Proof that sometimes things actually get done: Ian’s team at LiveLabs has just released a Firefox plugin for Photosynth. I’ve recently finished the first phase of a client’s project and launched Windows to Vietnam, a site about a soon-to-be-published book of photographs and poetry about modern Vietnam. And because everything really does revolve around Caitlyn no matter what I may sometimes think to the contrary, new photos are up at Caitlyn’s site.
Today’s quote of the day: “They stopped waiting for the government to fix things.” I heard it in a story about getting heath care in Uganda, but I think it’s worth pondering by people who are not Ugandans. Take a moment to imagine what could be done, what could be fixed or improved, if we all stopped sitting around, complaining and waiting for Someone Else to “fix things.”
Apparently, there’s this viaduct thing downtown. It’s big, it’s ugly, it’s noisy, and it’s structurally unsafe. Should there be a moderately significant earthquake, we are told, the whole thing is likely to come down. But, apparently, no one can really agree on what we should do about it. Certain parties (Seattle’s mayor included) want to tear it down and replace it with a 6 lane tunnel, a project that has a price tag to the tune of several billion dollars. Other parties balk at that sum and insist the viaduct can be repaired or replaced for significantly less money. Now, …
It’s not like I’m a Seattle native or anything, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I don’t think snow is generally all that common for Seattle. Something about being so close to the great atmospheric equalizer that is the Puget Sound. But we had our third or fourth snowfall of the winter last night, and today has been white and fluffy, clear and cold. Caitlyn and I went out, of course. Going out in fresh snow is always a challenge for me just because it looks so pretty when I’m still inside. It’s a big, white, …
I’ve, more or less recently, gotten interested in paying attention to the seasons. Not just in a “Gee it’s really stormy this afternoon” kind of way, but in a “Circle of Life” kind of way (with apologies for the Lion King reference). And part of paying attention to the seasons, for me, seems to be eating local, seasonal food. There are lots of reasons to eat locally and seasonally, not least of which is minimizing how far the food has to travel before it ends up in my kitchen. Yes, it’s possible to get strawberries in January, but they didn’t …
It’s becoming a bit of a tradition for me to mark the changing of the calendar year by reviewing the BBC’s annual list of 100 things we didn’t know last year. The highlights of 2006: In the “Language is weird” category: Panspermia is the idea that life on Earth originated on another planet. The medical name for the part of the brain associated with teenage sulking is “superior temporal sulcus“. The clitoris derives its name from the ancient Greek word kleitoris, meaning “little hill”. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666. In the “Faith in My …