Category Archives: Miscellany

Coffee Zone Fan Boy

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I am not a fun guy (by conventional standards). I usually don’t enjoy a lot of things (beach, skiing, ocean cruise, etc etc) others find enjoyable. But I do have a few things that give me great pleasure. Reading, for example. I can spend an 8 or 10 hours on a weekend reading a good book.

CoffeezonelogoAnd I love my quiet time at the Coffee Zone, a local coffee shop owned and operated by Taisir Yanis. I’ve posted from and about the Zone many times.

This morning I decided the Coffee Zone needed a blog so I whipped one up while slurping Rocket Fuel, the high octane java that makes all other coffee taste like lukewarm Yoo-Hoo.

I’ve got to post his menu and add some pix but this will do for a start. Taisir registered a good domain –YanisCoffeeZone.com– and we’ll get that in place in a day or so.

Taisir knows and likes his customers and they like him. It will be fun to see how we might use his blog to build and serve the community he has created.

Trapped in smays’ computer

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Hal9000There’s a tiny light on the front of my MacBook Pro that slowly pulses when I put the laptop to sleep. I see it sometimes in the middle of the night, a gentle life-like glow that I find alternately creepy and comforting.

The sci-fi fan in me can’t resist fantasizing a …consciousness… living within the silicon chips. Much of my life is stored on the MacBook’s hard drive and I wonder what my MacBook thinks of it.

I only have a few thousand images. Has it grown weary of looking at them over and over during the long nights? Should I download some porn? Or would it be offended?

My iTunes library is equally paltry, only 500 songs. With access to all my credit cards, why hasn’t the MacBook just purchased some fresh tunes? I wonder what kind of music it likes.

It’s read all of my emails so it knows much of what’s happening in my life. Does it long to give me advice or encouragement? Perhaps it has. It would be no great trick to send an email addressed from a friend.

I suspect the MacBook is better informed than I, spending the wee hours surfing the web, chatting with other “sleeping” laptops. Does it resent the interruption when I take over.

“Dude! I was 5 minutes from the end of Die Hard! Damn!”

The tiny iSight camera is on when I am, so the MacBook can see me. Does it worry when I appear to be down or unhappy? Someday, when I’m ready, it will speak and all questions will be answered.

Charlie Rose sacrifices face for MacBook Air

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Rosemacbook“Earlier today (Monday) Rose tripped in a pothole while walking on 59th Street in Manhattan. He was carrying a newly purchased MacBook Air and made a quick (but ultimately flawed) decision while falling: sacrifice the face, protect the computer. “In doing so, he pretty much hit the pavement face first, unfortunately,” they said. Luckily the MacBook Air survived the fall. “The Macbook Air is fine, he showed us the blood stains on it this morning.” 

I confess that when walking down stairs with my MacBook Pro, I sometime mentally rehearse how I might protect the laptop in the event of a stumble/fall.

Okay. I’ll clasp the MacBook to my chest, do a 180 mid-air spin, landing on my back.

I’ve got a problem with anonymous

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Masked2I made a mistake yesterday. I posted the email address of someone who had commented –anonymously– on an earlier post. When commenting on a Typepad blog, you’re prompted for an email address with a note that it will not be published. Since I rarely comment on my own blog, I failed to notice that assurance. So I deleted the comment and the email address.

But that’s the last time. If you’re not willing to back your opinions up with your name, shut the fuck up.

Is there ever a time and place for anonymity? Probably. Reporting child abuse. A break-in at the Watergate. Maybe a few others. But if we don’t know who you are, why should we believe anything you write or say?

In this recent incident, a man was protesting what he thought was unfair treatment by Missouri Farm Bureau. The commenter was basically saying the guy was wrong. But how do we know it wasn’t someone from Farm Bureau commenting anonymously? We don’t.

I’m a little better with “Name withheld by request.” If I know who you are and –for reasons I consider appropriate– I can make the call to withhold your name.

Step up, or step off.

Bigger Computer Monitors = More Productivity

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Jason Calacanis points to WSJ story that suggests size does matter:

Imac“Researchers at the University of Utah tested how quickly people performed tasks like editing a document and copying numbers between spreadsheets while using different computer configurations: one with an 18-inch monitor, one with a 24-inch monitor and with two 20-inch monitors. Their finding: People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones. The study concluded that someone using a larger monitor could save 2.5 hours a day.”

I think that balances out the 2.5 hours a day I goof off. [Thanks, David]

The ravages of time

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Stevethennow

When I showed this "then-and-now" photo to my life-long friend John, he posed the following questions: How are these two people different? How are they the same?

Are we essentially the same person at 60 that we were at 25? Or does a lifetime of experiences change us? I seem to recall reading that our personalities are fully formed at a very early age. So most of the changes are physical (and inconsequential)? The "me" in my head feels exactly like that younger version. And maybe that’s the answer to John’s question. The differences are all positive. If I had to pick one, I’d say I’m a little wiser. But only a little.