Archive for May, 2007
Golden State is the new Denver
I knew Dirk’s team wouldn’t make it out of the Oakland Arena alive. (Oh wait, I’m supposed to call the arena The Oracle now?) Tonight’s upset of the top-ranked Dallas Mavericks (67-15) by the Golden State Warriors (the last team to make the 2007 NBA playoffs at 42-40) reminded me of a very similar occurrence […]
WebVisions 2007 in review
On Thursday and Friday, May 3-4, I attended the WebVisions 2007 conference at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. This is the third year I’ve made the trek up to Portland for this excellent “future of the web” event. Below is a quick overview of some sessions I attended, with links: 1. Practical AJAX Inside […]
Kentucky Derby 133 prophecy
A friend of mine is at the Kentucky Derby this year (right now, actually). She’s the kind of person who throws Derby parties and sips mint julep every year and has always wanted to go to Churchill Downs. So I was excited for her when she arranged to go Louisville this May. Last week, before […]
Paging Dr. Mario with an electrolarynx
I had to miss a couple of days of work this week because I’ve been sick since last Sunday morning. I suppose I deem this worth mentioning because I don’t get sick very often, and I certainly haven’t been this ill in a long time (maybe 15 years). This fair-weather plague started out with a […]
Pink bats, Pink Martini, and Pink Floyd
I have three pink-related stories for you at this ridiculously early morning hour: 1. Yesterday, on Mother’s Day, over 200 Major League Baseball players used bright pink bats during their games. And many more wore pink sweatbands and wristbands. This is the second straight Mother’s Day that MLB and the Susan G. Komen foundation have […]
Airports unleash virtual strip searches
We started to hear about this technology in the mainstream news late last year, but now it has arrived! As of this week, airline passengers in Amsterdam are now being subjected to a new “millimeter wave” full-body scanning system. This body-imaging technology uses non-ionizing electromagnetic waves to generate an image based on the energy reflected […]
Marketing gold: Doritos X-13D Flavor Experiment
Today I was walking through the grocery store, just minding my own business, when, out of the corner of my eye, I see a plain black bag of chips with a generic sans-serif font that says “X-13D.” In this age of sophisticated, glossy, photo-rich packaging, how am I not going to look more closely to […]
Abraham Lincoln’s death (and Tecumseh’s Curse)
Once again I am awake at a ridiculous hour on Monday morning. What have I learned? That President Abraham Lincoln might have survived if today’s medical technology had existed when he was shot in the back of his head in 1865. Last week medical experts took on the case of Abraham Lincoln at the 13th […]
A Fair(y) Use Tale, Smashing Pumpkins, NBA lottery
Today I have five things to mention: 1. Eric Faden, an assistant professor of English and film studies at Bucknell University, created a 10-minute video called “A Fair(y) Use Tale” using 400 cuts from 27 different Disney films to mock copyright law (and Disney). It’s certainly worth checking out. As you may know, Disney has […]
Creationism: Noah saved dinosaurs from flood
Have you heard? The Creation Museum in Kentucky is open! And it sounds more fantastic than Disneyland! Here’s a quote from today’s “New museum says dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark” article at Reuters.com: While the $27 million museum near Cincinnati has drawn snickers from media and condemnation from U.S. scientists, those who believe God created […]