raytraced

david byrne

alice coltrane's "journey In satchindananda".

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/05/this-is-what-the-future-of-the.html#comment-440915 

comment by charlie stross in his article "This is what the future of the EU hinges on"

this is a semi-structured list of places that i keep around for reference. it is primarily focused on eating & drinking around seattle, but has sprawled out over time.

seattle—

chef liao http://www.chefliao.com/ — phinney ridge

bar del corso: http://www.yelp.com/biz/bar-del-corso-seattle — gina and jerry's new joint.  get there early!

berliner http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-berliner-doner-kebab-seattle — looks good place in pioneer sq, john gave it an enthusiastic thumbs up

great nabob http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-great-nabob-seattle — might be interesting

dot's delicatessen http://dotsdelicatessen.com/about/ — 4262 fremont ave north

penzey's spices — recommended spices store by the great panic people, was good but i generally prefer an indian grocery store, http://www.yelp.com/biz/penzeys-spices-seattle

gorgeous george—get the rack of lamb, greenwood

panos—lamb inside of bread

kasbah on 85th

mr. gyro—just off of market st and my favorite lunch place. get the lamb platter. super nice people.

cafe munir — sounds great, but only open for dinner on 80th & 24th in ballard, http://www.yelp.com/biz/cafe-munir-seattle

el camiño — taco truck near the Safeway by the pet store, highly recommend by friend

mlk & grand st — vietnamese deli sandwiches

ocho — good tapas place on 24th and market

vietnam café & sandwich — sounds like another nice vietnamese place here in ballard @ 5701 15th Ave NW

plaka estiatorio — greek place in ballard open tues-fri on market & 20th ave, http://ballardrp.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/vietnam-cafe-sandwich/

bastille — happy hour lamb burger moroccan style

night kitchen — on stewart between 2nd and 3rd. 6-7pm to 9:00am.  purportedly amazing fries. 

unicorn — on cap hill good fried food and cool bar (pike & 11th)

paratii — brazilian place in ballard. tasty but expensive http://www.myballard.com/2011/05/05/ballards-new-brazilian-restaurant-opens

mistral kitchen — was great cocktail and high end place, but @AndrewBohrer left so not sure anymore

revel — korean street food in fremont.  nice bar but still need to try the food there someday

loretta's northwesterner—need to get there, 8617 14th ave s, south park http://lorettasnorthwesterner.com/

liberty bar, cap hill http://www.libertybars.com/

heidelberg haus—2122 NE 65th st, http://www.seattle-eats-german.com/ 

ba bar— vietnamese cafe with a nice bar by the Monsoon people.  sounded great, but just ok, http://www.yelp.com/biz/ba-bar-seattle

coffee

analog coffee — nice sounding place in cap hill and recommended by owner of revolver coffee, http://www.yelp.com/biz/analog-coffee-seattle

tougo coffee — another nice cap hill coffee shop, http://tougocoffee.com/

milstead & co. — great coffee shop in fremont, open til 6pm., http://www.milsteadandco.com/

non-edible

bike shops

hub and bespoke — sounds good in fremont: outlier stuff, http://www.nwsource.com/ae/scr/edb_vd.cfm?c=&ven=72071&s=nws

taxi services

http://www.yelp.com/biz/aces-for-hire-seattle (206) 518-8411 — been good to me so far but expensive

http://www.yelp.com/biz/a-abc-transportation-seattle (206) 242-0102 — ok. more available than aces, cheaper and flakier

http://www.yelp.com/biz/atlas-town-car-seattle (206) 860-7777 — another possibility

greater seattle area

shin sung — federal way korean bbq http://www.yelp.com/biz/shin-sung-restaurant-federal-way?no_splash=1

naan -n- curry, 709 south 3rd st, renton

ho soon yi — scott recommended in lynnwood

gingogae — recommended by etsuko for oxtail soup! n 160th in shoreline

further out

vancouver—

l’abattoir—craft cocktail bar in Gastown presided over by the talented Shaun Layton.

bao bei

cork & fin — cannot remember exactly how good it was

coffee

nelson the seagull — nice coffee shop and bread bakery on 315 carrell St (gastown), worth going back

revolver coffee — nice coffee shop on 325 cambie St (gastown), worth going back

elysian room — recommended by owner of revolver coffee, across the river on the kits side, http://www.yelp.ca/biz/the-elysian-room-vancouver-2

shops

smoking lily—recommended by my friend shin, a nice shop for the ladies.

portland—

http://www.olympicprovisions.com/

sf & bay area—

http://www.japacurry.com/home.htm — downtown. curry cart

bars

house of shields — nice cocktail place, near market & new montgomery

monk's kettle — über beer place in the mission, http://monkskettle.com/

alembic bar — craft liquors and food on the haight (near cole), http://www.alembicbar.com/directions.html

heaven's dog — late night chinese food and cocktails, 1148 Mission Street at 7th, http://www.heavensdog.com/main/HD.html

toronado pub — serious beer list, 547 haight st (near hayes valley) http://www.toronado.com/draft.htm

biergarten — 2-8pm weds-sun, http://www.BiergartenSF.com/

naschmarkt in campbell looks ok but limited beer and spendy http://www.yelp.com/biz/naschmarkt-restaurant-campbell-2 http://maps.google.com/?q=Naschmarkt+Restaurant&cid=501271233112563356

coffee

four barrel

sightglass

blue bottle

philz—recommended by @fazil

bitter+sweet—nice café in cupertino

shops

Rail 3 was released a few days ago.  According to the getting started guide, to develop for Rails 3, I needed to install Ruby 1.9.x onto Snow Leopard, which ships with Ruby 1.8.7.  Here are the steps that I cobbled together from google searches to replace the 1.8.7 version:

curl http://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.9/ruby-1.9.2-p0.tar.bz2 -o ruby-1.9.2-p0.tar.bz2

tar -xvzf ruby-1.9.2-p0.tar.bz2

cd ruby-1.9.2-p0

./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-pthread

make

make test

sudo make install

i forget what 8 was for

sudo gem install rails

sudo gem install bundler

Now you should be up on the latest Ruby and Rails.

FMI http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/news/2010/08/18/ruby-1-9-2-is-released/

http://github.com/rails/rails/tree/v3.0.0

I missed 21 Jump Street the first time around so I though I would check out the series.  It is not the deepest TV you will find, but is surprisingly good for a 1987 show, which is mostly due to Johnny Depp not being a superstar yet, so he would deign to be in a TV show.

Love this scene when Johnny's character, Officer Tom Hanson, defends himself against allegations of being a liberal.

I was also surprised to see Vancouver as the setting for a TV show that long ago.  I guess they were ahead of the curve much like another well known Fox show the Simpson's who outsourced much of their animation to the talented animator's in South Korea.

I go to Vancouver only twice a year these days, but spent a week of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Gastown.  While it has been gentrified quite a bit, it is still fun to see this historic neighborhood over 20 years ago looking surprisingly similar to today.

Overall it is a fun show to watch for unwinding after a few tense episodes of a more intense show such as Treme or the Wire.

What is somewhat embarrassing to admit is that I just assumed this was one of those LA shows until I saw in the credits this picture of a hockey goalie.

"With respect to clarity, simplicity, and boldness of line, the Japanese have been a thousand years ahead of us in fine art and graphic design. Our best painters learned minimalism, cartooning, and much else from the Japanese during the “Orientalism” period of the late 19th century. Before that, western fine art was judged in part on its complexity and detail. And our posters and advertisements! Don’t ask."

 Great article and comments many of which have touched on the visual complexity of newspapers & other media, the Kanji writing system, and the places people live.  One factor I have not seen mentioned is the effect of the population density on Japanese comfort levels with visual complexity.  

I go to Sapporo regularly, and while it is considered a smaller city, I've been exposed to such large numbers of people in concentrated spaces that it makes NYC appear sparsely populated.  There was one festival in Odori Park where there were so many people, most of who were in motion, that I could not visually track my fiancée who was a foot or two in front of me.  I had to hold on to her physically because my brain was in overload.  It took a while to get used to that kind of thing, but I would imagine growing up in such an environment would account for the high visual complexity that you see in media: lower complexity would reduce the concentration of information to below accepted levels.

One other factor I should mention is that many of the truly minimal and peaceful places in Japan are meant for special occasions such as a vacation or to take a quick rest from the frenetic pace of daily life.  These are exceptional places rather than the rule and there is usually a place like that not too far away.

My little contribution to the Treme music documentation: 

"Won't bow, don't know how."

-- Chief Lambreaux

John Gruber says

But whether Gates would have done a better job than Ballmer is a different question than whether Ballmer has done a good job. Apple’s growth this past decade can largely be accounted for with two words: iPod and iPhone. Microsoft wanted in on both those markets, and got smoked. That’s on Ballmer.

I think what it really comes down to is that Microsoft is and was ungovernable.  Gates is not blind or stupid, and perhaps Ballmer is not either (which would make him a flagrant liar), but if you look at these internal emails published by the Seattle Times, you can see that even Bill Gates could not get traction with Microsoft management to make things better:http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/141821.aspHere is a short excerpt, and note it does not get better:

From: Bill Gates Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM To: Jim Allchin Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH) Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

Another one for the Truth is Stranger Than Fiction files:

"The first thing you see at the beginning of HBO's new series Treme are the superimposed words that define the setting for David Simon and Eric Overmyer's New Orleans drama: "Three months after." It doesn't say after what, and it doesn't have to."

This is something I've noticed for a long time but could not put my finger on it: the preponderance of Canadian hockey players shoot left-handed, while in the US the opposite is true and majority of players shoot right-handed.

What this article does not say, but which I think is true and important is that this comes down to much of the competitive differences between the two countries in international tournaments with the advantage tilted in favor of the Canadians: the same percentage of the population that is naturally right-handed* should shoot left-handed in hockey (and golf, archery, billiards, etc).  While some players in Canada default to shooting left-handed when they would be better served by shooting right-handed, an ever larger amount of US players shoot right-handed who would be better off shooting left-handed.

Perhaps the downside of shooting with the dominant hand low is minimal, but many things in the world are decided by tiniest of percentages in favor of one side.  Basically over time these small percentage biases accumulate and to provide a significant long-term advantage.   Examples of this are Casinos and Evolution.