4M

Good product, terrible website

I found this site via my treehugger email newsletter. The blurb in my email said in part,”

… proof-of-concept solar module that uses holograms to concentrate light, possibly cutting the cost of solar modules by as much as 75 percent, making them competitive with electricity generated from fossil fuels. … could bring down costs from about $4 per watt to $1.50 for crystalline …

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2006/04/13/google-calendar-all-your-appointments-belong-to-us/

Let’s think about this:

Google knows where you live and work. (local + maps)

Google knows what you search for. (suggest)

Google knows what’s on your computer. (toolbar)

Google only gives you what your government thinks you should have. (hello, China)

Google knows what you sell and how much of it (adwords + analytics)

Google reads your email. (Gmail)

Google knows who you’re meeting with when. (calendar)

Google at some point may have to bend over and give …

… you have an excuse to play hooky from work for a couple hours and hold a 2 day old baby duck in your hands. Click pic for bigger version.

If you’re a girl - like me - and you’ve ever had an occasion in your life where you just for a second wished you weren’t, because you desperately had to pee and convenient/hygienic options were nonexistent … you will think this is cool. PMate - Female Freedom - The Freedom To Pee Standing Up

Every now and then I get a seriously major craving for cookies. But, not being a big baker, I don’t usually have all the accoutrements you need to make fantastic cookies. Plus there’s the limited attention span and steadfast refusal to use measuring tools … etc.

So here you go. Seven ingredients even I had lying around. 15 minutes total. Boop helped. Yum.

2 eggs
1 cup of sugar
dash of salt
handful of nuts …

This past Sunday, I went to Soul Sanctuary, which is a family-friendly dance jam over at Ashkenaz, a Berkeley institution. It was a lovely experience. It felt like Church in the best sense of the word: community, openness, joy. Nice music, nice Berkeley hippie folk, no rules, just music and moving and grooving. Cool. So after the dance, we had a little circle time. The DJ told us that his …

Really interesting pasta salad

I really, really hate boring pasta salad. I’d rather eat greased styrofoam. So I threw some stuff together last night and made a pasta salad that is not soon forgotten. The secret ingredient? Wasabi mayonnaise. Just spicy enough to give it some real flavor!

The Stuff
Pasta - I used the corkscrew kind. Whatever.
The Sauce:
Mayo
Sundried tomato pesto sauce out of a jar. Thank you Trader Joe.
Wasabi Mayo - …

The digital equivalent of the boring vacation slideshow. Starring Brandon, of course.

Since I spent Super Bowl Sunday relaxing on the beach with my son, I missed all the commercials, which is the only reason I would have watched the game anyway. Not to worry - Google Video to the rescue! You can watch them individually or all together.

Who needs a tv anyway??

Super Bowl XL Commercials on Google Video

Great quotes from Sigia, which is a very academic mailing list devoted to user-centered design, usability and information architecture. They’d all crap their panties if they saw I didn’t capitalize any of those terms. Shnort!

“Design is doing for a dime what anyone can do for a dollar.”

I like that one a lot. It encapsulates what we do here at YVOD, I think.

“Design is the art and science of balancing the …