]]>
Taken at round one of our informal Topix intern talent show. I can't hear what he's saying either - just watch the hands from the half-way point.
Holy mother of ****
Next week, bassoon players in Superman garb. ]]>
That Barney Pell is one lucky (clever) guy -- $100MM+ from Microsoft for Powerset, or so Venturebeat reports.
I find it fascinating that Microsoft -- a group that has had considerable experience with their own search products -- would buy a company that has built its reputation on the potential for 'natural language' search.
Why? Because 'natural language' search is not 'natural' in the context of online search. And MSFT most certainly has reams of log data indicating that people do not approach search by constructing natural language queries.
As I posted way back in Feb 2007, this might have been an interesting acquisition if it were available 10 years ago, before Yahoo and then more importantly Google became our front door to the internet.
10 years ago, online search was still a new concept to most, and the cement was still wet for influencing user behavior. But I suspect now the masses are fairly fluent -- if only by trial and error -- in speaking the language of search.
Why would I search for "What is the capital of Egypt?" or "Who wrote Harry Potter?" when I can get the info I'm looking for with "Egypt Capital" and "Potter Author". The latter is far more efficient in both number of key strokes, as well as focus on the key terms. It rids us of low-context baggage like pronouns, prepositions, and even the notion of constructing an interrogative statement (which is implied in any query).
While 'natural language' might have some niche applications (kids products?) I share the skepticism Howard Roark feels for neo-classical and baroque elements in post-modern architecture: The form no longer serves the function.
Of course, what's a couple hundo' out of MSFT's war chest? That's stamp money, chumps! They probably bought Powerset as a hedge just in case the crazy thing every takes off. Surely they don't intend to retool Live with natural language?
Then again, MSFT does have a history of taking the figurative to literal extremes... :-) ]]>
]]>
Who doesn't love a good Rube Goldberg? Best part IMO is that the creators seem to have restricted the moving parts to items found in a print shop. According do Rob T (who sent this my way - thanks!) it's marketing for the paper roller stands that appear the end. As the video demonstrates, a lot of things can go wrong, and you don't want these accidents mucking up your nice rolls of paper!
That's how we roll... ]]>
Gombei
Prior to this third branch, Gombei had two other shops -- one in San Jose and one in Menlo Park.
The San Jose is one of my favorite places for authentic teishoku lunches. I invariably order something from their daily specials and have never had a bad meal in ten years of eating there. There's a good reason for the line at lunch and often dinner. I'd give it an 8.0, sometimes 8.5 out of 10.
The Menlo Park shop is not very good. The few times I've eaten there, I've been disappointed with the quality of their dishes. Not sure why it doesn't measure up, but I'd barely give it a 5 out of 10.
How is the new Santa Clara shop? Well, for one thing, the previous shop was a horrible, horrible sushi boat place that I had prayed would go-under the one and only time I ever ate there. So I think that is a half-point demerit just for bad ju-ju carry-over.
Take another demerit for deciding to KEEP the boat infrastructure and serving sushi. That violates one of our cardinal rules of Japanese restaurants: If it's a sushi place, that's really all they should serve. If it's not a sushi place, then sushi should be buried deep in the menu as an after thought. Under no circumstances should sushi and, say, tempura have equal billing on the menu. I have never, ever in my life seen a place that can do both well.
Take yet another demerit for hiring the asshole sushi "chef" from Kubota. (The one that one that served me bad uni and then insisted on telling me I know nothing about fresh fish and refused to remove from bill when I kindly sent it back... after we were already well in over $100 on an otherwise great meal. Yes, it was 8 years ago. God I hope you're reading this you stink-eyed dick).
Needless to say, we did not order the sushi, but instead opted for... what? No daily specials? Deduct another full-point. So I ordered the "mix seafood fry". R orders the salted mackerel.
And we wait...
The "just opened" bumbling of untrained servers is pointed. Then my dish comes. Reasonably good shrimp and squid, although the salmon was a bit off. Probably the previous days sushi throwback?
R's comes after another 5 or 10 minutes. Decent mackerel, if a bit salty. But by now the luster is lost. As much as I wanted to like this place, I'm not going back. 5.5 out of 10, maybe. If I live in the hood (@bauxring) and was desperate for take out, I might order their katsu-don or something. And they are pretty cheap ($8-10) and nice service (except for stink-eye sushi dick).
Kyo-Po After finishing lunch, we waltzed over to Kyo-Po next door to see how the Cosentino's had been transformed. If you knew the old place, it's pretty funny because seemingly nothing has moved/changed in terms of where items are. Produce is where it was before, the bakery shop is the same, etc. But of course it's all Korean.
A quick cruise through left me thinking that it's probably a pretty good alternative to the stalwart Hankook if it's closer to you. Plus, they have arguably the best Korean fro-yo I've had to date -- easily in line with Fraiche in Palo Alto. They are super nice, and not only gave us samples, but also gave D his own super-junior cup. We're definitely going to go back there when we are in that area. ]]>
This "art sculpture" from Burning Man is currently set-up at here, the corner of San Carlos and Woz Way in San Jose. It is part carousel, part drum machine, and pure insanity.
Around the perimeter of the sculpture and at waist-level, there are a bunch of drum-pads in a huge circle. As people (i.e. you) increasingly beat the drums, it sets the carousel of monkeys into rotation, faster and faster.
There are also these creepy silver monkey masks with these strobe-like goggles you can wear when the monkeys are spinning.
Best of all, it apparently LIGHTS UP at night with full strobe-effect. It will be there for one month, apparently, so saddle up ravers, and check it out.
Fun for the whole family!
]]>
However, after my first trip yesterday, I have to say I am sorry to see it go. Sure, it's crusty and grizzled and there's generally not much to do there except watch and bet on horse races. But it has a soft patina of 20th century-ish-ness about it. It's one of those spots on the SF Peninsula that you can visit and feel that you've left town.
So, if you've never been, the clock is ticking. Check it out before it's too late!
Bonus: Try my sweet newbie betting strategy - I won 3 out 4 races with it:
1) Pick horse with best odds to "place"
2) Pick horse with second-worst odds to "show"
3) Celebrate with victory dance 75% of time.]]>
I realized I hadn't Googled myself (heh) for awhile, so thought I'd better take a look. There was that pesky country western singer that had been out-ranking me from the get-go, as well as some high school sports heroes that were widely written about in small town Minnesota papers.
But now - lo and behold - We ownz the top spot for Blake Williams
Hmmm. Nowhere to go but down, now.]]>
Some quick experiments below. Seems to work best with high contrast pics (since it's converting to monochrome) and people as subjects:
Thanks PhotoJojo]]>
Because nothing says street-cred like having "Fruit Loops" emblazoned across your ass:
I'm a gonna FROST YO FLAKES!
(Thanks to Brand New)]]>
How much did he have squirreled away?
[the prosecutor] said his team discovered 4.5 trillion won, or $4.54 billion, in hidden funds Lee kept in accounts held by his aides...Lee, however, did not pay at least 112.8 billion won in taxes on the profits from those stock accounts, Cho said.
That's over $100,000,000 in unpaid taxes. A hundo.
But the best part?
Cho accused Lee and his aides of committing a "grave crime," but said that he decided not to arrest them partly because they admitted to the wrongdoing and because their arrests would seriously disrupt the management of Samsung, which accounts for one-fifth of the country's total exports, and endanger the national economy.
Talk about your "get out of jail free" cards. Wowzers.]]>
Secret: I didn't eat much sushi in Japan - maybe twice a month, tops. What I did eat a lot of, however, were donburi (rice bowls). Sumika is easily has the best oyakodon I've had outside of Japan. Their minced chicken version has a great sauce and the eggs are kept very runny (unless you stupidly ask for firm eggs!). They also have great karaage (fried chicken) and Yebisu beer. All in Los Altos no less. Who knew the west coast home of Judge Smales could do the funky-chicken, nippon style? Huzzah for Sumika!
Dinner (v.1.0): Half Moon Bay Dungeness
After a perfect lunch, we drove over the hill to Pescadero and ran around on a nearly empty beach for an hour or so. Then, up to Princeton to pick up some crabs.
Something I should have mentioned in my original crab post was "Crab season ends in February!". But since we were in the neighborhood, why not swing by to see if we could pick up some stragglers? Why not indeed? Ha ha! Well, April Fools comes a few days early out in HMB, 'cause while the crabs were certainly "fresh" (as in still kicking) they were definitely not "fresh" (as in good eats). Long story short, the crabs we got were freaking disgusting. They must have started molting, as the meat tasted fishy. Literally one bite and I was done. Triple thumbs-down for April Dungeness.
Dinner (v2.0) Nizarios Pizza
After such a shitty crab experience, we were starving. So around 9pm, I popped over to Nizario's and grabbed a small pizza. Maybe it's the super fast and friendly service, maybe it's their mochi-mochi style (crisp, yet chewy) thin crust pizza, maybe it's because they're so damn conveniently located next to Trader Joe's? I like Nizario's pizza. Huzzah for Nizario's!
SUNDAY
Lunch: Vung Tau 2
This place seriously keeps getting better. I had one of their broken rice dishes for the first time, and had the fried egg rolls on the side, plus the ice coffee. I think they spike their broken rice with a touch of coconut milk or something. It's incredible. Their ice coffee is also great - I'm not sure how they make it, but it doesn't have that acrid finish that a lot of cheaper versions have. Huzzah for Vung Tau 2 (electric boogaloo).
Dessert:Bambu
Hadn't been down to Bambu much since leaving the PayPal, but since we were in the neighborhood, thought it was mandatory. Used to be that my buddy Keith and I would go to Bambu at least once, sometimes twice or even three times a week when it was hot out. I have had many a smoothie in my time, but Bambu's Mango is the best. The end.
Sadly, the recent mango arrivals were not quite ripe yet (they have high standards!) but it was suggested that I instead try the fresh blueberry, strawberry and banana mix. That in itself does not mean much to you, but allow me to give you some context: Literally the first words out of the owner's mouth when she saw me (after an 8-month hiatus) were "Ah Blake, sorry - no mangoes today!" For a brief period during 2005 I was personally responsible for consuming so much mango that it caused a brief crisis in the Malaysian commodities markets. True story! In any event, I must admit there was significant deliberation and "self-conferencing" before finally going with the blueberry idea, putting my faith in the good hands of the proprietor. Again, excellent choice! Huzzah for Bambu!
Dinner: Chavez Market
Note to self: Do not wear your "colors" to Chavez Market -- otherwise, this place is consistently some of the finest mex I've been able to scare up (although laughably the taqueria next door is awesome, also). Their super taco is ridonkulously large. One is seriously enough to feed a small army, which is why I limit myself to three, max. But usually I opt for one of the simple dinner plates, which is basically meat, beans, rice and tortillas. The place is a market, so their meat is straight out of the butcher shop -- fresh and lots of it. Of particular high quality are the pastor and the pollo asado. The carnitas is also good, but I prefer mine a bit on the crispy side, and theirs is less so.
But having thrown all sanity to the wind with the blueberry smoothie decision earlier in the day, I was feeling pretty lucky. So I tempted fate and opted to go with the super quesadilla. Another winner! It was essentially a grilled burrito with two ginourm-o'donkulous slabs o' cheese inside. Queso, queso good! If only it had been deep-fried with some bacon, eh? I'll have a word with the manager next time I'm in. Huzzah for Chavez Market!
Total Caloric intake for weekend: Sugar, if you have to ask... you can't afford it. ]]>
1. Is there some inside joke at Google about not updating their 404s, 403s and other error pages to the new millennium? Maybe it's a corporate badge of honor, like Billy Gates' $4 haircuts?
2. Here is the nefarious query that brought the mighty G's wrath upon me.
What's wrong with this search? It's not like it includes script tags or invokes some gawd-awful union of sorts that is going to melt one of their pizza boxes. Plus, the request is from their own IE toolbar, which (assuming there are anti-goog infected zombies laying about) would presumably be the easiest mechanism to track and shut out questionable query structures in the first place.
Maybe it's because I clicked on the dreaded "last page" of results and sent a longest-of-long tail indexes spinning into the abyss?
3. What did they mean by "restore my access as quickly as possible"? When I saw the page, I thought I'd been placed in some kind of IP-purgatory and wouldn't be able to search for at least several minutes. However, I immediately returned to the pattern and was able to continue searching for several pages (until I got the warning again, at which point I gave up).
I swear, it's times like these that make me want to switch to the competition. I might even make tthat switch tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then next week. Yeah, definitely next week. :-| ]]>
Things shrunk considerably when CDs came around, and these days iTunes has completely eliminated the tactile sensation of flipping through liner notes while listening to music and smoking weed in your van helping the missus sort the kids' laundry.
So a tip of the hat to "sallypnut" for this finding this awesome time waster:
Creating your own album cover.
Yes, for all you aspiring Guitar Hero fans, why limit yourself with virtual play when you can have your very own album art?
Here's what you do:
2. Take the last four words of the last quote from this page
3. Take the third photo you find on this page
4. Photoshop them together
5. Optional: Write a critical review of your band's album.
Here is my first attempt:
Band: Jefferson King
Album: ...for people to work
Review: “Jefferson King’s 9th album “…[F]or people to work” (1968) was panned by even the gentlest of critics as being do distant from the bands roots. Rolling Stone notes, however, that the addition of taiko drums, accordion, and overlays of the Vienna Boys Choir created a cacophony so unique that to this date no band has dared to explore these nether regions of dissonance. The band eventually dissolved in 2003 after their 23rd album ‘Nader' sold just 8 copies.
____________________________________
Here are some great ones from Sara and Rob:
Band: Gloeodendron
Album: Like the Devil Underneath
Review:"Like the Devil Underneath" sees indie fave Gloeodendron exploring new musical territory with an inspired mix of classic rock, polka, and FILK.
Band: Varnish
Album: Did Not Know What
Review: Debuting at number twelve on the coveted SXSW 10 Things You Will Think Are Cool (SXSWTTYWTAC) list, Varnish’s “Did Not Know What” breathes new life into the all but forgotten Danzig-meets-Porter Wagoner genre.”
Please send us your examples!
]]>
Bring back the iron curtain... please.
]]>
