Month: September 2005

what the hell happened to Orkut?

It has become the best Portuguese language social networking service on the internet.

As someone who used to work on virtual worlds software, I’ve followed the internet communities sites with some interest. It has been interesting to see each new one emerge become the leader and then recede as another site takes it place. There was friendster then orkut now myspace. I just visited orkut again for the first time in many months to see many of the communities abandoned, without a post in the last 6 or 8 months. The only recent posts seem to be in Portuguese. Even in the Seattle group, there are events for Sao Paulo listed! The Brazilians have overrun every forum and group and claimed it as their own. I wonder if Google is planning to do anything about it, because otherwise, it is certain that Orkut will continue to decline until it isn’t worth the support costs.

Old School DVD burning

Nothing like burning bad after bad disc when the discs are pricey

Switching to burning DVD+R DLs for backup has brought me back to the old days when CD-Rs cost $8 and it could take a couple duds to get a good one.

I’ve been using the Lacie Dual Layer DVD burner with Toast 6 Titanium OS X 10.3.9 and Memorex DVD+R DL discs and an external firewire drive. I had pretty good success at first, but now I’ve just burned 4 duds in a row (two getting errors during writing the lead-out and two hanging the writing right in the middle).

It is amazing how cavalier I’d gotten about burning DVDs, having a 99% success rate had just become the usual. Compound this with the fact that DVD-Rs are now down to under a dollar each in bulk while Dual Layer discs are still up around $4 each.

I’m not sure if this is a firewire issue, a media issue or a software issue. Just like the good ol’ days.

Yay Frank Rich!

Frank Rich’s op-ed piece “Falluja Floods the Superdome” in yesterday’s New York Times is spot-on

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04rich.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th

Maureen Dowd’s Op-ed “United States Of Shame” in Friday’s New York Times had this little gem:

Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.

Bob Herbert is pissed off, closer to the way I feel. His op-ed today had this excellent sentiment:

Mr. Bush flew south on Friday and proved (as if more proof were needed) that he didn’t get it. Instead of urgently focusing on the people who were stranded, hungry, sick and dying, he engaged in small talk, reminiscing at one point about the days when he used to party in New Orleans, and mentioning that Trent Lott had lost one of his houses but that it would be replaced with “a fantastic house – and I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.

Dear Bumbershoot…

I don’t like you anymore

I haven’t been to a Bumbershoot in the last 6 years, mostly because we’re usually out of town on labor day weekend, but this year we were in town and so we decided to check it out. We had a couple things that we were interested in seeing and we had a short walk to get there. Perfect! We arrive and then we notice the prices $28/adult! That might be ok if Bumbershoot is your only source of culture ’cause you are under 21 or live in the stix or Idaho or something, but 70% of the bands playing at Bumbershoot play a couple times a month in more intimate venues for $5 and the other 30% are pretty much in the washed-up-has-beens or the I’d-like-to-see-but-not-in-a-stadium kind of acts. Or even if there were more acts I really wanted to see, I’m not sure how excited I’d be to wait an hour in the sun surrounded by 16 years olds from Enumclaw in order to see them.

Sorry Bumbershoot, its not you, it’s me. We’ve grown apart and I just don’t like hanging around you anymore.

Marjorie

a disappointment for the price

I can’t remember what the previous name of this restaurant was, but I do remember that the food and atmosphere were good. The atmosphere is still good, the charming outdoor patio, the dark interior. The service was mostly good, once the place got a little crowded, our waitress forgot we existed and we sat at a table with our finished meal for 20 minutes before we gave up and stood up so that we could get our check. The food itself was a disappointment, but only because of the prices. For $35+/person, you expect a reasonable level of cuisine that was missing here. The pizza was unfavorably compared to american cheese baked on a saltine. My Canneloni with pork was unimpressive.

For the money, there are many better choices within a block or two…