January 28, 2009

Traffic on Market Street, San Francisco

This video was filmed from the front of a cable car in late 1905 or possibly early 1906, right before the great earthquake. The film rolls quite a bit for the first minute - skip that part if it distracts you.

After the quake, the same cameraman repeated the trip.

January 24, 2009

Electronic Road Signs

Do not reprogram electronic road signs to say "ZOMBIES AHEAD" or "KLAATU BARADA NIKTO". That would be immature and dangerous, as well as illegal.

January 22, 2009

Gigapixel image of the inauguration

The Gigapan has produced some amazing images - I look forward to borrowing one some time - but someone had the presence of mind to take one to the Inauguration resulting in a 1,474 megapixel image.

January 19, 2009

Don't try it, it's been on the menu for years


Spotted at the otherwise quite wonderful Taqueria Los Charros in Mountain View.

January 08, 2009

Spotted on a mailing list

Names of sender and dating agency removed for privacy (unless you're interested, ha ha). See how many things you can find wrong with the concept of this email:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Xxxxxx Xxx <xxxxx@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 12:50 PM
Subject: [stanford-network] Marriage Minded Female in Bay Area
To: Stanford-Network <stanford-network@lists.stanfordalumni.org>


Dear Stanford Community,


I work with Xyzzy Dating a privately held matchmaking firm in the Bay
Area. We are currently searching for eligible females in the San
Francisco Bay Area who are marriage minded.

More specifically, we have recently been retained by a VIP gentleman
who is passionate about having us help him locate "the one" and we are
on a very fast track to do so.

Our bachelor is in his late 30's, successful (Former Attorney, Harvard
Law educated, now a director of an investment firm), handsome
(physically fit and Chinese American in heritage), family-centric,
outdoorsy, down-to-earth and passionate about international travel.
You will find him to be humble, kind, and truly genuine -- no inflated
ego at all.

Are you eligible or, perhaps, if you are engaged or dating, might you
have a friend who fits this profile below?


What we are looking for:


Age: 25-34 years old

Education: Top Tier University (e.g. Stanford, Berkeley, Yale)

Personality: An exceptional woman by all measures. Outdoorsy,
family-centric, socially liberal, warm-hearted, intellectually
curious, great sense of humor, and passionate about life!

Interests: Wants to keep adding stamps to the passport, enjoys all
types of adventures, and family. An interest in volunteer work is the
icing on the cake!

Physically: Being fit and leading a healthy lifestyle is very
important. Any ethnicity is welcome and, importantly, someone who has
a natural beauty to her is the most attractive.


If you fit this profile or know anyone who does, please contact the
founder and CEO, Yyyy Yyyyyyy, at yyyy@example.com .


***NOTE: We are holding a Casting Call event for prospective
candidates on January 22nd during the day in Palo Alto. We are
currently in the process of vetting many candidates and scheduling
mini-appointments that day. The Casting Call is a great opportunity
to come meet the Xyzzy team while we get a good sense as to whether you
might be a superb fit for our bachelor. You don't need to be a client
of Xyzzy Dating to meet our bachelor, so we really encourage all
applicants to respond to this unique opportunity.


Thank you for reading!

Warm regards,

Xxxxxx Xxx
www.example.com

P.S. Please help us by forwarding this email to anyone who you feel
might be a good fit for our bachelor. Thank you again, and we look
forward to hearing from you!

On the inefficiency of beauty contests

On the inefficiency of beauty contests, & a suggestion for their modernization
Read it - preferably all the way to the table of equivalents.

January 05, 2009

Apostrophe abuse: Car Zone

Perhaps they meant one of:
  • Car Zone: Where the fun begin is.
  • Where the fun begin owns Car Zone, and don't you forget it.


They also get bonus points for using ugly fonts, a garish color scheme that is almost invisible to people with red-green color vision problems, and mismatching screws.