I still haven’t used Car2Go, in part because of its horrible web interface, and in part because it never seems to be more convenient than biking or TriMet — there were a few times recently when I would have liked to use it, but I would have needed to walk farther than I could at […]
The professional hazards of a linguist: Chomsky
One of the professional hazards of being a linguist is being asked what you think of Chomsky.* I never have a good answer because we didn’t actually study Chomsky in school. The linguistics department at Rice does what’s called ‘functional linguistics’, and Chomsky is ‘formal linguistics’. The names have to do with having different opinions […]
Adventures in fermentation
A while back I started making kombucha, and this is bascially a bunch of meanderings from my first three months of experience with it (mostly for my reference). I took a class at People’s Co-op given by Dori Oliver of Nourishing Foodways, and I use her recipe and simple 5-step process, and also received a […]
The importance of being afoot
On Sunday I injured my left foot walking off a walkway. It was one of those freak accidents where you just land wrong. The friend whose house I was at told me I sounded remarkably calm when I told her that I thought I had hurt my foot more badly than the routine “Whoops, I […]
Something I don’t like: my laptop
I got my laptop last summer from ZaReason. It’s a Strata Pro 13 that came pre-installed with Ubuntu Linux 10. Although it does basically work, I’ve had a lot of trouble with it. First of all, I dropped it when it was about a day old. That’s not ZaReason’s fault, but once I sent it […]
Fat focus
I went to an event at Metro tonight with Richard Jackson. The event was supposed to be about his work on Retrofitting Suburbia, but if that got discussed it was after I left. Mostly it was about how people are fat and it’s because we aren’t active anymore (and a little about how that’s related […]
Something I liked: Superhero Photo
Recently I did the Superhero Photo: The Basics class. I had a great time with the class. I’ve been looking for a photo class that would fit my needs for ages, but it never occurred to me to take one online. When Tea interviewed Andrea, I knew her class would be a great fit because […]
Stale bureaucracy
I occasionally say smart things on Twitter, and even more occasionally, one of them is worth saying in more than 140 characters. Yesterday I had the following conversation with @bjamin: The project Ben was alluding to is the I-5/Broadway/Weidler interchange plan, which is part of the N/NE Quadrant project. Public attention to the project has […]
Depression management
Some time ago I wrote a post about my experiences with depression (dysthymia) and with therapy and how it had really helped me. At the time I was only six months or so out from the end of regular therapy. The legacy of that work is definitely lasting, but in the years since I’ve also […]
Car2Go website is just horrible
Inconspicuous login button, disappearing links, ridiculous password requirements, a map interface that would make the Baby Jesus cry… I could detail all the ways it’s totally wrong, but I normally get paid to design and build web applications, and they didn’t ask for my advice, so. It seems really tragic, actually. I think Car2Go is […]