Author Archives: Hans

Discrete weather

Yahoo forecasts a high temperature of 51° immediately followed by a low of 57°. At no time this weekend will it be 52°–56°.

2007 in review

.arrow {font-weight:bold;} .down {color:red;} .up {color:green}
Not the best year…

↓ disaster
↓ oklahoma
↓ death
↑ seattle
↓ death
↓ breakup
↓ death
↑ girlfriend
↑ birth
↑ chicago
↑ birth
↑ fort myers

…but clearly looking up.

Kindle

My completely unwarranted review of Amazon’s new Kindle e-book reader, without touching one:

The eink screen’s light gray colouring looks ideal, and a bright white would certainly cause eyestrain. But what’s with the white casing? It appears distracting, like reading a paperback in a frame that covers the margins in bright white.

The keyboard is entirely too […]

Facebook Yelps

Facebook’s new advertising model includes publication of activity from partner sites in news feeds. Their official list of affiliates does not include Yelp, but tonight, I had a little DHTML “toast” pop-up inform me my latest review would be shared on my Facebook profile.
A little investigating shows that this was pulled off via a […]

Broken

By now, close friends and family are all aware, so I can “publish”: I broke my engagement with Kristan on the 18th.
While there’s nothing minor about ending a 5 year relationship scheduled for marriage in another year, it has been remarkably facile. All of my stress was experienced over the last two months, agonizing […]

Seattle 2007

Some quick thoughts from Seattle, WA:
People here aren’t afraid of each other. Much of the “feel” of this city seems to grow from that foundation.
There is a taxidermied dog at the SAM, sitting on a chair in a fairly obscure corner. A group of teenagers (from South Korea, I believe) streamed by it as […]

Bob Valentine 1946-2007

This is just a place:
we go around, distanced,
yearly in a star’s
atmosphere, turning
daily into and out of
direct light and
slanting through the
quadrant seasons: deep
space begins at our
heels, nearly rousing
us loose: we look up
or out so high, sight’s
silk almost draws us away:
this is just a place:
currents worry themselves
coiled and free in airs
and oceans: water picks
up mineral shadow and
plasm […]

OKC

Oklahoma City is tiny. Bricktown is sterile, but for the cowboy panhandlers.
And it’s all entirely too close to Texas.
But the baby is baby-cute and healthy.
…this is the third time in a row I’ve returned home to the relatively-big city. Next trip needs to be to civilization.

Violence, sex, heroism, treachery, revenge

My microreview of 300: This is why God gave us Hollywood.

Princesses

One of the amusing aspects of life Downtown are the waves of visitors. It is often entertaining to guess what sort of convention is responsible for a new wave of similar people in the CBD, and it’s usual simple to determine whether the home team won the day’s game. Many crowds are familiar, […]