So this funny little guy came by today claiming the lost sunglasses were his:
I don’t know. They didn’t seem to fit him. I think he was trying to scam me. I didn’t give them to him.
Big Brains
Years ago I read a paper by Hillard Kaplan, a University of New Mexico anthropologist, about the evolutionary economics of brain size. I tried to do a story, but he was off in the jungles of Bolivia working, and we never connected. Cleaning out a file recently on my desk at work, I came across the paper, and called him. Here are the results:
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Cafe Riviera
So if you’re in Albuquerque, you’ve gotta go have coffee and a sandwich, or desert, at Cafe Riviera. It’s on Constitution, just west of Carlisle. I swear, we were sitting there this evening having dessert, and they had a guy on the patio playing a trombone.
Right off the bat, any place that has a guy playing the trombone is obviously great. But I’ve had this fantasy for years that someone opens a little coffee place in our neighborhood, so Lissa and I could wander over on warm summer evenings for desert and to watch the people come and go – and they’d be smart and interesting people, probably wearing sandals. And the place would sell the New York Times. I mean, you can get the Times out of a machine in front of the supermarket, but that’s not the same as picking it up off of a pile next to the coffee pump pots.
OK, Cafe Riviera doesn’t seem to have the Times. Yet. But they’ve got pump pots, and the people looked interesting. So go there and spend your money, please. This is my fantasy. We can’t let them go out of business.
Trying to Understand the Mono Question
I”m not sure yet whether I have a dog in the Mono fight, but a couple of comments today from Nat and Havoc have me confused, so perhaps one or the other or both or some other smart person could elaborate:
Nat:
Should we not use XML because much of the standard was developed by Microsoft; because, in fact, Microsoft claims to have IP on it?
Havoc:
Yes XML had Microsoft involved, among many others. I’d say the difference between XML and .NET is pretty clear so I won’t belabor the point.
In fact it’s not terribly clear to me, but maybe someone smarter and more knowledgeable than I could do the “compare and contrast” thing between .NET and XML to help me understand the ways in which the situation may be the same (or at least similar, the Nat argument), and the ways in which it is not (Havoc’s apparent position).
Lost and Found
Found, on the back dash of my car:
If you’re missing a pair, let me know.
GEGL Visits New Mexico
Check the T-shirt below carefully:
That’s a GEGL-shirted DCM doing what he apparently does naturally, broken Coracoid Process or not.
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What I Blog About
Since not everyone clicks through, I thought (at the risk of reviving the John Malkovich debate) I’d pull Stephen’s thoughtful comments out here:
John,
Do you know that your blog is posted on planet.gnome.org?
The reason I say that is because for the past few months I’ve been reading it and I’ve yet to see you mention anything -even remotely- related to gnome. If your not going to blog about gnome fine, but don’t make the rest of us read it.
Stephen
Just FYI, Stephen, this has been a point of some contention in the past. I don’t run Planet GNOME, so I’m not really in a position to do something about your problem one way or the other, except perhaps to point out that there is a separate RSS feed for my free software-related posts.
Clinking Glasses
I have always thoroughly enjoyed the tradition of clinking glasses. But I am apparently out of date, according to Thelma Domenici:
Clinking glasses after a toast is a very old custom, and many people thoroughly enjoy it, but in today’s etiquette world, instructors teach that you should just raise your glass. They say clinking is not necessary and is hard on glassware.
Good to know.
Cicadas on the Loose
If you live in the eastern U.S., you probably don’t need me to tell you that the cicadas are emerging in huge numbers this year, a surge known as “Brood X.” Cameron Barr documents their arrival in this morning’s Washington Post. The Post’s David Brown wrote a terrific piece last week explaining their evolutionary biology. (Thanks to Carl Zimmer for that second lnk.)
Scientists Wise Up
A scientist grasping the distinction between fiction (the new “Day After Tomorrow” climate porn film) and realty, and respecting the public’s intelligence to do the same:
“My first reaction was, ‘Oh, my God, this is a disaster because it is such a distortion of the science. It will certainly create a backlash,’ ” said Dan Schrag, a Harvard University paleoclimatologist. “I have sobered up somewhat because the public is probably smart enough to distinguish between Hollywood and the real world.”
Le’ts hope Schrag hasn’t underestimated the public’s intelligence. I think he hasn’t.