectric material, and a silver layer. (via Buzzworthy)
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It's nearing the time for that phone book of a magazine called the September issue of Vogue. Rumor columns have it coming in at 850 pages (last year's was 740), which is a pretty good sign for the economy. The split of ad to editorial is estimated at 620 pages of ads to 230 pages of editorial. Ann Taylor and Lancome are launching expensive ad campaigns in the September fashion mags.
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Thursday, August 12, 2004

Feta cheese is the Greek cheese; in northern Greece if the recipe just says "cheese" it means feta. This article looks at Bulgarian, French, and Israeli feta too. Originating from the Balkans, it's impossible and pointless to say if the cheese came first from Bulgaria or Greece. It's a recent product in France where sheep farmers began producing it to avoid flooding the Roquefort market. Israeli produces a quality product too, but of course the connoisseurs turn their noses up at anything except the Greek barrel-aged versions.
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Will the existence of personalized PhotoStamps reduce the sales of "Love" stamps as more couples create a custom wedding stamp for their invitations? Trivia to keep an eye on.
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The Queen Mary 2 is one of eight luxury cruise ships docking in Athens for the Olympic Games. Athens' main port Piraeus will be home to the ships and security is of course very tight around the area.
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Wednesday, August 11, 2004

In looking over John Dvorak's Top 10 Most Important Software Programs I couldn't help but think "well what does this mean to me?" So, forthwith, I started my own selfish list of Top 10 Most Important Software Programs...for Me. When I think back to what got me started off in the computer world and then bits further along that kept me interested in it, this is it, in no particular order.

WordPerfect - The first word processor I learned to use properly, and I believe the first software that I actually purchased for myself, at a nice student price.

MS-DOS net send and Unix talk - since they're not really full-blown software packages, I've combined them into one category described as: "Oh my gosh, I was IM-ing on a network before IM-ing even existed." Good times. What potential.

Lotus 1-2-3 - I was a college intern for two summers at Lotus Development Corp. 1-2-3 was the first PC program I learned in great depth and breadth and I still think "slash file save" when I click on that little "Save" icon in Excel.

TRS-80 BASIC - My first programming language back when I hated programming because all we did was write programs for math functions in math class. I hated math, thus, of course I hated programming. Ha.

Symantec Think C - I have no idea what version I started on but it was my first full programming environment (sorry, I never counted Emacs though many geeks would) and it made the edit, compile, run, debug cycle smooth as silk.

My first graphical web browser - Sadly I can't remember the name of the first graphical browser I used, but it worked over a slow terminal dial-up connection and soon after I was upgrading my account to get my hands on PPP and Mozilla.

VAX/VMS - The primary system we used for email and programming courses in college. Yeah, unix was mixed in too, but not as much as I'd expect looking back now.

Quicken - The interesting thing about Quicken was that its user experience made something very dreary (money management -- blech) actually seem fun. I don't use it anymore (thus my use of past tense), but I probably should.

DOOM - The original version. Without this I may have never entered the violent world of gaming (I hated shooting the dogs in its predecessor Wolfenstein 3D). Who knew that finding and wielding a chainsaw could actually be fun?

kermit (probably MS-Kermit) - with kermit, a modem, and a phone line I never had to go into the college computer lab. I could stay in my very own room. Except that sometimes it's more fun to be sitting in lab with everyone else at 2am. And then 6am.
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Monday, August 09, 2004

A timeline of Olympic Mascots and torches. Get ready for Phevos and Athena, named after Greek gods (you may know Phevos better as Apollo). This year's torch took its inspiration from the olive leaf.
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Pepsi has plans for two limited edition flavors in 2004, Mountain Dew Pitch Black and Pepsi Holiday Spice. Mountain Dew Pitch Black has a grape flavor and a horror film marketing theme to match its late August through Halloween run. Ginger and cinnamon highlight Pepsi Holiday Spice available, of course, through the holiday season from November to the end of the year. And Taco Bell is the only place you can get another special Dew flavor, Mountain Dew Baja Blast with a "tropical lime" flavor to complement those Mexican flavors.
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Friday, August 06, 2004

It's Tabouli and Baba Ganoush (can Hummus be far behind?), the cutest cloned kittens in the world. They're the latest offspring from Genetic Savings and Clone. Cell donor, Tahini (you saw that coming, right?), is a 1 year old Bengal cat owned by the CEO's son. I wonder if cat breeders are going to add, or have already added, "no cloning" clauses to their purchase contracts, right alongside the spay/neuter clause.
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"alternately jarring, disjointed, contrapuntal, maddeningly long, and enviably brilliant." It's a review of the writing of David Foster Wallace, but it's referring to a piece he wrote for Gourmet magazine, 6,000 words on his visit to the Maine Lobster Festival. Well, actually most of the article isn't exactly about the festival, but about the ethics of boiling lobsters alive. Apparently several revisions were called for as editor Ruth Reichl asked for changes, one of which was to remove mention of the PETA video "Meet Your Meat." From the disturbing snippets printed in the Boston Globe, I'm not sure how much I want to pick up the August Gourmet, but for certain the lobster essay offers something a little different in food for thought. Not to mention good PR (maybe for the lobsters too). (via Romenesko and kottke)
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Thursday, August 05, 2004

There's a ham sold in Barcelona, Spain that is so expensive that after your order is sliced up, it gets put into a little security box with a lock and sensor. That way not only do you set off the alarm if you leave the store without visiting the cashier, but you also can't take any nibbles before you pay up. It sells for 125 euros per kilo (>$75/lb)
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"Well, hi everybody!" That was Bob Murphy, the N.Y. Mets broadcaster's, usual welcome, and it's burned into many a fan's brain because Murphy called those Mets games from the very beginning in 1962 until his retirement last season. He died of lung cancer on Tuesday and it's a shame he didn't get to enjoy more of his retirement, but he probably loved his job. Bob Murphy, Lindsay Nelson and Ralph Kiner were the original threesome in the Mets broadcast booth, switching off radio and television duties. Murphy eventually was relegated strictly to radio, and the booth at Shea was named after him. His upbeat manner helped fans through the dry years, and there were many to suffer through. If you need to be reminded of which "voice" he was, Newsday posted a few audio clips. (N.Y. Times obit)
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Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Kopi Luwak is a rare, expensive coffee. This has a lot to do with the fact that the beans need to first pass through the digestive system of the Asian palm civet. A study to be published in Food Research International reveals that not only is the digestion key to the superior flavor, but that "During the night, the civet uses its eyesight and smell to seek out and eat only the ripest coffee cherries." The beans are washed during processing to remove any remaining surrounding fruit, resulting also in a low bacteria count. The same researcher, Massimo Marcone, has looked at the composition of swallow nests used in bird's nest soup, finding that the protein structure from the saliva is similar to eggs. (U. of Guelph press release, Nature article)
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Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Saffron is expensive. Very expensive. But you can actually buy and grow your saffron crocus, Crocus sativus (in zones 6-9). With corms (bulbs) going for about 50 cents each and 3 stigmas per flower, let's see...500 stigmas in a gram... a gram at Penzey's for $6.49... well, I guess it's still cheaper to buy it at the store instead of starting your own little saffron farm. (from Sunset Magazine)
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The Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy — The Exhibition is the lengthy title for a long awaited exhibit that opened at the Boston Museum of Science on August 1 and runs through October 24. It's the sole U.S. stop for what most people will just call "the Lord of the Rings exhibit." Not surprisingly it started in New Zealand at Te Papa. It went on to the Science Museum in London and the Singapore Science Centre before opening in Boston. It travels to the Powerhouse Museum of Sydney in time for Christmas. On display are many of the extraordinarily detailed costumes, jewelry, weapons and models used in the films.
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Monday, August 02, 2004

If "New Urbanism" has a PR firm it's doing a good job. This movement among urban planners, developers, architects and others of their ilk, brought a sensibility of convenience to counter suburban sprawl. The San Francisco Chronicle and Seattle Times both featured local examples of communities built on the principles of New Urbanism in their Sunday editions, and the term is often cited in housing related articles across the country.

The Chronicle focused on transit villages, housing developments built adjacent to public transportation. The article delves into the harsh economics of Bay Area housing where people who would like to live closer to their jobs must move hours away for affordable real estate. Zoning codes unfriendly to mixed-use development make it difficult to build to the New Urbanism characteristics of clustering various housing types, retail and business, not to mention the headaches of expanding public transit.

Over in the Eastside of the Seattle area three "urban villages" in previously rural surroundings have been planned to the elements of New Urbanism, with high density houses, an emphasis on pedestrians and common areas for neighbors to socialize. But most residents still have to drive to work, angering long-time area residents who now have to contend with traffic, and promised nearby conveniences such as grocery stores and schools are yet to come. Overall, though, residents seem happy with their trade-offs, enjoying their community, local coffee shops, and patiently waiting for continued development to bring more amenities.
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