I don’t remember how I found this, and it’s not particularly exciting, but I was amused that it existed. Little Black Dress To Go sells little black dresses in three styles. To me, Little Black Dress == Audrey Hepburn.

There are some interesting essays in Joel on Software, a software development web log. Strong opinions to agree or disagree with. Hmm…I once used Excel for software schedules too. Now I just enjoy yelling at Project’s user interface. I do. I do.

Noel Davis at RootPrompt.org sent me info on the nifty Alex Catalog of Electronic Texts, a searchable “collection of digital documents collected in the subject areas of English literature, American literature, and Western philosophy.” You can read more about its features and infrastructure. It was created using all open source tools, which makes it even niftier. This reminded me to make my periodic check into Project Gutenberg to see what new texts are available.

Counter-intuitive information about the dangers of cell-phone radiation. The study found that the hands-free sets actually increase the amount of radiation. Huh.

From a Wired News article: “Redskirt.com, which launched in December, is a Chinese-language portal attempting to create an online community for women in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States.”
This idea takes wonderful advantage of the power of the web as
an information resource, and it makes me feel like there are rays of
light amongst the money-grubbing e-commerce sites (not that there’s
anything wrong with making money off the ‘net!). As the article says: “The Internet provides an outlet for women who are reluctant to
seek outside help for personal problems they find embarrassing…”
It’s a nice feeling to be able to reach women who don’t have anyone to turn to. Of course
many women who need help and information don’t have access to the Internet, but it can’t
hurt to have a resource available for those who do. As the web continues
to grow, and popular sites become more homogeneous and commercially saccharine, I hope we continue to maintain niches of information, support, and sharing for groups of people who need specific help but have nowhere to turn except the Internet.

I’m not quite sure what to say about these Microsoft Certified Professional Action Figures except that it doesn’t look like they can get their arms close enough together to do the “three finger salute” (that’s control-alt-delete for all you lucky people). Maybe that’s why there are three of them. They travel in packs of three ready to perform reboots in a single synchronized bound. (via Considered Harmful)

MSN’s UnderWire (gak, I don’t think I like that name!) has an article on women in high tech and how they dress. The “no duh” conclusion is that female programmers are treated more as equals by their male counterparts when they dress as casually as they do. Heck, male engineers probably would be too. A guy in a suit doesn’t get much respect if he hasn’t proven himself to be competent. But it probably would take a nicely dressed female longer to earn that same respect. Someone I worked with at a previous company was sent to Apple as a consultant and she got little or no help from the male techies there who were supposed to help integrate her project. She finally decided to start wearing jeans and t-shirts to work and was suddenly taken a lot more seriously. It’s too bad that how someone looks gets in the way of certain people’s assessment of their abilities. I’m sure I do it too, because tech people do fall into stereotypical categories more often than not. But it is nice that I don’t have to be dressed up to be taken seriously in this industry.

Ahhh, now I know why I haven’t seen any of those new dollar coins yet. This Mercury News article explains that Sacagawea coins are being hoarded and not spent by consumers. Come on, people! This is not a limited edition release like those state quarters. They will make more. Let them go! Then again, perhaps if we refuse to use them, vending machine proprietors won’t be inclined to round all purchase prices to the dollar. I’m wondering how many bridge toll takers will be out of work if the coins do catch on and exact change baskets get installed at the bridge tolls. But, as the article punnily says, “People resist change.”

It’s college admissions season. Whew. Seeing the articles the NY Times is running on the admissions process at Wesleyan University brought back some frightening memories. I was rejected from the majority of the places I applied to because I shot pretty high (oh lo over the ivy walls). And to this day I wonder what miracle of fate got me into the only place I really wanted to go. I remember my friend, Nicole, calling me up at work to tell me that we both got into our (same) safety school. She had already called my mom to ask her if I had also received a bulky envelope from a certain university. Her exact words were “Now we know we get to go to college!” Oh, but until that second acceptance arrived, I remained a nervous wreck. I think senior year of high school was when I picked up the terrible habit of not sleeping when I’m under stress. And it was all those darn college applications that started it. The NY Times article points out how the admissions process often ends up being very personal for the committee members as they see their own experiences reflected in those of the applicants, often ones with some disadvantage. And, as we always kept hearing, it’s those extracurricular activities that put you over the top.

I like how the opening for the straw in the Jamba Juice cups is a bit off center.