Did I mention I was busy? Yes I did. That means it’s time for “Viewer Mail” (now known as the “CBS Mailbag“, and I should probably call it “Reader Mail”). Lots of people wrote in about waffles. Apparently lots of people love waffles. Reader Rash wrote in to say that deliberately denting pancakes seems like an implausible origin and referred me to this waffle page which says: “According to an old Betty Crocker cookbook, ‘a crusader wearing his armor, accidentally sat in some freshly baked oat cakes, flattening them and leaving deep imprints of the steel links.'” It is a more romantic story. I actually thought it was less plausible than the deliberate denting, which I could see myself doing to get my syrup to stay on top. Vera wrote to let me know about stroopwafels, which she is quite fond of. I don’t need to quote her yummy thoughts here since you can read them yourself at Your Pocket Guide to Sweetness and Light (that issue isn’t archived yet, so if it’s gone, check her archive page). And jp of the recently resurrected dumbmonkey wrote in with this food history waffle link. It quotes the respected Larousse Gastronomique which says that the Ancient Greeks cooked flat cakes between two hot metal plates. This cooking method resulted in waffles when a 13th century craftsman forged plates in a honeycomb pattern. And that’s Viewer Mail for now. Time for me to get a lovely beverage.

Busy busy busy. The log falls off the end of the priorities list. Whump! Here are some quicklinks, probably stolen from all sorts of excellent places that I can’ t remember: A Sightseer’s Guide to Engineering, find engineering related sights everywhere you go in the U.S. The Critic at Shockwave.com, The Critic (with Jon Lovitz) is one of my favorite “dead” animated series and now they’ve resurrected it in Shockwave. It’s not as good as the original, but it’s a nice start. Great Buildings Online “documents a thousand buildings and hundreds of leading architects, with 3D models, photographic images and architectural drawings, commentaries, bibliographies, web links, and more.”

I’ve started checking Yahoo’s West U.S. Pollen map to see how my snifflies compare with the ratings. What I should be doing is inhaling NasalCrom before my symptoms start, but I have this strange idea that by knowing how bad things may get, I can feel better about taking drugs to stop it. I was brought up to not use medications until drastic symptoms occured. I never took aspirin for a headache or ibuprofin for a pain (I do at least think of doing so now, and sometimes take a pill). NasalCrom works the way I prefer drugs to work. Instead of trying to fix or mask the allergy symptoms, it goes to the root cause of the problem by preventing the mast cells in your nose from releasing histamines. Your symptoms don’t get triggered. It has no bad side effects (that I know of), doesn’t knock me out, is safe for kids, is not steroids, is not habit forming (medically, anyway), has no interactions with other drugs, and for me, it really works. (This was not a paid advertisement. A lot of money was put into advertising Claritin. The New York Times Magazine recently had a long article about the business of Claritin. “$80 for a drug that works only half the time?”)

The rolling blackout hit my office yesterday evening. I was getting ready to leave anyway, so the timing was fortunate. The entire block of buildings around us went dark, except for a couple of rooms in what I assume is a biotech firm next door. They had a generator running (hard to miss the noise) in the back, so all was prepared. A steady stream of cars came forth from all the parking lots as everyone decided to bag it for the day. At home, I checked my PG&E; bill and could not find an outage block listed. So either it’s cleverly hidden or I’m on a protected circuit.

I was rollerblading along yesterday, thinking about network versus local storage again (my Nov 13 entry discussed this), but this time more specifically with cell phones. I can’t remember phone numbers as easily now that I have them attached to speed-dials on my cell phone. But when I’m using someone else’s phone, which does happen once in a while, I’m stuck. Today I was catching up on RobotWisdom and saw a news link about disposable cell phones. Telespree’s product concept is completely network based. The phone handset is a “thin client” and the backend handles voice commands. Right now, I suspect most cell phone systems have functionality divided between the phone itself and the cellular service provider’s servers. Ideally I would want my contact database stored on a server that is accessible from anywhere through any device I may need it from. Right now, my Yahoo account is synched to my home computer and work computer. My Palm is synched to my home computer. My phone talks to no one. Which way will the market go? Or will lots of systems compete? Will a standard emerge? It’s exciting to watch these things evolve.

An interesting little tidbit: Patty Hearst produced, hosts and narrates a Travel Channel special on Hearst Castle. The SF Gate review says “You expect, given the title, ‘Secrets of San Simeon With Patricia Hearst,’ to get some revelatory hidden gems, but outside of a few anecdotal and visual tidbits, much of the two-hour Travel Channel special is a standard tour of a wonderfully crafted castle.” I’ve been down to Hearst Castle twice and enjoyed looking at the living areas more than the vast entertainment spaces. The view down to the coast is nice too, and sometimes you can spot the zebra(s?) running about with the horses on the ranch.

Rolling blackouts are hitting us again. My office building’s outage block is due up soon on the rotation, so if not today, one of the next few will bring us down. We’re prepared with UPSes and general awareness, but I’m sure the disruption will be … disruptive. It’s not like we can use solar powered calculators or slide rules to do our jobs. I predict that a bunch of sales types will be running about with cell phones, though. It’s getting towards the end of the quarter.

You would think that creating a gift registry would be easy and fun. You get to shop and not worry about spending lots of your own money. You get to pick out exactly what you want and not concern yourself about whether it is on sale. It should be the dream activity for someone like me who hates to pay full price for anything and often settles for something less than exactly what I want because something that will substitute just fine is on clearance. Well, I’ve found that it’s not as dreamy as all that. For example, the sheet sets we want are not available in the colors and configurations we want at the places we want them to be at. Macy’s online has them in the right configurations (separate listings for each item) but not in the right colors (though I can probably go to the actual store myself and ask them how to get the right colors listed, but that doesn’t mean someone will be able to buy them online). Bed Bath & Beyond has them in the right colors but packages them up into sets that cost more than I expect someone to spend for a wedding gift. And because people are selling spring and summer things now, no one has a good selection of flannel sheets, or they are on clearance, which makes me wary that they won’t be available by the time our wedding rolls around. So, there’s muss and fuss to be dealt with in this activity. Since we already have plenty to fuss over, it’s best that I just relax and do what I can with what’s available. It’s just that it’s disappointing when the activities you’ve been looking forward to turn out to be less fun that you expected.

Tomalak’s Realm pointed to an IBM Developer Works article titled “Debunking the myths of UI design“. I could probably write pages of agreement and disagreement on the myths and realities that are described. But a tangent topic caught my interest. The essay touches briefly on the fact that software development is a young, rapidly evolving industry. More mature industries have well established roles and guidelines for how products are created. To counter the myth that “Good user interface developers can both design and code the user interface”, he writes: “In building construction, the division of labor between architect and contractor evolved as the industry matured.” It’s probably true that as software development matures, roles will be better established and accepted. However, I think there will always be startups, the small, swift teams, who cut the more bureaucratic & political corners, often for the better, and get decent quality software out the door. It is somewhat like what GM did with Saturn. They achieved the image, and perhaps the reality, of a new way of building cars that wasn’t the tried and true way, but something fresh and happy. I do want UI design, and just good design, to get more mindshare in software development. But I’d hate to see the day that it becomes a boring, old time industry. Are the Microsofts and Oracles going to take over, with no hopes for the small teams getting a product sold?

Yesterday the Palm wouldn’t turn on. Today the Palm won’t turn off. It’s quite distressing. Obviously there’s still water in it, making the “On” switch be always on. I’ve got it set to turn off after 30 seconds, and it does that, then it turns itself back on. I’m just waiting for the batteries to run out. And for more water to evaporate. sigh. This is what one looks like inside. (no, I’m not going to attempt that! Not for a million … no wait, I’d do it for $500!)