We have plenty of devices availabe to supplement our long-term memory: PDAs, computers, pen & paper. How about something to help with your short-term memory while you are continually interrupted? The Cook’s Collage, a research project at Georgia Tech, helps you through a recipe by photographing and displaying your last few steps. Test subjects (college students of course), were asked to make oatmeal raisin cookies while being interrupted by a group of people watching football or conversing about a doctoral thesis. They found the digital reminder very helpful when they tried to remember what point they were at in their task. We’d all like to keep our short-term memories sharp, and I’d like cooking to be an absorbing and relaxing task, but the realities of home life and entertaining may be well served with this helpful device.

As I’m still peeved about Caltrain’s two year shutdown of weekend train service, I thought I’d take a look at what the high speed rail plans are. Someone decided the project would be better marketed as the “baby bullet train” and indeed it was funded successfully. But I ran across an article about the critics of the “baby bullet”, not the project, but the name. It quotes two members of Caltrain’s citizens’ advisory committee who believe the name is too violent. One says “The Baby Bullet name is a loaded gun. We live in a world of violence right now — why have a bullet?” Another thinks the name sounds too much like a toy, and besides it’s not a bullet train, it’ll only go 79 mph. But Caltrain’s executive director thinks the name will continue to market well and plans to let it stick. I don’t think someone who considers the name “baby bullet” violent should be throwing terms around like “loaded gun.”

The NY Times headline is promising: “Prime Time Gets Real With a Plump Heroine.” As Sara Rue, star of the sitcom “Less Than Perfect” says “I consider myself normal. I get annoyed at the business when a size 0 actress is cast as the `every gal’ gal. It’s just not true.” The President of ABC Entertainment claims that they actually had trouble finding an actress larger than size 4 to play the role. There must be a lot of starving women and wealthy personal trainers in Hollywood.

Fleet Week is returning to San Francisco this year, run by the Air Show Network. It’s actually “Fleet Week San Francisco, Presented by AT&T;” but no one’s paying me to say that (actually, as an AT&T; Universal Card holder, AT&T; Broadband Internet customer, AT&T; Broadband Cable subscriber, and AT&T; Long Distance caller, I’m probably contributing some miniscule chunk of this sponsorship). The Blue Angels arrive on Thursday and the ships will include the Sea Slice, “the experimental Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) ship.” It appears that tickets need to be ordered in advance for ship tours (last time we just waited in a big line), so some advance planning is necessary.

After I learn new words they tend to pop up frequently, making me wonder if I’ve been overlooking them in ignorance or if they are clustering in popularity. In July I wrote about my discovery of the words tellurian and orrery. This week they appeared in Burke and Wells’ chronicles of Paris. The two stumbled across The Galerie J.Kugel‘s exhibit of fifty celestial globes and spheres. And all these beautiful mechanical devices are for sale, but I probably don’t want to know the prices. I’ll just enjoy the photos.

Neiman-Marcus’ Christmas book is out. Commission an action figure of yourself, or a cameo brooch. Or both.

MIT Media Lab researchers have created a new type of ID tag which is tamper-resistant and difficult to forge. The little tokens are composed of plastic embedded with hundreds of tiny glass spheres. The patterns created when a laser shines through are the key to the uniqueness of these devices. The patterns are captured by a digital camera and converted into a binary number. Recreating the spheres that results in that number is difficult and the uniqueness of the tokens comes from comparing patterns created by shining the lasers at specific angles. They are working on making the system practical, creating readers and viable applications. (via Wired News)

In a sad NY Times article about the westernization of Nigeria’s standards of beauty, there is this wonderful passage: “Among the Calabari people in southeastern Nigeria, fat has traditionally held a cherished place. Before their weddings, brides are sent to fattening farms, where their caretakers feed them huge amounts of food and massage them into rounder shapes. After weeks inside the fattening farms, the big brides are finally let out and paraded in the village square.” While this ritual bears a disturbing resemblance to fattening up a prize cow for market, it’s a comfortable change from our U.S. “starve to fit in the dress” syndrome. The seamstress who altered my wedding gown was surprised that I didn’t want my dress taken in more. “Are you sure? Most girls wants me to make it really tight!” “Well, no, I actually want to be able to breathe on my wedding day, thanks.”

Booksfree.com is like Netflix for books. You pay a monthly fee to have a certain number of books out at a time and you mail them back in a postage paid mailer when you’re done. They only have paperbacks though, and most of the books I want and can’t get at the library are the new hardbacks that are immediately reserved and out for months. And for the lowest monthly fee ($6.99 for 2 books out at a time), I could buy 3-4 used paperbacks a month. I really enjoy browsing at the public library and used bookstores, so this concept, though I like it, doesn’t fulfill a need for me. (Washington Post article) (and don’t forget about booklend.net)

Collectively design a typeface with Typophile and be a part of a hive mind. (via memepool, which is it’s own kind of hive mind)