Sometimes it good to go through a day with caffeine, which for me, means not drinking my favorite darjeeling tea. Today, I found Rooibos tea to be a welcome substitute.
Iris Chang’s legacy lives on
After Iris Chang's shocking suicide last year, I'm glad to see that her last book is being read today.
A Flickr gathering in SF last night
Laura and I attended the Flickr demo @ the San Francisco Apple Store last night. As often happens, intense interaction online leads to a desire to get together in the same room. I was very curious to see who would be folks like us who would take the time and effort to see with our eyes not only the staff of Flickr but also our fellow Flickrites. Laura and I didn't want to rush to make the 6pm start time. Neither did we stay on for drinks at 111 Minna.
Below is my sparse collection of pictures of the event. Because my own pocket 5MP Pentax is at the shop right now, I was largely abstaining from what was predictably the most commonly engaged activity in the room: snapping photos of the event. When I did have the urge, I was left taking low resolution, badly lit cameraphone pictures:
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A note on tagging pictures for the event. Since I hadn't seen any requests to tag photos of the event in a certain manner along with the announcement of the event, I was wondering how to tag my pictures. By consulting the list of hot tags from the last 24 hours, I figured that 'sflickr' must be the tag folks have been using. By looking at Flickr: Photos tagged with sflickr, I learned that sflickr has been used to tag pictures associated with the San Francisco Flickr User Group, which has been having meetings, including an upcoming one Upcoming.org tomorrow. Because the sflickr tag is generic (see clusters of photos marked by 'sflickr'), I wanted a way to mark photos from just last night. Upon a cursory search, I didn't see anyone tagging pictures from last night in a way to distinguish them from other meetups, I decided to use sflickr20050802 as a way of doing so.
rain, red, shadow
This afternoon, I was uploading old pictures from January to start rounding out my Flickr collection (which I want to represent all the pictures I've ever taken.) This one caught my eye; it was from a rainy January 26, 2005.
Phillip Johnson and intelligent design profiled in the East Bay Express
Phillip Johnson and intelligent design profiled in the East Bay Express
Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.
I saw the cover of the July 27, 2005 issue of the East Bay Express this morning. Phillip Johnson, known widely as the the father of the "intelligent design movement", is featured in the issue. I actually know Phil as a fellow elder at my own congregation, someone I see every Sunday morning.
What I actually think about ID is a topic for an essay some other day!
Engagement glow!
It's rather gratifying to see how much Laura and I were glowing in March, just after buying an engagement ring! We're still super-happy today, 2-1/2 months after the wedding! (Thanks to Holly, my mother-in-law for this great picture.)
To be funny and fair
About a week ago, I listened to the amazingly funny clip from Jon Stewart about Karl Rove and Valerie Plame. I don't know whether the clip is factually accurate -- but it sure made me laugh. I'm tempted to think now that in political discourse, it may be as important to be funny and entertaining as it is to be logically exacting and scrupulously fair. Oh to be funny and fair!
SF Chronicle headline on “Spare the Air” day
It was nice not to have to pay for the ride in on BART in my first "Spare the Air" Day. See Bay Area gets a free ride / Spare the Air Day incentive to get people out of cars to reduce pollution for more information.
Are these “real women”?
I saw this display all over the Powell Street BART station. It's hardly news that Dove would use scantily clad women to advertise its products. What I find more surprising is that these women are held to be exemplars of "real women" (as opposed to supermodels). OK, they aren't skin-on-bones type supermodels, but I would hardly think of these bodies as those of the typical consumer of Dove producs.
See for yourself. Dove:
Firming the thighs of a size 2 supermodel is no challenge. Real Women have real bodies with real curves. And Dove wants to celebrate those curves.
Join these six real women who were asked to be in our ad campaign for NEW Dove® Firming. Get to know more about them and their experiences with the campaign. Help by telling more women to stand tall and celebrate their curves.
Freakonomics sounds like an interesting read
Freakonomics is an extremly popular book at the moment. Has any of my readers read it yet? I have a hold on the book at the Berkeley Public Library, but there are 82 people ahead of me when I put the hold!