Author: Aaron Weber

Trifecta

I’ve noticed that I have the all-too-common habit of posting links to the NYT without much commentary, and that these links are all-too-often about the housing bubble, as the latest Krugman article is, or about gay families, in the case of this surrogate-moms article. You know, there was that article from last month’s Globe about how gay people are totally restoring these beautiful old Dorchester victorian houses, driving neighborhood renewal and prices… that’s everything in one spot!

Just so as to do something different, for once, I was going to point out the Random House essay contest. But I did that yesterday and forgot. I may have to take a break from this– I’m just out of worthwhile spew.

Book Stuff

Random House is having an essay contest for people between 20 and 29. They plan to publish twenty-something essays by twenty-something people. Get it? 20×20.

My reading material right now is How to Grill by Steven Raichlen, author of “The Barbecue! Bible” and other fire-oriented cookbooks, author of a BBQ blog and host of a TV show called BBQ University.

This was the cookbook we made North-Carolina-style pulled pork shoulder from, and I have to say he gets it right– it was the best pork shoulder I’d had in years.

Respect for web developers

It’s hard being a web developer– you make one tiny mistake and it’s obvious. Like, say, choosing CFM and Windows for a search system on a heavily-trafficked website like MySpace. Oh well, guess search is broken for you. Or forgetting to set the DNS up properly, and leaving one-email.org pointing to the Yahoo! Small Business Hosting “In Progress” default page, instead of www.one-email.org, like it’s supposed to– and then handing out hundreds of flyers and t-shirts at an expensive conference, with the wrong URL.

Oops.

Solipsism

Last night I dreamed I was a Rwandan refugee.

My belief that this dream matters enough to go online is shocking to me. But there it is.

Linux gains on MS in Brazil

Reuters article: Intel and Novell point to Linux gains on MS in Brazil. This news is a result of the big Spring push I’ve been one of the worker-bees for: a four-city tour of Brazil ending today, plus, over the past few weeks, 5 events in the US, 11 in India, and a multi-day event in Dublin, all ending with a 3-day conference next week in Ho Chi Minh City. We’ve been busy and it’s paying off and that makes me happy.

Bolivia and the currently oxymoronic capital city

My brother is living in La Paz, Bolivia right now, which is not the calmest place to be at the moment. He and his friends have taken the following pretty impressive pictures. If only they’d use Flickr rather than other picture services. Here you go: Lake Titicaca and environs, Cochabamba and environs, and the Festival del Gran Poder in La Paz itself, a festival of folklore, dancing, and parades, during which the people have set aside political arguments– we’ll see how long the break lasts.

Politically it seems to me that the senate’s compromise– high taxes on foreign investment in hydrocarbons, but not nationalization– seems like a good one, since nobody is happy with it. The test will be whether the various interest groups are willing to accept that the other side is equally unhappy, and that’s an outcome that doesn’t look easy to predict.

Consuming Desire: Scooba

Scooba, from iRobot, scrubs your floors. Coming Winter 2005. My Roomba is great, and this should be great too, right? Although Roomba collects all the filth from the floors of my house into three (three!) different little filter areas, which are a pain to empty and which tend to spill everywhere, I imagine that the newer Roombas have solved this problem, and that the Scooba has some sort of ingenious method of handling the dirty-solvent problem as well.

I agree with the developers that clothes-folding robots are crucial. Such a thing could even be built into a wardrobe!