June 22, 2007Google My CarThis is slightly old news, but I didn't get around to post those screen shots earlier. So, Google released a new feature of "Google Maps" in the beginning of June - you can now see photos of the streets, any streets at least in SF, and at pretty good resolution. I went looking at the neighborhood where I lived the last year, and surprise surprise, there was my car, in all of its glory: 
You get a great view of the inside of the car: 
Well, I am glad at least they passed by during the month when the car happened to have been washed. And it's good that we were keeping our blinds down: 
Filed under: USA , San Francisco , USA 2006 CommentsMarch 4, 2007Black Sand and the VolcanoOk, here is the post on the last part of our Hawaii trip before I switch over to Brazil. (Damn, there isn't enough time between those trips to even blog about them.) So, after Kohala we headed south through Kona. We were thinking of stopping in a couple of places along the souther part of Kona, but got stuck in the worst traffic jam of my life. Seriously - the worst traffic jam of my whole life was in the seemingly scarcely populated Big Island. The thing is that they don't have all that many people in Kona, but they also only have just one row. And once you are stuck on that road, there is nothing you can do - you just stay there. So, it took us about 3 hours to drive the seemingly short distance from Kohala to Captain Cook and by the time we were passing Kona it was already too late to get off and look for a beach. We stayed overnight in Captain Cook and then went snorkeling in Kealakekua Bay, which was great except/because you have to kayak to the snorkeling site. There aren't any photos of that, though, so I'll move on. At the end of the day we headed further south to and stopped at the Punalu'u Black Sand Beach just before sunset, where we saw another turtle. After failing to find a place to stay nearby and sleeping in the car, we headed for the volcano the next day. Unfortunately, it started raining in the morning and it only got worse as we got closer to the volcano. We did a drive around the Kilauea caldera (an old crater that was filled with red lava a hundred years ago), then went to the Volcano Village for lunch. After lunch we headed down the Chain of Craters road and by then the rain eased. We drove to the "End of the Road", where the road literally ends unto a lava flow and walked a bit on the lava. It was too late to start the 2+ hour hike to the lava, though. As it got dark, we did see the red lava from afar, though. Finally, we wrapped our trip to the island the next day with a tour of green and lush Puna - what a contrast to the volcano, despite the petrified tree stumps! Filed under: USA , USA 2006 , Big Island CommentsPlease leave your comments. The comments are moderated against link spam and may not appear on the site immediately. Comentários em português são bem-vindos. Puede escribir en castellano también, pero puedo responder solamente en Portuñol. Mozhno po-russki, no v nastoyaschii moment tol'ko v translite. You can also email me at yuri{at}freewisdom.org. February 18, 2007San Francisco HydroponicsA friend of mine recently got into hydroponics to grow basil and parsley. His setup broke so we went to a hydroponics store in SF today so that he could get a replacement. Now, quite clearly many people who buy hyrdoponics equipment in San Francisco do not intend to grow basil, but I was surprised, none-the-less about how obvious the store is about what people buy their equipment for. For instance, they had advertising materials for a hash press right there on the counter, which said "hash press" in so many words and showed a guy in a marijuana leaf t-shirt using the press. When we walked in, my friend said he was looking for hydroponics system to grow basil. The sales guy nodded, but must not have take this seriously, since they had the following dialog a bit later when my friend was deciding whether to buy a new lamp: Friend: What would happen to my plants if I don't have a lamp? Guy: Without a lamp they'll die. Friend: Is basil that sensitive to light? Guy: Oh, you do mean basil. No, basil will be fine - you can just put it on the window sill. I didn't quite get the logic immediately, so let me spell it out: Basil doesn't need a lamp since you can put it on the sill. For some of the other common hydroponics crops, however, it would be unwise to put them near the window. So, the lamp is their only possible source of light and they would die without it. Filed under: USA , San Francisco , USA 2006 Comments
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Quoth BOB DILAN, on April 9, 2007 at 8 p.m.: BIG DEAL'' DO YOU GO INTO A BAR AND WALK OUT SHOCKED? GET REAL Please leave your comments. The comments are moderated against link spam and may not appear on the site immediately. Comentários em português são bem-vindos. Puede escribir en castellano también, pero puedo responder solamente en Portuñol. Mozhno po-russki, no v nastoyaschii moment tol'ko v translite. You can also email me at yuri{at}freewisdom.org. December 23, 2006Berkeley Shakes AgainSo, Berkeley had another earthquake again last night, and then AGAIN this morning. 3.7 points yesterday, 3.5 today. Both times it was the exact same spot that had a 3.7 on Wednesday. So, are we now going to have daily earthquakes? If the time was a little more predictable, perhaps we could even get into a habit of marking the time of the day by them: "Let's meet tomorrow after the earthquake." Filed under: San Francisco , USA 2006 CommentsPlease leave your comments. The comments are moderated against link spam and may not appear on the site immediately. Comentários em português são bem-vindos. Puede escribir en castellano también, pero puedo responder solamente en Portuñol. Mozhno po-russki, no v nastoyaschii moment tol'ko v translite. You can also email me at yuri{at}freewisdom.org. December 21, 2006A Day in San FranciscoI spent the past semester preparing for the qualifying exam. Having just done it last Friday, there is finally time to enjoy living in San Francisco. On Sunday we decided for a chance to visit a few of the touristy places where we haven't been for years. We started off with the Lombard street on the Russian hill, then spent the early afternoon walking around the marina near Fisherman's Wharf. Filed under: San Francisco , USA 2006 CommentsPlease leave your comments. The comments are moderated against link spam and may not appear on the site immediately. Comentários em português são bem-vindos. Puede escribir en castellano también, pero puedo responder solamente en Portuñol. Mozhno po-russki, no v nastoyaschii moment tol'ko v translite. You can also email me at yuri{at}freewisdom.org. December 20, 2006Another EarthquakeAnother earthquack nearby. Actually, this is a second for this week,
though the one two days ago was barely noticeable, while this one
would have been hard to miss at 3.7 points just across the bay in
Berkeley.  What's interesting about those modern earthquakes is the real-time coverage. Not only can one check out the location etc. at the USGS (just google for "recent earthquakes"), but SFGate already has a mini-article about it mere 20 minutes after the fact. Filed under: San Francisco , USA 2006 CommentsPlease leave your comments. The comments are moderated against link spam and may not appear on the site immediately. Comentários em português são bem-vindos. Puede escribir en castellano también, pero puedo responder solamente en Portuñol. Mozhno po-russki, no v nastoyaschii moment tol'ko v translite. You can also email me at yuri{at}freewisdom.org. November 14, 2006BanffAfter a few days in Vancouver, I had to leave 4S early to go to CSCW in Banff, Alberta, about two hours driving from Calgary. We were housed in Fairmount Banff Springs - a gorgeous hotel that looks like a castle. The views from the hotel were quite stunning. I am glad someone else was paying for it, though. Filed under: USA 2006 , Banff CommentsPlease leave your comments. The comments are moderated against link spam and may not appear on the site immediately. Comentários em português são bem-vindos. Puede escribir en castellano también, pero puedo responder solamente en Portuñol. Mozhno po-russki, no v nastoyaschii moment tol'ko v translite. You can also email me at yuri{at}freewisdom.org. November 5, 2006VancouverFiled under: USA 2006 , Vancouver CommentsPlease leave your comments. The comments are moderated against link spam and may not appear on the site immediately. Comentários em português são bem-vindos. Puede escribir en castellano también, pero puedo responder solamente en Portuñol. Mozhno po-russki, no v nastoyaschii moment tol'ko v translite. You can also email me at yuri{at}freewisdom.org. October 31, 2006Off to CanadaI am off to Canada today, going first to Vancouver for
4S and then to Banff (near
Calgary) for CSCW. I giving a talk about
Brazilian informatics policy at 4S in session entitled Will of
Science and Technology in States of
Decay and talking
about then participating in the doctoral colloquium at CSCW. There will be pictures. Filed under: USA 2006 CommentsPlease leave your comments. The comments are moderated against link spam and may not appear on the site immediately. Comentários em português são bem-vindos. Puede escribir en castellano también, pero puedo responder solamente en Portuñol. Mozhno po-russki, no v nastoyaschii moment tol'ko v translite. You can also email me at yuri{at}freewisdom.org. October 26, 2006The Burning Man Decompression PartyIf you haven't heard of Burning Man, read the wikipedia article first. If you have, here are a few pictures from the Burning Man "Decompression" party - sort of a "mini-Burning Man" organized in San Francisco six weeks after the main event, to help those who went get a break from reality. I've never been to Burning Man myself, so this was an interesting glimpse at it. The sun flower featured in two of the pictures is part of an installation built by a bunch of my friends. The sunflowers track the sun during the day, collect solar energy and then use it at night to power the LEDs. Filed under: San Francisco , USA 2006 CommentsPlease leave your comments. The comments are moderated against link spam and may not appear on the site immediately. Comentários em português são bem-vindos. Puede escribir en castellano también, pero puedo responder solamente en Portuñol. Mozhno po-russki, no v nastoyaschii moment tol'ko v translite. You can also email me at yuri{at}freewisdom.org. |
The Burning Man Decompression Party |
Please leave your comments. The comments are moderated against link spam and may not appear on the site immediately. Comentários em português são bem-vindos. Puede escribir en castellano también, pero puedo responder solamente en Portuñol. Mozhno po-russki, no v nastoyaschii moment tol'ko v translite. You can also email me at yuri{at}freewisdom.org.