My recent readings (listens)

Restless (4.5/5) - William Boyd
Can't remember if I blogged about this, but I really loved this book! Definitely would make a great movie. Very LeCarre-esque. One of my favorites.

The Pillars of the Earth (5/5) - Ken Follett
Ok it took forever and a day, but truly one of the best books I have ever experienced....in fact for a while I regretted listening instead of reading, but I think if I was reading it, I would still be. Truly cool from a character development, rich information sense....I actually could understand what 10th/11th c. life was like.

Lamb (4.5/5) - Christopher Moore
This guy has managed to become one of my favorites. Really funny story of the lost years of Jesus told by his long forgotten boyhood friend Bif.

Legacy of Ashes (1/5) - Tim Weiner
Honestly...never got through it.....was sick of it within the first 2 hours.

The Amulet of Samarkand - The Bartimaeus Trilogy Book 1 - Jonathan Stroud
It was ok (3/5)....there were some cool concepts...much darker and more detailed than the potter series


A New Earth (3.5/5) - Eckhart Tolle
Despite the hype, this book seems to be everything people want it to be. Those who are schooled in various philosophically ego-heavy disciplines will find this familiar territory.....I enjoyed it....very difficult to listen to while driving.

The Four Things a Service Business Must Get Right (Harvard Business Review) (2.5/5) - Frances X. Frei
Interesting, nothing new, well stated points.....the best of HBR in providing quotable quotes.....I do believe HBR is the birthplace of buzzword bingo in the corporate world.

Bad Luck and Trouble (3.5/5) - Lee Child
I enjoyed this book, found it interesting and plot hidden for long enough that it kept my interest....a lot like a Nelson Demille but not as outright funny.

next on the list
World Without End - Ken Follett

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Graphics, etc...

as you may have guessed i've lost my background and logo.....I was hosting the graphics on my wifes site which we recently shut down, but I didn't make the mental connection prior to wiping it.....in any event they'll be back soon.

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Blackfish

Went to a Chaine des Rotisseurs event the other night at Blackfish. It was a New World vs. Old World night with some fantastic vintages.

Needless to say we had a great time...


Amuse Bouche:
Beet air with star anise smoke

First:
Spring Carrot soup with rose geranium

Second: (and my favorite)
Roasted Fluke, duck ravioli, sunchoke puree, fenugreek froth

Third:
Foie gras "semi freddo", pistachio, anchovy, carbonated lemon, pink peppercorn

Entree:
Veal breast with morels

Cheese:
Gorgonzola panna cotta, crunchy brioche, spicy yuzo, grapes

Dessert:
Smores with homemade strawberry marshmellow, chocolate gram cracker crunch.

I'll go into the wines at a later date.....in a nutshell everyone that we met in the Chaine was great, and very nice to us....we look forward to more events.

Chip Roman who is both Chef and Owner was great, had a quick chat with him and he seems down to earth, while his food was clearly out of this world.

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Chumby

My Chumby has arrived and I am pleased....I would have got it for the internet radio streaming alone, but all of the incredible other things I am leveraging make it well worth it for me...if you get one let me know and I'll share some channels.

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:)

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More Audiobook Reviews

I finished Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card:
rating: I liked it but would call it fair compared to the other books, I now regret that I decided to head down the path of bean instead of ender for how I would read the series.

1776 by David McCullough:
rating: excellent, would have liked an epilogue to cover the first 3 months of 1777.

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore:
rating: awesome, fun! This book was a blast, dark humor but I found myself laughing out loud a number of times, the narration on this was great....I could literally picture the story unfold. I want will definitely read Moore :)

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
rating: quite good, definitely interesting....I have always subscribed to the theory of "Person Smart, People Stupid" this tome attempts to propose the exact opposite.

The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
rating: in progress....so far a number of great points and ideas, definitely will result in pissing a lot of people should people choose to follow his advice, at least this is true for people in a corporate setting. Probably works much better for people in product oriented occupations that are individual contributors without much in the way of management aspirations or responsibilities, but then again I'm not finished yet.

Up Next:
Restless by William Boyd.

Can you tell I love this Audible Subscription.

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String Ducky

An update....a while back I posted an article about Discover Channels contest to explain String Theory in 2 minutes or less. Here is the chosen winner.

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Amazon Kindle

Here is my obligatory Amazon Kindle link....you can't be a gadget fan without diggin' this.

Per Amazon - Introducing Kindle™

Three years ago, we set out to design and build an entirely new class of device—a convenient, portable reading device with the ability to wirelessly download books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers. The result is Amazon Kindle.

We designed Kindle to provide an exceptional reading experience. Thanks to electronic paper, a revolutionary new display technology, reading Kindle’s screen is as sharp and natural as reading ink on paper—and nothing like the strain and glare of a computer screen. Kindle is also easy on the fingertips. It never becomes hot and is designed for ambidextrous use so both "lefties" and "righties" can read comfortably at any angle for long periods of time.

We wanted Kindle to be completely mobile and simple to use for everyone, so we made it wireless. No PC and no syncing needed. Using the same 3G network as advanced cell phones, we deliver your content using our own wireless delivery system, Amazon Whispernet. Unlike WiFi, you’ll never need to locate a hotspot. There are no confusing service plans, yearly contracts, or monthly wireless bills—we take care of the hassles so you can just read.

With Whispernet, you can be anywhere, think of a book, and get it in one minute. Similarly, your content automatically comes to you, wherever you are. Newspaper subscriptions are delivered wirelessly each morning. Most magazines arrive before they hit newsstands. Haven’t read the book for tomorrow night’s book club? Get it in a minute. Finished your book in the airport? Download the sequel while you board the plane. Whether you’re in the mood for something serious or hilarious, lighthearted or studious, Kindle delivers your spontaneous reading choices on demand.

And because we know you can't judge a book by its cover, Kindle lets you download and read the beginning of books for free. This way, you can try it out—if you like it, simply buy and download with 1-Click, right from your Kindle, and continue reading. Want to try a newspaper as well? All newspaper subscriptions start with a risk-free two-week trial.

Kindle’s paperback size and expandable memory let you travel light with your library. With the freedom to download what you want, when you want, we hope you’ll never again find yourself stuck without a great read.

We're very proud to introduce Amazon Kindle and we hope you like it as much as we do.

- The Amazon Kindle Team

Side Note: An LCD (Toshiba REGZA 32HL67U 32" 720p LCD HDTV) I'm Lovin

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Recent Reads....or Listens

I have been on a deep Audiobook run, thought i'd share what I have listened to over the last few months....comment if you have anything to say on these.

Ok, needless to say it all started with an Audible membership....great service, wish they would improve their recommendation engine, but nevertheless when you want something they have it, and it is all quite economical.

So here goes:

Simple Genius by David Baldacci
rating: decent

The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
rating: liked it but it was overhyped by the time I got to it.

Enders Game by Orson Scott Card
rating: loved it....I must say though I unfortunately listened to the after book interview with the author and while I loved this book, and as you will see shortly I continued to read more in the series I thought this author may have been the most obnoxiously arrogant SOB i've ever heard.

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
rating: fantastic, a topic I have always thought about....interesting especially now with the recent news of subliminally planted messages in kids toys etc.

The Futurist by James P. Othmer
rating: I really enjoyed this book

Enders Shadow by Orson Scott Card
rating: as good as Enders Game....same story different POV, great!

Microtrends by Mark J. Penn
rating: fun, got me thinking about all kids of capitalist ways to take advantage of the natural tendency of people to get caught up in trends and fads...

The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan
rating: great....too long. guy has had an amazing life.

ScreamFree Parenting by Hal Edward Runkel
rating: sucked...don't get me wrong it had its share of common sense alternatives and got me thinking on a couple of topics in ways that I might not have approached them, but all in all it was tedious

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
rating: fun, wacky.....if you were born between 68 and 76, you'll probably find this interesting on a few accounts....same goes if you: liked comic books, role playing games, science fiction, tolkein, went to rutgers between 88-94

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
rating: not finished....figured I'd get out in front of this one before the movie hits

On Deck
Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card
1776 by David McCullough
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

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My first homebrew

Pleased to announce that I bottled my first homebrew yesterday! After a 2 week fermentation period, my first ale - a high canadian brew should be ready in about 2 weeks after a bottle aging and carbonation period. A total of 256 fluid ounces. I expect a pale in color and bold in character ale with
subtle notes of hop, think Moosehead.

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Philly Beer Week

Nothing could be finer.....go Monks

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Chap Hai - Way of the Dragon

An excellent Flash Game, fun and addictive

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Tae Kwon Do Nuns

The nuns began studying the martial arts as a form of exercise. Several of them workout regularly. Though they would never use the arts to hurt someone, a number of them have become quite good. Sister Mary, who is just over five feet tall, is the most serious.

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Pavlovian Smile

props

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Improve your photos in 60 seconds

If you are tired of reading long explanations and confused by tricky
photo techniques, here you can have it short and sweet. Arranged by
topics, each subject takes less than 60 seconds to read.

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For the Pricess Bride fans - Inigo strikes again

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Great Japanese Prank Video Compilation....made me laugh for a while

I particularly like the boulder pranks...


http://view.break.com/300267 - Watch more free videos

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Shakespeare Insult Kit

I thought this was great when I saw it and had to share. - Den

Shakespeare Insult Kit

Combine one word from each of the three columns below, prefaced with "Thou":

Column 1     Column 2            Column 3

artless             base-court          apple-john
bawdy               bat-fowling         baggage
beslubbering        beef-witted         barnacle
bootless            beetle-headed       bladder
churlish            boil-brained        boar-pig
cockered            clapper-clawed      bugbear
clouted             clay-brained        bum-bailey
craven              common-kissing      canker-blossom
currish             crook-pated         clack-dish
dankish             dismal-dreaming     clotpole
dissembling         dizzy-eyed          coxcomb
droning             doghearted          codpiece
errant              dread-bolted        death-token
fawning             earth-vexing        dewberry
fobbing             elf-skinned         flap-dragon
froward             fat-kidneyed        flax-wench
frothy              fen-sucked          flirt-gill
gleeking            flap-mouthed        foot-licker
goatish             fly-bitten          fustilarian
gorbellied          folly-fallen        giglet
impertinent         fool-born           gudgeon
infectious          full-gorged         haggard
jarring             guts-griping        harpy
loggerheaded        half-faced          hedge-pig
lumpish             hasty-witted        horn-beast
mammering           hedge-born          hugger-mugger
mangled             hell-hated          joithead
mewling             idle-headed         lewdster
paunchy             ill-breeding        lout
pribbling           ill-nurtured        maggot-pie
puking              knotty-pated        malt-worm
puny                milk-livered        mammet
qualling            motley-minded       measle
rank                onion-eyed          minnow
reeky               plume-plucked       miscreant
roguish             pottle-deep         moldwarp
ruttish             pox-marked          mumble-news
saucy               reeling-ripe        nut-hook
spleeny             rough-hewn          pigeon-egg
spongy              rude-growing        pignut
surly               rump-fed            puttock
tottering           shard-borne         pumpion
unmuzzled           sheep-biting        ratsbane
vain                spur-galled         scut
venomed             swag-bellied        skainsmate
villainous          tardy-gaited        strumpet
warped              tickle-brained      varlot
wayward             toad-spotted        vassal
weedy               unchin-snouted      whey-face
yeasty              weather-bitten      wagtail

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A Train Ride in Mumbai

Outta Control...I wonder how often people lose their grip. Video

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Electric Sheep Rocks

Ok so you all are aware of distributed 'grid' computing, as well as, peer to peer file sharing.....and everybody loves 'smoke and lightning' screen savers. Electric Sheep takes all of this to the next level as far as I am concerned. Ok so it is a kick ass screensaver that allows you to vote as a new scene (or as they call them sheep) comes on the screen with a gladiator style thumbs up or thumbs down. In the background it is 1) registering your vote and 2) using bittorrent to download new highly rated sheep to your PC. Basically guaranteeing a constantly refreshing batch of killer screensaver scenes. Please check this one out, you won't be disappointed.

From electricsheep.org:


Electric Sheep realizes the collective dream of sleeping computers
from all over the internet. It's a distributed screen-saver that
harnesses idle computers into a render farm with the purpose of
animating and evolving artificial life-forms.

All the software is open source and users may participate in the
network freely and anonymously. Anyone can download and install it.
When their computer is idle and goes to sleep, the sheep animations
appear, and in parallel the computer goes to work creating new sheep
and sharing its results with all other users.

Each sheep is about 4 seconds long. Its shape, motion, and color are
specified by a genetic code, a long string of numbers. If a user sees
a sheep they like, they may press the up arrow key to vote for it.
Sheep that receive more votes live longer and are more likely to
reproduce. These votes form a fitness function for the esthetic
evolution of the flock. Users can also download software to manually
design genomes and post them to the server where they join the flock.

I believe the free flow of code is an increasingly important social
and artistic force. The proliferation of powerful computers with
high-bandwidth network connections forms the substrate of an expanding
universe. The electric sheep and we their shepherds are colonizing
this new frontier.

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Yearbook Photos of the Famous

This stuff cracks me up see the originals at freelulu
Letterman
Gene Simmons
Kurt Vonnegut
Slash
Barack Obama

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My new Numark TTUSB - Schweeeet!

Ok....Yes I love my new Numark turntable. Not too mention the kick ass lot of 80 Jazz albums I won on eBay which has me super hooked on Ramsey Lewis (highly recommend for anyone who hasn't listened. If you want one yourself her you go. Every night since the acquistion we have had 'Dinner Dance Party' with my wife and son at our house....its been a blast, highly recommended.

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Orange Erving

I used to love making these as a kid........

* 1 can (6 oz size) frozen orange juice

* 1 cup water

* 1 cup milk

* 1/2 cup sugar

* 1 teaspoon vanilla

* 12 ice cubes

Directions:

1. Mix together in blender at high speed for 30 seconds. Serve
immediately.

Makes: 2 servings

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Kid Zeppelin - kind of crazy....

A very young kid playing stairway to heaven, albeit the playing isn't great, but given his age its still impressive, particularly the solo.

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ha

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Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/92

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Erik Mongrain - Tap, Thump, Ring, Wow

This just blew me a way. I'm impressed on a number of levels with this guy. I could easily listen all day.

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Trilobis 65 Floating Home

This is very cool. This would be very cool for Bay and Lake living. Go Trilobis

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Chow

Great site for foodies.....I particularly like the format they keep the page fresh with lots of new content and rotation. I'm a fan of the chow pick section.

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Sony "Glasstron" PLM-A35 LCD Eyeglasses

#17 on the top 21 wearables

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Get your wonderfunk by mail....notfications of new posts...easy and worth it

Enter your Email

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Getting on the Technorati Favorites Bandwagon

It's all about the link train, other bloggers give this a try if your just a reader of this blog please click here to add me to your technorati favorites....don't know what that is click anyway and find out.

Here are the rules:

1) Write a short introduction paragraph about what how you found the list and include a link to the blog that referred you to the list.

2) COPY the Rules and ENTIRE List below and post it to your blog. To avoid duplicate content and increase the amount of keywords your site can be accessible for, go ahead and change the titles of the blog. Just don’t change the links of the blog.

3) Take “My New Faves” and move them into the “The Original Faves” list.

4) Add 3 Blogs that you’ve just added to your Technorati Favorites to the “My New Faves” section. Remember to also add the “Fave Me” link next to your new blogs (i.e. http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://www.yourfavesdomain.com)

5) Add Everyone on this list to your Technorati Favorites List by clicking on “Fave the Site.” Those who want good kharma will fave you back. If not, you will for sure get the benefits of faves from the bloggers who continue this list after you.

My New Faves

mind for design - fave the site
in one ear and... - fave the site
diy happy - fave the site

The Original Faves
Bobs [ReformatThis] - Fave the Site
Everyday Weekender - Fave the Site
Armen’s Blog - Fave the Site
Gary Lee - Fave the Site
Dosh Dosh - Fave the Site
Nate Whitehill - Fave the Site
Ms. Danielle - Fave the Site
Jeff Kee - Fave the Site
Scribble on the Wall - Fave the Site
Jimi Morrisons Head - Fave the Site
Jon Lee - Fave the Site
Samanathon - Fave the Site
Eat Drink & Be Merry - Fave the Site
The Man of Silver - Fave the Site
Hannes Johnson - Fave the Site
My Dandelion Patch - Fave the Site
Nathan Drach - Fave the Site
SiteLogic - Fave the Site
Julies Journal - Fave the Site
Stephen Fung - Fave the Site
Ed Lau - Fave the Site
QMusings - Fave the Site

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Restaurant Review: Auberge du Soleil, Rutherford, CA

Auberge du Soleil
Rutherford, CA

Christine and I decided to try this place to celebrate our 5th anniversary. The place has a reputation for great service and good food with excellent presentation. I'll review the meal itself in a second, but let me get somethings out first.....location was incredible as you can tell from the picture its beautiful, what you can't tell is that you are looking out over the entire Napa Valley and it is fantastic. complimentary valet service was nice. We were seated in a table overlooking the valley and really got to enjoy the view. On to service, we had this french waitress who wouldn't smile, clearly not having a good day. The sommelier was a guy named Chris, he was quite informative. I must admit we probably had 12-15 different people provide us service over the course of the meal, so they are definitely attentive. There must have been problems in the kitchen the night we were there, because the cadence of the meal was totally off....we ended up waiting between courses for an eternity. We decided to go with the 4 course fixed price. Here goes: the food was 'OK', price was ridiculously high, we probably would only return for sunset drinks...for the same price we could have ate at French Laundry or Le Bec Fin, and I can't even put this place in that league. The chef started us with an amuse buche then quickly into our first course I had Hamachi Sashimi on Lemon Gelee with Cucumber Jus, Christine had an Asparagus Soup with Lemon Creme next I had Tai Snapper with pork belly and Christine had Halibut which was excellent. For the main I had bacon wrapped veal tenderloin and Christine had Liberty Farm Duck...we both preferred the second to the main. For dessert I went with the sorbet which was refreshing and Christine had the phyllo wrapped chocolate dumplings which she loved. Overall if the meal came out in a timely fashion and a we had a lead server that was having a better day we would have rated this one higher.

Our rating:
Expected so much more: 2.5 stars out of 5

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Winery Review: Rubicon Estate - Rutherford, CA

Rubicon Estate, formerly Niebaum-Coppola, formerly Ingelnook. This place was spectacular, forget the fact that Christine and I are both pretty big Francis Ford Coppola fans, the wine tasting here was great. It starts with everything being totally VIP. You pull up and a valet takes your car and leaves you on a red carpet, you proceed to the estate and into the tasting room which was very cool. There are 5 wines in the tasting and 4 of the 5 we would have bought....we decided to buy their signature wine (a pretty penny) and bottle age it until our tenth anniversary. I'm already looking forward to that day! Definitely check this place out if you get the chance....worth every penny.

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Winery Review: Robert Mondavi - Oakville, CA

Robert Mondavi Winery was beautiful. The tour was quite educational, friendly to beginners, and quite eye opening. The tour ends with a seated tasting. Christine and I both enjoyed it, learned a lot, and left pleased with the tasting.

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Restaurant Review: Celadon Napa, CA

Celadon
Napa, CA

To start off I had flash fried calamari with a spicy chipotle chili glaze and pickled ginger, at first I thought this was going to be like a very typical calamari dish and was going to leave me craving for a good traditional red sauce, but I was wrong....the chipotle glaze which was a little oily was out of this world....the pickled ginger was a perfect complement...this was a great start. Christine had the endive and pear salad with blue cheese, candied walnuts and honey mustard vinaigrette and she thought the combination was well suited and liked it. For the main I had the roasted duck breast with wild mushroom risotto and black truffle jus, the duck was slightly overcooked but all in all I was quite pleased, great flavor pairings...Christine had the mongolian style barbecued chicken breast with basmati rice and grilled pineapple salsa and thought it was a great way to do chicken....not typical and great flavor. Service was decent, we had a bit of an annoying waitress...the drinks were great however. All in all the restaurant was great and we would definitely go back....sit outside if you can.

Our rating:
Great, would definitely return: 3.75 stars out of 5

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Sweet....a place to go when this one is ruined...and only 20 years away at light speed

Scientists have discovered a new planet in the constellation Libra. The small, rocky planet is special because it appears to have mild temperatures, like Earth. Researchers believe it looks like the first planet outside of our solar system that could be home to liquid water, and maybe even life.

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First Fork Art now Carved Crayons

A while back I reviewed some Fork Art.
Here is something along the same lines, Carved Crayons from Pete Goldlust take the everyday and making it much much cooler.

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last.fm

While I remain a Pandora fan, I have found some really cool music using last.fm lately. They also have a player widget for Netvibes, which if you read this blog you should know that is a definite benefit. It has found not only cool unknown artists for me, but even better totally unknown tracks from artists I love....example right now it is playing the perfectly overlooked track 'Sex Machine' (no not from JB) off of the Sly and The Family Stone's Stand album.

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Farecast, Remember The Milk, bubbl.us, Rollyo, and more...

Travel:
Ok just booked some travel, for a wedding anniversary trip to Napa Valley, I've talked about farecast before and I just used it to time the absolute best price on this trip, not only are they spot on with the fare indicators, but the interface is fantastic....every airline and reservation service should model this UI, needs a small tweak here and there, but all in all top notch.

To Do Management:
I've also been using Remember The Milk religiously. This is far and away the best to do list manager, again great UI, keyboard shortcuts, shareable, rss-feed, great Netvibes widget.

Mind Mapping:
A few years back I used Mind Manager to facilitate some brainstorming sessions and it worked pretty well, more recently I had the need to do something similar and leveraged free mind (an open source mind mapper). I just got turned on to Bubbl.Us I guess it was only a matter of time before this space became web 2.0 savvy. I love it.

Search:
Rollyo is a Roll your Own search engine that federates across sites of your choice, with a web 2.0 social network built in. I have basically been using a shared Guitar Tab search engine, which is awesome, and a Mr. Fix-It search engine for a home project I am doing.

Food:
You must check out Wheel of Food, basically enter a zip code and a query (like, Atkins or Asian) and the wheel of food spins.

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mint

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Knit hats

As a side gig my sister is making these killer knit hats and selling them online. They are totally customizable, 2 colors your choice and any text you want. I haven't picked mine yet, but the fact that I can have it say anything is awesome.

In any event its an awesome gift, I can vouch for the quality, quick turnaround and great price.

Enjoy and when everyone is asking you where you got the hat remember wonderfunk!

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Shameless plug

Not so shameless....it comes as no surprise, I am a huge google fan, and of course leverage a number of the tools coming out of the googleplex. I am asking each of you to check out the Free GooglePack....I know you already have some of these tools so why download....well easy you can opt out of the things you already have from the web page. So do me a HUGE favor and click the button to the RIGHT--->> in the sidebar and go get yourself some great software for the right price $0.

For those of you not familiar, GooglePack includes: GoogleEarth, Picasa, A Photo Screensaver, Google Desktop, Google toolbars for IE, Firefox, Norton Antivirus , AdAware SE, Adobe Reader, GoogleTalk, Skype, GoogleVideo Player, and an HD Image Player. You don't need to include everything, you can easily pick and choose what you need.

Get the googlepack, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Dennis
wonderfunk

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String Theory in Two Minutes or Less

What a great contest.

microdose if you are reading I think this contest is tailor made for you.

Discover Magazine has a brilliant contest challenging people to video tape themselves explaining string theory in 2 minutes or less, using what ever props they would like. Better hurry deadline is March 16th.

I am listening to: Presidents of the United States of America

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Yahoo Pipes Beta

Pipes:

Pretty cool aggregator+

In their own words:

Pipes is a free online service that lets you remix popular feed types and create data mashups using a visual editor. You can use Pipes to run your own web projects, or publish and share your own web services without ever having to write a line of code.

Here is an aggregate pipe I created....if you like this blog you will probably like this pipe....it is a subset of what I read daily.

What I am listening to: Wild Fire by Nelson DeMille

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perrine pods

I very much think the modular modern home is a great idea.

Enter perrine architecture with their perrine pod (available Mar 1) Not only is this cool on one story, but they are stackable to 30 stories and the expandable to your hearts content. Think life size lego home on steroids with a great look. Anyway if you spend some time and poke around their site, they have already thought of some cool ideas.

From the architect:

Picture a design so sophisticated and fabulous that it seems futuristic, yet so simple and uncomplicated that you wonder why no one has thought of it before.

"My design is about appreciating the beauty of simple, uncluttered space." The perrinepod is very functional, very sexy, very simple, with the form of the spaces inside following the function, there's no pretense, just simple, beautiful designs. It's a really cool thing to have no falseness - for example, the bathrooms are simply designed as a place to wash, backed up by quality materials.

Living spaces have become as transient and irrelevant as clothes. It's no longer a look for a generation, the look of 'now' only lasts for a three to four year period.

That approach is not sustainable and people are putting themselves under a lot of unnecessary pressure trying to keep up. The Perrine Pod is the antithesis of all of that - simple design, beautiful materials that will remain classic. It's not a 'look at me' statement, but a home that is comfortable, stylish and above all, functional."

- Jean-mic Perrine

Anyway, I'm a fan....I wish the price point wasn't outrageous, but hopefully this will come down over time, or someone will blatently rip-off the idea and provide it more affordably.

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Mother Nature - Fibonacci meets Fractals to create the coolest vegetable ever

Presenting the Romanesco Cauliflower
50 seeds for $3.99

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From WebProNews.com

Steve Jobs Blasts Teachers Unions

Submitted by David A. Utter on Mon, 02/19/2007 - 06:35.

Apple's CEO has a problem with public schools that he sees as rooted in the unions that prevent principals from firing underperforming teachers.

Even though Jobs shared a Texas stage with Dell's co-founder and CEO, Michael Dell, the iconic Apple executive stole the show at an education reform conference. He criticized teachers unions and textbook publishers during a talk that received applause from attendees.

An AP report on his remarks cited Jobs' observation that no amount of technology could turn around classroom performance. Jobs compared the inability to fire poor teachers to a small business that couldn't get rid of its bad employees.

He called out unions for specific criticism:

"I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way," Jobs said.

"This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."

Some observers commenting on Jobs' remarks saw money as the cure. Said Robert Scoble:

If you want better schools, pay teachers $80,000 a year or more, AND give the staff power to get rid of bad apples (bad pun, given the cause of today’s post, I know) and you’ll see school quality turn around in an instant.

Don Dodge disagreed with the money argument:

The problem is not money. Schools already get more than 50% of the local budgets in most cities and towns. Health care is the same deal. We spend more per capita on health care than any country in the world. The problems with education and health care are not lack of funding. The problem is lack of incentive.

Dell chose to keep his remarks less incendiary. He said a less-competitive job market for principals contributed to the problems in schools.

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Silverjet - great idea in air travel

I'm lucky enough to be on the East Coast and probably have a few trips required to London this year. The Silverjet idea is awesome...take a Boeing 767 which normally holds 300, gut it, put in 100 seats and 5 bathrooms, and charge $1600 for a round-trip...Oh did I mention the seats lie flat at 6'3" and the meals and service are top shelf. Every passenger gets a personal entertainment system and a library of things to pick from.

To top it all off they are the first airline to go Carbon Dioxide Neutral.

I love it when companies shake it up and while not ignoring capitalistic instincts. Then again I guess we need to check back in 5 years to see if they are bankrupt, but until then I'm a fan.

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