Lee.org

If you haven’t heard of it, Lazyweb is a cool. Check it out.

Dear Lazyweb,

Why does my Chrysler Sebring (3,400 lb, 2.4 liter V-6) get 27 MPG while an Aprilia Atlantic 500 scooter (425 lb, 0.46 liter 4 stroke) get only 45 MPG? If weight is any indication, shouldn’t it get more like 200 MPG?

I just went to pay a parking ticket and I ran into this rigged survey on San Francisco’s city web site.

You’ll notice two things. First, the “Highly Valuable” radio button is already pre-clicked for me. That was considerate of them, wasn’t it? Second, notice that two of the three options are positive. That’s like saying, “Using only the numbers 3, 7, or 10, rate our service on a scale from 1 to 10.”

Grrrr.

I just upgraded from WordPress 1.5 to 1.5.1.3.

[mini-woot]
It was really quite straightforward.
1. Backup backup backup
2. unzip WP 1.5.1.3 on my computer
3. upload it to my website, overwriting everything that might be overwritten.

Done.

All my plugins and add-ons still work just peachily.

Thanks PhotoMatt

I got to see Miki, my Burning Man wife who weighs 23 beers today along with her boyfriend. We went to the Mexican place on the corner of 17th and Valencia. He had a fantastic quesadilla with meat and she had a crispy rolled up taco or enchilata thing; both were EXCELLENT. My salmon burrito was ok.

I went to grind some more at NIMBY. As evening rolled around, I found that a Dance Dance Immolation fundraiser party was happening that night. I called Vixen and she came by. I met another gazillion people (and it didn’t hurt for introductions being on the Colossus team!) and had a kick-butt time.

Why is it that so few of my friends put even a single photo of themselves on their homepage? Are they all -that- shy? Phoey on them!

I haven’t tried it yet but I just dig the idea of a completely portable yet stylish loveseat that fits easily in the trunk of your car with lots of room to spare. (and < $40 new!) Playatech

I’ve been working on Colossus the last few evenings. I’ve been grinding metal to prepare it for welding and to protect people from cutting themselves on the installation. In the image, I’m grinding the center pole down so the gussets can be firmly welded on.

In the last few days I’ve met a guy that participated in SimNuke, some of the Burning Man Thunderdome guys, a group building a giant nose-picking machine powered by a human-sized hampster wheel, some folks building a statue of Ganesh, art-car builders… phew!

Much of the time, as projects were discussed, they’d point to a far-off corner of the studio and say something like, “Those are the giant fans we used to push all the gasoline in the air before we lit it.”

Oh yeah.

There was supposed to be a Music and BBQ event just 2 blocks away from me but it got moved to 2 miles away. I was too tired from grinding all night anyway so I just got a sandwich from the shop ON MY CORNER. :-)

I’m off to a pinball party right now at Lucky Juju Pinball.

Wee!

Dear optical-wear website owners of the world,

If you are going to try and sell goggles and sunglasses on your website, please make the photos large, clear, from multiple angles, and on a human model.

How is anyone supposed to spend $30-$200 on a vanity item if they can’t tell what it looks like or if it will fit?

Last night I had a great meal with an old new friend Barry and his wife. in February I had sent out an email request, asking for people to help me consider if I should move to San Francisco. He responded but I never ended up having time to meet him. Well now I did! The both of them are pretty great. And the meal was wonderful as well!

When we were at dinner I asked, as I do most of the time if the bartender has any drinks that have umbrellas of them. In all the time that I had lived in New Jersey, not a single bar or restaurant had umbrellas. Well, the very first time that I asked for one in San Francisco, I got one! I’m in the right place.

I told you that I wasn’t going to be welding because I didn’t have enough experience. Corbett just gave me a call and I’m going to be doing some only slightly less glamorous grinding of metal tonight and tomorrow at NIMBY.

The job is going well.

Things are going well!

update 1:33pm The company is springing for a snazzy laptop for me. They love me. They really love me.

I’m sure the joy will wear off when I go somewhere on vacation and then get/have to log in and do some work in the evening. But no matter, I’m giddy with happiness. I’ve never had a good laptop.

update 11pm Grinding went very well. Great space. Great project. Great people. I’m learning too. I saw and met some good people… I’m just terrible with names… there’s the guy who happily bought me a beer from the sodabeer machine, Daniel, a couple other guys, the 2 folks building a 20′ Ganesh, Zack and Corbett and some nice guy named Larry.. we talked for a while…