Here is how I chose a new cell phone. I ran all the cell phones through this flow chart, and added up the scores. The BlackBerry 8703e on Verizon came up on top, but only because the 8800 isn’t out for another two weeks. I have a pretty specific set of requirements, so this probably won’t be useful to you, but here it is anyway:

Here are a few things I forgot to add to the chart (the BlackBerry 8703e has none of these):

• Trackball/D-pad
• Camera
• Touchscreen
• Transflective display
  

Filed under: doodles, gadgets | 0 Comments
Tagged: blackberry , flowchart , pocket pc

I just got a Blackberry 8703e. I’ll post more about why I got it later, but here are some first impressions:

• Verizon sucks:
  
  • When you try to download the RIM aim client from http://blackberry.com/aim, you get this warning: Sorry, your wireless service provider does not allow access to AOL Instant Messager for BlackBerry for your device.
  • blackberry maps client works, but Verizon has disabled the internal GPS. Update: Google Maps client is better.
    
• The Google Talk client works. Using these instructions (but a different AIM Jabber Transport), I got the GTalk client to talk to AIM, and it seems to be working great.
• The MidpSSH client worked out of the box.
• The thumb scroll wheel is superlame. I wish this thing had a trackball like the Pearl. The 8800 comes out in a couple weeks and it has a trackball and EVDO RevA.
• The keys are hard and plasticky. I wish they were soft and rubbery like the old sidekick2 keys.
• The web browser is sooo much faster than the sidekick. Two orders of magnitude faster.
• The 8703e has no camera.

Filed under: gadgets | 9 Comments

these cute mugs would make a great gift for a coffee-drinking friend. They’re available here (via boing boing)

Filed under: cuuuuute | 0 Comments

Check out this awesome Google Tech Talk on Dasher:

Keyboards are inefficient for two reasons: they do not exploit the redundancy in normal language; and they waste the fine analogue capabilities of the user’s motor system (fingers and eyes, for example). I describe a system intended to rectify both these inefficiencies. Dasher is a text-entry system in which a language model plays an integral role, and it’s driven by continuous gestures. Users can achieve single-finger writing speeds of 35 words per minute and hands-free writing speeds of 25 words per minute. Dasher is free software, and it works in all languages, and on many platforms. Dasher is part of Debian, and there’s even a little java version for your web-browser.

Give it a try! It takes a minute to get used to it (“We don’t know of a writing system with a learning curve steaper than this”).

In the middle of the video they show hands-free typing using gaze-tracker.

Filed under: typography, video | 1 Comment
Tagged: multitouch

The 42-inch water main that carries water from the reservoirs into downtown San Francisco runs underneath our house. SFPUC is replacing it with a new one that doesn’t go underneath our house, and they are drilling a tunnel through Bernal Hill for the new pipe. A couple months ago they started digging a giant hole at the top of the street, which now goes down three or four stories. They call this the tunnelhead.

Recently, this weird equipment appeared next to the giant hole:

On the other side of this thing is an opening with a chair that you can sit in:

Here is a close up of the knobby bits:

Does anyone know what this thing is? Is it the world’s largest drill bit???

There isn’t a lot of information about the “Bernal Heights Water Pipeline Tunneling Project” on sfwater.org, but there is this map of the reservoirs and pipelines.

Filed under: san francisco | 3 Comments
Tagged: bernal

I installed the Audio Player Wordpress plugin so we can easily embed mp3s into our posts.

To demonstrate, I’ll point you to episode 4 of the excellent Sound-Free podcast, which digs through a huge number of Creative Commons and netlabel releases and mixes the best stuff.

I embedded the above flash mp3 player using the following code:

Perfect late night mix. Listening back, it reminds me of the days when I use to listen to late night radio, flicking between commercial FM stations and DJ’s with a licence to experiment (where did they go?). Hence some tracks that I’ve christened softrock-electronica, some fine 4-4 house and plenty of other oddments…

Here is the track listing and the archive.org page for Sound-Free #4.

Filed under: archive, beats | 1 Comment
Tagged: podcasts

Adam Koford is a cartoonist who runs the distributed E-Hobo effort that illustrated the 800 hobo names from John Hodgman’s Areas of My Expertise. He was also selling custom-painted postcards illustrating your own hobo name, and Mikey commissioned a drawing of TikiRobot Raj and his Superdog Zara!

Mikey gave me the art-card yesterday at the Ranch and it totally blew me away! So beautiful and perfect! I love the way Adam captured Zara’s Z-tag, and floppy ears, and my flaming head! Thanks much to both of you!

Links!

• TikiRobot Raj on flickr
• TikiRobot Raj on Adam’s blog, Hobotopia
• Your Hobo Names set on flickr
• The 700 Hobos Project on flickr
• e-hobo.com
  

Filed under: doodles, inspiration, tiki lifestyle, zara | 4 Comments

On Sunday peliom and I did the Wildflower Century in Chico! It was my first century ride and lots of fun! We almost didn’t go because it was raining Saturday night, and more rain was forecasted for the morning….but I really wanted to ride 100 miles *somewhere* so we decided to make the 3 hr drive to Chico at 3 am on Sunday morning to see if the rain would let up.

When we arrived in Chico, it was 6, but still raining, so we checked in, got some coffee, and then napped in the car for a little bit until the rain tapered off. At 8 am we headed off on our bikes! Rain showered on us periodically throughout the morning but things cleared up by mid-afternoon and it turned out to be a really *gorgeous* day. I wish I had photos to show you but I forgot my camera unfortunately :-( The route was beautiful though and it was pretty neat seeing the landscape dotted by hundreds and hundreds of brightly colored cyclists zipping along. For the last 20 miles, we drafted and switched off every 5 miles which made getting to the finish line a lot easier!

The ride was really well organized for the most part - SAG vehicles followed us along the way helping people fix flats (there were A LOT of flat tires), all the rest stops were well stocked with drinks and yummy snacks, and the route map was printed on a bandana which you could wear or easily stuff into a pocket (that’s it above). The only glitch came at the end when they ran out of food for dinner, so we had to wander around Chico for half an hour looking for a place to eat - not what you want to do after riding 100 miles! especially since almost all the restaurants in town were closed…and *especially* because riding long distances makes you *really obsessive* about two things - eating and peeing!

we finally had dinner at a chinese restaurant and then took another short nap in the car before driving back. I was seriously pooped when we got back to the city at midnight, but also super happy that we did it!

Filed under: cycling, excursions | 0 Comments

I remember seeing Mammenschanz on the Muppet Show when I was much younger… It was the strangest and most surreal thing I had seen at the time, and memories of a creepy long-limbed spider-person has been hiding in the back of my brain for a long time. I stumbled upon this MetaFilter post and the memories came rushing back.. So, apparently the Mammenschanz are real and not some kind of half-remembered wonderful nightmare.

The Muppet Show was amazing. I wonder if kids’ shows these days are of the same caliber…

Filed under: bobslobster, old timers, video | 0 Comments

I saw this banner while surfing the web:

Here, I’ll save you $1300:

Best Practices for AJAX content development, rule #1: When developing AJAX web apps, don’t waste your time trying to work around Safari’s many DOM/Javascript/Canvas bugs. Instead, force your mac users to upgrade to Firefox^*.

^*Corollary to rule #1: At least force them to upgrade to a nightly build of WebKit, but even then, you’re walking into a very buggy minefield.

I would have saved a few weeks of development time if I had followed rule #1 sooner.

Firefox: It sucks, but it sucks much less.

Filed under: all talk, no code | 1 Comment
Tagged: javascript

Here are pics from my ride on Sunday. I woke up a little later than usual and didn’t meet up with my lifecycle group. so I did a loop from Woodside to Pescadero and back to Woodside via Stage Road and Tunitas Creek Road on my own. 57 miles with about 4,900 feet of climbing. It’s a hard one but sooooo beautiful. And quiet. Along the 9 mile stretch of Tunitas Creek Rd. I encountered a grand total of 7 cars. It’s my very favorite ride in the bay area! And the weather was great - blue skies even along the coast. I definitely plan on doing this ride a lot this year. If anyone else wants to come, lemme know.

Also, the time has come for me to start fundraising for the AIDS ride…please help by making a donation if you can. Thank you!!

Oh and here are route directions in case you want to go.

(more…)

Filed under: bay area, cycling | 3 Comments

this Saturday!! The Alternative Press Expo is coming to town this weekend so I’m proposing a TikiRobot brunch and then a visit to APE to stock up on independent comix, toys, and prints. Check out the neat stuff i got last year. Oh and we can pay a visit to Julia of the Fart Party and buy her a beer before she takes off for Portland. (or at least buy some comix from her).

What say you guys?

Filed under: bay area, comix, upcoming | 8 Comments

As noted a few weeks ago I went to an awesome seminar by Dr Clyde Wilson about nutrition for endurance athletes. Though I’m not much of an endurance athlete myself, I found this material pretty useful for day to day life. I’m typing up my three pages of notes so I can recycle the paper.

Energy Storage. We can store:

• about 2,000 Calories in our muscles. Muscles can absorb only glucose sugar. Maltodextrin is broken down to glucose in our saliva and is the only sugar form that can go directly to muscle.
• about 500 Calories in the liver. Liver breaks down larger sugars like fructose into glucose.
• about 200 Calories in our blood/circulatory system. Blood sugar is down to about 80% after waking up in the morning.

Burning Fuel

• Before training, stock muscle with Calories
• Muscle can burn up to 1,000 Cal/hour (intense running) but can only absorb 250 Cal/hour
• Proper hydration is critical for digestion and converting glucose into energy. Sugars need to be surrounded by layers of H20 molecules.
• The rate at which fuel enters the body is critical. Even eating the proper foods, if it is eaten all at one sitting in a day whatever cannot be converted to glucose immediately will go into fat storage.
• Body burns fat at 1/3 the rate for sugars: up to 4 Cal/minute from fat
• Compare with 10 Cal/minute for maltodextrin (direct to muscle) + sucrose (liver, then parallel delivery)
• Taking in Calories too fast will cause upset stomach.
• 250 Cal/hour works out to 4 Cal/minute. Consuming 40 Cal and then waiting 10 minutes is close enough.
• Every 1% of dehydration is a 5% decrease in performance.
• 50% of glycogen is gone from muscle after a workout

For Peak Performance

• stable blood sugar (no spikes, corresponding insulin spike will put you to sleep)
• stable fatty acid levels
• muscles fully stocked with glycogen

General diet

• We must eat protein, body can’t make it (doesn’t have to be meat though)
• Only need to eat protein 1-2x per day
• Caloric absorbtion rate: excess Calories are directed to abdominal fat (vs. subcutaneous).
• monounsaturated fats send 20% more Calories to muscle (vs saturated?)
• Fiber helps slow down digestion, this is the key to rate-limiting Caloric intake
• Spiking blood sugar -> Insulin rises to suck blood sugar out of bloodstream
• consume unsaturated fats
• consume (moderate amounts of) protein
• eat whole grain starches -> direct to muscle
• eat fruits + vegetables -> liver, then muscle
• 1/3 of Calories should come from (mostly unsaturated) fats
• dried fruit is better than nothing, but take advantage of fresh fruit whenever possible
• cook vegetables a bit to soften cellulose etc, but just a bit they should still be crunchy
• bananas are great in the AM, but get small ones or eat only half (see insulin, above)
• primary ingredient in a sports drink should be maltodextrin
• optimum is 3:2 ratio of maltodextrin to sucrose

Post Workout

• Best to take in Calories within 15 minutes after exercise
• recovery window is very important
• It takes a lot of water to digest food
• We need 1 Liter of water for 1,000 Calories
• We sweat 0.5 - 2.0 Liters / hour when training
• Need about 1/4 teaspoon salt per Liter of water
• sleep is very poor if you are dehydrated (neurons)
• Omega-3 fats, highest concentration is at synapse
• get your DRI for Omega-3 (1.5 grams/day), limiting factor for recover is the nervous system
• breakfast should have as much fiber as sugar (grams)

phew! Ideally our dietary economy and/or my cell phone would keep track of all of this stuff for me. Until then, I find Clyde’s tip sheets to be extremely helpful. Using them enables me to get relatively close to the above without thinking too much.

Link to Dr Clyde Wilson’s Blog
Link to Dr Clyde Wilson’s website (check the downloads)

Filed under: cycling, food, science | 1 Comment

Rajbot recently sent out an email asking for suggestions on good brunch places that can easily accomodate 10+ people so I’m going to list some places here.

• Pomelo (on 30th and Church) is my very favorite place to get brunch in SF. Seating 10+ people inside might get a little tight but there’s sidewalk seating that can accomdate 10 and it’s hardly ever taken. My favorites on the menu are the eastlake (smoked trout and red potato hash w/ wild rice and horseradish cream, two poached eggs and toast) and the makena (banana stuffed brioche french toast w/ roasted macademia and warm coconut syrup). It’s the best way to start the day! (although I frequently need to take a nap after eating here)
• Samovar Tea Lounge in the Castro has an eclectic menu and a table that can accomodate 10 as well as a back room for large groups. It’s also a great place to get loose leaf teas and I go pretty regularly to stock up on their Lichee black tea.
• Dim sum is a logical choice for seating 10+ people for brunch since most chinese restaurants have big round tables meant to accommodate large extended families. Unfortunately the best dim sum places tend to be further from home in the sunset, the richmond, or on the peninsula and can be pretty crowded and chaotic. But dim sum is yummy and well worth the trip I think. My favorite places are Fook Yuen in Millbrae and Hong Kong Flower Lounge, also in Millbrae. Koi Palace in Daly City is known for having some of the best dim sum in the bay area but it’s a mad house if you get there after 10. Not really closer to home, but still in the city is South Seafood Village in the Sunset which I also really like. I haven’t been to any other dim sum places in the sunset but we should probably explore some that are closer to us!

Anyways, I’m sure there are lots of other places that I’m not thinking of right now…feel free to add to the list!

Filed under: bay area, food | 3 Comments

I’ve always been looking for some way to store, display, see and manage my maps so they were stored out of the way but not hard to get to. And no folding. I hate folding. This has been for years and last week I threw up my hands and just decided to order the first thing I found on the internet.

I had to back down off of that because the first thing I found costs $1249. It was then that I began to understand that this might get a little pricey. Even finding poster display hardware was a pain. Google search “poster display” and let me tell you … you’re not going to find anything that helps you display your posters.

So I opted for the EB-200 “Econobin” at a mere $200. I know as soon as I post this someone is probably going to tell me I can get the same thing at IKEA for $79.99, but whatever …. I like the industrial look. And this thing is built to last, it’s going to be the only thing left in my apartment after The Big One

The ECONO BIN arrived wrapped in so much packaging I had to play like a field medic and cut it all off. It’s made up of decent square and round powder coated steel tubes.

Here is The BIN assembled with the copious packaging in the foreground. I bet the UPS guy was glad I came downstairs to meet him and drag these boxes up myself.

And here are some extremely organized maps. Shown here are the SFBC Bicycle Map, The NYC Subway Centennial Map of 2004, and the AAA Baja California Travel Map.

Naturally I was kind of smoking crack when I bought this thing. It’s way too big, awkwardly shaped and doesn’t fit anywhere. But I like it and I’ll get to see my maps a lot more now. And I have a map bin in my house !!

Filed under: cartography, lifehacking, no code | 0 Comments
Tagged: toys

Art has posted an update.

Filed under: san francisco | 1 Comment
Tagged: bernal

Remember the previous bubble?

Remember how we used to go out every day of the week?

Remember dancing all night and watching the sunrise? On a Wednesday? Remember the Best Tuesdays Ever?

Remember how much beer we drank? Remember how much beer we drank at work?

What happened? Now we all work too much. And type to much. We’re old and sober, with hurty wrists.

Rules for the new bubble:

1. You must see at least five friends every week. Housemates and workmates don’t count. Have more dinner parties. Eat more sushi.
2. At least twice a month, you must go out on a weeknight. Listen to music, go dancing, go out on a date.
3. Once a month, you are to go on an adventure. A real adventure. Mountains, Hot Springs, and Playa are all recommended.
4. Re-institute the 11-o’clock rule: you have to leave for work by 11am. The best thing about this rule is that you are highly encouraged to break it, and if you aren’t out of the house by 11, you might as well go to brunch.
5. One day a week you are to not touch the computer. No web browsing or email. No typing! Go outside and enjoy the beautiful city and hang out with your awesome friends!
   

Filed under: all talk, no code | 2 Comments

99 Ways to Cut, Sew, Trim, and Tie Your T-Shirt into Something Special is a neat little book filled with lots of ways to cut up and turn all those random tshirts you have lying in the nether corners of your dresser into something more interesting (since i go to lots of random nerdy tech events - i’ve got lots of random techy tshirts that definitely need some modifying)

Each tshirt project is illustrated with clear instructions - most don’t require anything but a pair of scissors, a pen, and a ruler…and most take between 5-15 minutes. The design on the left is especially good for all those tshirts with annoying logos on the back!

Filed under: books | 0 Comments
Tagged: crafty , tshirt

Very sad news… Zara and I were just on Bernal Hill and saw a note that said one of the Bernal owls was found dead…

:(

Art, our resident owlographer, has been documenting them and found the body. The note said that the Hungry Owl Project might be able to determine how the owl died..

Filed under: san francisco | 4 Comments
Tagged: bernal

We showed up at the 7th Annual BYO Big Wheel Race on Lombard St, just in time to see the cops shutting down the race, but we still managed to have a blast! Since we couldn’t race big wheels, Dodger, Clara, and Herve decided to race jellybeans instead. Red won, of course, but then he got squished by a SUV. We got some silly video of the jellybean race (see below).

With the cops around and the jellybeans smashed, we decided to take the races to Vermont Street, the real crookedest street in the world. Some guy with a megaphone announced that Vermont St was too dangerous, but we still got enough people to show up to Potrero Hill to have our own Renegade BYOBW races! The Vermont Street neighbors were really cool about us taking over their quiet hill, and our event was a total success. Check out some more pics, and some videos of us rocketing down Vermont St. on Big Wheels!

Filed under: san francisco, transportation, video | 3 Comments
Tagged: byobw , toys

Chicken John and friends are working on a coffee-ground powered pickup truck!

Right now the truck runs off hydrogen gas (Wood Gas) produced by gassifying wood pellets, but when Chicken John gets $5000 for a pelletizer, it will run off coffee grounds. Check out the pics!

We also shot a couple videos of us driving from Dolores Park to Ritual. After we get started on gas, Chicken shuts off the fuel pump and we start running on wood. The second video has a few details of how the engine works..

Filed under: san francisco, transportation, tronix, video | 1 Comment
Tagged: coffee

Shasha recently got a couple of very cute kitty kats! They like to sit on her head!

Filed under: bobslobster, cuuuuute | 1 Comment

While drinking coffee at Ritual and waiting around for the Wood-Powered Truck, we came up with a solution to Ritual’s weekend overcrowding:

Filed under: san francisco | 0 Comments
Tagged: coffee

This is a great idea.. an adjustable crescent wrench with a slider instead of that stupid thumb screw thing! Here is Dodger, professional Spokeswrenchwench, showing it off:

Filed under: tronix | 0 Comments

T-girrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrl is making this table with a pretty ceramic Tiki mosaic! Here is a pic of the work in progress:

Filed under: tiki lifestyle | 1 Comment
Tagged: crafty