Want to cook like you’re back in colonial times (or earlier)? William Rubel has written a book called “The Magic of Fire” which describes how to prepare meals on an open hearth. Rubel burns a fire down to embers and braises vegetables, simmers spelt, roasts fish, and even steams a chocolate cake, all at his fireplace. A founder of the children’s magazine Stone Soup, Rubel will be at Chez Panisse for an open hearth dinner next week, and is also working with Deborah Madison, famous veggie cookbook author.

The brouhaha over Intuit’s TurboTax product activation (the Amazon customer reviews are scathing) reminded me of Lotus’ little debacle with copy protection, circa 1989. As described on this page about cracking 1-2-3’s copy protection, Lotus actually created a utility that would remove the copy protection from an installed version of 1-2-3 version 2.01. They shipped it in a “Value Pack” of helpful software. Unfortunately, users often ran into problems with the sometimes not-so-valuable Value Pack, rendering their spreadsheet software unloadable. Deluged with product support calls, Lotus hired a batch of college interns that summer to assist in taking calls from frantic users. That’s where I came in. Thanks to Lotus’ copy-protection scheme and faulty removal process, I got my foot in the computer industry door. Lesson learned: never skimp on quality assurance, even if you think you’re doing customers a service.

A less common support call related to copy protection: a customer calling to say that they bought a copy of Lotus 1-2-3, in “original” shrinkwrap, but it had someone else’s name already on the disk. That’s when I learned that Egghead stores would shrinkwrap returned software and put it back on the shelf like it was new. Lesson learned: Fry’s Electronic’s restocking sticker (aka The White Sticker of Death) actually demonstrates some level of good customer service.

Viewer Mail

Jennifer sent a cute article about a kitten who survived a six-story fall and was rescued by a radio reporter. The grateful owners repaid the vet expenses and sent the reporter flowers. The kitten is undergoing physical therapy.

Lynn sent a followup on the self-tuning piano I mentioned recently. This paper is written by the inventor of that piano and describes the problems and solutions from his quest.

Vote for the California State Quarter design. No no, not that one, pick that one! (thanks Lisa!)

And lastly, Tony wrote in to say that traffic roundabouts are not good for bicyclists. Here’s what he had to say:

In the Nederlands far more people commuter by bicycle than go
by car. So ALL roundabouts in the Nederlands, many thousands of them,
were replaced by traffic signals about 15 or 20 years ago. Naturally,
there is no right turn on red in the Nederlands—indeed many traffic
signals there have a separate phase for bicyclists whose presence is
detected by induction loops buried in the road.

I did some specific web searching on this topic and found a Florida report (in PDF) that states that although car and pedestrian accidents are reduced at roundabout intersections, bicycle accidents increase. Not good. I also found a U.S. DOT research paper on roundabout safety which does mention the issue of bicycle safety on this page. It reports that the Netherlands have been very successful in their roundabout use, but does mention the high accident rate of one of the designs used there. “Mini-roundabouts” have reduced bicycle injuries in the Netherlands, but not in Britain. Looking at the actual source material cited by the study would shed better light on this issue. But bicycle safety is definitely a concern for roundabout usage.

Thanks for the mail everyone!

Back for another round of publicity: the SoloTrek XFV: Exoskeleton Flying Vehicle, prototype going on sale at eBay on Friday. But the winner must promise never to fly it. Shucks.

MediaNews brings us “the difference between NPR and PRI,” a conundrum which was certainly keeping me awake at stop lights. Peter Sagal sends in a small rebuttal in the Letters section.

Martha Martha Martha…Stewart, of course. Her new food magazine got some news coverage on the same day that DaimlerChrysler announced they were not renewing their Martha Stewart ad dollars but putting them towards Celene Dion instead. Also yesterday, UMass Magazine ran an item on a PhD candidate in communications whose dissertation is all about the Martha phenomenon, specifically audience reactions. There’s contact information if you’d like to participate.

Look up historical foods galore in this searchable index of menus. The collection resides in the Rare Book Room at the Los Angeles Public Library. There are doorknob hangtags from not very long ago and banquet menus from very long ago. I found menus going back to the 1850s.

The acoustical canopy hanging over the stage of San Francisco’s Davies Symphony hall is made of 59 6-foot squares of Plexiglas. They replaced 19 “giant contact lenses” (oval reflecting dishes) ten years ago and are still noteworthy enough to warrant an Chronicle article (albeit during a slow news week). The computer-controlled panels are often fined-tuned for each piece, like the mixing board for an amplified rock band, creating the correct blend and reflection for the various orchestra instruments. Here’s a 1992 Chronicle review of the acoustically flashy opening performance at the newly renovated Davies Hall.

Another mushy personal account
In college I developed a theory, or maybe it was just a wish, that I was going to meet my husband in either a bookstore or a library. As it turned out, like many Silicon Valley workaholics, I met my spouse at the office. But there was still a bookstore connection. He was hired into the position because of a chance encounter with our VP of Engineering at Stacey’s Bookstore in Cupertino. So my little prophecy came true peripherally. I soon discovered that my husband goes to Stacey’s so often that if anyone he knows ever goes there they are likely to meet. But, nevertheless, the happenstance still makes me feel that fate likes to smile every so often upon the introverted bookworms of the world. Unfortunately, Stacey’s in Cupertino is meeting with a less happy fate. Although we were assured when Stacey’s in Palo Alto closed that their Cupertino store had ample foot traffic to keep it afloat in the precarious whitewater near the Noble Borders of the Amazon, it is facing doom. My husband came home today with a stack of technical books and the unhappy news of Stacey’s impending closure. We’re too far away to regularly patronize their remaining San Francisco flagship store. For those still looking for love in the literature aisle, may I recommend the library or a used bookstore? Or perhaps Books Inc., Kepler’s, or a plane ticket to Portland.

Updates will be sporadic for the next week or so. I wish you all happiness in 2003.