Month: October 2007

Paper-free reading

I was reading Charles Stross’ review of the latest in Sony’s line of e-book readers.  He gives a brief disclaimer about Sony’s status as Evil, and then goes on to talk about the device.  As much as I want one, I absolutely refuse to buy a Sony product.  But then he mentions the upcoming Bookeen Cybook 3, which should be coming out this month.  It sounds cool, as long as the price isn’t astronomical (The other competitor he mentions is $700, which is absurd.  People wouldn’t even buy an e-book reader from Apple at that price).

I’d really like to have a nice e-book reader.  It would be great on the Metro.  I would even pay for a few e-books if the reading experience was good.  Unfortunately, no one I’m willing to do business with has brought anything reasonable to market.

This is especially appropriate today.  Paper should soon be obsolete.  There will be those who still cling to their real newspapers and real books (And at least with books, I’ll be among them).  But once we have an affordable electronic alternative to paper, we need to just stop printing words on paper completely.  Forget recycling paper, we need to just stop making it.  We will all be better off if paper stays in living tree form.

It will ease the transition if e-book readers can include a nice search, both within the text, and a Google search for context and word definitions.  Every time I read the paper on the Metro, I find myself annoyed that I can’t click a link for further detail, or look up a word for the meaning or the context.  And I can’t get through a book without wishing I could do a quick search for the last time a character was mentioned to refresh my memory on something or other.

Anyway, if this thing comes out this month at less than $300, I will buy it.  Barring some unforeseen deal-breaker like no Ubuntu compatibility or something like that, I’ll buy it.

Today is Blog Action Day

Blog Action Day

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind – the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.

So. The environment. It sure is important, huh?

You know, I don’t quite remember what it was that actually got me thinking about the environment. It’s the kind of thing that tends to start slow. At first maybe you just make a better effort to recycle, and maybe buy a few compact flourescent bulbs. But eventually, you start to actually change the way you think about things, and it stops being about incremental improvements in your lifestyle, and you actually fundamentally change the way you live your life.

You start to wonder if the food you’re eating is organic, or humanely raised and slaughtered. Maybe you don’t eat meat. You wonder if the cotton for your t-shirt was grown sustainably. You start using public transportation whenever possible, or maybe carpooling to work if you can’t take the train.

More importantly, you start spreading these changes to your friends, little by little. For example, the wife and I are at that age when everyone we know is having a baby. So we’ve been sending out a lot of sustainably grown bamboo baby clothes.

Anyway, what I’d like you to do, reader, is take a moment today and think about your impact on the environment, and what you can do to minimize it. You don’t have to sell your car immediately and start growing your own hemp for clothing, but once you get started, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to make some small changes. And try searching Technorati for “Blog Action Day” and see what other blogs are saying today.

Longtime reader is fired

You may have seen comments from GayleForceWinds here before, or you may actually know her. I’m now announcing that she’s fired. From what, you may ask. From nothing. Just fired.

As you may also know, Gmail has a built in chat program that can be set to display the music you’re currently listening to.

About ten minutes ago, Gayle was listening to “Heaven is a Place on Earth” by Belinda Carlisle, and now that infernal song is stuck in my head.  I didn’t even hear it, and it’s in my head.

I can’t adequately explain how much I hated that song back in the late ’80s. I didn’t hate it as much as Debbie Gibson’s “Shake Your Love”, but I hated it a little more than Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now”.

And I’m not really sure why.  Sure, they were perky pop stars who seemed way too happy all the time (Well, not so much Tiffany, which is probably why I didn’t hate her song as much), but why that would evoke such a reaction is beyond me.

Anyway, thanks a lot, GayleForceWinds.  I won’t forget this.

You were not meant to live that way

As I do once every month or two, I drove out to our corporate office today. This involves 20 miles on 66 West through Fairfax. I go against traffic, which is nice.

For those of you going East, though, I can’t imagine it’s worth it. It was backed up from the Beltway all the way out past Fair Oaks, and I doubt that’s unusual. Keep in mind this was before 8AM, so we haven’t even quite hit peak rush hour.

How do people justify this sort of commute? I did it for about a year, but it was my first job out of college, and I didn’t really know any better.

This will be the downfall of our society. Someday we will all commute from the Moon, and it will take us a week, but we’ll justify it by saying that real estate on Earth is just too expensive. Why, out here on the Moon, you can get a fifteen square foot survival pod for only $36,000,000 (That’s $450,000 in today’s dollars, or about 13 British pounds.)!

It’s just bad for people to spend time in the car like that. It’s stressful. It’s bad for the environment. It takes you away from people and sticks you in your own climate-controlled little box where you can choose to be entertained by repetitive garbage pop songs, inane morning show drivel, or depressing public radio.

As an aside, the radio is just awful.  I turned on 94.7, as recommended by a friend.  I don’t want to give up on the station because of just one song, but Jack Johnson sure blows.  I don’t know what the song was, but it sounded like the Chili Peppers will sound when they’re in their 80’s.  Maybe I’ll try it again on the way home.

Every time I drive to work, I want to go home and set fire to the car.  And then set fire to everyone else’s car.  Oh, wait, that’s not really environmentally responsible.  Okay, I want to recycle all the cars into affordable modular housing so we can all live in car-free cities and walk everywhere and lose weight and clean up the air (Yes, I know that cars aren’t the bulk of the air pollution, but they sure don’t help).  It will be awesome.

Anyway, stop commuting.  Telework, or get a new job closer to home.  You really didn’t need that fourth bedroom that you keep made up nicely for the guests who don’t come visit because you live an hour from civilization.  You probably didn’t even need that third bedroom where you keep all the crap your mom made you take with you when you moved out.

Date night

Last night, we did the second of our new monthly date nights. We went to a restaurant that I run past fairly regularly, and for some reason it’s always seemed intriguing.

We went to Napoleon Bistro on Columbia Road (Warning: Their website is a horrific flash piece of crap). We were thinking about eating outside, but it was a little muggy. And, it turns out we made the right choice, as a group who went outside to eat just after we arrived came back in shortly after, complaining of bugs.

Anyway, inside the restaurant is nice. They have a rather large bar area, which suggests they get a bar crowd that wasn’t there on a Sunday evening.

The food was good. I had flank steak with a shallot demi glace, whatever that means, and french fries. The wife had a crepe filled with something green and a salad. Crepes, apparently, are their specialty. We split a nice cabernet that I’d never heard of.

Dessert was great, too.  We had the “Femme Fatale”, which was a crepe filled with caramelized bananas and topped with ice cream.  It tasted a little pumpkiny and delicious.

We would definitely go back. In fact, we might even go back later this week when we have a friend in town who would love the food there.

Back to the website, though. I find that, more often than not, a restaurant website is awful. They usually use a lot of Flash, which is rarely a good idea. When I go to a restaurant website, I’d just like to see a menu, maybe a phone number. I don’t need to experience the ambiance of the place through some crappy Flash interface. I’m also surprised at how often I Google a restaurant and they don’t seem to have a website at all. I know I spend more time online than most people do, but it seems that the benefits of even just an HTML version of the menu and phone number being online would outweigh all the maintenance and hosting costs.

Anyway, I would recommend Napoleon Bistro. Just not their website.

Heres your chance to root for the Yankees

If you’re like me (That is, a rational human being not raised in New York), you hate the New York Yankees. You’re probably jealous of the cretins who actually root for them because they’ve averaged a World Series win every 4 years or so since 1900. It’s nice to root for a winner.

Anyway, tonight, you can safely root for the Yankees. Since 2000, which is as far as I’ve gone back, the Yankees are 0-3 in three game playoff series when they win the first game, and 4-0 when they lose.

In contrast, in all other three game playoff series, the team that wins game one is 16-5 in winning the series.

So, for you Phillies, Angels, and Cubs fans – you’ve got a tough road ahead of you.  But for you Indians fans, volunteer to pitch tonight to ensure a Yankees series loss.  The rest of the country will thank you for it.