I think definitely wins the award for Funniest Thug Parody of the Week.

Read A Book

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Link to Read a Book on MySpaceTV

Filed under: beats, books, video · 1 Comment

It seems like half the net just got knocked out by six back-to-back power outages in downtown San Francisco. A bunch of great sites went down: archive.org, craigslist, LJ, yelp. Did Slide go down, too?

A bunch of our racks are still powered down…

Filed under: archive, support · 10 Comments

who are these people?

Filed under: Uncategorized · 3 Comments

Okay TR crew, given that this year’s themes for the LS party are “tropical, tiki, jungle, safari, pirate, and nautical,” we’d be totally remiss if we didn’t make an appearance in our finest grass skirts.

Filed under: tiki lifestyle, tikibar, upcoming · 4 Comments

No technology has transformed commerce and the way we live our lives as much as the 20th century shipping container. And compared to other technologies (e.g. internal combustion engine), it’s drop dead simple … it’s a just a metal box. I’ve always enjoyed watching ships roll under the Golden Gate Bridge. And on occasion I’ve enjoyed the Port of Oakland in some ways that involve loud music and the cover of night.

So I was interested to read that the Port of Oakland is considering some of the biggest changes to the industry since deregulation in the 70s. At the center of debate is trucking, traditionally contracted out and held and arms length. But now the Port is owning up to the fact that each crappy truck driving through West Oakland dump 127,677 times as much toxic soot as a regular car does. As the trucking industry phrase goes, ports are where “the trucks go to die.” So-called “independent” truckers serving the port are almost exclusively poor immigrants making about $8/hour after expenses. Naturally they can only afford older used trucks, pollution spouts on eighteen wheels.

The Port is considering proposals as radical as granting employee status to all truckers, which is a breath of fresh air. Besides establishing a more reasonable wage and health benefits, the Port would take responsibility for cleaner vehicles. About 20% of west oakland residents have asthma, and the proportion is rising. The asthma is linked directly to the diesel pollution.

Here’s to the Port of Oakland for trying to make the right thing happen, a move that will force all the other West Coast Ports to follow, if not the entire US. And while we’re at it, let’s open up the port to the public so they can see all the amazing stuff that happens there. Crazy container cranes moving huge loads, massive stacks of containers that form mazes the size of small cities …. it’s some crazy shit.

Link to Death In The Air at The Bay Guardian.

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To wit, this list of special numbers…did you know there are

• Apocalyptic Numbers
• Evil Numbers
• Narcissistic Numbers
• Happy Numbers
• Sad Numbers
• Wasteful Numbers
• and most fascinating of all…Vampire Numbers (so called because they have fangs. fangs!)

Filed under: education, math, pi · 2 Comments

I would make my friends send me photos of themselves like this…

alas, I won’t be getting one anytime soon.

pics were by Brad Smith and I got them from his flickr set over here.

Filed under: gadgets · 0 Comments

The world would be an infinitely better place if we shared more of our peelings. (more at Happy Slip)

Filed under: inspiration, video · 1 Comment

I know East Germany doesn’t usually bring to mind images of tasty cuisine, so I’m happy to say that the food at Walzwerk is uneqivocally tasty. It’s one of my favorite restaurants and I was reminded a couple nights ago how much I like it. That’s saying something since I’m not a meat-and-potatoes kind of person and well, you’ll find a lot of meat and potatoes on the menu. But all SO good. Recommended – the chicken breast stuffed with apples, bacon & sundried cherry sauce, potato pancakes, the garlic roast pork, the mashed potatoes (make sure you get mashed potatoes!!!) and the apple strudel. yum! The restaurant is in a pretty small, laid-back space and there’s also a room in the back you can reserve for large groups. I had a birthday dinner here a couple years ago and it was great.

Filed under: food, san francisco · 0 Comments

Announcing The Open Library!

What if there was a library which held every book? Not every book on sale, or every important book, or even every book in English, but simply every book—our planet’s cultural legacy.

First, the library must be on the Internet. No physical space could be as big or as universally accessible as a public web site. The site would be like Wikipedia—a public resource that anyone in any country could access and that others could rework into different formats.

Second, it must be grandly comprehensive. It would take catalog entries from every library and publisher and random Internet user who is willing to donate them. It would link to places where each book could be bought, borrowed, or downloaded. It would collect reviews and references and discussions and every other piece of data about the book it could get its hands on.

But most importantly, such a library must be fully open. Not simply “free to the people,” as the grand banner across the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh proclaims, but a product of the people: letting them create and curate its catalog, contribute to its content, participate in its governance, and have full, free access to its data. In an era where library data and Internet databases are being run by money-seeking companies behind closed doors, it’s more important than ever to be open.

So let us do just that: let us build the Open Library.

From Aaron Swartz’s blog:

I thought of the smartest programmers and designers I knew and gave them a ring, sat down for coffee with them, threatened to fly out to their homes and knock on their doors. In the end, we got together an amazing group of people — all sworn to secrecy of course — and in the past few months we’ve put together what’s probably the biggest project I ever worked on.

So today I’m extraordinarily proud to announce the Open Library project. Our goal is to build the world’s greatest library, then put it up on the Internet free for all to use and edit. Books are the place you go when you have something you want to share with the world — our planet’s cultural legacy. And never has there been a bigger attempt to bring them all together.

Congrats Aaron and team!

Filed under: archive, books, library · 0 Comments

What Teachers Make by teacher and poet Taylor Mali. For Jess and Mitch:

via MeFi

Filed under: education, inspiration, video · 1 Comment

Hola, hello from Peru!! Some people think I came here to see Machu Picchu but no, I came here to blog.

UCSF Physical Therapy offers an ingenious program where they engage their ergonomics staff in some very helpful side jobs. At Bakar Gym just past the weight area they have a fully decked out physical therapy room complete with funny looking exercise machines. Weird straps make the machines look like torture devices. Anyway, stop by from 5-7pm for a free consultation. After the consult I signed up for four one hour sessions at the ridiculously low price of $140 (total). Given my experience with wrist, knee and now cervical (uh … neck) pain, I was easily willing to pay five times that amount. Stefanie, the physical therpist, has 30 years experience in physical therapy.

This service from UCSF is more or less perfect for me: I need someone with some occupational experience that can tell me what I’m doing wrong and what exercises I can do to fix my problems. I’ve got a set of six neck stretches that are helping my undo 10+ years of bad posture.

• turn head to the left as far as you can, hold for 30 seconds. Repeat towards right. Repeat 3x, both sides.
• lean head left, ear towards shoulder. Repeat towards right. Repeat 3x, both sides.
• This is harder to explain, but a great stretch. Lean head forward, while forward lean head left 50%, now while holding all that rotate head left 50%. My PT describes this as “putting your beak beneath your wing like a bird” … repeat on RHS, repeat 3x.
• Anterior Scalene: lean ear towards shoulder, now rotate your head so you are looking at the ceiling. Repeat RHS, repeat 3x
• Posterior Scalene: lean ear towards shoulder, now rotate head so you are looking at the floor. Repeat RHS, repeat 3x.

So doing all of that is going to take about 15 minutes. But if looking over your shoulder has gotten annoyingly painful, it’s totally worth it.

I also received some useful suggestions for wrist stretches and strengthing muscles around my knee to keep the patella up off of the knee joint area. Yay for UCSF!!

Link to UCSF Physical Therapy

Filed under: lifehacking · 2 Comments

After I moved out of the rAnCH, I had no place to work on projects, so I built this workbench in the garage. It is huge. Now I don’t have an excuse for not making anything for the upcoming Bernal Heights art show!

I made it using Simpson StrongTie metal connectors and cheap 2×4s. I used a modified version of the workbench plans from the StrongTie website. It doesn’t have a bottom shelf yet, but it does have a whiteboard!

I used the free version of the SketchUp modeling program to draw it out first so I knew how long to cut each of the 2×4s. You can download the SketchUp model from 3D Warehouse.

Filed under: tronix · 0 Comments

Trish just published a paper in Nature! Even the abstract is over my head, but the press release is much less daunting:

Examining data from 19 locations in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, researchers led by graduate student Patricia Gregg have found that “transform” faults are not developing or behaving as theories of plate tectonics say they should. Rather than stretching as long, continuous fault lines across the seafloor, the faults are often segmented and show signs of recent or ongoing volcanism. Both phenomena appear to prevent earthquakes from spreading across the seafloor, thus reducing their magnitude and impact.

Congrats Trish!

Filed under: science · 0 Comments

A choose your own adventure story, told in graffiti:

The mission stencil story is an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure story that takes place on the sidewalks of the Mission district in San Francisco. It is told in a new medium of storytelling that uses spraypainted stencils connected to each other by arrows. The streetscape is used as sort of an illustration to accompany each piece of text.

Its a love story with 2 characters who start in different locations. His story starts at 16th and Valencia, in front of the Crown Hotel / Limon Restaurant with the text “He Leaves his Lonely Apartment.” Her story starts at 21st and Guerrero in front of a stunning mansion with the text, “She Leaves her Lonely Apartment.” Eventually their paths merge, at the point where they meet, and their paths travel together until drama pulls them apart.

via BoingBoing

Filed under: doodles, san francisco · 0 Comments

Here’s a link to the finished drawing. (and where you can get one too.)

Filed under: doodles, tiki lifestyle, timelapse, zara · 8 Comments

Trying to concentrate on anything yesterday was impossible. There were two different construction crews working right under my window. The construction equipment was setting off car alarms, and the workers were really close to the house, causing Zara to bark. Then a bucket of tar spilled on the roof of Thurgood Marshall High, starting a fire. This was the scene out our front window yesterday:

Filed under: bernal, san francisco, video · 0 Comments

Wow, I wish I knew this before I cancelled my account with Sprint last month. According to this article, they recently terminated service for over 1,000 customers who called customer support too much and sent them this letter.

While we have worked to resolve your issues and questions to the best of our ability, the number of inquiries you have made to us during this time had led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs.

Although….now that I think about how much angst their customer support put me through, the $200 early cancellation fee was probably well worth it to never have to speak to them again.

Life is short. (oh and i should have listened to rajbot re: Sprint. Lesson learned! :)

Filed under: sucky companies · 1 Comment

Via MeFi, a documentary by Howard Brookner called Burroughs, starring Burroughs, Ginsberg, Patti Smith, and many more of his friends and family. I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before:

Also, even though I’ve heard it a thousand times, I didn’t realize Bug Powder Dust was Burroughs-inspired, and I had never the video of the original Bomb The Bass version either:

The William S Burroughs wiki entry is quite thorough!

Filed under: beats, inspiration, video, wtf??? · 1 Comment

This is from 1994:

An abandoned parking barrier worshiped as a Hindu shrine has been removed from Golden Gate Park because city officials believed that it overstepped the line between church and state.

The story of the barrier began several years ago when a city crane operator dumped it in the park. Last fall, local Hindus discovered the rock and began to pray there, pouring libations of milk and leaving flowers at its base.

Wikipedia link to Shiva Linga for context.

via long BoingBoing post on phallic architecture.

Filed under: architecture, san francisco · 0 Comments

A German citizen, Murat Kurnaz, was released from Guantanamo after being tortured there for five years. He was sold by Pakistani police to the US for a $3000 bounty, and only released due to efforts by the Chancellor of Germany.

Every story you hear of people released from Guantanamo is the same. They are innocent, they were sold to the US for a $3000-$5000 bounty, and they were tortured for ~5 years until their release. It’s hard to believe the US is willing to release anyone from Guantanamo at all, but it seems that they don’t have to be afraid of former prisoners telling their stories. The American press won’t report stories of innocent people being tortured at Guantanamo (exception, NPR, TAL episodes 310 and 331), and even when the stories to hit the international news wires, Americans don’t seem to care at all.

In the prison camp in Kandahar, Kurnaz said, he was hoisted on chains and was forced to hang by his hands while he was being interrogated. He was left hanging for “hours and days” after the interrogators left. An American physician in camouflage would come and check his vital signs to determine if he could withstand more enhanced interrogation.

Previously: toturtured and held without charge for 5.5 years in Guantanamo after he was sold to the US for a $5000 bounty – via reddit

Filed under: prison4life · 2 Comments

This morning a utility pole on our street caught on fire, and then it cracked in two. The fire department came and hosed down the pole after first turning off the power. The top part of the pole was just left dangling from the power lines until PG&E showed up about eight hours later and lashed the two parts together.

We have underground electric at our house, so we didn’t lose power when they cut power to the overhead lines. But when PG&E switched to underground power, they left these live power lines dangling in front of our window, which is a bit scary.

Filed under: bernal, san francisco, support · 0 Comments

We went for drinkies at the Presidio Social Club, a 40s-esque art deco bar that opened six months ago. The Presidio is a poor excuse for a national park, but hey, if you are going to sell out your national treasures, you might as well sell out in style!

Created with Paul’s flickrSLiDR.

Filed under: san francisco, tikibar · 0 Comments

travel.metafilter.com has gone live. It’s still new, but soon I’m sure it will be filled with smart answers to questions about traveling to weird places!

Filed under: excursions, support · 0 Comments

This comes to me from my friend Dan. Apparently Petropics has a whole line of tiki pet food and toys. Too bad I have no pets of my own to do a taste test. I wonder if zara would be opposed to trying this stuff out?

Filed under: tiki lifestyle, toys · 1 Comment