Thoughts on technology, Ann Arbor, and whatever else.
I found two caterpillars on a single milkweed, and fearing for the low northern Michigan temperatures, brought them inside. They’ve escaped a few times since, and to make sure they don’t try that again, I’ve set up 24-hour monitoring.
Ann Arbor exhales as U-Haul trucks and packed SUVs jump curbs out of town. The students who make up a quarter of the city’s population leave town for the summer. Just when restaurants begin opening up patios, they find their...
I recently put together an interactive choropleth of Michigan using American Community Survey (ACS) data from the U.S. Census. It looks like this (click on it or here for the actual interactive version):
In the upper-left corner of the contiguous United States, beaches are carved out by the relentless tide. One such beach, Shi Shi, is located in the Olympic Wilderness. However, it takes a few more permits than the typical trip to uninhabited...
As I craned my neck to balance out the pain from sleeping on a couch in my friend’s studio, I squinted at subject of the latest email in my inbox: “Leftover Swap (SF Weekly).” Thinking I misread something with my...
A bit of a niche subject here. If you use Scribus, the open source publishing software, and you export your document to a PDF, chances are the PDF might be a gazillion megabytes. Now, this might not matter to you,...
Inspired by the success of the Hungover Owls tumblr, I had to make my own. Inspired by a gchat conversation among friends, I found the perfect idea: First Grade Recipes.
Another pattern from Christopher Alexander that stubbed toes and those hurt by sharp bed frame corners can agree with is the bed alcove. He starts this pattern with this basic statement: Bedrooms make no sense.
Another pattern from Christopher Alexander’s “A Pattern Language” is the four-story limit: In any urban area, no matter how dense, keep the majority of buildings four stories high or less. It is possible that certain buildings should exceed this limit,...
Many cast marketing as a manipulative industry that distorts our beliefs into craving another taquito or plastic injection-molded toy to fill the voids of our stomachs and closets. Even if we see marketing that espouses the concept of an energy-efficient,...
The NYTimes story of Adbusters’ Kalle Lasn didn’t do him much of a service. This is the first time I’ve read about him, and a longer explanation of Adbusters, but it seems the organization is a bit too wacky to...
Imagine living in a city, with all the amenities like late night tacos, early morning cafes, and nearby schools. Imagine living in the country, with gorgeous wide open fields and quiet solitude. Jam ‘em together, what do you get? City...
I’m finishing up Christopher Alexander’s The Timeless Way of Building. It’s about Alexander’s theory of a “pattern language,” and the “quality without a name.” It’s very much over my head, and reminds me of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle...
Craigslist has solved so many problems for me. Combined with some Chrome extensions to automatically preview posts, it’s the easiest way to find or get rid of things. A few stories that exemplify why I love it are below:
I just read Steve Jobs’ biography by Walter Isaacson. This is after recently converting from an Android phone to an iPhone, and realizing that Apple products are just so gosh darn nice to use. The book itself gets a little...
Picture this: You get off the plane at Detroit-Metro, get picked up by a driver, then dropped off in what appears to be an abandoned industrial park. The driver gives you a paintball gun with 5 paintballs, then drives off. ...
Which would you rather do: pay $50 to overnight a package somewhere, or meet someone headed to that city who could drop off the package for you? Well, one costs $50 and the other gives you the opportunity to make...
The first book I’m reading is Setting the Table. Danny Meyer writes like he runs his restaurants, focusing on warmth to the customer. And the guy knows how to run restaurants, as he has opened several in New York and...
You know what’s missing on (most) business cards? Pictures of the person. How are you supposed to link the name and face? And let’s say you have a bunch of applicants for a job you are filling, do you want...
How many times do you actually need a plastic or paper bag when buying something? Take for example, a sub from Subway or hamburger from Wendy’s. Or, when you are just buying some cheese from the grocery store. Or, one...
Or, just going to Mali in late January. To do some of my own D.I.Y. Foreign Aid, but not too much.
I just read Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo, who is originally from Zambia, worked for Goldman Sachs for awhile, and went to Harvard and Oxford. Moyo discusses that why there hasn’t been vast improvement in development even with the $1...
An excerpt of an assignment I had to write for the end of the season: Like lighting a firecracker, felling an 80 foot tree has an atmosphere of apprehension and astonishment. And while more effort is required than simply lighting...
I swear, I’m trying to upload pictures. I’ll make it work sometime, I promise. Especially because new pictures include an awesome bear. And video of bear. From less than 50 yards away. BEAR!
Apparently computers at public libraries are unequipped with SD card readers, so publishing pictures is still going to be elusive. However, there might be pictures that show up on this site: http://www.thesca.org/umatillanf4/group-home
Hopefully I’ll be able to get some pictures uploaded within the next few weeks.
This song is pretty great. A light driving rhythm if that makes sense. Then for the pre-chorus it dives into these vocal heavy bars which leads into an extremely sappy yet great chorus - “when I wrap my arms around...
I originally thought of FarmPorter for a summer grant, and then a summer project, but now that my summer is planned, I’m giving the idea up to whoever wants it.
I’m convinced in order to justify having traffic reports every certain number of minutes, sometimes reporters have to fabricate traffic situations. And to do this, fabricate roads. The following is a list of suspected imaginary roads: