In "Free Bike Clinic on Sunday"

No doubt. Oddly enough, my partner in crime - our one actual master mechanic - got his start with bikes on London's south side.

Sorry, I meant to mention in the post that this is in Berkeley, accessible from Ashby BART.

In "Baywatch gone awry."

bummer... it still works for me but it must be cached locally here by now. It's an animated gif flipping between the front and rear view of some leathern chaps worn by one extremely attractive gentleman. I guess not the most representative thing, anyway, considering these... shots of the incident:1 2 3 4

In "Going to Burning Man?"

I'll be in the 3:00 plaza with Borrachos y Bicicletas. Monekys: drop by!

In "What is happiness?"

Hm. I'm more about being aware of the fear of loss, not letting attachment overgrow me, and simply managing the negative emotions that do inevitably crop up out of fear of loss. Considering the wonderful things that attachments bring to my life, this is a much better deal on balance than avoiding all attachments simply to veer clear of the fear of loss. That approaches fear of the fear of loss, if you ask me. Happiness is a combination of peace and knowledge, with and with regard to the world as well as onesself.

In "Married woman does her own PI work on craigslist.org"

I will send copies of your email, the IM chat and the pic you sent, to all our friends, your family and your work colleagues. Believe me, you will understand the meaning of the saying "revenge is a dish best served cold". I don't think that most people get this saying at all. Like Samuel Jackson's famous verse in Pulp Fiction, it just sounds like some cold-ass shit to say. The meaning is that revenge is more satisfying if you wait a long time before exacting it. Presumably the long anticipation of the revenge, coupled with surprise on the part of the offender, who likely thought he'd gotten away with the offense, are key components in this. So is she saying that if she has HIV she'll wait a long time before sending out the incriminating photos? I don't think so. Ah well. Minor pet peeve.

In "Okay, this is disturbing: RealDolls Museum"

eyagh.

In "Enduring Freedom?"

I don't see why anyone should be surprised that a country "liberated" by the USA would still employ the death penalty.

In "Where's my aircar?"

I'd even go a little further and say that the very idea of a flying car is backward and silly. We now understand that flight is not an energy efficient way for a single person to travel to work, and that real solutions for the masses require greater efficiency and smart navigation, not wings and propellers. Give me one of those climb-in-and-take-a-nap cars from Minority Report any day, but a flying car just seems so... retro-futuristic. Doesn't make sense and won't for a long, long time, if ever.

I completely disagree with the sentiment that anything is slowing down. First of all, you can't just write off computers and the internet and THEN compare. We're talking about a major, huge, serious advancement of humankind. And I don't just mean the WWW as we know it. I mean IT, global communications, cell phones, sattelite TV, the ability to map the genome, manage commerce, automate tasks... the list goes on. On top of that you've got major advancements in biotechnology up the wazoo. Sure, few of them are as flashy as "INVENTING THE TELEPHONE" but they will have a massive impact on lifespan and quality of life, food production, waste management, etc, the list goes on. Add to IT and biotech all the minor improvements that they've made possible. Better airplane designs. Genetic engineering. Blogging. Single-dose, low-radiation cancer treatments. Incredible CG games and movie effects. New ways for the handicapped to communciate. Cloning, age-therapy research, nanotechnolgy, more efficient automatic transmissions for cars... again THE LIST GOES ON There's something a little curmedgeonly about the attitude that things just ain't as good as they used to be. You can make that argument about music and literature with some success, but trying to say that the modern day's advancements in science and technology can't hold up to the early 20th century is absolutely foolhardy and ridiculous. You have to really be a luddite not to appreciate the last 20 years of advancements. Part of the reason they don't seem so dramatic is they're complicated. Your Grandpa may never understand just how important stem cell research can be. He may think it's nothing compared to the transatlantic telegraph. The other reason recent advancements may seem less dramatic is there's so many more of them, so quickly. People were talking about the transatlantic telegraph for 20 years because there weren't big technological advancements every 20 minutes, like there are now. You can also look down on the values with which we charge forward these days, but that's a different story.

In "Life Just Got Easierâ„¢"

Good God. How terrible.

In "Bubba the 22-pound lobster"

That other PETA's homepage.

In "Brainboost"

simiarly: AnswerBus

In "Zork!"

SWEET. I remember this.

In "Elephants save lives before tsunami strikes"

the huge beasts used their trunks to pluck the foreigners from the ground and deposit them on their backs. That sounds painful.

In "An Eagle-Eye View of the World"

GREAT POST!

In "Curious George - "

Just one more reason why solid accounting is important: The worst thing that could happen isn't the cafe going out of business. The worst thing that could happen is that, plus you and your friends being saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debts afterward. Keep ahead of the books. Lagging a month behind may come back to burn you badly on a personal level.

I am not trying to piss on your parade, but in general I would say that finding the right gourds to serve in should be your last priority. I would focus more on developing a solid way to track your expenses and income. You want to be able to quickly and easily detect where you make the most money, and where you lose the most, so that you can respond and change and grow as a business. It goes without saying that a careful, informed bookkeeping approach will also fend off a lot of problems and disagreements between you and your friends. When you don't have solid information about where the money is going, you wind up deciding things based on intuition, and you won't always agree (not to mention make the right choice). Small businesses like this go out of business more often than not. If I were you, I would operate under a sense of impending doom for a while. That's just realistic. Concentrate on basics, focus on staying alive, not on being ultra-stylish. You may think that being stylish *is* core to keeping the business alive, but it's not. Prudent accounting is more important for a good long while yet. Again, I'm not trying to pee on your vision of yerba mate and world peace, but if your business blinks out of existence, you can't do any work toward that vision. Good luck - I admire your courage in undertaking the venture. May you enjoy success!

In "Woman breastfeeds dog"

I'm pretty sure that, historically, letting a puppy breastfeed was a not-so-uncommon way for lactating women with painfully enormous breasts to get some relief. This is in the pre-breast-pump, pre-refrigerator world, I'm thinking.

In "Apologize for the election in pictures"

this is me (and my gf, she is the one who speaks/writes Arabic).

(limited to the most recent 20 comments)