Spin Plates by Josh Elman

Hiking when the Mercury is hot

2006-02-14T20:31:00.000-08:00

Sunday was a gorgeous day - still up in the 70s in September!

Finally made it to Almaden Quicksilver Park (yes, their page is hosted on Geocities)

Hike Rating:
6 - scenery
4 - difficulty

Nice drive out past New Almaden - a cute old mining town. All the signs point out that in the 1870s, this was the biggest mercury mine in N. America.

The best parts:

getting some great glimpses back towards San Jose from the top of the ridge
seeing the old mining equipment just starting to decay
reaching the top and looking down back into the canyon

All the way to San Jose

2006-02-11T21:38:00.000-08:00

We've started hanging out in San Jose a little bit more often. Not the hottest spot, but some good finds.

I recommend:
Roving Mars - Imax movie at the Tech museum. The images of Mars rendered in full Imax with CGI versions of the rover landing are truly astounding. You almost feel like you are there. The 25-minute prelude about the mission is standard Imax documentary dull though...

Los Cubanos - Cuban restaurant near San Pedro square. The food is outstanding - I had the chicken breast - pounded thin, marinated, and covered with delicious fried onions. The Arroz con Pollo is basically Paella without the pretense. And the sweet plantains on the side are a great touch. Definitely get the soup over salad - the soup is very homemade, the salad is iceberg. The Cuatro Leche for dessert (cake soaked with 4 kinds of milk) is a great topper. And we still have leftovers.

Sometimes you lose, sometimes you get beat... And sometimes it's the refs fault

2006-02-05T20:41:00.000-08:00

Ok, I went in very hopeful for the Seahawks to win the Super Bowl, but also pragmatic that the Steelers might pull it out.

Never did I expect to watch a game in which the referees turned the game over to the Steelers. I mean how much did the NFL really want the Steelers to win?

It seemed like pretty much anytime the Seahawks had a good thing going, the refs made a call - from questionable to downright absurd to take the game away from them. Not to say the Steelers didn't make a few good plays, but jeez the Hawks dominated.

Questionable Ref Calls:

a really short spot on a Mack Strong reception that should have been a first-down
a holding call on Locklear on a pass to Stevens (caught this time!) down to the 1. Locklear touched the pass rusher twice - but very little holding
a block-in-the-back on the Seahawks best punt return of the day - the guy who was blocked was very much out of the play

Very questionable ref calls:

offensive pass interference on Darrell Jackson on his touchdown in the 1st Quarter. He touched the defender and switched directions. Very light and no interference. Not like the defender had a chance with the gaping hole there anyway. Good lord, the ref just didn't want to see the Seahawks score
actually giving Roethlisberger a TD on his 1-yard attempt. Pretty clear that he was just short of the goal line, but an acting play to put the ball over at the end confused the ref who wanted to give Pittsburgh a TD just for playing.

Absurd ref calls:

Calling a 15-yard penalty on Matt Hasselbeck on an interception return where he went down low to tackle the returner. How can you call him on a block? That's adding insult to injury!
Calling a fumble on Hasselbeck when he was down and tackled. At least that was overturned.

All in all, for the first time in 30 years, the Hawks made the Super Bowl. The least the refs could have done was to give them a chance.

Super Bowl eXtra Large - now with Seahawks

2006-01-22T21:28:00.000-08:00

After 30 seasons of existence, the Seahawks finally made it to the Super Bowl! And even better, it's Super Bowl XL. I think everyone should call it "Super Bowl eX eL" instead of "Super Bowl 40". Just sounds much cooler that way.

Go Seahawks! I give credit to the Steelers who are also playing well and trounced the AFC, but it's going to take even more to beat a balanced team with Hasselbeck and Alexander.

Seahawks make the Championship!

2006-01-15T23:05:00.000-08:00

So it's been 22 years since the Seahawks were last one-game-away-from the Super Bowl. I remember eagerly watching the AFC Championship vs. the Raiders in January 1984 (1983 season). And I remember my special computer program where I could type in each play as it happened and created a whole log of the game.

I'm excited it's happening again and can't wait to see Hasselbeck, Alexander, and the team take it to the Panthers. Go Hawks! Maybe I should pull up the Vic 20 and my old program to see if I can create a new log? Nah, now I just watch the play-by-play GameCast on ESPN.com ...

P.S. Is it just me, or does it still feel strange that the Seahawks are now in the NFC Championship? Just doesn't feel the same when it's not over the Raiders or Broncos.

SBC AT&T - retention matters too!

2006-01-07T21:48:00.000-08:00

So, we've been an SBC customer for almost 2 years. Yet somehow, almost every week we keep getting these "amazing" offers to come back to SBC (now AT&T - "Your World. Delivered" - uh, yeah). I mean we're talking like $30/month for DSL, phone, and long distance.

So I finally called and asked for the great rate. They told me since I was already a customer, I was stuck with what I had.

I mean I know all about "introductory pricing" but please please stop rubbing my nose in it. Can't you check your email list and realize I *am* a customer and try to tell me how I can actually save or get those certain Personal Choice features I so desperately need for my phone line?

Otherwise, it's time to keep switching phone companies for a good rate like I do for internet.

It's "Shareware" not "Freeware"

2005-07-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

Getting people to pay for software is a real challenge. When's the last time you paid for a piece of software?

Amazing how long it's been since I paid for software. I'm so used to getting great utilities like WinZip, PaintShopPro, and others for free that I forget that real people built these and would at least like to get paid.

At Real, we used to charge for "RealPlayer Plus" - which back in the late 90s, turned out to be a pretty good money-maker. Lots of people were happy to buy this 'upgraded' version - we just gave a few extra features, tech support, and "product ownership". However, at the same, we were seeing a proliferation of free software and free services in the bubble. To keep this cash cow, it got trickier and trickier - making it hard to find the 'free player' link was a game the storefront team seemed to play.

Anyway, it looks like this is coming back. People want to charge for *value* in software, which I think is fair. If you use it, pay for it. I mean we all buy screwdrivers, why wouldn't we buy a file zipper too?

See the article on News.com

Selling out...

2005-06-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

Overheard in the lunchroom:

"Does advertising really make that much money? Is it worth it?"
---"Yes"
"But it's like selling out. Like when an indie band signs with BMG..."
---"Exactly. And what happens to them?"

The air is busier than we think

2005-06-21T22:45:00.000-07:00

Hope you don't have a garage door. Because you all know that one day when it's pouring rain, you're going to drive home and click the button and... nothing happens. You'll park in the driveway, get soaked, drop your papers and curse your luck.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/06/tech/main659343.shtml

Until you realize that your garage door opener has actually been a threat to national security as it's using military-owned frequencies all this time. Now that those frequencies are needed, well, guess it's time for the super-deluxe garage door opener. (notice it has 'idrive torsion')

When random isn't so random

2005-06-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

A very humorous report came into customer service today, though I can imagine it wasn't nearly so funny for the user who reported it.

They had received an email from LinkedIn which included a URL intended just for them. The URL includes a 8-character key which is randomly generated. Here it is:

https://www.linkedin.com/e/isd/NN/F3cunt7G/

What are the odds of this? Turns out it's about 1 in 2 million for a given 4-letter word like this. And if you assume there a few dozen possible words and you ignore case, the odds can fall all the way to like 1 in 100,000. (thanks to Leo for the math!)

So be careful when you're randomly generating strings. With over 2.9 million people in LinkedIn, we just might have done this more than once.

Guess it's time to write the bad-word-filter :)

(note: I replaced a valid number with NN to prevent the link from working. But I didn't change the random key)

respond early and often

2005-06-12T23:50:00.000-07:00

Now, more than ever, openness and honesty with your customers are fundamental to success. If there's anything I learned from my years at RealNetworks, it's that if you don't listen and respond to your customers you'll lose them.

Today's example shows how easy it can be to get and respond. All I did was set up a Feedster feed for searching for "LinkedIn", and read what people say. When the opportunity arises, I love to respond and get involved in the conversations for how we can improve LinkedIn.

Building products has become more fun than ever now that we can listen so actively to the conversations around us.

Blog-sumer

2005-06-08T23:33:00.000-07:00

I like to call myself a "Blog-sumer". As you can tell from my, uh, "blog", - it's pretty clear that I'm not an A-list blogger. I don't really write about my industry musings, add pithy commentary on the world at large, I don't track the interesting articles I find on my blog. Heck, I haven't even changed the damn Blogger default styles (like most of Blogger users). And pretty much no one reads this (except for you?).

Not that I'm unique, but blogging has completely transformed the way I discover information and learn about what's going on. And beyond that, I've got Feedster alerts all set up for main topics and my job (search for "LinkedIn") so that I can grok what's going on as soon as it gets mentioned. I spend way more time in BlogLines now than I do visiting sites. No more going bookmark by bookmark searching for a new articles. Who needs that?

So does that mean I need to be a blogger to be into blogging and believe this is the new way that everyone will experience the web soon?

Nah. Coming soon, the vast majority of us will be "blog-sumers" and that'll be just fine.

When reading is "comfort food"

2005-06-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

Some things never change. Bruno and Boots have been my "friends" since I first read about their antics at MacDonald Hall. With so much going on now, it was nice to take a break this afternoon and feel like I was 12 again. At the library today, I tried to hide my face as I rushed in and out of the children's section. I was checking to see if there was anything I hadn't read find my favorite author from the past - Gordon Korman.

I picked out MacDonald Hall Goes Hollywood and skimmed through it in about 90 minutes resting outside in the backyard. It was nice to go back and experience all the joy and antics of these old friends who haven't grown up. Probably the longest time I've spent in the backyard and will do so much more this summer.

Fresh salmon

2005-05-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

Today we had our first annual Memorial Day barbecue at the new house (didn't live here last year yet...).

The main course was fresh-caught salmon, purchased from a dock at Moss Landing. Actually, it's called "A Dock" so there's probably a "B Dock" and "C Dock" too. Highly recommend Moss Landing for the fresh fish. New stop next time we're driving the 1 from Monterey to Santa Cruz. Lucky we had the cooler.

We bought half a salmon (4.5lbs) fresh caught on Sat afternoon (after an afternoon of kayaking at Elkhorn Slough) so it was less than 48 hours from the ocean to the Fiesta grill. Enough for 8 of us to enjoy and we still get yummy leftovers.

Thanks to Cooking for Engineers for the instructions since I'm still a grill-novice. Need to figure out how to keep the fish from sticking to the grill next time.

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article.php?id=10

Why 8 is more super than 6

2005-04-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

Last weekend on a road trip around Bakersfield, we had the rare privilege to do a night-by-night test of Super 8 and Motel 6.

After this experience, we're now Super 8 loyalists and will drive the extra miles to make sure we get the comfort on a long road trip.

Super 8 gives you shampoo
Super 8 feeds you breakfast in the morning - donuts, bagels or english muffins with cream cheese, fruit, and fresh-squeezed orange juice
Super 8 gives you 4 cups instead of 2
Super 8 towels are 4 inches longer (but really, it's time for all these motels to get towels better than I had in junior high gym)
Super 8 has fantastic water pressure (Motel 6 was a trickle)

Both nights cost us a grand total of $80.

Time to try this thing

2005-02-26T13:42:00.000-08:00

ok, time to try this. We'll see if I do it. Considering it's the end of February and I haven't sent out my holiday cards. Well...