One tablespoon of raspberry syrup (preferably made the night before for your wife’s dessert), 2 ounces lime juice, 2 ounces of vodka, over ice, fill with soda water and stir. Sip while in sunshine

From the fabulous Big Picture blog

This is a poster of a yard sale sign. Is it advertising the yard sale, or the sign? Hmmm.

I’ve read various descriptions of ‘binding’ in JavaScript before, but this is probably the most clear explanation I’ve seen. As a bonus, someone in the comments linked to this fine, incredibly thorough, advanced discussion of binding: Object-Oriented Event Listening through Partial Application in JavaScript.

You can tell by the title that this article is not for the faint of heart. (hint: start with the ALA article)

37 Signlas is dropping support for Internet Explorer 6. It must be nice to fire your customers from time to time.

The missus and spent a lovely Saturday at Cannon Beach, OR. We had it all. Blankets, towels, trashy magazines to read, hot dogs, marshmallows. Except Ketchup. And Sunscreen. Ouch.

The first anniversary is fast approaching. We’re taking the train up to Seattle to stay in a kitschy old hotel and eat at a swanky tucked away restaurant rumored to have a trapeze act and a burlesque show. Ooh La La.

I spent part of the Fourth in a friend’s back yard grilling various things and eating fancy cheese. We had a Dutchman (pictured) and a Brit in attendance (along with various liberal Portlandy types). Viva La Independencia.

I’ve caved into the pressure and signed up on the Facebook. And while I’m at it, I’m on the LinkedIn too. Damn kids. And their internets.

I’ve been using the Twitter lately also. I’m not sure how I feel about it. Like any good RoR app: it’s horribly unreliable; it’s purpose is rather unclear; and all the cool kids are doing it. Twitter claims to be a “micro blogging” application, but people use it as an ad-hoc messaging system or bulletin board. It is useful for keeping up with prolific bloggers. The Mars Phoenix program has been posting updates as well, which is fairly neato. However, I’m not convinced it’s worth my time to post anything.

An albergue is sort of an inn or hostel, and in this particular case it houses people who have traveled across Mexico to seek medical attention in Guadalajara. They charge a very small fee for housing, meals, shower, and laundry facilities. In addition they provide some medicine and care. Many of the workers there help by simply being social with their guests. There are many families there waiting for the outcome of an operation or procedure, and providing someone to talk to helps keep spirits alive.

I slipped down to Guadalajara for a few days to visit and see the sites. Caroline took me on a quick tour of the albergue and the hospital it serves, then we headed into the center of town (Centro) and looked in shops and bought strange grapefruit sodas and felt deliciously foreign. I think we saw maybe four Americans on the trip. (Which is fine. I see those jerks all the time.)

Guadalajara is a big, bustling, noisy, dirty city. The buses are crammed full of people. The traffic is terrible. There is intense wealth and poverty coexisting on the same city block. I loved it.

There is a lot of public art scattered around the city. Even in the (very American) shopping mall we spent an afternoon in (surreal) had lots of sculpture in between the department stores and on the stairs.

In the Tlaquepaque neighborhood (a small town that got engulfed by ever-growing Guadalajara, now an arts district) we saw loads of art; local, regional, and international; and piles of leather work and perhaps the most beautiful restaurant I’ve ever seen.

We took one day trip out to Tequila to visit the Cofradia Tequila factory. As you approach Tequila, the first sign of the town are the fields of blue agave (from which tequila is made). When I say “blue” I mean “wow that plant is really blue”. It’s the strangest thing to see these spiny blue plants against the brown landscape. It looks like the earth bristled up a blue, spiky protest against the sky, and then years later people learned you could get drunk off it.

I returned home mid-week to dull, grey, cold Portland weather deeply regretting that I didn’t stay longer.

(And yes, our Economic Stimulus checks were cashed and promptly exchanged for pesos and spent on bus fare, taxis, food, gifts, tequila, and tequila)

(because I just re-watched 2001 and 2010 and HAL is neato, Dave.)

http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/11/11/the_nerd_handbook.html

http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=2605

A buddy of mine at work and I agreed that we’d both gladly fork over $350 to bust up a Comcast office with a hammer.

(see also)

Some terrific photos of Saturn (plus color commentary) here:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/10/15/cassini-10-years-and-counting/