Google Local

Have you ever used Google Local to find something in your own neighborhood?

I don't know how the heck they have collected and organized all that data!
If you select 'View Larger Map', you get a map as big as your window and screen can handle (which is big in the case of my Apple 30-inch screen), and if you zoom in to max, you'll be amazed at the detail. I almost expect that if I put in a new flower bed in the garden, it will be on the map tomorrow.
Not to mention of course that they can find all the local businesses somehow.

I don't know which countries they have covered so far, but it works fine for UK, you just replace .com with .co.uk

Taboos

I am told that in Mormon areas like Salt Lake City, the teenagers don't have sex much. This is generally because they don't believe that oral sex is "sex". (Clinton is not alone.) They are quite serious about this. Probably even anal sex is not "sex". Of course they have a lot of "non-sex".

Whereas where I grew up, in Denmark in the seventies, none of us, practically, had any sex, oral or otherwise. And Denmark is perhaps the most liberal and permissive country in the world.

Does this give anybody pause for thought? That perhaps the more rules and suppression there is about something, the more it flourishes?

Not to mention: if it has to be hidden, then kids don't know anything about protecting themselves from pregnancies and sexually transmitted deceases.

About parties

"You have to go out," people tell me occasionally.
"Why?" I say. "'Out' is just like 'in', only without the comfort and the things I need."

What I don't get it that by "out" or "fun", people generally mean clubs and pubs and parties. In other words, noisy, crowded places where you can't hear each other talk, so you have to ingest alcohol or other drugs to pass the time. Big woop. Sure, that's how I want to spend my time and money. Not.

Alice in Wonderland

The British Library has posted an extraordinary online version of the original hand-written and self-illustrated manuscript for Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol, a.k.a. Charles Dodgson.

Please note the 'enlarge' feature, it allows you to really enjoy Dodgson's drawings, which I find very talented. Not smoothly skilled like a professional artist's, but they have a lot of graphic power.

Battlestar Galactica

"It is not enough to live; you have to have something to live for."
-- Commander Adama, Battlestar Galactica

I am an SF fan since four decades, and Battlestar Galactica (2003) is the first SF TV series I have really liked.
You could say a lot about it, but basically it is the first SF TV series I have seen where the acting is top notch, and the physics are not highly doubtful. Not to mention the plot is gripping, and the special effects are very convincing. In short it is a quantum leap forward in realism.
The pathos of it is extraordinary too. This is not your father's television, get ready for some trauma.
So, if you have ever liked the literature of SF, but found Star Trek to be just embarrassing, then give this a shot.
Start with the mini series (which is what I've seen so far), it seems it sets up the whole thing.

iMac Tangerine

I bought an old iMac from 1999, the tangerine one, almost the same as my third Mac.
I did it mostly for fun and nostalgia and aesthetics, I loved those "gumdrop" iMacs so much.
But I don't have a good space for it, and to be frank and to my surprise, I think that time has actually already run from that colored/translucent design which was so revolutionary at the time. (It was imitated by absolutely everybody -- and not just in the computer business, I saw hair care products imitating it!)