Author: Chris Barrus

Black Hole Brain points out the Yamantau area of Russia. a.k.a. the Area 51 of Russia.

Up in Davis today for a work-related presentation/meeting this morning and now I have part of the day to kill before ducking over to San Francisco tonight and tomorrow.

I’ve concluded that I don’t need to wardrive/warwalk for wireless access because yet again, I accidentally stumbled (no pun intended) into a cool coffee bar with free 802.11b to remora off of. First place I unpacked the PowerBook at! I must have an Airport card in my brain or something. Thanks and shout outs to:

Mishka’s
514-B 2nd St.
Davis, CA
(916) 759-0811

Support free wireless!

This rant in the current San Francisco Chronicle is a keeper.

Could this be, in short, something that actually adds a modicum of refined grace and simplicity and aesthetic warmth to the world, instead of sucking it away like so many disposable DVD players and garish LED-spasming boom boxes and 10-gallon drums of spaghetti sauce from Costco? Nah.

And you open the gorgeous black box and lift the white cardboard inside flap, itself adorned with clean offset typeface declaring “Made by Apple in California,” and you are confronted with what is quite possible the most thoughtfully designed and pleasing packaging you’ve ever seen, not like you care about this stuff and hey it’s all just Styrofoam and garbage anyway, but still.

Doug Orleans is attempting to spread a meme about, and well I’ll let him explain it:

Okay, I’ve never done an intentional LiveJournal meme before, and hadn’t really intended to, but this one seems sort of interesting. Is the object to see whether it eventually shows up in your friends list but not directly from you (or someone else on your friends list)? Anyway, I got it from elthar [I changed “band” to “artist” to account for Bowie]:

Your meme, should you choose to accept it, is to rank the following artists in order, from COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT to COULDN’T CARE LESS. To add value to this process, you must also add one artist to the list, and remove one artist from the list, before passing the meme on (including these instructions).

The original list is back on Doug’s site. I’m deleting Jethro Tull, adding Pink Floyd, and ordering it as follows:

Pink Floyd
REM
Led Zeppelin
David Bowie
Sex Pistols
Duran Duran
Fleetwood Mac
Queen
The Pixies
The Beatles
Nirvana
Oasis

Satan’s Laundromat points to the fabulous Ruavista: Signs Of The City which “strives to promote a new form of urban tourism based upon visiting ordinary streets and paying attention to details rather than famous spots and beautiful architecture.”

What does this mean? Photos of Parisian bakery facades for starters.