Author: smartpeopleiknow

WhiteHouse.gov – before and after Obama

I took a snapshot of whitehouse.gov before Obama was sworn in and just after it was changed.

You can see the differences here: http://drop.io/whitehouseGovBandA

Needless to say, there are big differences.

Obama is going to bring alot of changes to the White House. As an IT person, it is pleasing to think that one of the first ones is an IT change. 🙂

Obama and RFK or Two Trains, then and now

Andrew Sullivan has a great post comparing the train that is taking Obama to Washington with the funeral train of RFK.  One was a train about endings, while another is a train about beginnings.

Paul Simon has a line that goes: “Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance”, for it conjures up positive thoughts and emotions. Like Hope. Everybody loves the sound of the train that Obama is on, both real and symbolic.

Go see “The Hope They Saw On That Train”.

Who makes better bottled water than Fiji? NYC, of course!


I think this is brilliant. While people can argue over the taste of the source of water, the quality of it is something else. And everything I read about purified NYC water is that it is high quality indeed. Check out Tap’dNY – Purified New York City tap water.

Not to pick on Fiji (too much), but there is even a taste test that shows it is better.

Not only do they have great water, but they have a great web site too (and a tumblelog, no less.)

You don’t have to be a Rockefeller


There is an amazing story of two people who were limited only by finances, but not vision. Indeed, their vision of great art was not limited at all, it seems. Go see you don’t have to be a rockefeller at the wonderful blog, oliveloaf design to get the details.

It reminds me, again, that money is not the limit we often make it out to be.

(I love their apartment: it sees no different than millions of other apartments, save a world class art collection).

Blog Spam

For some reason, I have been getting a fair amount of blog spam getting through lately, typically to one post I made along time ago. The spam always starts something like this:

“Hello everyone, I have just registered with your forums recently. I always look around here for valuable information, this forum is my source of information. Everyone here is nice and has quick replys to other threads so here I am posting my own for this good site. I have this site to help all my needs.”

It is nice that they think everyone here is nice, since everyone is mostly me 🙂

Apparently some on the Right are still worried about the Commies

It’s hard to tell if Caleb Crain is mocking the book “Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature” or agreeing with it in his Essay – Children of the Left, Unite! in the NYTimes.com. (The more I read it, the more mocking it seems). He starts:

“As Julia L. Mickenberg and Philip Nel document in Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature (New York University, $32.95), Marxist principles have been dripping steadily into the minds of American youth for more than a century”

Actually, Mickenberg and Nel are wrong. Since children have been taught from the Bible, they have been learning about sharing, caring for the sick and the downtrodden of society, not to mention how the rich man will have a hard time getting into heaven. So perhaps these stories have been teaching Christian principles to young children, not Marxist principles.

Not since the Right went after the Teletubbies have I seen such silliness on their behalf.

What I am reading in January (and what have I just finished)

What I am reading right now? I have a number of things on the go.

A History of the Middle East by Peter Mansfield
Beyond Belief by Elaine Pagels
The Book of J by Harold Bloom and David Rosenberg
The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier
A Shortened History of England by G.M. Trevelyan
Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

I just finished:

H+ A New Religion? by Edward de Bono. I like deBono alot, but this book is more a Powerpoint presentation and less of a book. That would be fine if what was there was profound, but I don’t think it was. I think the idea that drove the book is worthwhile, but I think it could have been alot more thought out.
Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers (Hardcover) by John Alderman (Author), Dag Spicer (Foreword), Mark Richards (Photographer). It is more of a coffee table book, but for techies like myself, it is fantastic. It has a great selection of photographs of ancient computers, from large to small. While the photographs are great, the writing is also worthwhile. Highly recommended, especially as a gift for people who love computers.

The New York Times: is it a newspaper or a application platform for software developers?

In fact, it’s both. The Times, via the Times Developer Network, is providing software developers APIs to access a variety of information, from movies to politics. It’s pretty smart.

The movie reviews api, for example, provides output in JSON, XML and serialized PHP formats. And they have examples of how to invoke them.

I hope we see more and more companies providing this type of service soon. As it does, mashups will really take off.

New Year’s Resolution: to eat and cook better


If you want to eat better this year, and by better I mean not only in terms of quality, but in terms of simplifying your cooking and doing more with less, than you owe it to yourself to read this column by Mark Bittman: The Minimalist – The Latest Must-Haves for the Pantry – NYTimes.com.

It’s packed like a good pantry with lots of great advice. I highly recommend that you print it and start making meal plans and grocery lists with it.

Going over it, I thought of some other ideas that could suppliment his, such as:

Fresh garlic: another thing you should get. It’s much better than the bottled kind.

Fresh herbs: great idea, but if you are like me, you end up throwing them out at the end of the week, which seems like a waste. The trick to that is what he suggests: make pesto. You can make pesto with more than basil and pinenuts and parmesan. There are other pesto recipes out there that use parsely and walnuts and cilantro and lots more. Drizzle the pesto on soups, roasted vegetables and roast meats (great on a grilled chop), and of course you can combine it with cream and use as a sauce for fresh pasta.

Stock: if you are following Mark Bittman’s advice, try throwing in some of those fresh herbs you have around as well. It will add that much more flavour.

Oils: get a small bottle and toss some of your extra fresh herbs in it and then cover them in olive oil. You can then use this for making your own pesto, or use it for cooking. (This is handy if you want to add flavour to your cooking but are dealing with children who consider even a fleck of green to be a major turnoff.) A small bottle is better to prevent the herbs and oil for hanging around too long.

Croutons: another trick for making your own croutons is fry up some bite sized pieces of bacon in a pan with cubes/small chunks of bread. Then toss both the bread and the bacon in your salad. For more flavour, add a shallot or two. You can even toss some vinegar in the pan (get a recipe for this) and make a warm vinaigrette.

Bread crumbs: think out of the box here. Don’t just use white bread. Rye bread can make great bread crumbs, especially if it has carraway seeds. (Fantastic for coating pork). Or try pumpernickel. Really any good savoury bread with good flavour will make for interesting bread crumbs.

Look up some Italian recipes that use bread crumbs sauteed in olive oil and tossed on pasta. Simple and tasty.

Grains: although orzo and couscous are pastas and not grains, they can be good substitutes for grains in terms of variety.

Prosciutto: another great use of prosciutto is to wrap it around a sweet slice of fruit. It makes a great snack!

Enjoy!

(Delicious looking photo of good olive oil, balsamic vinegar and wonderful bread from Neeta Lind’s photostream on flickr.com)

Sure basil and tarragon are great, but what about marjoram?

Marjoram
I was in my local grocery store some time ago, and two of the produce staffers were talking about herbs. One of them commented that while tarragon did well and basil sold out, marjoram did not do so well and they might not stock it anymore.

I thought about this and did some random research. I found that while some of my older recipes had it as an ingredient, I don’t see it featured as much any more. (Same goes for paprika, which used to be used alot it seems, though seldom now, save in Martha Stewart’s recipes). Now it seems there is more focus on newer herbs and spices or “sweeter” herbs like basil.

It’s a shame, since marjoram is a very versatile herb. It’s less ‘sweet’ than basil or tarragon, but that makes it great in such things as an omelet. So now, several times a month, I’ll make an omelet with sauteed shallots, grated emmental cheese and some marjoram sprinkled in. Delicious.

(great photo of marjoram from Jade Craven’s photostream at flickr.com)

How to make the most of running outdoors in winter

It may seem hard for you to believe, but running outdoors in the cold winter can be enjoyable and worthwhile. But you have to be prepared for it.

You can find lots of good tips for running online, such as this article: Winter Running Tips from Active.com (which is where I also got the photo), this one from the Chicago Examiner, and about.com has alot of good articles on winter running, including this one on how to dress for winter running.

As I went through these articles, I jotted down some other things you might want to consider, based on my many years of winter running:

  • If you are not running everyday of the week, check out the long range forecast and try to plan your runs for the days of better weather. There are going to be some days that are downright dangerous and should be avoided. But there will be other days when it will be milder and those are those are good ones to aim for. If Wednesday is -10C and Thursday is -2C, why not shift your Wednesday run over to Thursday?
  • When it comes to black ice, always expect it. Be especially careful on days when the temperature rises a few degrees above freezing and then drops below freezing: the warmer temperatures can cause runoff that then freezes up into black ice. And since it is new black ice, it is more likely that it won’t be salted yet.
  • Also on black ice, be careful of light dustings of snow. The snow can cover up the ice and make it that much more slippery.
  • Finally, try to stay low and keep your feet on the ground. If you do something like jump over a pile of snow, you may land on black ice. That will be a very unpleasant experience, based on what I have seen.
  • Dressing for 15-20 degrees (F) above the current temperature is very good advice. But it can be hard to get motivated for those 5-15 minutes when your body is producing enough heat to feel warm enough. To get around this, one option is to have a sweatshirt or jacket that you can either carry or toss somewhere and retrieve at the end of your run. For example, if you start your run at your house, run up and down the street (or around the block) until you start to feel too warm, then toss a layer indoors and keep running.
  • Try not to stop if you can: you will cool off very quickly.
  • If the weather is bad outside, drivers will have a hard time seeing you. Worse, they could be rushing to get somewhere as a result of the delay of the bad weather. And then people skid and slide in their cars during winter. Given all that, be extremely defensive around cars in the winter. Stop, make sure they can stop, then proceed. Don’t assume they will be able to stop for you.
  • Related to that, avoid running on the road in the winter. It can be very tempting when the roads are clear and the sidewalks are not. You might even think that the roads are safer than the sidewalks in terms of slipping. However, if you have to get off the road in a hurry, you might not be able to due to snowbanks and other obstacles. Or you might slip and fall while you do that. What I tend to do is run on the sidewalks of busy streets. Those sidewalks tend to be the best cleared and salted. I save the sidestreets for when the snow is all gone.
  • While it is important to hydrate on long runs, you should also consider where you will be able to go to the bathroom during these times. Lots of water plus cold weather equals many trips to the loo. Be prepared.
  • Dressing warmly is important. However, if you are new to winter running, you might think: I can’t afford to buy all that winter running gear! If you are a winter runner on a budget, you can run in cotton or lower cost material and acquire the better running gear over time (buy it at the end of the winter running season: you’ll get good deals then and the stuff lasts along time and doesn’t really go out of style).
    If you are new to winter running, try and at least get a good primary layer: you want to wick as much water as you can away from your body. If you have cotton as your primary layer, you will likely get cold quickly. Everyone has different comfort levels when it comes to winter running gear, so try to layer as best as you can with what you have, preferably on some shorter runs. Use these shorter runs to help you best determine what works for you in terms of clothes. Ideally, keep a log with weather conditions, clothes you wore, and how you felt and ran. (It doesn’t have to be a fancy log book either: a few sheets of paper is fine).
  • When considering temperature, make sure you factor in the wind chill. Also consider the humidity. Days with lots of humidity and wind will feel alot colder than dry winter days without wind.

Now after reading all these tips, you might think: why would anyone want to run outside in the winter? Well, there are lots of reasons, including:

  • It’s still a relatively low cost way to keep fit.
  • You can do it whenever you have time.
  • If you race, you will be able to maintain or even improve your running if you run right through the winter months. And lots of race start in as early as March: if you are going to put in a good showing for these, you need to be running in January and February.
  • Running in winter allows you to shake up your running routine. You have to run differently in the winter than at other times of the year. You may have to run slower. You may have to run in the dark. You may have to run through snow. All of these things and more can give you a new perspective on running and make it fresh for you.
  • It can be beautiful running outside in the winter. While everyone else is tucked away inside, you can have the outdoors all to yourself.
  • You can take pride in being able to run outside during these times.
  • Running in the winter helps combat the feeling of being cooped up inside. There are lots of great wintertime activities you can do to make the best of the season: why not add running to the list?

Winter fashion items: the long john (yes, really)


Not just any ole long john, but some very stylish candy-cane-like long johns from American Eagle. These can be shown off if you want, but when it is really cold out there, you’ll be happy to have them at all.

The American Eagle Waffle T-shirt is $14.95, and Long Johns are $11.95

Just because you have to bundle up, doesn’t mean you have to look boring. See “The High Low” at The Moment Blog over at the  NYTimes.com for more info.

The Wonders of Istanbul

I had the great fortune and pleasure of having to go to Istanbul for a week of work this year. It is a magnificent city.

There are so many great cities in the world for you to see: London, Paris, Rio, New York, Cairo, Tokyo, to name a few. Istanbul should be on your list. Regardless of whether you are visiting Europe, Asia, or Africa, if you can, extend your trip and visit Istanbul. You’ll be glad you did.

And if you don’t believe me, listen to James Fallows from the Atlantic magazine rave about Istanbul, this Turkish Surprise.

Jim Carrey, Bill Murray, and the depth of contemporary comedy

James Parker from The Atlantic takes scenes from Jim Carrey’s films (and one from the great Bill Murray) to show the depth that lies beneath the Fool. Unlike Murray and his laid back delivery, Carrey’s manic showmanship can distract you to the point you stop noticing what he is doing, which can be remarkable. See The Fears of a Clown – The Atlantic Podcasts and then read what Parker has to say. You will gain a whole new appreciate for Carrey. He may still get on your nerves, but then, that is the point.

Parker talks about Carrey being in a work by Becket. I think a better place for him would be in a Bunuel film. He would be terrifyingly funny, and capable of achieving something that Jerry Lewis, Steve Martin or Bill Murray could not.

The Big Picture: year 2008 in review

Normally I skip things like “top ten XYZ for 2008”. But when I heard about the year 2008 in photographs at The Big Picture from Boston.com, I had to take a look. Sure enough, they are great photos. Truly great.

Things I like about it are:

  • The photo quality is excellent. It’s photojournalism at its best.
  • There is more of a world focus than just an American focus.
  • There is a wide range of photographs, from light moments to horrific ones, with plenty showing how awesome the world can be (see the first one of the lightning storm in a volcano).
  • There are good notes explaining the context of each photo.

The only thing that you might want to skip over is the comments: it’s alot of either cheering or petty criticism (e.g., these photos seems to have a liberal bias).

New cellphone from…..Hugo Boss?!

When I first saw this, I thought: is that right?! Why is Hugo Boss making a cellphone? But after a moment, it makes sense. For alot of people a cell phone is a fashion accessory, just like a watch can be. And other designers have had cell phones associated with them. Plus, as cell phone manufacturers have a harder time differentiating themselves from each other functionally, they may turn to designers as channels to sell their products.

You can see more about this at this post: Hugo Boss mobile phone – Technology – Wallpaper.com – International Design Interiors Fashion Travel

A very good (and short) analysis of net neutrality…

…can be found here at Bits Blog (NYTimes.com).

It is true that big sites can arrange their networks (for a price) to provide better service for their clients. But by and large, the ISPs have for a long time been laissez-faire when it comes to network traffic passing through their networks.

It is also true that you can build a much better network for your clients than the Internet. You can simply pay the ISPs to build you a private network. It will also be expensive.

I think in a few years more and more network traffic will be wireless P2P, and the Internet will matter less and less, other than a legacy backbone for some older traffic and protocols. But in the meantime, I think there will be a lot of discussion about net neutrality. This article can provide you with some useful ideas to consider.