2009 Ferrari California flickr find

Ferrari California top down
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

While out on the town to celebrate our anniversary last month, my wife and I happened upon a photo shoot for the new 2009 Ferrari California while grabbing a drink at Vesuvio's in the North Beach section of San Francisco.

Since I had my camera with me, I decided to take my own pics of the action as best I could in the low light and without a tripod.

As always, I uploaded the pics to my Flickr stream, and went about my day-to-days.

Wouldn't you know it, but a few weeks after the upload, my car-crazy brother (crazy in a good way) points out my Ferrari picture set is featured on the front page of both Carscoop and Jalopnik blogs this week!

Great to be a part of the social media stream, and to have contributed to a couple communities I've only lurked in for a long while now.

time-lapse movie of KaBOOM! playground build

I'm a huge fan of the folks at KaBOOM! and their mission to create a place to play within walking distance of every child. I've participated in a couple playground builds myself (one in Pahrump, Nev. and the other in San Jose, Calif.).

Colleagues of mine participated in a recent build at the McKinley School in San Francisco, and it was captured on time-lapse so you, too can see the magic that is a KaBOOM! playground coming to life:


KAboom, WaMu McKinley School Timelapse from ricky montalvo on Vimeo.

listening over and over

For some reason, I'm really hooked on Death Cab for Cutie's song I Will Possess Your Heart from their latest album Narrow Stairs.

Thanks to last.fm, I've been able to listen to it via video stream all day long. Of the various ones published on the DC4C video tab, I like this one best:



I like the build of the album cut (takes over four and a half minutes to get to the lyrics), but I can also appreciate the radio edit that gets right into it:

How I wish you could see
the potential, the potential,
of you and me.

It's like a book elegantly bound
but in a language that you
can't read, just yet.

You gotta spend some time, love.
You gotta spe…nd some time with me,
and I know that you'll find love,
I will possess your heart.

You gotta spend some time, love.
You gotta spend some time with me,
and I know that you'll find love,
I will possess your heart.

There are days when outside
your window, I see my reflection
as I slowly pass.

And I long for this mirrored
perspective when we'll be lovers,
lovers at last.

You gotta spend some time, love.
You gotta spend some time with me,
and I know that you'll find love,
I will possess your heart.

Set List: The Swell Season at Paramount Theather

Still basking in the glow of a great performance of The Swell Season, the touring name that Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová (from the movie Once) are playing under as they tour. We caught them April 26, 2008, on their Bay Area stop at The Paramount Theater in downtown Oakland, a truly remarkable specimen of Art Deco glory... I'd see another show there in a heartbeat.

I'd surprised LeftCoastMom with tickets to the show a couple months ago, and boy was it worth the wait.

The show opened with some traditional Irish songs performed by guys that Glen used to busk with, Rónán Ó Snodaigh and Liam Ó Maonlaí (thanks, Andy, for catching the last names). I'm still amazed at what two guys with a drum, a piano and their talented voices can do to captivate an auditorium. They did a great job warming up the crowd for what was to come.

When it was time for the main act, Glen strolled on stage alone, unplugged his guitar from the amp and walked to the very front of the stage to play "Say It to Me Now" without any amplification whatsoever. The crowd was silent, the space was filled, and the show had gotten off to a rocking start. You can tell that Glen's spent quite a bit of time busking. His interplay with the audience was fantastic, and I can't remember the last time I laughed so much at the between-the-songs banter.

1. Say It to Me Now (Glen playing unplugged, completely)
2. Your Face (Markéta and Glen)
3. Lies (Frames join M&G on stage)
4. This Low
5. Your Love Makes Me Cheerful (new song by Glen)
6. When Your Mind's Made Up
7. Fancy Man (new song by Markéta)
8. Falling Slowly
*everyone leaves but Glen*
9. Leave
10. What Happens When The Heart Just Stops
11. Lay Me Down
*end solo*
12. Fogtown - Michelle Shocked cover (Glen playing with Markéta and Ronan)
13. Once
*encore*
14. If You Want Me
15. The Blue Shoes violin solo by Colm Mac Con Iomaire
16. True
17. Fitzcarraldo
18. Star Star
19. In to the Mystic - Van Morrison cover (Ronan and Liam joined in for this one, too)

What'll stick with me the longest is Glen's amazement with how long this popularity arc is soaring. His words: "I feel like I just tried to kick the ball across the garden, and it soared past the garden, over the wall, down the street, across the river and it's just kept going. Half of me wants the ball to keep going, and the other half wants my ball back." Heres hoping both halves get what they want.

BONUS: While searching for the name of the Fogtown song, I found this YouTube of a previous performance of Fogtown by G&M from Nov 2007, and it gives a good sense of just how much passion they put into each performance. You can find a whole batch of other related videos by clicking the video below.

Enjoying Portishead's Similar Artists

At long last, Portishead's issuing their third album (not counting the live one), appropriately named Third.

I was more than happy to find a stream of the full album over on last.fm and tweeted my joy:

"R U a Portishead fan like me? Stream their new album (due out 4/29) here: http://snurl.com/25sy8"

Moments later, they yanked the full stream and reduced what's available to just the usual 30 second previews of each track. ::sigh::

However, I've taken solace in listening to Portishead's Similar Artists (per last.fm), and it's really helped provide the fix I need. Enjoy some yourself (Massive Attack, Tricky, Morcheeba, Hooveryphonic, Sneaker Pimps, etc):

clay shirky on the colbert report

We had the pleasure of hosting Clay Shirky at our office the other week as he swung through the Bay Area on his book tour. He was a delightful speaker and I really appreciate how he was able to engage everyone in the conversation, not just those of us longtime fans of his geeky stuff.

Great to see him get his five minutes on the Colbert Report. He's in his element here even though he admits to getting nailed by Colbert:

I'm an REI customer for life

I first got to know and love REI back in college when I was an outdoor recreation guide taking folks on canoeing, kayaking, camping and rock climbing trips.

Even back then, REI was this place where you could (and did) get anything and everything to take care of your outdoors needs. I spent enough money at the REI in San Diego, that I ultimately wound up working there (in the summer of 1990) first off because it was a great environment to spend my daylight hours talking to folks about the very equipment I used extensively on my days away from REI, but more importantly, because I got to participate in "pro deals" where employees could get the equipment at dramatically reduced prices. Heck, I think I actually bought more stuff from REI that summer than I wound up earning. Come to think of it, I believe that was the summer I began to carry the credit card debt that I wouldn't full break out from underneath until 8 years later when I hit the AOL options lottery.

Now flash forward 18 years to where I'm the customer wandering the aisles asking REI staff for recommendations on this, that and the other. When I did my Mt Whitney summit last year, it was the kind folks at REI who helped me pick out an updated pair of hiking boots to replace my 25 year-old Vasques. Of course, the REI folks helped me slide into a new pair of Vasque Switchback GTX boots (less than half the weight of my old pair, whew!), and all indications were that the boots were a perfect fit. At $150 for the pair, they should have been.

But they weren't the perfect fit. After I got back from climbing to the top of Mt Whitney (and back down again) in them, I lost the nails on both my second toes (next to the big toe), and my left big toe is still slowly growing out of its bruised nail these six months post-summit.

Now, it wasn't just my toes that took a beating on the summit run. The boots took a beating during my warm-up hikes around the Bay Area and up at Squaw Valley, and then up and down Whitney itself. Given all those miles (and the mounted crampons), you can imagine the scuff marks on the outside of the boots after all that.

So, what am I to do with a relatively new, yet still visibly worn, pair of boots that don't fit? Especially given I'm going up Mt Whitney again in three months? Well, thanks to REI's 100% satisfaction guarantee, I just take them back to REI, tell them I got the wrong size and I get credited my money back to buy another pair (they're now $160).

I was more than prepared to pay some kind of idiot tax for buying boots too small, but not to the extent of having to eat the entire cost of the boots.

REI's forgiven my mistake and retained me as a customer for life.

I wonder if I can get a pro deal on my next pair of boots?

Mt Whintey 2008 Lottery results are in

Hooray! Got the letter from the Forest Service today.

We've got our day hike permit (eight of us) to climb Mt Whitney on Friday, July 11, 2008.

Now, time to start rallying the troops and starting the training regimen. Considering I went from couch potato to Mt Whitney summiter over the course of the summer last year, I think any of the newbies interested in joining me this year will have plenty of time to train.

I can't wait to get up there again!!

I want me some Crayon Physics Deluxe

Just take a look at this and you'll see why. My daughters could spend hours on something like this and they'll get smarter for the time spent.




The first, prototype, iteration of the game (not the one seen in the video) is available, for free, at the Kloonigames blog.

Unfortunately, these games are for the PC-enabled set, not us Mac-types.

Oh, and if you like the music from the video, it's "Lullaby" by _ghost and is under CC, so have at it.

mischief making tools

mischief making tools
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

At long last, I have the camera to go with the Eye-fi card that LeftCoast Mom got me for Christmas.

This picture of the pretty packages was achieved through using the Eye-Fi card to wirelessly upload the pic to Flickr. And the Canon SD1100 camera's smaller than my Blackberry 8830, so I feel like I'm finally "whole" again after switching from camera-enabled Treo 650 to BB8830.

Looking forward to seeing what kind of trouble I can now start to document. :-D

testing recipes for America's Test Kitchen: it's over

I love to cook, and I also enjoy testing recipes and giving feedback and helping improve the ultimate product so others can create a fantastic dish (see my post on helping create the Good Home Cookbook). Volunteer recipe testing is a fun way I can collaborate with cooks across the country/world without actually sharing the same kitchen.


Along those same lines, for the last year or so I've been participating as a volunteer recipe tester for America's Test Kitchen (ATK). I'm a huge fan of the ATK shows, and I've got copies of their last five annual recipe books. I'm also a subscriber to Cook's Illustrated, the magazine produced every other month by the same staff. I find the ATK/Cook's Illustrated approach to teaching about food and cooking is a great combination of science, technique and, ultimately, delicious food.

Through the program, I've had the opportunity to test 23 different recipes
over the course of fifteen months, ranging from pear crisp to thin and crispy oatmeal cookies to rack of lamb. Along the way I discovered a fabulous scone recipe,
one for chilaquiles (tortilla casserole) and another simple yet
delicious one for sautéed spinach with lemon and garlic.

As an ATK recipe tester, I'd get a recipe in my email every few weeks or so asking me to test it and submit feedback on both the instructions and the results. There was never any pressure to submit results, but there was
always a time window in which they needed to hear back (typically: ten
days from receipt). Of the twenty-three recipes offered, I think I gave feedback on eight of them, and 0.347 is a good batting average in baseball, right?

In the last couple months, the recipes they've sent for testing were decidedly not in keeping with my weight-loss-and-exercise program getting ready for my first triathlon in April. So I haven't submitted feedback on recipes since, gulp, September.

So, I was a little wary this morning when I found an email from ATK titled "Friends of Cook's Program" instead of the usual "New Cooks Illustrated Recipe to Test." When I opened the email, my fears were confirmed, as this is what they had to say:

Dear Friend,

Thank you for the contributions you have made as a recipe tester for America’s Test Kitchen. The information we receive through the recipe testing surveys is an invaluable asset in the development of recipes and the improvement of our publications. In an effort to continue to expand our understanding of the landscape our readers face while preparing recipes, we will be refreshing our list of testers and looking for input from new cooks.

As we update our lists, our veteran recipe testers will no longer receive new requests, as a way to allow newer members a chance to participate.

We appreciate your ongoing dedication to helping our publication's continued success.

Happy Cooking!

The Editors of Cook’s Illustrated

Perfectly in line with all the other experiences I've had with the folks at ATK/Cook's Illustrated, even this Dear John letter was classy. And I can now call myself a "veteran recipe tester."

If you're interested in becoming a recipe tester yourself, follow the link at the bottom of the ATK home page and sign up. If you've got even the slightest joy in cooking, it's a great experience (heck, I may just sign up again under a nom de cuisine).

RSS demystified by Howard Rheingold

Last week, I gave an informal brown bag session at work on how to use Google Reader to track information flows. I'm trying to convert folks here into leveraging RSS feeds to keep on top of things instead of our old-school ways of browsing sites checking to see if things have been updated.

I started off the session with Lee LeFever's CommonCraft show on RSS in Plain Text. And then I went on to demo Google Reader and how it worked and the advantages of sharing feeds and collaborative filtering, etc.

In hindsight, I didn't do a very good job of it. Sure, they learned a little, but not all I'd hoped.

And my assessment of my effectiveness was driven home yet again when I watched Howard Rheingold's recent vlog post: Introduction to RSS. He's a great teacher, and I can learn a lot from paying attention to the little things he does so well.

For one, Howard's setup of the problem is great:

Information is abundant.
Access to information is infinitely easy
Way-finding requires skill

Finding the information that matters and knowing why it matters in the unordered flow is probably the most important task and skill in my life.

Howard starts the hunting and gathering part of in his day by reading blogs (many, many blogs) as the first level of his filtering the "unordered flow." And how he keeps up with 100s of blogs for this first level of filtering? via RSS.

Then Howard delivers the solution with a comprehensive walk through of how he uses Bloglines to track his RSS feeds.

Go watch Howard's vlog on RSS now. Your investing seven and a half minutes watching it now will be repaid handsomely as you cut down your time spent browsing and instead let the info flow to you.

Tulley's dangerous things you should let your kids do

Gever Tulley is the founder of the Tinkering School and in this talk he shows how these things (really, there are six of them) will make your kids stronger and smarter and actually safer.

For those on a tight schedule, Tullye's list includes:

1. Play with fire
2. Use a pocketknife
3. Throw a spear
4. Deconstruct appliances
5. Break the DMCA
6. Drive a Car (bonus item)

He details the WHY behind the each item on the list in this TED video (embedded below), or your you can visit the TED site to see it there.

i heart radiohead all over again - scotch mist video

Thanks to @tempo on the Twitter, I found this YouTube-hosted film of Radiohead shortly after 590,000 folks had viewed it. (I'm always in the second half-million, it seems)

The film was made for New Year's Eve 2007 and features the band in the studio and elsewhere playing every song on the new In Rainbows album with some pretty bizarre interstitials. Par for the course for Radiohead fans, I guess.



If the above embed doesn't work for you, see it on the YouTube - Radiohead - Scotch Mist page.

Oh, and true to my word in my post about downloading In Rainbows for free, I've purchased the physical CD of In Rainbows, and it's on its way from Amazon.

mountaineering theme in many things

I've noticed a real strong affinity to mountaineering stuff as of late...

• Accidentally finding Discovery Channel's Everest: Beyond the Limit programming while in Malaysia
  
• Recently re-finding my book detailing Hillary's first summit of Everest
• Going over major achievements of 2007 and seeing my summit of Mt Whitney coming in near the top
  

And now today I discover this great video of Dr. Rodrigo Jordan from the Leading@Google collection on YouTube:



I know this is all pointing toward something just around the corner... maybe it's a reminder I need to get my name in for the lottery to climb Mt Whitney again this summer when there's no snow on the summit!

freezer recovers crashed iBook hard drive data

In January of this year, my wife's iBook died a horrible screeching death when the hard drive failed in spectacular fashion. Eleven months later, thanks to help from our refrigerator's freezer, we revived the iBook long enough to grab our "irrecoverable data" from the grave.

A little bit about the iBook's untimely death: it was over rather quickly, as the open applications started slowing down and the beach ball lingered after each click much longer than it should have. Our typical tech solution (rebooting) was the exact wrong thing to do. After the Apple "BONG" signaled the restart, the screen stayed black while we listened to something scrape across the hard drive. We didn't hear the scraping for long, as my wife's shrieking "NOOOOOOOOO!" drowned the scrape out in short order: she hadn't backed up her files. Ever. And the scrape signaled the loss of the outline and 40 pages of a nonfiction book she'd been researching for months.

We went into recovery mode: The iBook was out of warranty by a good two years. No matter, we'd pay for the fix. A trip to the Apple Store's Genius Bar got nothing but a sympathetic "sorry, dude, we can't help" from the genius in residence. We then requested a quote from DriveSavers to extract the data and they came back with a "it'll be no more than $2300, but we can't promise we can get anything at all." That's almost $60 per page of the draft... too much. So, we decided to chalk it up to a learning experience (easy enough for me, it wasn't my book that vanished) and buy a new MacBook and begin backing up our data. The iBook took up residence in the storage room downstairs and was forgotten by all by my Dad.

My dad had heard somewhere that freezing the drive could help recover the data and was itching to see if it really worked. So, on the first day of my Dad's Christmas visit he asked if we still had the iBook (yes) and a thumbdrive (yes). Then he asked if we had room in the freezer for the laptop (no, but could be arranged). Finally, he asked if we were up for an experiment (sure).

We put the iBook in the freezer about 2pm Christmas afternoon and when dinner was over that night around 8pm, we took the frozen laptop out, plugged in the power cord, plugged in the thumb drive and depressed the power button.

The familiar startup chime sounded loud and strong from our frozen iBook.

We saw the screen flicker as the raster (the grey desktop) appeared and then we saw the load icon begin to swirl. Could it be true? We hadn't gotten this far at the Genius Bar back in January.

Then the OS badge appeared and, sure enough, moments later the desktop loaded back to what we were looking at last January just before the crash. The iBook even connected to our wireless network again!

Moving quickly (we didn't know how long we had), we dragged and dropped my wife's critical files from the iBook's hard drive onto the thumb drive. Success!

I didn't test to see how long the iBook would last in its frozen state, but I was able to switch users and grab some files from my own user desktop before shutting down about 20 minutes after it came back to life.

I would never have believed this were possible if we hadn't done it ourselves. I would NOT recommend this method as a first line of defense when trying to recover data from a crashed hard drive, but if you've gotten to the end of your rope and are ready to kiss your data goodbye, try popping your laptop in the freezer before rebooting one last time.

Maytag refrigerator repair: holiday surprise

Our Maytag Ice 2 O regrigerator (model MFI-2568-AES) went on the fritz last Wednesday night around 8:30pm. Thanks to the Web, ComplaintBoards.com and Forbes Appliance Repair, we had the fridge fixed (for free) within 24 hours... what a surprise!

To set the stage appropriately, we like our refrigerator a lot: it's got french doors, a bottom freezer drawer and an in-the-door console with ice and water dispenser. We bought it off the floor of Lowe's when we moved to Redwood City in July 2006, and it's served us well, for the most part.

So when this thing went "on the fritz," I mean the lights on the control panel started flickering in a Close-Encounters-of-the-Third-Kind fashion while the flap on the ice cube dispenser methodically opened and slammed shut. What kind of pissed off kitchen gremlin had decided to take up residence in our 16-months-new fully stocked fridge the week before Christmas?

Left Coast Mom and I began searching for the owner's manual to try and troubleshoot the situation (in the index under "P" for "Possessed") but couldn't find the manual anywhere in the kitchen or the files or the storage room bookcases (later we'd find out we'd stored it conveniently on top of the fridge in case something malfunctioned). So, we took to the web in search of help on our dueling laptops.

I found the owners manual online at the maytag web site and 58 Mb of file download later, I found nothing in the manual that was any help beyond how to turn off power to the control panel (remove the cover over the door hinge above the panel, then unplug the wire harness) to stop the infernal dispenser racket. We were out of warranty, and I was desperately scanning the web for any information on how our problem could be fixed and how much it'd cost us.

So I googled "maytag MFI-2568-AES troubleshoot" and about half-way down the results list I discovered the ComplaintsBoard forum overflowing with posts from folks (like us) who were confronted by malfunctioning control panel/ice dispenser. I found nine pages of forum posts, to be precise, starting Feb 9, 2007, when Cheryl M posted the following:

I bought my maytag ice2o French door refrigerator from home depot 8 mos ago. Loved it when I got it, but soon after had problems with the ice maker. They replaced the ice maker. Now the ice maker is still having problems. Its not strong enough to break up all the ice. The ice cubes freeze in big blocks causing the system to clog. Last night the thing took on a mind of its own. All the lights are flashing on the control panel, the ice and water maker don't work at all. The flap is constantly opening and closing all on its own, constantly making a clicking noise all night long. Finally we had to unplug it so we could get 4 hours sleep. Plug it in this morning and its still doing it. My biggest concern is what happens after the warranty runs out. I already know this thing has mechanical problems. Did I get a lemon or is it junk?? Either way I'm stuck with a $2,800 refrigerator that seems like it has bad engineering.

It was great to follow the arc of the discussion going from first post to group-wide resolution:

• In the first 60 days, a dozen folks chimed in to say they were affected by the same problem.
  
• Within 90 days, the forum was picking up speed and the group had diagnosed the High Voltage Control Board (part # 12920710 Board HV C) as the culprit. At least one workaround had been posted to the $200-$400 "official" fix for those of us out of warranty.
  
• On Day 133, the first "we're investigating a potential class action suit" post appears.
• By Day 150, folks begin posting success with Maytag's fixing the units for free and the discussion turns to strategies for navigating the customer service phone tree.
  
• By Day 180, the complaints are now focused on the repair services, not on Maytag. From the posts, it seems A&E Factory Service is either heaven-sent or demons-from-hell depending on which city you live.
• By Day 210, the forum is mostly full of folks expressing gratitude for all the previous posts and tips and reporting success in getting their own fridges fixed.

I called the Maytag customer service line (make that the "Whirlpool Customer Care Line" now that Maytag's been purchased by Whirlpool) and found out I'd have to wait until 8am Thursday morning to speak with a live person.

Thursday morning, I got a hold of Lorraine at Whirlpool and reported my problem. Within 10 minutes, she'd issued me a QI code and offered to set up a service call for me with A&E Factory Service the day after Christmas (6 days later!). I declined the offer and instead tried to go with a local shop, leaving a message with Forbes Appliance Repair here in Redwood City.

Bill (at Forbes) called me back around 3pm to get more details. I told him the problem and he admitted he probably didn't have the part in stock and couldn't get it until after the holiday.

I tried calling A&E myself to see if I could get a Friday appointment since I assumed they'd have the part in stock. Within 2 minutes of dealing with the customer support rep at A&E, I'd learned enough to know I was dealing with the demon variety and decided to stay with my instincts to go local.

I called Bill back and asked that he order the part and come install it. Bill took my info and was surprised when I gave him the part number he'd need to order (I had it thanks to the forum posts). He said he'd put in the order and would call to let me know when it was due to come in so he could come replace it.

Within 30 minutes, Bill called back with an unexpected question: "When can you be at the house?"

Beg pardon?

Bill happened to have the part in stock and offered to come to the house to install it that evening. All I had to do was move the fridge away from the wall so he could access the panel in the back to replace the board. (In moving the fridge, I discovered where we'd stashed the manual.)

At 6:15p, Bill knocked on the door. By 6:30p, the fridge was fixed and Bill was packing up his stuff and wishing us a Happy Holiday.

Happy Holidays, indeed. So refreshing to get good customer service from a local provider.

So, thanks to Forbes Appliance Service (650-366-8388) here in Redwood City, our fridge was fixed in record time. Here's hoping your appliances never go on the fritz, but if they do, give Bill a call to come fix them.

eating local food in Malaysia

plate of local fresh fruit
Originally uploaded by thomas pix

It's been a good initial 30 hours here in Malaysia.

Every chance I've gotten, I've made sure to eschew anything resembling traditional Western food for something more local (at least to this part of the world).

Last night for dinner, a group of seven of us at at the Little Penang Cafe (on the top floor of the Suria KLCC mall). Unlike American malls, the food court at the Suria Mall is actually a destination place to eat good food.

So, I had a bowl of prawn mee (spicy fish broth with noodles, prawns and bok choy) for dinner and a cincau (slightly sweet tea-like drink that's full of ice and gelatin blobs). Definitely not Western fare, and decidedly yummy and filling. The tab for all seven of us to eat? 102 Ringgits or roughly US$34. sweet.

At breakfast this morning (inclusive at the hotel), I skipped the stuff I'd expect on an American buffet breakfast and went for the Eastern stuff: dim sum, maasala, sushi, samosa, Mango juice (YUM!!!) and fresh fruit. Oh, wait, I did have coffee and a miniature pain au chocolat as well (it's a weakness, I admit). Again, delicious.

And at one of the break periods in today's meeting, I couldn't help but get a plate full of fresh fruit to go with my coffee (those flecks of chocolate at the bottom of the plate are just that... I ate the bite-sized mousse first).

I just can't get over the visuals on the fruit here. None of the melons really taste like what you'd expect in the States. In the picture, the polka dot fruit (dragon fruit) tastes like raw pumpkin, the yellow fruit tastes just like watermelon and the pale fruit tastes like muskmelon, maybe the closest to what I'd get at home.

While the guide books all say "AVOID FRESH FRUIT" I'm assuming they're talking about street-purchased fruit and not the stuff professionally prepared in restaurants and catering joints. Just in case, though, I'm taking preventative doses of the pink stuff so as not to come down with TD (Traveler's Diarrhea).

Wish me luck!

National Geographic photo contest winners announced

My favorite time of year is here: the announcement of winners from all manner of contests as well as folks announcing their "Best of 2007" lists.

First up to be featured here, National Geographic's International Photography Contest. Of course NG lives up to expectations of curating a great set of pictures. Unfortunately, the pix are trapped in a presentation method that doesn't allow me to link directly to individual photos. As per usual, my favorites aren't the feature photo on any of the splash pages for the sets below.

In the International Winners category, four photographers are chosen from 148,203 images submitted to
the International Photography Contest.

In the English Language Winners category, Four photographers are chosen from over 24,000 images submitted to the English Language portion of the International Photography Contest.

Honorable Mentions and other selections are featured in their remaining Animal, People and Landscape Galleries.

google maps location hack on blackberry 8830

Very happy to see via GigaOm that the mobile version of Google Maps I've installed on my Blackberry 8830 can now closely approximate my location even though Verizon Wireless has crippled the GPS on my device.

Those brilliant developers over at Google Maps are using cell phone tower triangulation to approximate my location that, depending on cell tower density, is accurate anywhere from 500 to 5,000 meters. Given I spend the vast majority of my time in Silicon Valley/Bay Area, there are plenty of towers around.

I tried it out just now, and Google Maps on my 8830 plotted me within a block of my present location. At any time, I can ask it to relocate me (if I've moved) by pressing the "0" (zero) key to recenter the map on my location.

I can't wait to be able to use this along with traffic reports on my way to the Sharks game tonight in San Jose tonight.

Of course, I'd love it if VZW would simply uncripple the GPS on my phone, but I understand they're currently tearing down the walls (via WSJ: subscription required) around their network garden instead.