At My Leisure...

With a Bang, etc.

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So ’07 began with a bang, not a whimper (contrary to TS’s post-apocalyptic ruminations — global warming, nuclear proliferation, and all that jazz notwithstanding), and the first month has been very busy, full of promise and change. Then there’s a hectic February.

We said bye to my kid sister on MW’s boat, docked somewhere in the Emeryville Marina. She’s off to do field work and research for a year, and everyone’s going to miss her. So there’s some change already — she won’t be just across the bridge for most of this year.

I’ve also been traveling a lot; most recently, I was in Boston for the mini technical plenary, attending a meeting of the WebAPI WG and dialing into a meeting of the Mobile Web Best Practices WG. I’ve become an utter whimp from living out on the West Coast for so long; I found it REALLY cold there. I was also in Vegas earlier this year. And in a few days, I’ve got to get things together for my SxSW panel. I’m speaking on two panels at SxSW in March. Kev asked me to speak on one as well, just so he could hand out a blue card with “rambling” marked on it.

Extrapolations, Technology

He’s Gone Pink

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Taboca (aka Marcio Galli aka Syncope) e-mailed a bunch of us with characteristic gusto about his Pink Paula Theme, “just in time for Valentine’s Day.” Hah! In an act of romance and impromptu bravado, our favorite Brazilian gifted his girlfriend Paula a pink theme for Firefox, all her own. When Firefox 2.0 shipped, she obliged him to tweak the skin to work with the latest release, and then he decided to release his work to the masses. Roses are red …

Honestly, this made my day. Taboca’s also behind CCPhotos, part of his master plan of digitizing the known (Cartesian) world. Ah, life, life, life.

At My Leisure..., Gadgetry, Technology

What Happens In Vegas…

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I guess the key to really experience the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is to get a pass to a bling-bling after party, thrown by a well-known company in some hard-to-get-into sort of place (ropes, bouncers, and the like). Me, I was just lowly convention hall scum, intrepidly seeking tchotchkes while asking questions of the knowledgeable exhibitors.

This year’s CES was just about the biggest massing of humans and electromagnetic radiation that I’ve ever been privy to. Taking the shuttle bus between the various exhibits was a maddening experience; I’d frequently find myself on a shuttle bus between two venues with a semi-hostile driver and confused patrons of technology in Vegas traffic jams.

But, whining and self-deprecation aside, I found a few things in Vegas to write home about.

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At My Leisure..., Society

Down and Out In Paris and Bangalore

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I’m in Bangalore after two days in Paris, sipping my mother’s strong coffee and sort of gazing off into the horizon from our balcony. And OK, I’m not as impecunious as George Orwell was when he wrote the book that influences the title of this blog post. I’m just taking some artistic license.

I spent two days in Paris, traveling with Vice Vik, also on his way to Bangalore. Paris was awash in a constant drizzle, but I stayed in Le Marais in a quirky little hotel and still walked around a great deal. This whole trip has been a wonderful geographically staggered homecoming. And I’m awash in sentiment.

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An annotated anthology of Arun Ranganathan's Web noise.