Still going after all these years.
A new nickel? Did we really need another new nickel? Nice write-up at Spacetown, complete with pictures (high resolution images here).
The new portrait of Jefferson is ok, though I note that one of the two reverse designs shows a startlingly accurate picture of a bison (zip file of a 1.5 MB JPEG), though possibly not a worksafe depiction.
One of the best things about our neighborhood is the park just on the other side of the street. Part of it is that it gives the dogs a place to romp. Part of it is that we meet other dog owners, neighbors, and friends. Part is that we can look straight down the hill into Boston—on a clear day, you can catch the glint of the sunlight on the gilded dome of the State House.
And part of it is the activities that happen there. There’s a baseball diamond abutted by a soccer field—right now, the boys’ and girls’ leagues are alternating timeslots on the field. Further down the hill is a playground that brings all the neighborhood toddlers and their parents during the day.
And the other day, there was something else entirely:
Yes, Virginia, that’s a parasail. There’s a gentle slope from that hill down to the sports fields, and there was enough wind that the sail operator got about ten to twenty feet of glide at a time.
As I brought our dogs around that afternoon, I took them to the benches that overlooked the city, sat there, and watched the late summer sky deepen its blue.
Boston.com: A guide to local brewpubs. What’s exciting about this list is, of its ten establishments, I had only visited three and don’t know anything about four of them. My Irish friend Niall can’t come back into the country soon enough; I feel a powerful thirst coming on.
It’s been a while. Here’s a quick collection of things going on across my narrow part of the blogosphere:
I saw this in my alumni magazine: Bascom Deaver, my first year physics instructor, major advisor, and the Associate Chairman for Undergraduate Studies of the University of Virginia Physics Department, has won the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Professor Award for teaching. Any man who could help to convince me, or let me convince myself, that I didn’t want to continue in academics after finishing my undergrad degree in physics, certainly deserves some kind of award for managing bullheaded undergrads. Thanks, Mr. Deaver, for the help eleven years ago, and congratulations on a well deserved award.
Thanks to Eric Olsen and the folks at BlogCritics, who have linked me as “BlogCritic of the day” today. I guess it’s time to finish that Björk review I’ve been sitting on! Check out all my BlogCritics posts, and be sure to visit the Election 2004 megapost while you’re there.
I really want to catch the Snow Patrol show tonight but I don’t think I can justify it right now. Damn it.
Almost forgot: Adam pointed me to ArlingtonList, a community mailing list for residents of Arlington, MA. The site has instructions on joining the list, member bios, password-protected archives, and a wiki (which has since been turned off as it was underused and getting defaced). The site also features a reprint of a 2002 Boston Globe article about the list. It’s interesting. I may have to rethink some assumptions about the role of geography in building online communities.
And the Globe this morning had an article about CraigsList and Boston. I didn’t realize that this was the first place CraigsList went after its original San Francisco location.
Hmm. Apparently Panera’s content filter blocks Chris Baldwin’s Bruno comic strip as being in the forbidden category “cult/occult.” Um, huh? Blocking Bruno and not, say, Sluggy Freelance for that category seems a bit odd.
Also odd: the comic strip Questionable Content and Scary Go Round (“adult/mature content”) are blocked and Least I Could Do and Diesel Sweeties are not. Errant Story is blocked as “pornography” (better cool it with the naked elf stuff!). And Achewood is passed through scot-free.
Their filter is SonicWALL. I haven’t heard of them before but it’s the same old story. Do I need to point out the obvious? Content filters are brain dead. They don’t work. They end up blocking legitimate sites and harming their reputations. And there’s no appeal.
I finally connected with Adam Medros (of JennyAndAdam.com) this morning. He is, it turns out, in our neighborhood, just over the top of the hill. We caught up about work and the neighborhood and traded home improvement notes. It’s good to know someone so close by.
Now I’m taking advantage of the free wi-fi in Panera to get a little work done before I go back to the dogs. It’s kind of nice to have a little breathing room in a place where there are other people around.
And orange t-shirts 1, coat and tie 0, according to the Washington Post (thanks to Craig for the pointer).
I’m all for school spirit. But I don’t think it should come at the expense of ensuring that there’s at least one occasion for which a UVa student dresses up (not counting Foxfield).
It’s nice to see other traditions survive, such as pulling the quarterback during the fourth quarter (see third paragraph) when you’re already beating the opposing team by an embarrassing amount. George Welsh used to do that during the 1990 season.
I did a small amount of housework this weekend. The most significant project was replacing a door handle and installing a lockset on our storm door, which actually turned out to be a pain in the ass. I had to work hard to get the spindle (which connects the thumb button on the outside to the latch on the inside) to the right length; had to enlarge a couple of existing holes on the the door to adjust for the size of the replacement handle, which is somewhat smaller than the existing hardware; and had to do endless test fittings to get all the pieces lined up and working smoothly. But it worked in the end. I need to do some work on the door on the three season porch next, but I think it will work out a little better now that I know what I’m in for.
I apologize for the unexpected blog slowdown, but my power adapter for my laptop stopped working yesterday. For those following along at home, this is the fourth replacement power adapter (across two different PowerBooks) I’ve had to buy; see prior stories here (2001) and here (2003). Fortunately, it is the first on this particular laptop, so it looks like Apple’s design is improving somewhat.
Still, a power cord should not be designed to allow this sort of catastrophic failure:
I think it looks like they reinforced this connection in the new cord, so maybe I will have better luck with this one.
I’ve said a few times before that to be successful, new download sites would have to stop stocking the same old titles at the same price and find ways to differentiate their offerings, or risk becoming mere commodity retailers. This appears to be the approach that War Child Music is taking, and how.
The newly opened, fully functional store charges more than other download services (99p a track, which is roughly $1.75 in US currency today), and their offerings are extremely limited (starting with 25 tracks, they’ll only add five or six new tracks a month) but their stuff is exclusive, there are extensive liner notes online, and for £3.50 a month (about $6.21 today) you get buffet-style downloads. And the best part is all the proceeds go to charities to help children who have been affected by war.
Now that’s differentiation and positioning.
The music’s pretty good too—an exclusive Radiohead live remix, a Tom Waits track from his new album, Keane covering “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore,” the 1995 Help relief album, and some other goodies. Plus they offer the tracks in both Windows Media and AAC, proving that you can please both the Microsoft camp and the iPod users.
Criticisms? Site navigation is poor, with new windows opening at random and little cross linking. Plus the tags seem to be missing from the AAC files—which is where you’re grateful for those extensive online liner notes. But I expect these wrinkles will be worked out in time.
I don’t know how I missed this, but Hooblogger Todd Price, from A Frolic of My Own, is also a contributor to the great group blog Too Many Chefs, which features the natural tagline “Spoiling the Broth Since February 2004.” Todd spilled the beans with his post about cooking an elephant, which showed up in the Hooblogs Kinja page today. Good stuff. Maybe someday I’ll start writing enough food related posts that I’ll be worthy of appearing in that company.