Towse: views from the hill

February 6, 2009

Bakers make cake with image of flash drive instead of image in flash drive – Boing Boing

Filed under: life,news — Towse @ 2:46 am

Bakers make cake with image of flash drive instead of image in flash drive – Boing Boing

Oh, dear.

Not realizing that the flash drive had the image wanted for the cake, the bakers made the cake with an image of the flash drive.

Duh.

Pretty cute, though. Bet the cake was a hit.

[via ‘sted]

20 Worst Foods of 2009 – 1. The Worst Food in America of 2009

Filed under: culture,food,health — Towse @ 2:25 am

20 Worst Foods of 2009 – 1. The Worst Food in America of 2009 (from Men’s Health)

Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake
2,600 calories
135 g fat (59 g saturated fat, 2.5 g trans fats)
263 g sugars
1,700 mg sodium

We didn’t think anything could be worse than Baskin Robbins’ 2008 bombshell, the Heath Bar Shake. After all, it had more sugar (266 grams) than 20 bowls of Froot Loops, more calories (2,310) than 11 actual Heath Bars, and more ingredients (73) than you’ll find in most chemist labs.

Rather than coming to their senses and removing it from the menu, they did themselves one worse and introduced this caloric catastrophe. It’s soiled with more than a day’s worth of calories and three days worth of saturated fat, and, worst of all, usually takes less than 10 minutes to sip through a straw.

The Men’s Health article has twenty of the worst foods in America: worst salad, worst breakfast, worst burger, &c. (Hard to navigate, but interesting. …)

[via Sour Grapes' Google Reader]

February 5, 2009

An Open Letter to Amy Dickinson by Margo Howard

Filed under: news,people — Towse @ 6:03 pm

An Open Letter to Amy Dickinson by Margo Howard

[...]

In short, when the Tribune hired and syndicated you, that made you their new advice columnist, period. You are no more “the new Ann Landers” than Carolyn Hax, Dan Savage or any of the dozens of advice columnists who were bought by newspapers to fill the space previously occupied by my mother.

By law, the only person who would have been able to become “the new Ann Landers” was me. And that was nothing I chose to do. You see, dear, even I knew that there could only be one Ann Landers.

Sure. Whatevs.

That’s why Dear Margo®’s column always finishes off with Dear Margo is written by Margo Howard, Ann Landers’ daughter.

Not that Margo Howard would ever even consider trying to be the new Ann Landers.

35 Examples Of Beautiful City Photography

Filed under: photographs,travel — Towse @ 4:58 pm

35 Examples Of Beautiful City Photography from Smashing Magazine.

Some are far better than others. Some are stunning.

Click through the photographer link for a given photo and find more photographs by the same person.

e.g. Giuseppe Finocchiaro‘s photo of Oia, Santorini.

[via Gerard Vlemmings at the Presurfer]

February 4, 2009

Michael Bierut – 26 Years, 85 Notebooks

Filed under: writing — Tags: , , — Towse @ 2:27 am

On August 12, 1982, I took a 10 x 7 1/8 inch National Blank Book Company composition book from the supply closet of my then employer, Vignelli Associates. From that moment, I have never been without one. I always have one at my desk. I take one with me to every meeting. I am now in the middle of Notebook #85. It’s in front of me right now. Together, these well-worn books create a history of my working life that spans three decades.

I tend to be obsessive-compulsive, and I am very picky about the notebooks. No fancy Moleskines for me, just standard-issue office supply composition books.

I use them in order. Tibor Kalman once asked me why I didn’t have a different notebook for every project. I have to admit, this would be more useful. But I don’t. I fill each one up and then move to the next one, the projects all jumbled together. Starting with the third one, every one of them is numbered. Except for two at the very beginning that used gridded paper, they have blank, unlined pages. I hate gridded paper (but not as much as lined paper.) There have been times when it’s been really difficult to get unlined composition books, which I gather are oddly unpopular. One time I found a supplier who would only sell them in bulk and I bought a whole boxful. I thought these would last the rest of my life, but I gave a lot away, which I regret. Now they’re gone.

… continues

His nibs gives me grief because I’m enamored with blank notebooks. I’ll be in a bookstore or stationery store and go missing and he’ll find me looking at the stacks of blank notebooks of various sorts. When we moved from the bucolic village to the fair ville I gave loads of the simple composition books that Bierut describes away to an outfit that stocks supplies for teachers. My stash is growing again because there is something about blank books that calls to me.

I’ve started an exercise similar to (although not as arty as) Michael Bierut’s. I wish I’d started decades ago. I’m on my second book and continuing forward.

My notebook of choice these days fits into my back pocket and goes on walks with me and sits beside me as I read. I also have a composition book that captures to-do lists and other bits and pieces I want to hang on to.

My inspiration for starting the exercise was a guy named Paul Madonna, who fills notebooks with his sketches and drawings and notes. He has a passel of them on the shelf in his studio (not 85 yet) and flips back in them when he’s looking for information or inspiration. His conscientiousness about maintaining the notebooks and adding content struck me as a “good” thing.

Notebooks are a “good” thing.

DesignObserver – an interesting read
Paul Madonna’s site

February 3, 2009

Justice Rehires Attorney Fired Amid Gay Rumor : NPR

Filed under: legal,news,politics — Towse @ 9:45 pm

Justice Rehires Attorney Fired Amid Gay Rumor : NPR

This should never have happened. That she’s been rehired is a good thing, but for pete’s sake, how can anyone justify this to begin with?

Off with their heads! May the people responsible be ineligible for another legal position for the rest of their lives! How dare they mess with this attorney’s life like this?

February 2, 2009

An Extraordinary Home. Single Family located at 601 Dolores Street, Mission Dolores, San Francisco, California

Filed under: real estate,San Francisco,shopshopshop — Towse @ 9:15 pm

An Extraordinary Home. Single Family located at 601 Dolores Street, Mission Dolores, San Francisco

1910. Former church. Now SFH. Check out the photo gallery. What parties I could have! I’d have room for all my books and more! Seismic retrofit. No longer on the City’s Unreinforced Masonry Building list.

Formerly the Golden Gate Lutheran Church, this stunning Gothic Revival style building is now one of the most extraordinary and largest single family homes in San Francisco. This one-of-a-kind property features an enormous living area that includes the original sanctuary with soaring, coffered and hand-painted ceilings, arched windows framing Dolores Park as well as most of the original stained glass windows, custom mahogany wood finishes, four wood-burning fireplaces, a new chef’s kitchen and a spacious dining room. The Master suite level features a marble Roman tub room, dressing room and incredible 360 degree views from the tower meditation room and deck. The home includes an expansive ground floor level that could be used as exhibition space, recording studio, gym and/or home office. There is also a garage that accommodates 4-6 cars.

Room for my books!

Be still my heart.

This is why every once in a blue moon I buy a Lotto ticket.

Oh, my. …

$9,950,000 but I betcha they’d take $9m if I were paying cash.

Update: Looking at what he paid for it less than two years ago, back when it was a church. Yes, granted he did the transformation to SFH, reinforced the masonry and added all sorts of stuff, still …

Mormons donated more to California’s Prop. 8 campaign than they’d previously copped to

Filed under: California,causes,election2008,legal,politics — Towse @ 5:52 pm

Mormon church reports $190,000 Prop. 8 expenses.

Mormon church officials, facing an ongoing investigation by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, Friday reported nearly $190,000 in previously unlisted assistance to the successful campaign for Prop. 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California.

Now there’s a huge surprise.

Up until Friday, the Mormon church had denied any direct financial support for the campaign beyond a reported $2,078 spent for bringing church Elder L. Whitney Clayton to California.

Church officials complained that Karger’s complaint was full of errors and that the church had “fully complied” with California law.

The report filed Friday contained few details about how the money was spent.

[...]

While the deadline for the report, which covers the period from July 1 to Dec. 31, is Monday, many campaign contributions by major donors and independent committees must be reported within days after they’re made.

The final reports are due today, because U.S. District Judge Morrison England late last week refused to exempt the yes-on-8 campaign from making their filings today.

If the Prop. 8 campaign was exempted from disclosure because of reports of harassments of individual donors, said Deputy Attorney General Zackery Morazzini, the same case could be made for any controversial initiative. Courts would have to “keep the entire California electorate in the dark as to who was funding these ballot measures,” he said.

England agreed.

He noted that some of the reprisals reported by the Prop. 8 committee involve legal activities such as boycotts and picketing. Other alleged actions, such as death threats, mailings of white powder and vandalism, may constitute “repugnant and despicable acts” but can be reported to law enforcement, the judge said.

Even if there have been illegal reprisals, that would be insufficient reason to grant a wholesale exemption for a multimillion-dollar initiative campaign, England said. He also rejected the Prop. 8 campaign’s argument that the $100 disclosure limit established in 1974 should be increased for inflation, saying some states require reports of contributions as low as $25 and the Supreme Court has never invalidated them.

[ref:Prop. 8 campaign can’t hide donors’ names]

Interesting to see what comes out today that the yes-on-8 campaign was so anxious not to have come out.

Citizen Chain, North Beach

Filed under: photographs — Tags: , — Towse @ 7:20 am

 

Posted by Picasa

Citizen Chain on the corner of Powell and Chestnut

The Phrontistery: Obscure Words and Vocabulary Resources

Filed under: life,URL,wordstuff — Towse @ 2:55 am

The Phrontistery: Obscure Words and Vocabulary Resources

I did one of those “Twenty Five Things” sorts of things over on Facebook. On that list were four items pertaining to Webbie things:

16. I collect quotations and factoids and bits of sparkly info and stash them away and then can’t find them when I want them.

17. I do the same with Web bookmarks and then discover that a site I just discovered is one whose bookmark I’d stashed away nineteen months ago. Too many pretties?

18. I no longer cut recipes out from newspapers and magazines (much…) because things of that sort are all on the Web, or a decent substitute is.

19. I worry (seriously) that one day the Web won’t be there and I’ll be lost and archive-less because I’ve given all my stuff away and grown dependent on the Web as resource. And then where would I be?

What does that have to do with Phrontistery?

I came across Phrontistery today (AFTER I put together the Facebook note) and thought, oh, cool. Wordstuff stuff. I loves Wordstuff stuffs.

I clicked my Delicious click to bookmark the site … and found that I saved it 06 Jun 2007 … which is just under twenty months ago.

Oh.

If you like Wordstuff, though. Go there.

Since 1996, I have compiled word lists in order to spread the joy of the English language. Here, you will find the International House of Logorrhea (an online dictionary of obscure and rare words), the Compendium of Lost Words (a compilation of ultra-rare forgotten words), and many other glossaries, word lists, essays, and other language and etymology resources.

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