Travel
-
Found
Getting out of a Taxi in Madrid yesterday, by mistake I picked up a coat that a prior passenger had left on the seat. Here’s the label: The coat wasn’t exceptional except in respect to the apparent antiquity of that label. Rather than take it with me (since I’m moving on), I left it in… Continue reading
-
Wanted: Just-the-Facts Maps
In Google sets out future for Maps — Lays down gauntlet to Nokia with plans for personalized, context-aware and ’emotional’ maps in future, in Rethink Wireless, Caroline Gabriel begins this way: Google may be feeling the heat from an unlikely source, Nokia, at least in its critical Maps business. The search giant has put location awareness… Continue reading
-
Loving the Alps of Los Angeles
I orient by landmarks. When I was growing up in New Jersey, the skyline of New York raked the eastern sky. To the west were the Watchung “Mountains“: hills roughly half the height of Manhattan’s ranking skyscrapers. But they gave me practice for my favorite indulgence here in Los Angeles: multi-angulating my ass in respect to… Continue reading
-
Plug your car into the rest of your life
Your late-model car knows a lot more than its dashboard tells you. It knows how fast you’ve been going on every trip, your fuel mileage, your tire pressures and much more. It even knows what your engine light really means — before it comes on. In fact your car has hundreds of sensors with interesting… Continue reading
-
Getting kicks at 66
A year ago I entered the final demographic. So far, so good. @Deanland texted earlier, asking if I had a new affinity with WFAN, the New Yawk sports station that radiates at 660 on what used to be the AM “dial.” Back when range mattered, WFAN was still called WNBC, and its status as a… Continue reading
-
A good word for a good cause
@BlakeHunskicer has a kickstarter project, Fleeing the War at Home: An interactive documentary introducing the crisis in Syria through the personal histories and dreams of Syrian refugees, with a few days and a few thousand dollars left to go. Blake is one of the graduate students I got to know this last year as a visiting… Continue reading
-
Hot Death from Above
Driving from New York to Boston today, I heard “Summer ‘Heat Tourists’ Sweat With Smiles In Death Valley” — a four-minute feature on NPR, aired on the 100th anniversary of the hottest temperature ever recorded outdoors on Earth, which happened in Death Valley: 134° Fahrenheit, which is around 57° Celsius. The report says Death Valley… Continue reading
-
West Fork Fire
On my way back to New York from Sydney on Wednesday, while flying east over the San Juan National Forest and the Rio Grande National Forest in southern Colorado, I shot what at first I though was a controlled burn, but later realized was the West Fork Fire. I knew it was a big one… Continue reading
-
Opposites distract
Just discovered by Antipodr that Bermuda and Perth are antipodes: located at the exact other ends of the Earth from each other. I’m in Melbourne, Australia, which is the antipode of a spot on the h of North Atlantic Ocean on Antipodr’s map. By the end of tomorrow I’ll be back in New York, a couple thousand… Continue reading
-
Let’s help Airbnb rebuild the bridge it just burned
[Trieste, Italy, 12:02am Friday 21 May 2013 — As I say in the comments here, Airbnb has responded to this post, explaining that a bug in the system was involved. While that might patch Airbnb’s relationship with my wife and I, the bridge remains burned with other customers as long as Airbnb’s Verified ID system retains… Continue reading
-
Some perspectives in time and space
First, time. Earth became habitable for primitive life forms some 3.X billion years ago. It will cease to be habitable in another 1 billion years or less, given the rate at which the Sun continues to get hotter, which it has been doing for the duration. Species last, on average, a couple million years. Depending… Continue reading
-
Springing in Paris
That’s the Parc de la Villette, also variously known as Parc La Villette, Parc Villette, or just Villette, here in Paris. I shot it two days ago, when we got here and the weather was clear. It got cloudy and wet after that. But it looks like things will clear up for::::: From the About… Continue reading
-
Digging Blackhawk Slide
One day, back around 15,000 BCE, half a mountain in Southern California broke loose and slid out onto what’s now the Mojave desert. The resulting landform is called the Blackhawk Slide. Here it is: It’s that ripple-covered lobe on the bottom right. According to Robert Sharp’s Geology Underfoot in Southern California, it didn’t just flow… Continue reading
-
The costs of celebrity
On the way back from a concert in Brooklyn yesterday we shared the subway with a well-known filmmaker. He’s one of those people who look ordinary enough to blend in with the rest of us, which is lucky for him. Still, he’s not anonymous. We know his name. We’ve seen his movies. We also did… Continue reading
-
The biggest picture
I want to plug something I am very much looking forward to, and encourage you strongly to attend. It’s called The Overview Effect, and it’s the premiere of a film by that title. Here are the details: Friday, December 7, 2012 – 5:30pm – 7:00pm Askwith Lecture Hall Longfellow Hall 13 Appian Way Harvard University Cambridge, MA The world-premiere… Continue reading
-
Riding out the storm
Reverse chron reading here. LIFO. For the full experience, start at the bottom. 7:30am Tuesday morning: I can tell the storm is over by tuning in to the Weather Channel and finding it back to the normally heavy load of ads, program promotions and breathless sensationalism. So I’ll turn ya’ll back over to your irregularly… Continue reading