flanders.california.usa

Pescadero, CA

2012-01-02T22:31:00.000-08:00

Too far South for the San Francisco crowd who will make it to Pacifica or perhaps to Half Moon Bay. Too far North for the San Jose crowd making the drive over Highway 17 to Santa Cruz. A little south of Half Moon Bay, in the middle between San Francisco and Santa Cruz, you find San Gregorio and Pescadero. It does take a little more than an hour via a highly windy Highway 84 and La Honda to reach Pescadero.

View Larger Map

While officially Pescadero is a few miles in-land, the Pescadero Beach State Park is California coast at its best: not a lot of people, rugged coastline and beatiful rolling hills. It is also a great place to find treasures on the beach with the kids. The landscape is overall not unlike the landscape near Point Reyes, perhaps with steeper coastal hills.

Lunch stop in Pescadero has to include Norm's market. This little supermarket serves excellent warm artichoke bread with homemade garlic butter to be devouwered in 10 minutes at the picnic tables in the back.

Before heading to the beach, check out the goat farm on North street. Excellent goat cheese and a fun detour for the kids.

There are several state parks nearby. Pescadero State Beach was a big hit, for its combination of sandy beach, rocks and tide pools.

On the way back, warming up near the wood fire within the San Gregorio General Store is a nice place to have a drink before heading back over the mountains towards Woodside and the Bay Area.

On outliners

2012-01-02T02:01:00.000-08:00

I've been on the look out for a powerful outliner tool for a while. At work I use primarily the outline mode of Microsoft Word, and it does it decent job. Although it lacks search and tagging capability. OneNote appears to be great, but is only available on Windows only systems (I use a Mac). For my to-do list I build a system around RememberTheMilk.com. I'll try to document this in another post. As for outliners, every so often I return to Evernote to check if they added a true outliner feature, but I walk away disappointed that it is more about the images and videos, than about providing the true outliner capability. I've been experimenting recently with Workflowy.com as an outliner tool. So far, I've been impressed about its snappiness, and copy/paste functionality. I started to keep track of a list of items I like in a good outliner:

(note: the copy/paste feature from Workflowy ain't perfect yet)

Outliners

Outline are not the same as lists or a to-do list. Trying to do both results in a liger.
- Outliners allow you to take organized notes, including larger text blocks, drawings or pictures.
- To-do lists have more context
  - Priority
  - Location
    - e.g., @work, @home, @web
    - GPS: e.g., @TraderJoes, @Lowes
  - Items belong to Projects
  - You can organize items using tags, resulting in Smartlists
  - State: nextAction; waiting (following the GTD workflow)
  - Notifications/Alerts
    - Mobile device
    - Instant Message
    - Calendar integration
Outliners support many levels of Indentation
- Supporting Folding (a must)
Notes should be easily converted to email
- Send from the outliner
- Or support easy Copy/Paste
Outliners allow for easy importing notes
- From Microsoft Word documents
- From email (forward email to a specific email address)
- Copy/past text as note details.
Outliners shall support exporting notes
- Microsoft Word (Outline mode)
Provide support for Online/Offline access
Organization of notes
- Folders
- Tags == context
  - SmartLists
Search
- by date
- by tag
- by topic or keyword
Collaboration and access control
Formatting
- bold/italic
- color

Created with WorkFlowy.com

Safari West

2012-01-02T01:37:00.000-08:00

One of the differences between Belgium and California is that nature can get pretty wild here. You rarely hear about a family making a wrong turn in Belgium and ending up stranded for days in the wilderness, sometimes even with deadly consequences. Belgium is on the bottom of the list of most dangerous animals in the world. Though I wouldn't want to cross paths with a the wild boar (video) unless I was accompanied by Obelix. From bobcats, mountain lions, rattle snakes and tarantulas, to some of the animals in our backyard, you often enough get reminded that California's wild isn't very far away.

Last week, we made a trip to an even wilder part of nature: Safari West. This is a park near Santa Rosa and Calistoga, where you can experience an African Safari. Although not cheap, the visit was definitely worth it.

Standing eye to eye, without a fence, with a Cape Buffalo (photo), one of the most dangerous animals in the world, is an incredible and scary feeling.

Planning a trip to Marin County

2011-12-29T23:40:00.000-08:00

In between Christmas and New Year this year, we decided to escape for a few days to Marin County. It is only a short two hour drive from where we live. While we've visited some areas (e.g., Muir Woods, Sausalito, Stinson Beach and Bolinas - one of my favorite towns along the coast), there is plenty more to visit.

We had some ideas in general of what we wanted to visit in Marin County, but the evening before we left, my wife and I opened up our laptops and put a quick plan together. It became clear to me that a simple travel planning tool was missing. There are great travel websites which point you to the pletora of hotels in the area, or provide a list of things to do. But that's not a travel plan. That's just access to information. It takes time to stitch it all together into a trip.

Wouldn't it be a great to have a Travel Notebook web application, which could assist you to plan your travel. Here's an initial list of its functionality:

Browse around the web and each time you find something interesting in the area you can tag it for your notebook. It could keep track of the URL, phone numbers and location to put ithe place on a map. This should work for anything and everything: restaurants, wineries, cheese factories, beaches, musea, historic monuments, national or state parks, vista points, images, etc.

A map provides you simple overview of all the areas you tagged. Icons indicate the type of place.
A directory provides you a list of all locations and phone numbers.

Based upon the weather forecast and opening hours of various sites, Travel Notebook would suggest a particular itinerary, or you could assemble one yourself and Travel Notebook would highlight which places are closed.

E.g., we found out too late that the Point Reyes light house was closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. Sure it is listed on the website, but it does take a lot of searching around to figure out all the places.
Similarly it could indicate recommended times to leave to drive to the next site and arrive on time. Although if you wanted to stay longer it will easily adjust. It will help with the simple question: what time should we get up so we can shower, have breakfast and drive to the place to be on time for a 10am Safari?

Since you may be going off the grid, the entire Travel Notebook can be easily printed or downloaded for offline use on your iPad, smartphone or laptop.

There are a couple of crude tools which can help you with this: we started with a custom Google MyMaps (how-to video). Each time we found a place, we googled the location in Google Maps and it provides a link: "Save to Map". Later on you can adjust the icons if you like. Both of us could be editing the map together, each from our own laptop. This was handy to have an overview of all the sites we wanted to visit. (Note: I did find it buggy in that sometimes not all icons showed up, or that the Save to Map either worked only in the left side and not in the pop up balloon, or vice versa.)

View Exploring Marin in a larger map

With this overview, we planned our trip in 3 pieces:

Mount Tamalpais / Muir Woods / Mill Valley
Point Reyes
Safari West (in Sonoma County) / Sebastopol / Cheese tour and Sausalito.

We'll continue our trip next time with a visit Angel Island.

Cycling 2011 in review

2011-12-29T22:31:00.000-08:00

The best Dutch cycling commentary remains Sporza. At the end of the year, the Sporza team creates a nice summary of the cycling year. Unfortunately, because of ownership reasons and television rights, it can not be shared outside of Belgium. Come on guys - this is a rebroadcast many months later in support of the sport.

Ons audio- en video aanbod is, om juridische redenen, enkel te bekijken in België. Als het access point van uw internetverbinding niet wordt herkend als Belgisch, dan kan u evenmin genieten van ons audio- en videoaanbod.

Met vriendelijke groet, De sportredactie

Or translated to English:

Our audio and video programming is, for legal reasons, only viewable inBelgium. If the access point of your Internet connection is not recognized as aBelgian, you can not enjoy our audio and video offerings.

Sincerely, The Sports editor

When you visit the Sporza link to watch "Cycling 2011 in review" outside of Belgium, you would never know what's going on with the video. It goes into an infinite loop trying to load. Is it my ISP? Is my browser? My wireless router? There used to be a simple "This video can not be shown outside of Belgium" error message. Usability is a lot about what happens when it is not usable.

Nevertheless, it was just a matter of time when good cycling loving souls shared the wealth. Here's one rebroadcast (for as long as it lasts). Enjoy!

Tapas

2011-12-24T23:59:00.000-08:00

Rather than a large Christmas Eve meal, we decided to have an onslaught of little bites: tapas! (paired with beer).

California and bust

2011-10-02T15:09:00.000-07:00

I keep roughly the same schedule on weekends as I keep during the week. I wake up early, I have a macchiato and read emails. However, in the weekend, I read blogs and personal emails I've saved up during the week. The Consumerist blog pointed me to an interesting article by Michael Lewis in Vanity Fair on California. Go read it - in its entirety. Here are a few interesting quotes to wet your appetite:

The average Californian, in 2011, had debts of $78,000 against an income of $43,000.

The head parole psychiatrist for the California prison system was the state’s highest-paid public employee; in 2010 he’d made $838,706.

San Jose has the highest per capita income of any city in the United States, after New York. It has the highest credit rating of any city in California with a population over 250,000. It is one of the few cities in America with a triple-A rating from Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, but only because its bondholders have the power to compel the city to levy a tax on property owners to pay off the bonds. The city itself is not all that far from being bankrupt.

For instance, back in 2002, the San Jose police union cut a three-year deal that raised police officers’ pay by 18 percent over the contract. Soon afterward, the San Jose firefighters cut a better deal for themselves, including a pay raise of more than 23 percent. The police felt robbed and complained mightily until the city council crafted a deal that handed them 5 percent more premium pay in exchange for training to fight terrorists.

He didn’t view the city’s (Vallejo) main problem as financial: the financial problems were the symptom. The disease was the culture.

Dr. Peter Whybrow thinks the dysfunction in America’s society is a by-product of America’s success. ... The human brain evolved over hundreds of thousands of years in an environment defined by scarcity. It was not designed, at least originally, for an environment of extreme abundance.

After reading the article, two things came to mind:
(1) It is wrong we spent more on prisons than on education. (And yes, they are related.) Let's start by revisiting the three strike law, especially for minor, non-violent felonies. At the same time, nobody is worth an $800K salary.

(2) Where is the time when people lived within their means; people valued simple stuff. For my grandma, having survived two world wars in Europe, key was to have daily a good cup of coffee and a ham sandwich. It is a somewhat like in the old days on farm - live within your means.

I sometimes have the hear how in Europe this or that is better - "We drive smaller cars. We use less water. We produce less waste. We don't use as much plastics. etc. etc." All true. But it is only true because governments have made people care and adjust by levying higher taxes. As Peter Whybrow stated in the article, it is because we don't know what to do with abundance. So if you want the people to care, let's raise taxes (temporarily) to fix both at the same time: adjust the culture and have some funds to fix the educational system.

Impressions from visiting LSU

2011-10-01T13:37:00.001-07:00

As my flight home from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, had been canceled twice, including a overnight stay in a Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (BTR) airport hotel, I had a few moments to document my first on-campus recruiting trip to Louisiana State University - LSU in Baton Rouge for Real-Time Innovations.

I had the honors of presenting my first US company, VLSI Technology, many years ago at an info session and on-site recruiting event to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. But it has been too many years ago to remember the details. But Cal Poly dwarfs in comparison to some of the universities on our current roster in size. Nevertheless we also are visiting Cal Poly and have recently hired some great engineers from Cal Poly.

A couple of observations:

The first scenes on-campus were those of large couches outside the frat houses and guys throwing the football while onlookers were sipping a beer. These could have been scenes straight from Revenge of the Nerds.
The Cook hotel on-campus is right next to the lake. The hotel is all about sponsorship: very room has a sponsor name tag with one of the best room being the Shaquille O'Neal suite.
Computer science students focus on HPC, thanks to Eric, the on-campus cluster at the CCC, and the Queen Bee cluster at the Baton Rouge capital building. Louisiana has invested a lot in compute and communication infrastructure. HPC talent is in demand among the Oil and Gas exploration companies in the Gulf of Mexico. At the career fair, all the Oil and Gas exploration companies were recruiting heavily for both petroleum engineers, but also computer scientists able to help them run the compute clusters. Beyond HPC, LSU didn't impress me with lots of education on distributed computing or networking.
Career services is a well oiled machine. I am not used this at my university in Belgium.

A well run career fair
Nice on-campus interview booths
Displays educate the students on proper interview attire (sponsored by Mervins and Target).
Feedback forms on students.

This is a wealthy university. The Student Union is very modern, with great facilities and including three giant screens to watch the LSU football games. We were (un)fortunate that our company introduction was right before the LSU-Alabama game. LSU football (undefeated in the 2011 season) must bring in quiet a lot of money. The stadium is larger than the largest soccer stadium in Belgium and in Argentina combined. It would be a unique experience to tailgate and watch a game at the LSU stadium.

LSU Tiger Stadium can fit more than 92,000 people

LSU has on-campus tiger, Mike the Tiger (official site). This is a real tiger and mascot of the team. No stealing the mascot here.

We ended our visit with some blackened alligator and one of the many international (including Belgian) beers at Chimes. Alligator is very tasty and it's better (and a little more chewy) than chicken!

A visit to the Norton Winery in Mendoza, Argentina

2011-08-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

Hold for release - do not publish - yet.

2011-07-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

It is sad to see such a great and natural voice disappear in such a tragic manner. Amy whinehouse's voice that is. Her death by drug overdose was not unexpected. If you were organizing a bet on which star was likely to die, you barely got more than one-to-one for Amy Winehouse. Newspapers and television channels had an obituary on file, ready to go. Among various other ones labeled "hold for release - do not publish - yet", you'll likely find:

Pete Doherty
Charlie Sheen
Whitney Houston
Brooke Mueller
Johnny Knoxville and gang
Lindsay Lohan
Fidel Castro
Hugo Chavez
Kim Jong-Il
Nelson Mandela
Margaret Thatcher
Steve Jobs

Google plus hangout is like meeting in a pub. Although serve yourself.

2011-07-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

In recent article in the Huffington Post, Google's Head of Social Vic Gundotra likes to compare the Google Plus Hangout feature to sitting on your front porch.

"It allows you - in a very nice way, it's not socially awkward - to say, hey I'm hanging out on my porch," Gundotra said in a recent interview. "I'm available, if you're available too, you can join."

Coincidently I recently explained the feature much differently to my parents. European style. Who even has a porch in Europe? No, no, Google Plus Hangout is like meeting in a pub. When you start a hangout, you advertise "I'll be at the bar. Come join me." Your friends will know which bar, at what time and even know which side of the bar you'll be hanging.

I didn't have to go into a long explanation of how the feature worked with my parents. It was as clear as a nice cold Belgian trappist.

Google might be on to something with their hangouts. (check out also the longest hangout)

A view of the Golden Gate Bridge from Coit Tower

2011-05-29T23:23:00.000-07:00

2011-05-29T23:20:00.000-07:00

I recently received a letter in the mail from Harrel Remodeling Inc. At first it looked like unsolicited offer for general contracting services. I often just rip the envelope before opening it. This time I did not tear it up. Here's the letter:

Dear Neighbor,
My company, Harrell Remodling is remodeling the home of you neighbors on ABC Drive. I am writing to let you know that our trucks, subcontractors, and related equipment may be in your area. If you are inconvenienced by any of the activities related to the work, please call us, and will take immediate steps to resolve your concern.

While we respect our clients' homes and their neighborhoods by driving safely and cleaning the jobsite at the end of each work day, we ask that you please let children know of the additional traffic and other possible hazards while the work is in progress. In addition, our jobsite policies prohibit smoking, swearing and radios.

Besides our own valuable staff of professional craftspeople, we also have an outstanding team of trade specialists such as our electricians, plumbers, roofers and other professionals whom we can proudly refer to you.

Sincerely,

Indeed, one of our neighbors is tearing up a lot of concrete around her house and I did note a portable toilet in her drive way.

I don't know if it is customary to send such a letter for larger constructing jobs. It definitely gave me a great impression about the company and free marketing for the cost of a postage stamp.

Millimeters

2011-02-26T15:46:00.000-08:00

Sixty six millimeters between Sebastian Langeveld and Juan-Antonio Flecha to make Langeveld the winner the 66th Omloop het Volk ... het Nieuwsblad. I tuned in online around 40km from the finish at 7am California time. It was supposed to snow in the morning in San Jose; the first time since 1976. It turned out to be another media-hyped meteorological non-event. At 40km from the finish, Langeveld was alone in front and race appears to be over. Ten kilometers went by. Yet, Flecha made a monster jump and closed the one minute to catch up with Langeveld. The two of them were heading for a sprint in Gent.

It didn't look like it was a nice day in Belgium - muddy and rainy. It is a indeed a hard sport.

De Ronde

2011-02-25T19:24:00.000-08:00

After watching two episodes of the De Ronde, it is time for action. Episode one was a whirlwind of introductions: the accident, the divorced Flemish nationalist, the cycling fan who got bumped from the car by a snotty director and his wife who could care less about the race, the driver of the company car, the ex cycling champion hired to chauffer vips, and so on. I was getting a little dizzy about all the story lines being set up within a single show. Having lived in the US for a while now, I prefer more simple shows. And it is not looking good for a happy ending either. It is time in part 3 of the show for some clarity and action.

When buying a car

2011-02-13T16:04:00.000-08:00

We recently had to replace our old car. I had been secretly on the look out for a replacement car. However, with the deadline to re-register our old car coming up, and the need to fix a few things to pass the smog check, we decided to buy immediately.

The selection process
I made a check list with features we wanted in a car. My wife and I both check of whether it was important, nice to have or a don't car.

Looking around us every day, we had settled on three or four candidate models: VW Jetta Wagon TDI, Subaru Forester, Toyota Rav4 and the Honda CRV. All were good brands. It was time to check them out closer and we spent two Sundays on the Auto-row. We test drove the Subaru and the Honda CRV and with some internet resource, we paired it down to the Subaru Forester.

Now finding the model, color and price we wanted. This is always the part most dreaded when buying a car. And we wanted to trade-in our old car. Upon a great tip from a friend, we tried autobytel.com and got some initial internet pricing. Sending emails back and forth between dealerships within a 50 mile radius, the price kept on dropping, from about $26500 to $22400 for the same model and options. You might have to be flexible on the color. At the end I never had to have the one on one conversation with the car salesman in his office, going back and forth with 'his manager' on the price. We did have a great price in hand when we drove up to the dealer, about 50 miles from here.

The trade-in was simple. The trade-in was negotiated at the dealership. First of all, I made it clear that the deal was {trade-in,new car}, and not new car alone. I was willing to leave if I didn't get a good price on the old car. We had a price in mind and when their offer was about dead on, we felt we might be able to get something more. We negotiated about a few options on the new car and kept the trade-in price fixed. For example, a new back bumper protector is $80. However the cost for the dealer is much less, so it was easy for them to throw in such items.

Lastly, although it is said, that financing the car is beneficial to the dealership and you might be able to get a cheaper price (as some of it is recovered by the dealer in loan-recruitment-fees), it didn't appear to have a difference or our final price. Having cash on hand helps in my opinion.

Thus, negotiating over the internet and willing to drive a few miles has made buying a car fun and without too much hassle.

Counting Down

2011-02-06T00:35:00.000-08:00

De zes koersen van Flanders Classics:

zat 26/02 - Omloop Het Nieuwsblad

woe 23/03 - Dwars door Vlaanderen

zon 27/03 - Gent-Wevelgem

zon 03/04 - Ronde van Vlaanderen

woe 06/04 - Scheldeprijs Schoten

woe 13/04 - Brabantse Pijl

(PS - That's European date notation)

173K

2011-02-05T23:32:00.000-08:00

Oh, we parted with our beloved and trusted little 1998 Honda Civic EX today. It was time. We spent many great times in this car. From the trips to Mount Shasta and Crater Lake to a hasty trip to Los Angeles to the Argentine embassy. We brought our first born son home in this car. And our second born daughter. We moved many boxes in it when we moved to San Mateo. It has been a great commuter car every day up and down highway 101 to Mountain View. A testament to the reliability of Honda.

But now at one hundred and seventy three thousand miles, it was time to part with it. We traded it in when we bought a Subaru Forester. In what must be a weird scene at a car dealership: we posed for pictures with the kids next to a green little and since recent smog puffing monster.

Adieu, you served us well.

The green little monster

Impressions from Belgium

2010-09-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

Summer project - the deck

2010-08-15T10:14:00.000-07:00

This summer has been a busy one around the house. For much of it we have been camping in our living room while we fixed up the kitchen. I'll share the details and lessons learnt in another post. Yesterday I completed refinishing the deck. The last time it got sanded and painted was about five years ago. While resting my back today I can claim victory and have a nicely painted deck, ready for the rains in the fall.

Worldcup summarized

2010-07-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

Best team in the final: España!
Best goal: Giovanni Van Bronkhorst, Tevez against Mexico and Forlan against Germany
Best teams: Germany and Uruguay
Best team to watch: Germany
Most exiting finish: USA - Algiers
Best channel to watch the game: Univision, Republica Deportiva con Fernando Fiori
Most cursing, loudest cheering and most tears in a single game: Argentina - Germany
Best sideshow: Diego Armando Maradona
Best Off-FIeld Distraction: Sara Carbonero
Worst karma from celebrity supporter: Mick Jagger
Best beer tasted during the worldcup: Bersalis, Beersel, Belgium
Best quote during the world cup: "nice iPad", my son. (while the adults at the party where checking out worldcup WAGs on the iPad)

The case against basketball

2010-06-14T00:25:00.000-07:00

Waka Waka! This time for Africa. The first games of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, with true world participation, are behind us. The important results in our household: Argentina won against Nigeria and USA equalized with England. The best game so far was Serbia - Ghana.

At the same time, the Los Angeles Lakers were trying to win Game 5 of the NBA Finals in Boston against the Celtics. I caught the last 1:15 minutes of the game. And somehow felt that I hadn't missed much. I used to play several years basketball in high school in Belgium. I followed the NBA closely. We were all big fans of Magic and Bird. I even got a small backpack from the LA Lakers, a rarity at the time in Belgium. So how did my enthusiasm dwindle for the big NBA teams? Especially now that I live in the US, with easy access to watch the games on television, or even watch the Golden State Warriors in person at the Oakland coliseum.

My admiration for the game still exists, especially for a well executed pick-n-roll, a fast break or a full court press. However, it is the flow of the game which makes the game less attractive for me. (Unless of course you are playing in the game.)

This is not a soccer game where anything can happen any time, so you better don't miss it. The same is true for the america's favorite pass time: baseball. What is often heralded as excitement is actually the contrary: a high scoring basketball game can be more boring that watching a bowler throw strike after strike.

You only have to watch the first 2 minutes and the last 2 minutes of a basketball game to catch the excitement or lack thereof. Either the game is close and it will be decided over a 10 minute period during which the 2 minute game clock is stretched by time outs and fouls. Where's the excitement in that? Or the game is long been decided and one team was obviously the better of the other, and you didn't miss anything either.

NBA games need a little more unpredictability, like the NCAA basketball tournament. Until then, I'll be waking up early to catch The Netherlands beat Denmark tomorrow morning in South Africa. Waka Waka!

No Treasure

2010-05-31T19:46:00.000-07:00

View of San Francisco from Treasure Island

During this Memorial Day weekend, we visited unexplored San Francisco territory: Yerba Buena island and Treasure Island. Yerba Buena island is a real island in the middle of the Bay Bridge, which connects San Francisco with Oakland. Connected to Yerba Buena island, you find Treasure Island, a man made island. Treasure Island has a long history, including having served as an airport and home to several movie sound stages. Most importantly, it was known as a US Naval Base during and after world war II.

We had never visited Treasure Island. And after having heard for years, after it had been decommissioned as a Naval Base, how it is being transformed, we decided to stop by. From what it looks, we are about 10 years too early. The place looks like a dump. Many buildings are in shambles with all its windows broken. You can tell in some sections, baracks have been converted into low income housing. However living there must not be easy, as the island appears to lack a lot of infrastructure. For example, from the main roads I could not find a single (grocery) store.

The masterplan (sftreasureisland.org plan) (sfgate.com article) looks promising, yet so far into the future.

Count down to April 4th

2010-03-24T21:50:00.001-07:00

Counting down to April 4th 2010: De Ronde Van Vlaanderen - http://www.rvv.be.

Ambient light

2010-02-14T19:33:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed how many of toddler toys have a high and low sound switch on it, but rarely an off switch. The high/low switch was added after parents complained about ever increasing sound levels from toys, trying to get your attention in the toy store.

It is time that electronic gadgets come with an light off switch. Let me make an inventory of some of the devices lighting up my bedroom.

First of all, because the phone line ends in my bedroom, I have a DSL modem. In steady state, three LEDs are lid up. The wireless access router next to it has an equal amount of LEDs.

Normally we charge our cellphones on our side table : two more LEDs. And what's worse is that the new Nexus One phone has an LED trackball which glows when there is a message. As if someone is shining a light in your eye all night.

Add to that two charging Apple laptops with a glowing Apple sign, a cordless phone and naturally a digital alarm clock, and you can imagine how much ambient light there is in the bedroom. (Other rooms are not much different.)

And yes I have covered the devices, or moved them to other rooms. I have even pulled out the airline eye cover for a pitch dark night of sleep. But it is about time there is a simple way to turn of all ambient light of a consumer device (and dishwasher, and microwave, and Wii and cable box).

Fixed Gear

2010-02-06T10:39:00.000-08:00

The bicycle culture in the Bay Area has been heating up. Or more likely: where was I? Last fall, I came across the San Jose Bike Party. It started as a couple of hundred cyclists getting together on a Friday night in San Jose and going for a 20 mile ride. Last time I joined (when the weather was still warm), there must have been several thousand riders. It was a crazy experience.

Another sign of the times are Fixies: Fixed gear cycles are very much in fashion (http://sjfixed.org/). You see them everywhere and often with very narrow handle bars, making it even more dangerous to ride them. I haven't understood the attraction of a fixed gear cycle. They are cool looking but why would you not want breaks on your bike on public roads, or why only one gear. I guess I'll have to try one.

Today I came across a great video of a bunch of friends on fixed gear bikes traveling to Japan to ride from Tokyo to Osaka. Looks fantastic.

Tokyo to Osaka Teaser from John Murillo on Vimeo.

Picture and video from http://www.tokyo2osaka.com.

By bicycle through the wineries of Mendoza, Argentina

2009-09-26T22:21:00.000-07:00

The province of Mendoza in Argentina is famous for the wine. Mendoza wine can compete with the well known wineries of Napa and Sonoma in California or Bordeaux in France. The main varietal is malbec. In the shade of the Aconcagua, South America's highest mountain, Mendoza offers some dramatic views, pictures and tastes. Mendocinos are also a little different in attitude from the rest of the country. In a pleasant way.

On our recent visit, we stopped by the winery of Di Tommaso. It is the oldest winery open to tourists. It is also where I learned about the wine bicycle tours. Google a bit and you'll find various companies offering a bicycle tour.

Asado Argentino

2009-09-26T11:39:00.001-07:00

My friends hear me often explain how they make a barbecue in Argentina. I've posted some pictures before: asado en el campo, asado en Buenos Aries.

Rather then explain it in words, here are the various stages of an Argentinean Asado:

Senatorial Failure

2009-09-26T11:20:00.000-07:00

(This blog entry is part of the This American Life* series)

When Justices Roberts and Alito were being questioned by the senate judiciary committee, I followed the proceedings carefully on the radio. I’ve become a constitution-geek. I found the answers by John Roberts interesting, clear and straight-forward.

When many weeks ago Sonia Sotomayor was being questioned, I found it a total waster of time. I wrote this down in the beginning of August, but it got stuck in the draft section of my blog. Jeffrey Toobin in the July 27 New Yorker magazine had a nice write up on the subject.

Answers such as “my judicial philosophy – simple: fidelity to the law” are a dog and pony show. For many cases brought to the Supreme Court, no clear law exists. Justices have to make choices and cast it in the light of their interpretation of the majestic vagueness of the Constitution.

As Jeffrey Toobin put it “The issues are difficult and profound and require a lifetime of study to master, and one would hope that justices arrive with heads full of firm ideas abou the document they are charged with understanding.”

Any observer could have drafted the answers Sotomayor would provide: “follow the law”, “interpret the law”, “don’t legislate from the bench”, “can’t state opinion on hypothetical cases” etc.

So unless the senators start asking real questions probing beyond vague answers, these hearings are a #failure.

When #fail no longer matters

2009-09-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

(This blog entry is part of the This American Life* series)

You can not fault her for not trying. On the flight from Washington to Buenos Aires, the person next to me was part of a bigger group, all Korean. I was curious whether they were visiting Argentina as tourist, or visiting family. There is a large Korean population in Argentina. It was neither. They were on all missionaries for a Korean Christian Church.

Thinking back at my visit to Provo, Utah several years ago, I imagined that, like the missionaries of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, they must have prepared well and must be fluent in Spanish. Were they mormons, they might even have specialized in the typical Argentinean pronunciation and studied their culture.

She was no mormon. She did not speak a single word of Spanish and knew almost nothing about the people and the county. On a scale of 1-10, the preparation for their ‘sales’ call, was a lousy 1.

She did have a small booklet, called Amor y Esperanza, containing phrases she was able to pronounce. The plan was to approach people in the street, belch out some phrases and convert the people in this Catholic country to a Korean Christian Church. Knowing the portenos, good luck with that.

The first commandment in their booklet had to be “failure makes you stronger” I admire the effort.

United Check-in Fail

2009-09-26T11:08:00.000-07:00

(This blog entry is part of the This American Life* series)

The blue shared shuttle van dropped me of at the United Airlines domestic terminal at San Francisco international terminal two and half hours in advance of my flight to Buenos Aires. The next 30 minutes were a disaster. And I truly hope my fellow passengers will decide with their feet and not their carefully saved up airline miles, when they plan their next trip.

Sure it was a clever automation idea to streamline the check-in procedure. Let’s write some software and allow people to self check-in at touch-screen kiosk. We’ll save the wages of the people normally assisting with the check-in (and perhaps even stick it to the unions).

Step one: let’s get rid of the lovely check-in ladies and men. Keep a couple of baggage handlers to move the luggage onto the conveyer belt. But don’t let the handlers touch the kiosk. Faulty Towers’s Manuel had already provided the script: “Kiosk? I know nothing! I am from Barcelona.”. We might need a few people to assist, but you’ll to go via a special line or you have to show up with your long board or Fluffy in a cage.

The self check-in system doesn’t work. I was at the check-in twice within a week and noticed the same universal frustrations.

Human help - The line greeter (who kept his/her job) doesn’t disqualify people. You’ll get into a long line and only figure out at the end that you have a passport which is not machine readable.
Easy-flow - The kiosk software lacks a simple flow “what to expect” flow chart. You get peppered with non-essential up-sell questions about legroom or baggage home delivery. The result is that an easy flow to get your boarding pass and dispatch your luggage is lost. (And more thing, how is it that airlines are allowed to monetize on shorter lines to my tax dollars at work: the TSA.)
The software forgot to let me know what would happen with my luggage before it got back to the first screen. A simple message “Thank you for checking in. Please wait for a friendly baggage handler to pick up your luggage and give you your baggage stub” would avoid many standing there confused and frustrated about what next.
The system might be great for frequent travelers. But the computer illiterate, or many senior citizens can use a little help. There was one representatives for 30 kiosks. It lacks sufficient personnel to get you going. “Welcome, let me help get you started. Call me if you have a question.” The automated checkout machines at Home Deport or Lowe’s have one person for four machines. The difference here is that United already has your money.

It’s time for me to consider a different credit card and not lock in my miles with a single airline. That’s the only way to avoid United Airlines check-in #fail.

Image: courtesy of Chicago Breaking News center in an article about similar United check-in #fail.

This American Life*

2009-09-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

For my recent internal trip, I was prepared to travel alone. I was meeting up with my wife and kids, already visiting family in Argentina. I had stocked my iPod with my favorite NPR shows: Wait wait don’t tell me, Fresh air with Terry Gross, All songs considered and This American Life.

This American Life is my favorite radio show. I can honestly state I have donated to keep the podcast going. I could listen to the podcast for free. But why not keep a good thing going. How often can you pay for something you really like. Think about it.

If you are not familiar with the show, it is about an hour long and produced by WBEZ Chicago Public Radio. It is hosted by Ira Glass. His nasal and liveless voice, and his method of story telling is what makes the show fantastic.

The format is simple: every week there are three or more stories of live in America, around a common theme. The stories include interviews and are narrated by various contributors to the show, including David Sedaris, Sara Vowell, Nancy Updike and broken up by music sounding like wallpaper.

On my trip to Buenos Aires, I listed to various saved up podcasts and got inspired to write my own. This American Life*

[Ira reads] Welcome to This American Life, brought to you by WBEZ Chicago Public Radio. Each week we bring you three stories around a common theme. Today: #failure.

Phoning home while on travel through Argentina

2009-08-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

1. A simple and cost effective way to phone home in Argentina is from a ‘locutorio’. They often have a big sign of one of the two big phone companies in the Argentina: Telefonica or Telecom. A locutorio offers various booths from where you can call. A meter indicates how much you are spending. Calling to the US costs a little less than 1 peso per minute.

2. Another method to phone home is via skype in one of the many internet cafes. I am hghly virus skeptical about internet cafes aka 'cyber'. Bring a live CD like SLAX to get around that. Many computers are equipped with webcam and microphone.

3. Some cities, like San Luis, offer city wide free WIFI (article). Were you to bring a netbook, you would be set.

4. Many people do not use a long distance plan with their home phone. Instead they purchase a LD phone card at any corner kiosk.

5. The GSM network is well established. Although I have not tried it, you could also purchase a local SIM. (note: oddly you are required to declare/register your cellphone when you enter Argentina).

Getting around Buenos Aires and beyond

2009-08-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

So you’ve decided to marry a girl from Argentina, or just want to visit Buenos Aires and the rest of the country. How do you get around town? I thought I write down some of my experiences.

To/From the international airport of Ezeiza. The internal airport of Buenos Aires is about an hour from the center of town. (Jorge Newbery airport near the center is for domestic flights only.) I recommend to pay extra and use a car from Manuel Tienda Leon to get to your hotel. It is safe and direct. No need to hop onto a shared shuttle. If you have a lot of luggage, ask for a “Peugeot Partner” small van. Or at a minimum ask for a car without natural gas (un auto sin gas). The gas container in the trunk takes away of lot of space. You don’t want to be split up in different cars.
Taxi – There is a golden rule in Buenos Aires: you pick the taxi. Don’t let the taxi pick you. Often taxis will be driving slowly by the curb. Let them pass. If you found a good taxi or taxi company, ask for a card and call them from your hotel room. The front desk might have some recommended companies as well. It will not be the first time you get robbed within the taxi or you have to surrender your shopping bags or suitcases. It happens even to portenos, the people from Buenos Aires. Overall taxi drivers are courteous and friendly.
Colectivo en Buenos Aires, citybus: bus drivers are notorious assholes. They’ll take of when you’re boarding, or cut of pedestrians. Be ready for a rough and tumble ride. And watch for pick-pockets. And one trick: if you have to take bus #59, note that there are several #59 with different stops and even end destinations. You would think they would label them #59, #60 and #61, but no, that would be too easy. I am sure there must be a reasonable explanation, but it’s definitely not obvious.
Subte, the subway : is an easy to bypass the traffic of the city streets. $1.10
Caminando, walking is my favorite way around town. Just learn a couple of big streets: Cordoba, Belgrano, Callao, Santa Fe, Corrientes, 9de Julio, Pueyrredon for easy orientation.
Tren, the train is not something I recommend. Argentina stopped investing in trains many years ago. The infrastructure reflects this. Tren de la costa is a special train which will take you along the river to areas such as San Isidro, an upscale outskirt of Buenos Aires.
Avion, by plane across the country is fast but can be expensive. They often have different rates for citizens than for tourists. An alternative, yet slower, are the long distance busses.
Omnibus, Long distance busses from Retiro bus station. The bus and train station in Retiro can be a dangerous area: watch out not to be taken for a fool. Retiro is where the trains arrive but also where you find the bus station for the long distance busses. The busses are great. You get a big comfortable seat which recline 45 degrees (ejecutivo) or get one which converts into a bed (con cama entero). Sometimes cama entero means a different bus and a different departure time. So check the different options. Also check various companies. For any given destination there are several companies: Chevalier, Mar Del Plata, Andesmar, Autotransporte San Juan, etc. I do recommend to eat before getting on the bus, as your mileage may vary from bus to bus. I often take the Buenos Aires – San Luis bus: 11 hours drive at night. This is cheaper alternative to a plane ride (1hr + 1-2hr waiting) mid day.

Types of cars in Argentina

2009-08-18T10:33:00.000-07:00

After having battled and so far survived traffic in Argentina, time for a smuck blog post. I’ve come to conclude there are three types of cars:

[begin smuck comment]

Larga distancia – new cars. Common brands are Renault, Peugeot, Fiat. Recently also VolksWagen and Toyota are popular.
Corta distancia – many old clunkers are clearly for only local drives to the supermarket, or the river. The old Ford falcons are good candidates.
Distancia questionable – there is an entire category of cars from which you don’t know if they will make it to the corner. And yet many make it across the country or even the Andes. But you’re really gambling and should be prepared for anything: doors falling off, no lights, engine overheating, etc.

[end smuck comment]

There is also the fantastic story of Herman and Cande Zapp who took their 75 year old 1928 Graham-Paige from Argentina to Alaska.

Casa de Cambio – bring your Albanian gorilla

2009-08-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

In recent years, using traveler checks in Argentina wasn’t a good idea. First, it was expensive to exchange them. Secondly, they were impractical as banks close at 3:30pm.

For the first time, bringing dollars wasn’t a good idea either. On my recent trip, I visited several big banks and non let me exchange them for pesos. “Solamente si sos cliente” – only for clients of the bank.

On Santa Fe, a major shopping street in Buenos Aires, I only found a single ‘casa de cambio’. It was in the back of a small and dim-lit shopping mall. I would attempt to exchange my fistful of dollars, but did not bring my Albanian body guard gorilla to guide me back safely to the street.

Don’t exchange at the guy in the street yelling “Dolares, Euros’. This is Nuevas Reinas/ Nine Queens country after all. Watch out for fake pesos. Or single side printed pesos.

Luckily I do have another option and can ask my brother in law to exchange at his bank.

What do other tourists do? Perhaps there are more casa de cambio near La Florida, the most popular shopping area. But don’t expect great exchange rates, now that they're set by the casa de cambio monopoly.

What do they eat on Friday?

2009-08-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

Fish is never the option at a wedding in Argentina. It is either beef, beef or pork. Or perhaps turkey. But mostly beef. This is beef country. Vegetables are definitely optional. This has to be place where Atkins came up with his protein diet.

It is odd that for a country with as much coast line there isn’t that much fishing going on. Fish is hard to come by. On a previous trip I had brought sheets of seaweed to prepare sushi. I was in the middle of the country, in San Luis, but how difficult could it be for a refrigerator truck to make the trip. I ended up making cucumber rolls and rolls with tasteless defrost shrimp bits.

Eating fish caught in the Rio de la Plata is not a healthy idea. But you would presume that the thousand miles of coastline and the Straight of Magellan would give “The deadliest Catch” a run for its money. Or what about the trout from the many lakes in Patagonia?

On my recent trip I set out to find out what do people in this Catholic country on Friday.

Summer project

2009-07-31T23:47:00.000-07:00

Every year we tackle a major home project. This year we decided to remodel our bathrooms. Countless weekends later, faucet testing, tile sampling and granite scratching later, we're done.

When we purchased our house it had been a rental property. As a result, the inside of the house was serving a utilitarian purpose and wasn't kept up very nicely. Similarly, our bathrooms were basic bathrooms with plastic tub sides and a cheap vanity. It has done the job since we moved in, but it was time to redo them.

How did we start tackling the remodel?

First we shortcircuited the contractor finding process. We had a great recommendation through some friends: Royal Kitchen and Bath and got a decent quote. A little higher than competitive quotes, but I wanted somebody who was going to see the job through. Some companies were horrible unprofessional, already during the bidding process. You would think that in these though times they would behave like sheep hungry for a design win.

Where did we shop for material?

It is worthwhile to be intimately involved in the material selection and go shop around. Don't just take what the contractor offers. A good contractor will recommend you quality places to visit. We spent many weekends checking out faucets, granite, or vanities. Here's a short list of places in the South Bay we selected from:

Shower and bath material: American Custom Marble, San Jose, CA
Bath tub: rvcloud.com
Shower doors: Blossom Hill Showers
Toilets: Homeclick.com and Home Depot
Faucets: Lowe's
Vanities (Jensen Cabinets): Southern lumber, San Jose, CA
Tiles: Tileshop, Brokaw, San Jose, CA
Molding: The Molding Store, Brokaw, San Jose, CA

What material choices did we make?

Steel vs Cast iron vs Acrylic bath tub: the difference is price, comfort and quality. Steel are cheaper. Cast irons are heavy as hell to install and take time to warm up. Plus if they scratch you have a tough time to fix. Acrylic tubs sometimes require a concrete base to be installed to avoid flexing. We selected a solid acrylic tub: Kohler Archer 19" high which is taller than most tubs. But with great back support.
Faucet brands range from $30 to $900. We selected a brushed nickel finish and a decent price quality faucet from Delta. If you select the Lowe's or Home Depot model you get a good price. The shower set allows you adjust the temperature, as well as the water flow through two different handles.
Tile or wooden baseboards: The joint of tile baseboards with the floor tile might break as a wooden house flexes. We opted for a wooden/MDF baseboard.

What lessons have we learned?

A key lesson we learned is not to order big ceramic items via the internet. We purchased one toilet (Toto Drake) through Homeclick.com. The shipment was arranged through UPS. First of all, two days before the toilet was to arrive, an email update informs me that only part will arrive in time and that the toilet base is delayed 1 week. If I knew this at purchase time I would not have gone this route. Worse was that the toilet base shipment then arrived one week later but damaged and needed to be reshipped. It had broken in pieces due to poor packaging and rought UPS shipment. As a result, the toilet was delayed for 2-3 weeks.

And one more item. As a a geek and Google fan-boy, we managed the project entirely on the net: we planned it via Google Docs and maintained a Bill of Materials in Google Spreadsheets. It was great to do competitive price check and updates from my phone while being in the store. We took pictures and shared them via Picasaweb.

Now we take a break and get ready later this year for our next project.

Le Tour est arrivé

2009-07-26T13:42:00.001-07:00

This picture on the flanks of the Mont Ventoux summarizes the tour for me: Alberto Contador, Lance Armstrong, Andy and Frank Schleck.

Contador was simply the best. Excellent in the mountains. Great in the time trails. And with an excellent team Astana, lead by @johanbruyneel.
The Schleck brothers made it exciting. They kept attacking in the mountains. Were they better in the time trails, it would have been a different Tour.
Lance provided an interesting back story to the tour via Twitter: @lancearmstrong. He also showed a lot of heart. I admit I was rooting for Lance this year, unlike other years. The little video posts from the Giro, and the tweets changed my view on the boss.
Surprise: Jurgen Van den Broek (pic - wiki) - hopefully he won't be promoted (yet) to the lead in a small team. Put him as number two in a big team so he can grow. As he did this year when Cadel Evans failed.
The course of the Tour also contributed to the excitement. I was exciting until the second to last stage to the Mont Ventoux. Sure perhaps the second week was somewhat boring, when the debate about the radio earpieces was raging. But the slow couple of days provided the needed anticipation for the big days.
Disappointments? The brouhaha about Tom Boonen turned out to be a storm in a glass of water and of no consequence. I am glad I did not Yell for Cadel. And where was Sastre? (Didn't think Menchov would do much unless he really felt good. He already sleeps in pink sheets.)
How did I follow it all, early in the morning California?

Steephill.tv is my landing page to find out what's going on where.
Most often I ended up at Versus for the video feed in the US.
Sporza Radio provided the excellent commentary in Dutch. The (video) interviews on the Sporza website were also interesting.

For the first time in many years did I watch and follow the Tour again. It was fun waking up early and following it on via internet radio. Now summer really starts as there is nothing going on. Counting down to the Classics and the Tour of next year.

(Picture courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald)

ODB-II

2009-07-25T22:29:00.000-07:00

Not so long ago, the check engine light of my 11 year old Honda Civic turned on again. I didn't flash, so it was not urgent to have it checked out. Yet the light is right in your face and you can not escape it.

Taking it to a mechanic costs you quickly $90, just to read the computer error code and do an analysis. Last time the diagnosis was: "nothing to worry about, carry on". Cha-ching $90. The time before that the diagnosis was: "your catalyst converter has a misreading. Let me clear the light, if it comes back on, we'll need to probe again. Carry on." Cha-ching $90.

Since many years now, all car computers have a standard connector and a standard protocol to communicate with the car computer. It is called ODB-II.One thing my car lacks is a simple: reset-check-engine-light button. This would allow me to reset the light to verify if it were a temporary event, or whether the failure persists. Honda are you reading this? (likely not)

Your next bet is to purchase an OBB-II reader. These OBD-II readers are available at Kragen and Wallmart and cost you from $60 to a couple of hundred dollars. After reading out the code (indeed, again the catalytic converter), the light hasn't come on again. Saved $90.

Many gas stations provide water and air. How about adding an ODB-II reader?

Slax

2009-07-24T18:40:00.001-07:00

I am more and more paranoia about cyber security in public areas or when using public networks. I like to think that using using 3G on my Android phone is more secure although I haven't done much research of whether it is indeed more secure using 3G than using Wifi. I suspect that the tools to snif and gather data over Wifi are more common, as are computers equiped with Wifi.

I don't have ~~anything~~ much to hide, and think my data isn't worth that much (unlike e.g. when your office computer is compromised - just read the anatomy of the twitter attack to get an idea the damage it can do). However, I don't want to have others installing programs on my computer or using it.

Recently at a coffeeshop/internet cafe, I was (naively) surprised to see a couple of people sniffing the network using Wireshark. Now, I use Wireshark professionally, since debugging network middleware is part of my job. But I don't think any Data Distribution Service debugging was going on right there.

Time to burn a Live Linux CD. Rather than booting the computer from a hard drive, a Live CD boots the OS from a CD. It is read-only and thus I can be sure that my programs are clean and that nothing is added behind my back. It still doesn't address the issue when passwords are sent in the clear, but it is at least one worry less.

I looked at a couple of Live CDs: both Linux and Solaris based. I settled on Slax, as the interface to configure and customize the image was very simple. And thus I created a Linux Live CD which of course includes handy dandy network debugging tools, including Wireshark. I am ready and armed to snif around the internet cafe.

PS - If booting from USB was supported by most BIOS, I would put it all on a USB stick.

Gmail tasks' missing features

2009-07-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

I've been a big fan of Bob the Monkey or the Cow, depending how you look at it. All my to-do items are tracked withing remember the milk, nicely organized in lists, shared among people, and tagged with something meaningful. The user interface has been the same for a while and can be improved upon.

A recent blog post about Gmail tasks triggered reexamining this feature. While promising, it falls short because it lacks the following features I am used to (correct me if I overlooked how it works with Gmail tasks):

ability to specify a due time and an estimate how long a task will take.
ability to specify recurring tasks: e.g. pay PG&E every 12th of the month
ability to share tasks with others
ability to add a location and map to a task
ability to add a priority to a task
ability to add tags to a task
ability to add contacts to a task
smart lists : e.g. show all work related (tag=work) items due this week
google.com/tasks should provide a great user interface to sort, rearrange and do bulk operations on tasks

Academy of Sciences

2009-07-12T07:32:00.000-07:00

At last, we made it to the new Calafornia Academy of Sciences museum in San Francisco. We criss-crossed the entire museum in about five hours, including two shows. You do need to pick up passes in advance if you want to attend either show or presentation. (plan your visit)

The first show was a 3D movie about bugs. And no, there was no Hollywood happy ending. The movie takes you through the young lives of caterpillar turning butterfly and a praying mantis. At the end, one becomes the dinner of the other.

The second presentation was 30 minutes visit into space within the planetarium.

Further, the four story rainforest exhibition is impressive, as well as the big aquaria. The kids loved the funny looking frogs, the geckos, the huge catfish and piranhas. The picture above taken on top of the living roof of the museum building.

Summer visit to Gold Country

2009-07-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

Last December, during the cold winter break, we escaped the Bay Area for three days to the California Gold Country. The two highlights of the trip were the Columbia Historic Park and the Railtown 1897 in Jamestown.

The first one is a traditional eighteen hundreds mining town, including a stage coach. During the fourth of July weekend there are a lot of old fashioned games and traditions. We missed the parade but did enjoy greased pole contest and five way tug-o-war. Many also fashion traditional clothing.

We did pan again for gold, but were not as lucky as last time and came home only with fool's gold or pyrite.

The second highlight of our winter trip was Railtown 1897. This historic state park houses various steam engines. While during our winter visit no trains were running, we were able to freely roam the grounds and explore are the areas.

This time steam engine 2 did run between Jamestown and the rock quary. This was a Shay locomotive (geared engine). The geek in me did waste a couple of hours last night browsing wikipedia and steam engine websites on the details about the locomotive. I also came across a transcript of the cannon ball express ride (pdf).

The last stop of the trip is adult only: a sampling of the many wineries in Calaveras county (map). Over the last two days we samples wines from Ironstone, Solomon, Twisted Oak, Frog's Tooth, Broll and Bodega del Sur. The wineries of the Sierra Foothills use different grapes and produces wines uncommon to the Napa or Sonoma valleys: grenache, verdelho, roussanne, mourvedre and tempranillo. I favored the taste of the wines of Broll most.

Oh darn Twitter (2)

2009-06-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

When I wrote Oh darn twitter, I really wanted to create this video to summarize it but CollegeHumor was a tad faster. I'll just drop the reel on the cutting floor and just post their Web Site Story.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

When visiting Belgium

2009-06-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

I often get asked what to do or what to visit when spending a few days in Belgium. Very often Belgium is not the main destination of the vacation. It is a stop on route from Paris to Amsterdam, or the airport of Brussels is the entry point to Europe. So I'll make it brief:

Cities to visit (in order of my liking): Antwerp (Antwerpen), Bruges (Brugge), Ghent (Gent), Leuven and Brussels (Brussel). If you like to visit a modern vibrant city, start with Antwerp. It combines great history (architecture, paintings, museums, culture) with lots of pubs, restaurants and shops. If you like true medieval history, visit Bruges, also known as the Venice of the North. Ghent was the capital of Europe during the empire of Charles V. It is also a happening university town. However the center of student life occurs in Leuven. And yes, you should also visit Brussels. I typically compare a visit to Brussels to a visit to Washington D.C. If you can only pick one city in the US to visit, would it be Washington? Or San Francisco or New York?

What to drink? A visit to Belgium would not be complete without a visit to a couple of traditional pubs (cafes) and sample some of the 8700 different Belgian beers.

What to eat? Did you know French fries originated in Belgium? You won't be able to avoid them. In every town square, on many corners, you'll find a 'frituur' or small place to get a pointy bag with Belgian fries. Try it with mayonaise rather than ketchup, or try a couple of the various sauces on top of it.

Of course try a real Belgian waffle, the famous chocolates, speculoos, a bucket of mussels with fries, shrimp in tomato, eal in a green herb sauce, real Belgian endives or white asparagus.

Belgium is a cycling country. Many cycling champions came from Belgium. You'll find lots of people on a bicycle during the weekend making trip along the various trails. Checkout the fietsknooppunten blog for a sampling of trails and what to see along the trails. Or request the blog author for some recommended trails.

Leave a comment if you have specific questions about towns, seasons or customs.

On Keyboards

2009-06-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

When I read the headline today about how Lenovo starting moving around the Delete key on the keyboard, it thought it is about time for some keyboard layout experimentation. I am sure lots of people will be upset about this. I am not. The key input device to a computer has not evolved in many years.

I first ran into this when visiting Argentina : because of the Spanish keyboard layout, it is very difficult to type important internet symbols.

Mobile devices already started experimenting. Take a look at the slide out keyboard of the HTC G1 phone: notice how next to the space bar is the '@' key. No need to shift-2.

An internet / geek's keyboard should have the following keys within easy reach: @ / \ { } ( ) ) , introduce a zoom and search button and make switching between tabs (Ctrl-Tab) and windows easy (Alt-tab).

Picture courtesey of android-phone.org

oh darn Twitter

2009-06-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

Twitter killed my blog. Not really. Temporarily. However primarily a lack of time and a convenient way to just blurt out 140 characters of opinion have kept me from writing on my blog. I did write a couple of posts on the company blog. Home remodelling, summar planning and a deluge of work kept me from posting to this blog. The light might be dimmer, it ain't out.

Going Native Garden Tour

2009-04-19T18:09:00.000-07:00

On a hot spring day (92F/ 33C) we toured a couple of native gardens in the San Jose area. Every year, since 2003, the Go-Native-Garden-Tour has been organized in spring. This year there were about 45 participating gardens. We visited about 5 gardens.

The common thread is that all gardens use California native plants and are designed for water conservation. This is especially important this year since water levels have been extremely low. Nearby reservoirs were near empty at the beginning of the winter. I have never seen them that low.

My front lawn has suffered over the past years. In part because I have 3 big trees in front which suck up all the water. Secondly, one summer vacation without proper watering and I have a large open patch in the lawn.

I decided not to redo or reseed, but to slowly replace it with a native garden. For one maintenance is low. Secondly a native garden uses almost no water. Some of the gardeners mention they water a couple of minutes every 4 to 6 weeks. That's just amazing.

We took plenty of pictures of the plans and their nametags. Almost all gardens had every plant labeled with both their Latin name as their common name.

So, what's next? Step one will be to dig up the front lawn and install a drip grid water system. Step two: figure out a simple design with a couple of rocks. Step three: lots of mulch. Step four will be looking for plants. Perhaps something for the fall.

The backyard is a whole other story. For years the main role has been claimed by Mr Clover and his viral cousins taken over the entire yard.

Crafting your resume

2009-04-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

I've been reading and qualifying resumes for an application engineer in my group. I received hundreds of resumes. I have read every single one of them. Being on the reading side of resumes does provide some interesting perspective. Here are a couple of tips. They are really basic, but nevertheless worth repeating.

A objective spells it out very clearly why you are applying for the job. Tailor it to the specific job. It is the first thing the hiring manager will read on your resume. Often one of the first questions on a phone interview is "what are you looking for in this job?". The objective should answer that question. Do customize it for the job you are applying for.
List when you are a US Citizen or US Person. Especially when the job requirement states that US citizens are desired (e.g. in the defense or intelligence industry).
Send your resume in PDF to avoid the layout being screwed up when the hiring manager opens up a Microsoft Word resume.
Don't call it resume.pdf. I often saved the resumes in a folder to check later in the day. When you call your firstnameLastnameResume.pdf, I did not have to rename the file plus your name sticks out in the file. Keep your brand up.
Spellcheck. Seriously! This sounds obvious but I encountered lots of spelling errors on resumes.
Spend a little time on the layout and readability of your resume. When the hiring manager is reading hundreds of resumes, avoid that he or she needs to take a second pass to understand your profile and capabilities.
Stick with traditional resume formats, unless you are applying for an artist or graphic designer. 2 pages.
When a new grad, listing your courses and specific project work is a plus and a great hook during the phone interview. "In my fly-robot project, I was able to demonstrate ..."
When you apply for a computer engineering job, do not list Microsoft Outlook. If you have to highlight that you know how to send and read an email, you are in trouble. Similarly, it is assumed you know how to use a word processor and a spreadsheet. If you created a novel macro for Microsoft Excel, do list it. But detail that is was more than just using Outlook. That's useful.
If the submission process allows you to add a cover when submitting your resume, do so. A cover letter allows you to sell yourself. You can use full sentences, rather than the short form often used on a resume.
If you do get a phone interview, do follow up with an email afterwards. Ask for the email address. This is a nice touch and shows you really are interested in the job.

Ronde Van Vlaanderen

2009-04-05T13:57:00.000-07:00

It is over: Stijn Devolder wins the Tour of Flanders (Ronde Van Vlaanderen). This is the most beautiful of the one-day bicycle races.

I woke up this Sunday at 6:30AM. Why would you want to wake up that early on a Sunday my wife asked. What would you do if Argentina was playing the world cup final against England at 6:30AM?

The Sporza live video feed did not work. Thus I could not listen to the legendary commentary of Michel Wuyts. Plan B: pick up a video feed on justin.tv and listen to Carl Bertele and co on Sporza radio. In a side window I was following the #rvv tweets. (Next week, I'll try out http://www.tvtweets.be/)

It was a beautiful race. Great weather, fast pace and every second counted. This picture captures a lot. Devolder, in a group of four, attacks on the Muur van Geraardsbergen. Just take a look at the supporters. That's the face (and scream) I made in the kitchen this Sunday morning. Next Sunday : Paris - Roubaix (get details at Steephill.tv)

In Stewart we Trust

2009-03-13T08:45:00.000-07:00

Bush is out of office. Obama versus Palin is long over. I wondered what Jon Stewart would be zooming in on next in his Daily Show. The answer : money; crooked money; mad money and the role the "analysts", "financial experts" and financial news shows played in the hype.

If there is anything I learned from the dotcom bust, it is how venture capitalists and investment banks shared the same bed. Similarly check how many were sharing a bed in the housing bust.

Thus Stewart went on a mission to critique the financial news channels and found a great poster child in loud mouth Jim Cramer, who hosts the Mad Money show on CNBC.

This rest of this blog post is very simple. The video speaks for itself.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 3

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Why I shop where I shop

2009-02-13T16:39:00.000-08:00

The newspaper sales guy calling me at night tries to hook me on a San Jose Mercury News subscription because it's Sunday newspaper has lots of coupons. Safeway spams with me items on sale this week. The Wednesday mail contains the promotions of a dozen local supermarkets. But I am not using any of them. That's because I shop at Trader Joe's. Here's why:

Android Exchange support

2009-01-18T20:42:00.000-08:00

A key feature missing on my Android phone was direct access to my work email through Exchange. Unlike the iPhone, Android lacks a native Exchange client.

The Android Market to the rescue! I found a couple of solutions. Some of them were still in private Beta.

I tried out TouchDown from Nitrodesk for free and opted to purchase a full license for $19.99. So far my experience with Touchdown has been good.

Email works great. I am pulling down my email every 15 minutes. There is no support for push email. But that ain't a big issue since I do not want to be pinged with email every minute.
The current version doesn't allow you to edit or confirm calendar appointments. A killer feature would be to bridge between the Exchange calendar and my google calendar.
Touchdown does time out when I switch between 3G and WIFI. The error message indicates this is a DNS problem. However I have no issue access the internet via a browser. The error is temporarily as 15 minutes later I am able to pull down my email.
Nitrodesk support has been excellent and fast.

Other applications which I has installed on my phone are (in order of how often I use them) :

Twitroid - to twitter from my phone
fBook - Facebook application; not bad, but I find myself regularly going to the mobile or main facebook website to comment or access info.
PhoneFlix - manage your Netflix queue from your phone. This is a great application since I typically hear about a great movie from friends, when I am not near my computer.
Skype Lite - to receive and make skype phone calls. When making a skype call to a computer, you do make a local call and will be billed wireless minutes. But that is a cheap price to pay when trying to call my parents in Belgium, or my parents in law in Argentina.
T-mobile HotSpot locator - alerts me of nearby WIFI hotspot locators operated by T-mobile.
Mileage - to keep track of my trips to the pump. Unfortunately this only supports one car.
gIRC, an irc client for Android
ConnectBot - secure shell for Android.
Shopsavvy - take a picture of the barcode and find where to best buy it. Seriously! This application has potential. I haven't used it much. The only thing I recently bought was a fridge and it lacked a barcode ;)
ToggleBlu - one click bluetooth on/off

So what's missing?

Remember The Milk : my work and personal todo list, groceries and shopping list. The mobile version of the webstie doesn't render well on Android. A native app really would do wonders. (107 replies already on my RTM forum post)
Pandora : I am big fan of Pandora and listed to it at least a few hours a day. I do get feeling Tom Conrad from Pandora ain't the biggest fan of Android. Pandora is already on the new PalmOS. I am anxiously awaiting a version for my phone.

Update: Add one more application to the list: Radio.BE. I just received an email from Nicolas Braem who launched a streaming audio application for Belgian radio stations, such as one of my favorite: Studio Brussel.

Update 01/27/2009: Version 1.4.051 of Touchdown added a lot of requested features: meeting invites and global addressbook

Android

2008-12-31T20:29:00.000-08:00

I was pleasantly surprised to find an unlocked HTC G1 phone, also known as the Android Developer Phone (in the box) underneath the christmas tree.

Timing could not have been more perfect as I had been exploring smart phones. Honestly I had been leaning towards the iPhone, because it has Exchange support, required to access my emails at work. I wish my company had never made the move to the proprietary Exchange technology.

But when I opened the box with a cool geeky Linux powered opensourced Android phone, I was overjoyed. (I already found a couple Android Exchange connector applications.)

The ADP supports GSM, GPRS/Edge, 3G, WIFI, Bluetooth : connection galore. I was on the internet via WIFI in a heartbeat. Gmail, Calendar, RememberTheMilk, Twitter and Facebook worked fabolously (although I am still hoping for an Android native RememberTheMilk application).

Since I already owned the phone I thought all options were open for a wireless voice/data plan. Wrong.

(1) 3G is not 3G . When GSM came to the US, consumers won. You could take your GSM phone from one carrier to the next and shop around. This was true as most phones were able to support various GSM frequencies. Now with 3G, carriers have their monopolies back. AT&T 3G uses a different UTMS band than T-Mobile. It took me a while to find the 3G details about the G1 phone or about the carrier networks:

Android developer phone specs: quad-band GSM; UMTS on 1700Mhz and 2100Mhz (bands I and IV); works with T-mobile. AT&T uses bands II and V

As a result, 3G for me ment T-Mobile 3G. Let's hope that phone UTMS chips will become quad band UTMS and the consumer will reign again.

(2) Internet-only plans are not internet-only. With my own phone in hand, I boldly stepped into the T-mobile phone store to get an internet only plan. I still have my old GSM phone and needed to figure out what the best way to transfer my family plan over. Apparently nobody had been that foolish to request this as it was a mystery how to do this. Eventually, after the T-mobile rep spent more than 30 minutes on the phone with their own back end support folks, were they able to set me up for month-to-month internet only ($39.99). If only it were true. I waited for 24 hours to have it all kick in and yet no internet. The reason: I had a G1/ADP. Those require a special internet plan, which is only offered as an add-on to a voice plan. Gotcha capitalism! I quickly figured out that trying to get internet only was futile (I envisioned the limitations in the activation/setup menus.)

Today I am finally fully empowered: voiceplan, internet, GPRS/Edge, 3G, SMS, and even their favorite five. As we start 2009, the world is at my fingertips!

(Read also Tim Bray's Android Diary)

Gold country

2008-12-29T23:30:00.001-08:00

Last weekend, we spent three days in California's gold country, the Mother Lode. We visited the Southern part: Tuolumne and Calaveras counties with towns like Jamestown, Columbia, Sonora and Murphy. It was a fantastic couple of days with lots of interesting sights. Here are a couple of pictures I took.

Rocking chairs in Charleston

2008-12-18T18:34:00.000-08:00

A two day visit to Charleston, South Carolina, was my first visit to "the South". Charleston is one of the oldest cities in the US I have visited. This is where the civil war started. This is where you find one of the first submarines, the Hunley. Tobacco, crab cakes, and a slave market. The ocean front is lined with two, three story old colonial mansions in impeccable restored state where cigar-smoking men in seersucker suits must have debated the local politics or the state of affairs at the local papermills.

You get a feeling that life moves a little slower here. It is definitely not the rat race of the Bay Area. But by no means is this a town stuck in the past. The company I visited is cutting edge and pushing the envelope of computing.

Although I did read that South Carolina is not a rich state, the center of Charleston gives the impression of an affluent city. Old money perhaps. Big houses, nice stores, and classy bars. I had the opportunity to eat a fantastic restaurant, one of the many upscale restaurants around. Luckily the bill was taken care of.

Nothing says Southern lifestyle as the lines of rocking chairs facing the runway at the airport.

What I did last summer

2008-12-14T16:47:00.000-08:00

Our house was built in the seventies. The ceiling had be sprayed with a plaster to provide sound absorbtion. This acoustic ceiling is also known as popcorn ceiling as it is very rough. It is also difficult to paint, because it is highly absorbant and can not be rolled. The way to go is spray painting it. We decided to remove it before we started painting the rooms.

Popcorn ceiling is also known as a source of asbestos in older houses as asbestos was a good binding component. We had ours checked an no asbestos was present. This made it easier to remove. There was no need to involve an expensive asbestos removal company.

We planned the removal of the popcorn ceiling to coincide with the summer vacation of the kids in Belgium. We had emptied the entire house into the garage (tells you we don't have a lot of stuff). We were camping out for a weekend at a friend's place. In three days, all the popcorn ceiling had been removed, the ceilings and walls had been refinished. Now our job was about to start. During four hellish evenings and nights, we primed the entire interior twice! Top to bottom, left to right. The clock had been ticking as we were about to leave to Belgium to meet up with our kids.

After our "vacation", the finishing work awaited us: choosing colors, painting accent walls, replacing outlets and light switches, redoing the interior closets, choosing draperies (the hardest part), and hanging curtain rods in all the rooms. At out own slow pace, we finished it all in the fall.

I enjoyed the paiting part a lot. It was a calming zen-like experience: Saturday night, all windows open, listening to this American Life stories. I'll do it again, if asked.

Now that it is all done, the next home project awaits: redoing the bathrooms.

Car trouble

2008-12-14T16:19:00.000-08:00

Running the support group at RTI, my ears peak for a debugging challenge. This time it is not about our Data Distribution Service or about a networking problem of an embedded system. My debugging challenge is about my 1998 Honda Civic EX (154K miles).

The first sign of a problem showed up about three weeks ago. The check engine light came on as my wife stated the car in the morning. It started rough. The error code indicated a misfiring of cylinder 1. Once started and idling the car sounded and felt okay. Also when driving on the highway the car did not show any trouble.

After a compression check, we did a major tune up (overdue) : oil change, new spark plugs, new spark plug wires, new distributor cap and rotor. All in all, all common electrical components were replaced.

Two days later, the check engine light came on again. Again cylinder 1 was misfiring. My mechanic suggested to swap fuel injectors 1 and 2 to verify if the fuel injectors needed to be replaced. No change: still cylinder 1 was misfiring.

A new distributor ruled out the distributor. The timing belt was changed around 90K miles. If the timing belt were the culprit one would expect to see all cylinders misfiring. (Unless the ocmputer saves only the first error code, and not those of all cylinders).

My car has a VTEC engine. The valve timing is variable through a VTEC solenoid. This boosts the car power at lower and very high RPMs. My mechanic found a used VTEC solenoid to test. Again, no change: the check engine light came on at the first cold start. Low oil pressure could also affect the VTEC, but my mechanic believed this was not the case.

I have since switched mechanics. My old wasn't too interested in working on it. He kept me waiting a full day for a 10 minute job to swap the VTEC solenoid. He was horrible running calls, even to tell me the part was in. When you feel that he doing you a favor repairing your car, it is time to move on.

One more data point: exhaust fume check shows clean burning.

I am out of ideas. Anyone has a clue what might be going on?

My new mechanic believed it could be a miniscule leak of the head gasket leaking coolant, or from a fuel injector. Either leak likely to be so small that it only shows up briefly at start up. He recommended not to worry about it and drive the car regardless.

Wallstreet

2008-12-12T14:57:00.001-08:00

I recently read The Film Club by David Gilmour. In this memoir, he chronicles the story of allowing his son Jesse to drop out of school as long as he watches three movies weekly with this father. David Gilmour is a former film critic and television host. Rather than letting his son troll the streets, he starts a father-son film club. As they cover various styles and classics, they also discus a lot about life, Jesse's girlfriends, and his friends. From the book I picked up a list of classic movies I have yet to watch:

Duel by Stephen Spielberg
Fast Times at Ridgemont High with Sean Penn
Jungle Fever by Spike Lee with a young Samuel L. Jackson
Breakfast at Tiffanies
Mean street by Martin Scorsese
The shining by Stanley Kubrick
Notorious by Alfred Hitchcock
Dity Harry Magnum Force
Wallstreet with Charlie Sheen, Michael Douglas and Martin Sheen

Amidst all the financial mess, I decided to start at the bottom and got Wallstreet by Oliver Stone from Netflix. It couldn't have been more timely. The news broke last week that Bernard Madoff's hedge fund was a giant $50 Billlion ponzi scheme.

After learning about bail-outs, derivatives and credit default swaps from NPR's Planet Money blog, or after reading Michael Lewis' article about the financial mess you conclude that not much has changed. Financial companies will keep inventing products which are hard or impossible to understand. In the process, the ignorant will end up holding the bag. Even those who are cognisant they are ignorant and don't want to play, will end up holding part of the bag.

Wild California

2008-12-08T20:55:00.000-08:00

San Jose, CA is the 10th largest city in the US with a million people. The entire Bay Area counts about seven million people. So you would think this must be a pretty densily populated area. And it sort of is. However, every so often you learn that you aren't that far from the real California wilderness. I am not talking about the annual trip to Yosemite where the late night chores include franticly cleaning up the campsite to avoid attracking the wild bears in the valley. Right here in my backyard, you find a lot of unexpected wild life.

Last night in the dark, as I gathered the clothes from the clothesline, I ran into our yard marsupial: our cute opossum. The first time I ran into it I didn't know what to think: it looks like a rat, with a long tail, but it is much bigger. I called everyone inside and locked the door as it calmly walked the back fence and right into our garden-shack. Animal controlled told me on the phone, not to be concerned. They won't harm you. Just leave them alone. They are an omnivore, so don't leave food or trash outside. We don't, although we do have fruit from our fruit trees falling onto the floor.

This morning I ran into what looked like a dead raccoon in the street. (My wife thought it could have been an oppossum. Let's just hope it is not my back yard friend.) Right next it, I saw a bird I typically see in the zoo. It looked like straight out of a comic strip of Lucky Luke. I looked it up: it was a turkey vulture. These are some bug ugly birds and always right where death looms.

Other famous visitor I ran into is the black widow. I was cleaning up the yard and touched a spiderweb and it attacked my shovel with great speed. The red hourglass shaped markings on this shiny, inky black spider were unmistakenly. Luckily it didn't come close to me. Here's the answer to a commonly asked question:

How dangerous are black widow spider bites? If a black widow spider bites a person, do not panic! No one in the United States has died from a black widow spider bite in over 10 years. Very often the black widow will not inject any venom into the bite and no serious symptoms develop. Wash the wound well with soap and water to help prevent infection.
If muscle cramps develop, take the patient to the nearest hospital. Some victims, especially young children, may be admitted overnight for observation and treatment. There is treatment for a black widow spider bite that can take care of the symptoms. Various medications are used to treat the muscle cramps, spasms and pain of a bite. Black widow spider antivenin is seldom necessary.

Garden snakes are around although we have not run into any around the house. Tarantulla's and rattle snakes aren't very far way. When I learned of an email at my wife's work alerted them of a mountain lion near their offices in Mountain View, you are reminded that this isn't cow country but that it is still wild California.

Thanksgiving feast

2008-12-06T22:57:00.000-08:00

The results

2008-11-04T19:40:00.001-08:00

Copy Cat

2008-10-29T19:13:00.000-07:00

Almost daily I read news from Belgium in Het Belang Van Limburg, a national newspaper which also includes regional news of the province of Limburg. Occasionally I read something in the gossip world of Het Laatste Nieuws. I came across this little story about Reggie Love: Meet Reggie Love, de man achter Obama. Interesting since I had not heard about Reggie Love among all the news coverage in the US. So I googled a little more about Reggie and came across this article from The Guardian: The man behind the man: Obama and the aide who makes his campaign tic.

Body Man:

TG: Reggie, as everyone on the campaign calls him, is more than a body man, whose official duties are to look after the candidate's personal needs. He carries the candidate's pens, his favourite snacks and drinks, an endless supply of chewing gum (Dentyne and Nicorette), as well as numerous bottles of water. He lines up the podium before the candidate steps out, and adjusts the autocue machines to the correct height, a few inches lower than his own.

HLN: In feite staat Reggie in voor alle persoonlijke noden van Obama. Hij draagt zijn pennen, zijn favoriete snacks en drankjes, een enorme voorraad kauwgom en talrijke flesjes water. . Hij controleert ook het podium waarop Obama het volk toespreekt en zorgt ervoor dat de autocue op de juiste hoogte staat (hij is net iets groter dan Obama).

Jay-Z :

TG: It was Love who introduced Obama to Jay-Z, loading the New York rapper's music on to an iPod which he bought as a birthday present for his boss.

HLN: Voor zijn verjaardag kocht hij zijn baas een iPod die hij gevuld had met de muziek van rapper Jay-Z.

In Charlotte:

TG: Back in his hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, Love is something of a college legend. At a rally earlier this year, Obama called his body guy on stage and led the crowd in a chant of his name.

HLN: In zijn thuisstad Charlotte, in North Carolina, is hij een lokale legende. Obama riep hem er eerder dit jaar eens op het podium en dirigeerde het publiek terwijl ze zijn naam scandeerden.

Unfortunately Het Laatste Nieuws refrained from adding a true reference to the original article.

(Image: BBC News)

2008-09-26T15:16:00.001-07:00

I've been twittering from time to time. You can see my tweets on the right side of my blog or at http://twitter.com/waffletchnlgy.

Until now I use twitter often to record a funny quote from the kids. The potential of twitter isn't easily understood. There are some amazing things going on.

With the first presidential debate tonight, I caught a blog post about how Twitter and Current are working together to "Hack The Debate": when twittering, add #current to the tweet and it will be grouped and might even be appear on the Current TV feed. (What's #?)

http://election.twitter.com is scrolling through all debate, candidates and election related tweets. A squawk-box for political geeks.

Then I came across more funny posts: #obamashot and #mccainshot:

Drinking rules for tonight! #obamashot for every time Obama says "change", and #mccainshot every time McCain says "my friends"

Good luck not getting smashed.

Pick up the phone!

2008-09-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

I am a radiophile and I listen regularly to NPR radio. NPR is broadcast in the Bay Area by KQED radio, in San Francisco. Because they are member funded, they have regularly a pledge drive.

During the pledge drive, the presenters solicit donations from the listeners, often supplemented by dollar for dollar matching grants from sponsors. In return you often get a small "speed dial" gift.

In the background you will hear a phone ring. And ring ... and ring. Isn't anybody ever going to pick this up? They are asking us to call them right? Pick up the phone! It is probably just a soundtrack. Cheaters! ;)

To donate to KQED: (800) 937 8850 or visit the website.

Phone spam?

2008-09-10T19:03:00.000-07:00

Tonight I received an odd call from a 866 number:

Me: "Hello"
No response

Me: "Hello, who am I talking to?"
Answ: "I am sorry to disturb you. This message was only to be received by an answering machine."

Apparently this not nothing new. One google search result (telephony phishing) goes back to 2005. Very weird. Why do they want to talk to my answering machine?

This must be a tactic to circumvent some do-not-call list law.

Something smelly in the air

2008-08-31T21:44:00.001-07:00

There is something in the air in Gilroy. For one, literally: just drive to Gilroy, and you can smell the garlic from miles away. You start imagining shrimp in a garlic butter sauce, or a roasted pork shoulder stuffed with garlic. In July, Gilroy hosts the garlic festival. Typically on a hot summer day, this great festival has many open air cooking demonstrations, has many garlic products and has great food to taste. However, whoever thought that garlic beer was a good idea, or garlic ice cream, must have eaten one clove too many. (I've tasted both. The ice cream falls in the barf category.)

Similarly I thought Michael and Claudia Bonfante's idea to build a theme park based upon trees in Gilroy was wacky. Can you imagine in Belgium: an arboretum with roller coasters? Originally known as Bonfante Gardens, the theme park is now known as Gilroy Gardens. My kids has been there a few times as part of school excursions. During this labor day weekend, and with some free passes in hand, we made the 45 minutes drive south to visit the park.

It is a great park for 3-9 year olds. The rides are gentle and the water plays are exactly what kids need on a warm summer day. We were informed and brought swim suites and towels.

The mixture of education and fun worked surprisingly well. Funky "circus" trees, flower gardens and a nice lake to pedlle on are very nice. The monorail through the hot house is perfect: great views and short enough.

What did not work for us? (1) The entrance fee is rather steep ($42 per adult). (2) One is not allowed to bring any food into the park. There is a picnic area before entering the park. (3) Efficiency : unlike Disneyland the lines are slow moving.

We'll might do it again near Christmas, especially since your entrance pass immediately can be exchanged for a year long pass. Great idea.

Thus what's next? A garlic festival .. check .. a tree amusement park .. check .. a July Harley Davidson rally in nearby Hollister .. check. There is something in the air of Gilroy.

A festival without a theme

2008-08-30T23:30:00.001-07:00

Bicycle trails are few in the south bay. We can only dream of a system, similar to the "crossings" (knooppunten) in Belgium. On labor day, my son and I hopped on our bikes for a ride to downtown along the Guadalupe River.

The Guadalupe river trail (wiki) is a 11-mile pedestrian and bicycle path in the city of San Jose, Ca. It starts near the San Jose airport and brings you straight to downtown San Jose and ends near the discovery museum.

Sadly signalization can be improved a bit. For one, the fish pointing left always point left. They are not an indication of the route. Secondly, you have to cross the river on several occasions if you do not want to dead end. At least with a dead end you can not get lost.
The trail is interesting as you get to observe the flood protection system of San Jose. The last time the river flooded big parts of San Jose was 1995, a couple of months before I arrived in San Jose.
The trail is a nice and safe sneak road into downtown. You pass along the headquarters of Adobe and end at the San Jose discovery museum on Woz way, named after Steve Wozniak, inventor of the Apple computer.

Labor day weekend in San Jose typically means the San Jose Tapestry Arts festival. Feel free to skip it. It lacks some sizzle and frankly a theme. Most festivals are artsy and have paintings, soaps and hats. You need a better theme to lure people in. Wine or beer festivals do the job. Or a fruit or vegetable. The Kendall Jackson tomato festival, the Watsonville strawberry festival, the Castroville artichoke festival or the Gilroy Garlic festival are examples. I do have a suspicion that all good fruits and vegetables have been taken: all Hayward could come up with was the Hayward zucchini festival. That leaves lifestyle as a theme, which San Francisco has a monopoly on: the Haight Ashbury street fair, the Folsom street fair or Castro street fair. Does mean that the only options were a geek themed festival or a festival with not really a theme? They might as well called it "surprise"-festival to get the crowds of free loaders. We caught the end of day one of the festival. It was very much dead, with only a few people strolling around. I must have missed the lunch time crowds.

On the way back, we passed by the Shark tank (officially called HP Pavilion) where the San Jose Sharks hockey team play. We continued to San Jose airport, currently under construction as another terminal is being added. And then headed for home (another 10-15 minutes).

This was the longest bicycle trip for my son. So his demand for double icecream desert was definitely granted. And for pappi too.

We are a Costco Nation

2008-08-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

(Or for the Belgians reading this: We are a Makro Nation).

Last weekend, we celebrated my daughter's birthday in a nearby park. The public parks in California are wonderful. There are many parks, most of them are free and have new and safe play structures. John D. Morgan park in Campbell is a large park, with 3 soccer fields, 2 soft ball fields, two areas with play structures and lots of open space. One area includes a water play structure with fountains. Kids just love it. Since last year's birthday party was a success, we were planning for an encore.

The picnic benches around the water play structure are first come first serve. I had packed our station wagon the day before and woke up early to grab a space. Just like I did the year before. At 7:30am, I arrived at the park, only to find that all 13 spaces had been taken already. Ready for plan B: grab a bench and bring a fold up table or two to create an improvised birthday setup. As long as we are close to the water and sand, kids wouldn't mind. Another poor soul had arrived too late as well and was opting for a similar plan B. He had been there already since 6:10am. Either we were dealing with a bunch of owls or the others had cheated and claimed the spots the night before. Oh-well, the last thing you want to do is fight over a table in front of sugar happy kids.

I quickly set up shop on two borrowed tables and then waited for the rest of the family to arrive. It was very interesting to observe the larger parties set up camp. Literally. One family showed up with a large pickup and a mini van packed with stuff. First, the barbie hummer was unloaded to keep little Jasmine occupied. The first big canopy was setup for shade. Four large tables and matching chairs were unfolded. Another big canopy provided for even more shade. Next up: a 4-6 person tent. Three bags of coals - they must be planning a large barbecue. Honey, did you bring the extra barbecue? And to top it off, an inflatable basketball ring was set up. Luckily they brought a little four wheel cart, so it was easy to roll the ten bags of ice from the car to the coolers. The next hours they spent setting up the tables, hanging the balloons, preparing the food.

It's all the fault of Costco! Costco is the largest membership warehouse club chain in the world based on sales volume. At Costco you can buy cereal in 5kg boxes or olive oil in 5 liter jars. Cordless phones come in packages of 6, with an extra water proof one for the pool. All these party, backyard and pool supplies can be found at Costco at rather cheap prices and come in convenient fold up packaging. Outdoor pools are not 2mx2m: they are 4m x 6m with a built-in slide and obstacle course. It is just too much.

At the end of evening, we all had a great time. The food was great, the Thinkerbell cake a hit. The kids had a great time in the water, building castles in the sand and at the arts and craft table. And so did the other family I noticed. Luckily I didn't have to stay to see them clean up and pack it all up. Unless they were staying for a couple of days ... they sure had the equipment to do so.

On credit reporting companies

2008-07-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

A good credit history is one of the most important assets in the US. Upon arrival to California, several friends recommended me to get a Shell (pre-paid) or Macy's credit card to build up a credit history. Without a good credit history, getting a credit card is difficult and getting a loan is impossible. All your credit history is collected by one of three major companies: Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. Companies can then contact these companies before granting you credit.

It's ironic that you need a loan or credit card to start building a good credit. I have always been averse to debt: first you save, then you buy. I don't buy on credit, and every credit card bill is paid in full every month. I might not be the best customer for the credit card companies, but haven't had any issue with my credit history (and I don't have a garage full of gadgets or impulsive buys).

Recently, after the outsourced HR of my wife's company reported stolen personal data, I added 90-day fraud alerts on both our credit reports. I added the first 90-day fraud alert with Equifax. The webpage stated I didn't need to contact the other two compabies. They would take care of this.

Since then, I have received letters from both TransUnion and Experian: "We were unable to complete your request ... please provide us more information". Obviously, the request from Equifax to add a 90-day fraud alert was lacking some information. I went to the Experian website and provide the missing information: it was my address, my social security number and my birthdate.

Hold on a second! Our car purchase, our home purchase, even perhaps a future student loan for my kids depends on these companies and these bozos can't even transfer a little piece of data among each other?

Vote for Marco Zaldivar!

2008-07-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, I wrote about my ideal cellphone specs. The list of requirements is still very true, except for a cheap data-plan and great battery life. The last requirement puts the latest iPhone or any 3G phone for that matter on the black list. This was especially so after watching Charlie Rose's discussion on the iPhone 3G.

Item 7 on my original list was "Free incoming SMS". I am not a frequent SMS'er. I can count the number of SMS messages I sent this year on two hands. I do receive tens of SMS messages per day, most of them from webservices. When our Salesforce email-to-case daemon acts up, I get an SMS message alerting me. When I need to attend a meeting, Google Calendar sends me an SMS. When an item on my todo list is due, RememberTheMilk sends me an SMS message. Luckily I am using an inflation protected cheapo plan from AT&T Wireless (now Cingular): it includes free incoming SMS messages.

When I heard from a friend using Virgin Mobile that he had to pay for incoming SMS messages, I couldn't believe it. That had to be illegal since you can not control receiving an SMS message. Every time you received a message, even if you did not open or read it, you are charged. So you might end up with a $500 cellphone bill for something you have no control over. You gotta be kidding. Sadly, no, he wasn't. Gotcha Capitalism!

Finally somebody is taking action against such practices. His name is Marco Zaldivar. Red Tape Chonicles' Bob Sullivan discusses the case in a recent blog post, "T-Mobile Sued over 'Mandatory' Text Fees".

T-Mobile USA, Inc., a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG, lost an important ruling earlier this week when a U.S. District Court judge denied its motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a group of disgruntled T-Mobile subscribers, claiming the Bellevue-based company charges them -- and millions of T-Mobile customers -- for unsolicited text messages.

The article has a couple of great tips when it comes to handling text messages. The one about "premium text messages" caught my eye:

Even with an unlimited plan, you can still end up paying a lot for text messages – so-called “premium text messages” -- which can cost $1-$10 each. These are texts sent to or from special subscription services, like dating services. One consumer who wrote to Red Tape found himself on the long end of a $10,000 bill not long ago. Even if you use text messaging, you should consider calling your carrier and asking that premium texting be disabled.

Why would I ever want to give up my current cellphone plan? It is cheap, inflation-proof, free cellphone calls after 7PM (not after 9PM), free mobile-to-mobile and has free incoming SMS. If I ever decided to go for a data-enabled phone, I might just get a phone with only a dataplan and keep my current cellphone.

Travel tips at Dulles Airport

2008-07-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

For the third time in nearly as many weeks, I found myself in Washington Dulles Airport. This time I learned two new traveling tips:

(1) If you want to hop onto an earlier flight, make sure your luggage gets transferred to the new flight at least 2 hours prior to take off. Or if you come from abroad, make the change right after customs, right before you enter your luggage back into the hands of the airline.

(2) When Terminal C (an older United Terminal) at Dulles is stuffy and without air-conditioning (as was today), head over to Terminal B. Terminal B is a new international terminal. It was not very crowded and had some nice food options. At Dulles, it's only a 1 minute ride on those odd looking "mobile lounges". Unlike other airports where you might fear coming back via the inter-terminal transportation system can take a long time, the system at Dulles is great and fast.

From the history page of Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority page:

The concept that made the new airport outstanding and unique from the passenger's view in 1962 was the specially designed mobile lounge, used to transport the passengers between the terminal building and the aircraft parked on a jet ramp ½ mile away from the terminal. The mobile lounge was designed by the Chrysler Corporation in association with the Budd Company.

The mobile lounge was constructed as a 54-foot long, 16-foot wide, 17 1/2-foot high vehicle, and could carry 102 passengers, 71 of them seated, directly from the terminal to the aircraft on the ramp. This protected the passengers from weather, jet noise and blast, and also eliminated long walking distances. Because of the mobile lounge, passengers had to walk only 200 feet once they entered the terminal until they were seated in the lounge for the short trip directly to their aircraft.

Today, Dulles operates 19 mobile lounges and 30 plane mates, which are similar to the lounges but can transport passengers from the terminals, directly onto the airplane by attaching itself to the aircraft.

Wanted: Traffic Expert (Relocation a must)

2008-07-12T23:16:00.000-07:00

Belgium has gone mad when it comes to traffic signalization. On our recent vacation in Belgium, although I do carry a Belgian driver's license, I felt like a foreigner in my own country when it came to driving.

Several traffic signs where completely new to me.
At the entry roads to Antwerpen, I noted the following sign over and over. At first I thought something was going to fall on my car. But the red circle does not mean this is an advisory sign, rather a mandatory rule. The signs means no entry for cars who carry explosive or incendiary cargo. I didn't take it conveys the message very clearly.

The provincial recreation park, De Nekker, in Mechelen featured a funny sign: no waterpipes allowed. (Photo forthcoming).

Even since unmanned cameras were allowed by law to catch speeding, local governments have been installing these "birdnests" as my dad calls them, everywhere.

Even in the middle of the night on an empty road, you better be on the look out for them, as they never rest.

To increase the effectiveness of these cameras (read: revenue), it appears there's an active campaign to confuse drivers about the current speed limit. This is especially the case if you are not familiar with the area.

In Tremelo, in one direction you can drive 70km/hr. Make a U-turn and the speed limit is 50km/hr. It turns out the town limit with Keerbergen is in the middle of the road.
In several town centers, I noted an "end of 30km/hr" sign. The "entering 30km/hr" sign is nowhere to be seen. You are speeding by definition.
"Herhaling" means "repitition". All ofa sudden you encounter a sign "50km/hr- herhaling". Shock! Was I speeding? Where was the first sign? Nobody knows. Also known as X-signs.
As you leave a town, the typical speed limit is 70km/hr. We saw several times when a 70km/hr sign is followed withing 100 meters(!) by a 50lm/hr sign, allowing drivers to squeeze one quick burst out of the engine.
Upon entering an urban area, a white sign indicates the name of the town, as well as a little pictorial about the local abbey or church. This also means 50km/hr. Why not add a sign stating the speedlimit explicitly. It will be much easier for tourists and foreigners.
While on one hand overloading the meaning of the sign with a speedlimit, there are plenty of examples proving the Belgian maffia must own signage companies. On several roads I noted signs literally every 200 meters (with no street crossings in between). On the stretch Herselt-Aarschot, I must have counted ten 70km/hr signs every 200 meters. This little stretch is also known for extreme alzheimers.

Speed limit signs a plenty, direction signs are few. Unlike in the US, driving to and from town centers based upon signs is nearly impossible. I was looking for the note "Sponsored by Garming or TomTom" underneath the signs. Luckily I was well prepared using Google Maps.

Poorly design beltways where two lane roads are reduced to one lane traffic jams, the wild grow of speed limit signs, the lack of directions and the "birdnests", really take the fun out of driving in Belgium. It's time to get some real experts behind the wheel. Traffic experts, apply in the comments section.

Dancing

2008-06-27T01:10:00.000-07:00

Every now and then you stumble on a video on youtube which is just plain amazing. One of them is the video of Matt.

Welcome to our family time ...

2008-06-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

As my pirate of the Caribean and Princess Aurora fell asleep tonight, their dreams started to take them along the Belgian freeways to Euro Disney in the North of France. Four and half hours until they will be again in the happiest place on earth.

Several months ago, we went as a family to Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. Although I have been living in California for over ten years, I never visited the magic kingdom. I did visit Universal Studios, Magic Mountain, Great America, but I saved DisneyLand for last. I am glad I resisted the temptation and was able to see the magic through the eyes of two little kids. It was fantastic.

Two days and two nights should be sufficient. That was our original plan. Luckily we choose the 3+2 days promotion package: buy 3 days, get 2 days extra. We spent day and night in Disneyland and in California Adventure. We weren't bored a single moment.

California Adventure is a new theme park, celebrating California. It includes parts of San Francisco, parts of Napa, the orchards, the aviation history of California and much more.

The true gem is still Disneyland, the park Walt Disney envisioned after having seen little FairyLand park in Oakland. Although I knew the Disney marketing machine was everywhere, it is done so smooth and not in your face that you hardly ever notice it. This place makes you smile and happy. Is there something special in the air, I kept wondering.

The park was perfect. From the moment you get on the little trolley shuttling you to and from the parking lot, happy music is playing. People smile and greet you nicely. Everybody is nicely dressed, and not in a one-size fits all suit. Custom tailored outfits matching the ride. Every ride is nicely painted. No chips anywhere, no broken chains. Lines are ingeniously hidden away.

But most of all, rides advance smoothly. I am sure I must have waited in some lines for over an hour, but oddly it never bothered me. The first 30 minutes passed by in a rush of the last ride.

Highlights:

The evening parade as the sun went under - the smiles on the kids faces as the princesses and the characters waived at them.
The fireworks in front of the castle
Pirates of the caribean
Inside the Splash Mountain with my son
Family rollercoaster in Toon Town with my little girl
Sorin' over California
Hollywood Hotel

I can't wait to see the pictures and their faces as they tell their story of Euro Disney. (I'll let you know Kate)

Welcome to our family time
Welcome to our happy to be time
This is our festival
you know and best of all
We're here to share it all

And justice for all

2008-06-14T01:32:00.000-07:00

... rings the Metallica song. Last week, my introduction into the American justice system concluded in a conviction. Almost a year ago, my house had been broken into. The burglars had been caught red handed, at least 3 out of 4. Originally it was believed there were only 3 of them. The look-out guy (in a car) managed to escape. Luckily all items were recovered. As far as I was concerned, with exception of some damage to the fence and the inside door, the case was closed.

Not for the district attorney of course. He had a slam dunk case in front of him. Quickly two of the three burglars pleaded guilty and got a 1 year county jail sentence. Number 3 was a hard core case, a repeat offender. A trial was going to decide his fate. I was called as a witness ("Yes, that is my stuff; No, I did not give him permission to enter the house"). A trial date was set and postponed at least four times (due to unavailability of either the DA or the defense attorney). Luckily, I was allowed to be a standby witness which means that the DA will call you when you need to appear (and it is not required to be present in person every time).

Finally the trial was on. A jury was being selected. It was getting all a little close to my planned trip to Europe. I asked the DA what could be their possible defense. He explained for repeat offenders this is often the case - they want to postpone making a decision until the very end. Standing tough. The piper would play eventually: he cut his losses and agreed to a last minute plea bargain before the jury selection was completed. He will go 7 to 9 years to jail. What a fool - risking much of his life for a couple of toy walkie-talkies and my son's piggybank full of pennies.

Hi, my name is waffletchnlgy and I am an info-snacker.

2008-05-30T15:43:00.000-07:00

I always thought that Amazon's Kindle was targeting the gadget freak or the die hard reader. Why else would anybody want to buy a feature-clipped laptop? For $350 you can buy yourself a laptop which allows you to both read and surf. Better yet, get an iPhone.

After reading The digital future of books in the WSJ (May 19th), the idea is not as stupid as I thought. As Jeff Bezos mentioned:

Laptops, BlackBerrys and mobile phones have "shifted us more toward information snacking, and I would argue toward shorter attention spans." He hopes that "Kindle and its successors may gradually and incrementally move us over years into a world with longer spans of attention, providing a counterbalance to the recent proliferation of info-snacking tools."

I also was surprised by the average time people spend reading.

A recent National Endowment for the Arts report, "To Read or Not to Read," found that 15- to 24-year-olds spend an average of seven minutes reading on weekdays; people between 35 and 44 spend 12 minutes; and people 65 and older spend close to an hour.

I am officially old now.

Gmail spellchecker

2008-05-26T10:26:00.000-07:00

Gmail's spellchecker isn't working right. Since I write a fair amount of emails in Dutch, I set the spellchecker to 'Nederlands'. However it isn't working as expected. Common Dutch words are flagged as incorrect. Some suggestions are actually in English.

Request for Enhancement: It would be useful if one could specify the preferred language of the recipient in the Contacts section. One wouldn't need to set the spellchecker language manually for every email. Or better even, perhaps the Googlebot could deduce than language from previously written emails.

Gotcha capitalism

2008-05-24T21:19:00.000-07:00

Last year, I read John Bogle's little book of common sense investing, and learned how the little investment fees in the end can cost your dearly.

Tonight I started reading Gotcha capitalism by Bob Sullivan. The book is about how companies add hidden fees everywhere. No surprise there. I fall into the category of people who reviews every bill thoroughly. I fight back and don't mind going through several layers of phone support to get my money back. Example:

A few years ago, I received a $400+ cellphone bill. Ouch. My regular monthly bill is $75 for our family. As it turned out, they had dropped the free in network calling from my plan, several months before but only now did I reach the minutes limit. I was now billed for calling all our friends using the same cellphone provider. But worse, every call with my wife was rung up twice: once for me and once for my wife. Early calls to AT&T wireless were met with "Nothing we can do". It then changed to "Let's split it in half". That's when I realized there was more to fight for. It was just the right catalyst to start a spreadsheet. I took every phone number from the bill and figured out whether he/she belonged to AT&T wireless. With details in hand, resistance was futile (I can boast now). At the end the monthly bill was lower than regular. But it took some stubbornness.

Knowing there is a chance to beat the system, I am typically looking forward to the fight. This book appears to be written for me. In the first chapter of the book the author brings up how the real cost of a printer is difficult to estimate. Well, I am part of the few who attempted it. When purchasing a printer, I consider both the acquisition cost, the cost of a ink cartridge and the amount of pages I print per month.

One thing is clear early in the book: as a consumer in America, you are often alone. The influence and power of Federal Trace Commission (FTC) has been clipped. Worse, companies have been allowed to create one-sided contracts just by mailing you a letter. As such many companies made you to silently agree to mandatory arbitration and avoid the court system.

Where all the missing Lego pieces meet

2008-05-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

Last night we watched Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull (tickets courtesy of large internet company - thank you). The movie was entertaining and fun. Nothing to earth shattering, although coincidently I have been watching some documentaries about the Manhattan Project. Written by George Lucas, the end isn't very surprising.

And then I came across this great Indy-based video.

Dear old powerbook

2008-04-15T15:28:00.001-07:00

In 2003 I purchased a new 15 inch 1GHz Titanium Power G4 Apple Powerbook. I bought it the day after the new 12" and 17" aluminum PowerBooks were announced at MacWorld. It has been a great laptop, although I had to replace some components while under warranty.

Like many, I've been ogling the new MacBook Air. How can you escape the commercials and that great catchy tune by Yael Naim? However I decided, it is not a laptop for me: it's a bit pricey.

Figuring that Apple will probably do an update before the September school year start, I decided to consult AppleInsider and MacRumors on the rumor mill: when are the new laptops coming? June?

That's when I came across this nice chart of the different Powerbook models over the years. The Titanium powerbook is the second generation.

(Picture: Apple Insider)

Dear old powerbook, please stay a little longer. A least until the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros are around.

The kids of today

2008-04-13T09:52:00.001-07:00

I discovered a box set of 3 DVDs with old school Sesame Street episodes at the library (review). These are the episodes I grew up on, with the same silly cartoons I remember.
The episodes are prefaced with an interesting disclaimer:

The early episodes are intended for grown ups and might not suit the needs of today's preschool children.

What?? I am not alone in my reaction to the Sesame Street disclaimer (Blogosphere). Virginia Hefferman in the NY Times summarizes it sarcastically: it is "certainly not for softies born since 1998, when the chipper ‘Elmo’s World’ started.”

Perhaps the kids of today might be missing contemporary geography or ultimate fighting exercises.

My kids have been enjoying Old School Sesame Street. Similarly, my son loves the old Popeye episodes (YouTube). They are definitely a lot little less PC as the children's programs of today. But if anything the Popeye episodes teach one to take things with a spoon of salt.

muxtape

2008-04-08T19:47:00.001-07:00

Yet another music streaming site? That was my first reaction when I read on Jacob Lodwick's blog about Muxtape, a website for creating and sharing mixtapes. The site is stupidly simple - I love it! Muxtape allows you to make your own digital mixtape (with its very own URL to share with anyone you want). You can create your 12 song “mixtape” by simply uploading any of your MP3s. Unfortunately most of my music is in Apple's Advanced Audio Coding format, so I'll have to do one extra step to convert to mp3. The songs can then be streamed by anyone visiting your muxtape site.

I've been taking a break from Pandora and have been exploring great artists and music I've never heard of. A couple of my favorite muxtapes:

There is of course the sixty-four thousand dollar question: is muxtape legal? (legal issues of mixtapes) It must be billing time for the lawyers for the record industry.

Classics

2008-03-30T08:28:00.001-07:00

Cycling is the second most important sport in Belgium. This time of the year, various one day races captivate the country in front of their television, often twice a week. They are known as "the classics". Many of the spring one day races happen in Belgium: take a look at the calendar of one day races. Among them Gent-Wevelgem, Brabantse Pijl, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Waalse Pijl Liege-Bastogne-Liege and others.

My top three classic races are: (1) Ronde van Vlaanderen - tour of Flanders (rvv.be) (2) Paris - Roubaix and (3) Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

Naturally I try to follow the races on the internet. There are various ways to follow the races. Cycling.tv provides a subscription video feed. Sporza Radio broadcasts the races live. (Sporza, part of VRT, is the sport channel of the publicly funded national Belgian broadcasting station in Flemish). Unfortunately, the Sporza video stream is only if you live in Belgium, as the contracts with the race organizers prohibit broadcast to other countries.

Voor wie niet in België woont...
De livestreaming van sporza.be is in het buitenland niet te bekijken, omdat er rechten op de beelden rusten. De eigenaars van de contracten (de organisatoren van de evenementen) zeggen uitdrukkelijk dat de beelden alleen op het Belgische grondgebied te bekijken mogen zijn

Anonymous internet proxies to the rescue! With any luck I will be able to follow the Ronde van Vlaanderen with the help of an anonymous internet proxy in Belgium (e.g. from aliveProxy). If you know any good ones, let me know.

IM client galore

2008-03-25T21:11:00.001-07:00

Since a few days I switched at work from Pidgin to Trillian instant messenger client.

We use Yahoo Instant Messenger as the company standard. I do not like the YIM client because too much real estate is spent on commercials and useless buttons. To consolidate various clients, I had switched to Pidgin. I still run Google Talk and Skype because unifying instant messenger clients do not handle voice and video well. Here's a couple of reasons why I liked Pidgin and have become a big fan of Trillian.

Both clients support various instant messenger protocols: Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, Jabber (although Trillian requires you to buy the pro version).
Tab windows. At any moment, I have multiple chat sessions open. I do not like to have four or five windows on my desktop. (For the same reasons Firefox tab browsing is key feature of a browser.)
Both clients support various skins. Trillian is a windows application and looks a little smoother. I use the minimal GuiStyle Skin.
Although Pidgin supports also IRC, I never installed the plugin. Trillian IRC support is great. I have several IRC channels running from the rhel, linuxnewbies IRC channels to the Netbeans IRC. The good old protocol (anno 1988) is the perfect group chat protocol. I don't know why we don't use it internally. (It could replace many quickly evolving email threads.)
Support from Google Desktop to index my chat logs.

Give Trillian a try. (On Mac, check out Adium)

UPDATE: 04/02/2008 - LifeHacker Five Best Instant Messengers has high praise for Digsby

Fubar or foobar

2008-03-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched a great documentary about the war on narcotics in Miami during the 1980s: Cocaine Cowboys. It is the story behind Scarface and the Mariel boatlift. It is also the background for Miami Vice. Coincidently, the music for the documentary was composed by the same composer of the Miami Vice Theme: Jan Hammer. Ever since arriving to the US, my first name has been difficult to pronounce: Jan. More often it is also mistaken for a woman's name -I have gotten samples for female products in the mail-. In my first weeks in the US, I tried various ways, including almost changing my email alias to 'ian', as it was phonetically closer to my name. Then, Jan Hammer came to my rescue. People knew how to pronounce his name, and knew he was a male.

The documentary taught me a new phrase: fubar. Over and over it was mentioned. Being an engineer, I immediately thought of foobar, a common place holder name in programming. It didn't make any sense in the movie. During Frontline tonight, the term fubar came up again. Now I was really intrigued. I had to look it up: fubar - fucked up beyond all recognition/repair.

RFC3092 - Etymology of Foo

Amazon fulfillment

2008-03-20T20:21:00.001-07:00

As my son is hard at work building his new Lego Beach House, I had some time to look into how the box arrived at our doorstep.

I bought the item on Ebay in new and sealed condition. There was something odd about the shipping: (1) It arrived super fast: 2 days after purchasing. (2) It was shipped in an Amazon box and by Amazon. The Amazon labeled stated: ship to me; shipping is billed to the Ebay seller. That looked odd.

Was the seller just a front for Amazon? Nope, as the billing address was a private party in New York.

Was the eBay seller buying his items on Amazon? Doubtful, since the items is purchased on auction, there is no guarantee of making money if he has to buy it full price on Amazon. Let's run down the numbers:

Lego store cost: $30
Amazon store cost: $25 + shipping ($9.99 for comparable 2 day shipping) = $34.99
Final bid price: $16.75 + $8.99 (shipping) = $25.74

Yesterday I read a blog post (Techcrunch: Amazon takes the humans out of fulfillment) on the missing puzzle piece: Amazon Fulfillment. In simple terms: Amazon becomes your personal climate controlled warehouse, while providing you with software hooks to ship and track your shipments. You would think this was the turf of Fedex or UPS.

Such services do not come free. Is my Ebay seller making any money?

First, let's look at the Amazon Fulfillment Pricing.

Storage: $0.45 (assuming it was only stored for one month)
Order Handling: $1.00
Pick and Pack: $0.75
Weight Hanlding: $0.88 (2.2 pounds)
Total shipping to customer: $3.08

Secondly, It is unknown how much the seller sold to ship it his items to Amazon. Let's assume he is charged $2 per item.

Total shipping costs: $5.08 (Note he charged $8.99 on Ebay. Amazon Fulfillment definitely appears cost effective for my seller.)

Finally, I estimate the New York Sales tax (4%) : $1.

Since this was a new item, my Ebay seller must have purchased the item gross for no more than $19.50 to make any money. This is probably a close call. Lego profit margins are just north of 30%. So for a $30 item, the whole sale price must be around $17-$18. Just a guess. He must be selling a whole lot of Lego sets to make a living.

From the looks of it, Amazon Fulfillment API will make it easier and faster for Ebay powersellers to increase volume, while lowering shipping rates. Definitely, a missed opportunity for UPS, Fedex or UPS.

Spring tomatoes

2008-03-20T19:46:00.001-07:00

As fall arrived near the end of September, a new crop of tomatoes start growing in our garden. The tomato plants on the side of the house are in shock throughout the hot summer days. During the Indian summer in October, these plants start bearing new fruits. Some plants will last through the winter. Tonight, on the first evening of spring, we ate two delicious tomatoes which my daughter harvested in the garden. And there are more to come.

Unfortunately, fall also meant that our garden would be overrun again by clover. In the next weeks I'll start the yearly spring clover clean up. There's lots of clover. And none of that lucky clover. I wish.

Anyone know a non-toxic approach to getting rid of clover?

The unfriendly shopping cart

2008-03-09T19:09:00.001-07:00

R99: "Ranch 99 customer service."
Me: "Hi, I am calling because one of your shopping carts is parked in front of my house." (I live about 1 mile from the nearest Ranch 99)
R99: "My driver will pick it up." Click

Click? Did she hang up on me?

R99: "Ranch 99 customer service."
Me: "Hi, I just spoke with you about the shopping cart. I did not tell you the name of my street yet."
R99: "We check every street." Click.

Click again? Wow. Why would one want to shop at such a friendly store? It also tells you something about how its customers use the shopping carts as personal dollies to their houses.

New rule: if you find a shopping cart outside of the parking lot of the supermarket, you get to fill it up for free at that supermarket.

A perfect match (Man zkt vrouw)

2008-03-01T09:42:00.000-08:00

The Belgian movie, Man zkt vrouw, (the English title is A Perfect Match) (wikipedia), made its North American premiere as part of the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose on Friday Feb 29. The film is directed by Miel van Hoogenbemt and was written by Pierre De Clercq and Jean-Claude Van Rijckeghem.

Man zoekt vrouw - De trailer

I met up with Miel and Pierre at the Paragon Bar in San Jose, prior to the movie. They had arrived the night before and were still jetlagged. Although both are experienced film makers (IMDB: Pierre De Clercq, Miel van Hoogenbemt), they appeared a little anxious about what was to come. How would America like the movie? What would the audience ask during the Q&A section at the end of the movie?

The movie is a romantic comedy and stars famous Belgian actors. It is located in Ghent, Belgium.

On the day of his forced retirement, a school principal (Jan Decleir) decides to look for a wife on the Internet. It's not love he is after, but merely companionship. He meets a lot of women but can't seem to make up his mind. Until his new housekeeper (Maria Popistasu) arrives: she is almost forty years younger than him and a total disaster at housekeeping. For the first time in what seems a lifetime, he falls totally and desperately in love.

The movie is very well done, with witty comments. The plot is simple - it doesn't try to weave a complex story -. Yet, they story leaves enough unanswered which makes you wonder what will happen past the end of the movie.

Also the cinequest visitors appeared to like the movie. Throughout the movie, you could hear the entire audience crack up. And during the Q&A section, many had compliments and questions about the movie: about the languages, the location, the music, the actors and about the plot, (I won't list the questions not to give a way the plot.) As for the music, it was created by Spinvis. From the Man zkt vrouw blog:

Het was Wim Opbrouck die ons nog tijdens de opnamen de Nederlandse componist aanraadde. “Ga bij Spinvis.in Holland,” fluisterde hij ons toe, “die gast maakt geweldige muziek. We hebben wat van zijn materiaal gebruikt voor De Bende van Wim.” Wij dus naar Utrecht waar we aan Spinvis (het alter ego van de zeer aimabele muzikant Erik de Jong) onze film toonden en hij was meteen dol enthousiast om er de muziek voor te schrijven. Bedankt voor de tip, Wim!

Prior to the movie, Pierre had worried how our group of Belgians would receive the movie. Would we still be proud of Belgian cinema? We were! We stuck around until the end and I was happy the film was a success.

Official website Man Zkt Vrouw
Review: European-films.net
Review: 9Lives
(Dutch)
Review: Humo (Dutch)

Kooza

2008-02-10T22:42:00.000-08:00

During a busy week at work, we found time for a drink with our team and a spectacular show: Cirque du Soleil, Kooza. This is my third Cirque du Soleil show. The first was Quidam.

I used to work at Cirque du Soleil in San Jose. As part of a group of local volunteers, we would man the front tent: tickets, drinks and gifts. In return we hung around the circus and were treated with a free performance.

It is always an incredible show. Kooza tells the story of The Innocent, a melancholy loner in search of his place in the world.

The most incredible part of the show is the Wheel of Death.

KOOZA's 1,600-pound Wheel of Death rotates at heart-stopping speeds, powered only by the two artists who leap and counter-rotate in a death-defying display of fearless acrobatics and astonishing teamwork. Like the Highwire, the Wheel of Death is positioned diagonally stage left to stage right in order to break with the usual symmetry and bring the action as close as possible to the audience.

3.1

2008-02-04T23:22:00.001-08:00

Monday, Feb 04, 2008, it's the night before Super Tuesday. It is not only politics which are about to rumble. I am still awaken as little jolts shake the house. The epicenter is each time about 10km from my house.

10:39:13pm: 3.0 earthquake
11:16:18pm: 3.1 earthquake

Our emergency backpacks are ready. I brought the kids in my bed. (Coincidently, I purchased earthquake insurance last week.)

Microsoft can be cool too

2008-01-31T08:51:00.000-08:00

I had been impressed by the multitouch interface presented by Jeff Hahn at TED. Some of it can be found in the iPhone. Although this time Apple had been upstaged in adopting cool technology by Microsoft when they announced the Microsoft Surface. Was the Microsoft copy-machine doing overtime?

Although big dollar amounts are sunk into Microsoft R&D, they are not know for cool new technology. Microsoft is not revolutionary. Until I saw the following presentation at TED by Blaise Aguera y Arcas about PhotoSynth. Wow! WOW!

Similar to the purchase of Keyhole by Google, Microsoft Mergers and Acquisitions deserves part of the applause. In 2006, "Microsoft Live Labs recently acquired Seattle-based Seadragon Inc."

Seadragon has 10 employees and was founded in Princeton, N.J., in 2003 by Blaise Agüera y Arcas, then a graduate student at Princeton University. He moved the company to Seattle's Ballard neighborhood in January 2004 after his wife, a computational neuroscientist, received a faculty appointment at the University of Washington.

Unfortunately some of the marketing slant for PhotoSynth is "cool new tourism app". Oh nooo, don't call it that. Just think about the possibilities of a Flickr + Google Earth + Photosynth webapp. Droooool. Where's DARPA when you need it to sponsor something like that.

Microsoft Live Labs - PhotoSynth

Oh - Oprah!

2008-01-29T22:20:00.000-08:00

I thought I had found the perfect gift for my wife's birthday: a purse organizer, $19.99 at the Container Store. Almost every day, my wife switches purses. Not that she has many purses, but as every man learns eventually, a purse needs to match the shoes. And every time, migrating the birds and other items in the magic purse, is a big thing. Hence, a purse organizer to the rescue.

However, the container store was sold out! "No more Oprah-thingies" was the answer. What? Indeed, the purse organizer had been featured on Oprah and in the O-magazine.

If you're constantly searching inside your purse for keys, credit cards or your favorite lipstick, Kip and Garrett have a solution for you. The Container Store's Purse Organizer fits inside large bags and features multiple pockets for your necessities.

"I wish I'd seen this in the store the other day," Oprah says. "I would have gotten it because you know our pocketbooks have gotten so big. I love a big pocketbook … but sometimes what happens is all your stuff, I mean, it has its own life down in there!"

What Slashdot is to geeky websites, or TechCrunch to startups, Oprah is to gadgets. If the purse organizer is any indication of the Oprah-effect, Obama will be the next Democratic president. Viva Oprah!

Waterzooi with Geuze

2008-01-20T21:03:00.000-08:00

La Trappe is a new Belgian restaurant in San Francisco, on the corner of Greenwich and Columbus. The food menu includes rabbit stew with prunes, mussels and fries and chicken waterzooi. It is however the beer list which is the most impressive. Thirteen trappist beers (although West-Vleteren is not on the list), Lambic beers (geuze - my favorite-, framboise, kriek, peach), abbey beers, probably close to 80 beers.

My dad pointed out that the name of the of the "Belgian" restaurant was rather peculiar. La Trappe is the name of a trappist monestary in France, although its beer is the only trappist beer brewed in Holland. So I had to find out and went for a tasting tonight. The food and beer were excellent. And indeed, as I suspected, although the menu was Belgian, the owner was not. Michael Azzalini is Italian, who apparently lived in Belgium for a while.

Another "Belgian" eatery in San Francisco, FrjtzFries, is owned by a Colombian, who used to live in Antwerp. And Monk's Kettle in the Mission is owned by two Americans. (Three Belgian bars in the San Francisco Bay Area)

Belgians might have good cooks, brewers or monks, but it lacks more international restaurateurs.

I am sick!

2008-01-17T22:42:00.000-08:00

Finally, after weeks of waiting, the latest documentary of Michael Moore arrived from Netflix: SiCKO!

I had to stop watching yesterday, out of disgust. The movie made me angry. Tonight, I picked up where I left of and finished the movie.

Sure it is Michael Moore and some parts are dramatized. However, you can not ignore the injustice of the US health care system.

The most important part of the movie was not about how great it is in France, England or Norway. It is the section of the British former member of parliament on democracy. Health care is great in countries where the government is afraid of the plebs. I wonder how many of the people mentioned in the movie actually voted. That's what it boils down to. If you want a better health care system, vote! (Oh, here is a guide: 2008 presidential candidates on health care issues)

(Just in case you wonder. I do not vote in the US. I can not vote in the US.)

There's something in the air.

2008-01-13T19:23:00.000-08:00

"There's something in the air" is the new banner for this year's MacWorld, starting next week at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. I just hope MacWorld is going to be boring.

Do launch a video downloads. Or a new TV center. I do not care much for video. My television is an old analog TV, connected to bunny ears. I watch movies using Netflix (and starting tomorrow will also be able to watch unlimited Netflix streaming.)

Do update the iPhone to a faster 3G data network. But I put that in the boring category. And it will not make me an iPhone owner yet.

A sub-compact notebook could be interesting. But I fear it will not be cheap. I suspect it will also introduce a number of new technological wonders. Conventional wisdom advises not to buy first generation new technology. So I would have to wait.

My specifications for a new laptop are light, small (12 or 13 inch) screen, wireless and cellular data communication and with a huge battery life. The DVD player can be external in a base station. A Lenovo X61 does fit these requirements and has been a consideration. Running Linux that is. But it would be second choice to a MacBook or a new small Mac sub-compact notebook. So make my life easy, just update the MacBook with a faster processor. Do not make me wait for the second generation of a cool sub-compact notebook.

Just be a little boring this time. Or bring me the best birthday present.

Update: the keynote in sixty seconds

Mavericks

2008-01-13T10:40:00.000-08:00

(Photo: Hunter Block)

Hawaii is often the first name that comes to mind when thinking about surfing. Californians will disagree. The long California coastline hosts many fantastic surfing spots. This even led to a small brawl about the name Surf City USA between Santa Cruz in Northern California or Huntington Beach in Southern California.

One thing many surfers will agree on: there is no place for big wave surfing as Mavericks (wikipedia), located approximately one-half mile (0.8 km) from shore in Pillar Point Harbor, just north of Half Moon Bay at the village of Princeton-By-The-Sea. Big wave surfing requires waves of at least 20 feet (6.2 m) high. It is a specialty requiring specific surfboards, and often requires riders to be towed in by jet-skis, as the wave travels faster than any human can peddle. Of the big wave surfing spots Mavericks is considered by most experts in the surfing world to be the most dangerous big wave breaks wave on the planet.

Every year, with 24 hours notice, 24 surfers get the call to participate in the Mavericks "Men who ride Mountains" surf contest. Last Saturday, January 12th 2008, the contest was held during a sunny winter day. Although we've been at Pillar point watching Mavericks before, we didn't drive over the mountain this year to watch the contest. Greg Long won the contest this year.

(Video of the 2006 Mavericks Surf Contest)

Hackers in the sky

2008-01-11T16:44:00.000-08:00

In my job, I learn a lot about how data communication is used on-board airplanes and ships. In a weekly AIAA newsletter, I picked up the story about the network on-board the Boeing 787.

In continuing coverage from yesterday's briefing, the AP (1/10, Gillespie) reports that Boeing "will have to prove that offering Internet access in the cabin" of its 787 Dreamliner "won't leave the flight controls vulnerable to hackers and hijackers." This stems from a "special condition" made by the FAA "requiring Boeing to show" that the Dreamliner's "new technology won't pose a safety threat." A BT Counterpane security services officer says that "[t]he odds of" Boeing's security measures "being perfect are zero," as no one has ever designed a completely secure Internet connection. Also, rival Airbus has argued that Boeing should "physically separate the passenger information and entertainment systems from all other systems on the plane." But the FAA "has been working closely with Boeing and is pleased so far," and Boeing also points out that the Dreamliner's "aviation electronics 'are not connected in any way to the Internet.'" The AP notes that "[s]pecial conditions are a normal part of the regulatory process" for aircraft certification."

This was also covered in an article in Wired magazine 'FAA: Boeing's New 787 May Be Vulnerable to Hacker Attack '. It smells like a bad idea to have passenger and entertainment networks connected with other networks on-board and have them only separated by a firewall. Firewalls are not what dragons used to be at the entrance of a castle. Sure, ARINC 664 specification defines a networking standard for the aviation industry. I am far more suspicious of the implementation of such standard.

Will we soon have to leave our laptops with our pocket knives? What's the point of adding internet in the sky then?

flanders.california.usa

Pescadero, CA

On outliners

Safari West

Planning a trip to Marin County

Cycling 2011 in review

Tapas

California and bust

Impressions from visiting LSU

A visit to the Norton Winery in Mendoza, Argentina

Hold for release - do not publish - yet.

Google plus hangout is like meeting in a pub. Although serve yourself.

A view of the Golden Gate Bridge from Coit Tower

Millimeters

De Ronde

When buying a car

Counting Down

De zes koersen van Flanders Classics:

173K

Impressions from Belgium

Summer project - the deck

Worldcup summarized

The case against basketball

No Treasure

Count down to April 4th

Ambient light

Fixed Gear

By bicycle through the wineries of Mendoza, Argentina

Asado Argentino

Senatorial Failure

When #fail no longer matters

United Check-in Fail

This American Life*

Phoning home while on travel through Argentina

Getting around Buenos Aires and beyond

Types of cars in Argentina

Casa de Cambio – bring your Albanian gorilla

What do they eat on Friday?

Summer project

Le Tour est arrivé

ODB-II

Slax

Gmail tasks' missing features

Academy of Sciences

Summer visit to Gold Country

Oh darn Twitter (2)

When visiting Belgium

On Keyboards

oh darn Twitter

Going Native Garden Tour

Crafting your resume

Ronde Van Vlaanderen

In Stewart we Trust

Why I shop where I shop

Android Exchange support

Android

Gold country

Rocking chairs in Charleston

What I did last summer

Car trouble

Wallstreet

Wild California

Thanksgiving feast

The results

Copy Cat

Tweet

Pick up the phone!

Phone spam?

Something smelly in the air

A festival without a theme

We are a Costco Nation

On credit reporting companies

Vote for Marco Zaldivar!

Travel tips at Dulles Airport

Wanted: Traffic Expert (Relocation a must)

Dancing

Welcome to our family time ...

And justice for all

Hi, my name is waffletchnlgy and I am an info-snacker.

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