"This is cool: Italy is planning to put a telescope on the moon."

Link from Dean Esmay.

"If our passive trust was a benefit you wanted to enjoy, that's all the more reason we should be suspicious of you."

Link.

"The most dangerous idea is the only dangerous idea: The idea that ideas can be dangerous."

Link.


Other "dangerous ideas" here.

"Investment bank Piper Jaffray & Co. predicted in a Jan. 3 research note that the [Google]'s stock would climb to $600 before yearend."

Link.

As my boyfriend put it, it's like the dot-com boom all over again, but this time with just one company.

After breaking up with [Harvey] Keitel, [Lorraine] Bracco married the actor Edward James Olmos in 1994 but handled her own finances. "With Eddie it was separate" because his business interests were in California, she said.

She and Olmos were divorced several years ago in the wake of the court battle with Keitel for custody of Stella. It ended with Stella in Bracco's custody, and with Olmos banned from seeing Stella alone, Bracco said. An assistant said that Olmos was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

Link.

Sooo...like what happened between Eddie and Stella? Yikes.

"As I mentioned a while back, I'm in Mexico now with Michelle's family.

The views are nice.

And the house is absurdly opulent.

I do have one complaint, however.

Our bedroom decorations include the following... "

LINK.

"Yahoo is moving toward people and community, while Google is focused on science and machines."

Link.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to my random visitors.

I took these pictures on a walk Christmas Eve day at Allied Arts in Palo Alto.





And this one heading south on Hwy 280.

"One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed." Link. (See "No. 11")

Also:

"More than food-scroungers, though, [German] IKEA workers fear lazy parents. Around 150 three- to 10-year-olds are deposited daily at the Hamburg-Schnelsen store's play area -- a complimentary offer to allow mom and dad to wander in peace through the showrooms. But many people misuse the service as a free babysitting service." Link.

Fifteen months after Mount St. Helens reawakened, the volcano is continuing to release massive amounts of lava in an unusual geologic display that in some respects confounds scientists.

Roughly every three seconds, a large dump truck load's worth of lava — 10 cubic yards — oozes into the mountain's crater. And with the sticky molten rock comes a steady drumfire of small earthquakes.

The unremitting, monthslong pace is not common, said U.S. Geological Survey geologist Dave Sherrod. Experts say it is unclear what the activity signifies or how long it will continue.

Link.

The 25 Most Interesting Web Cams of 2005.

Link.

Also:

The best fonts of 2005. Link. (via Metafilter)

So he faked it.

Link.

I'm not surprised; the Koreans were reporting suspiciously fast progress.

Well, at least the USA isn't as far behind in stem cell research as it seemed.

The question now is, where exactly are we?

"Who wants to go get rum balls!

It's not really a question so much as a rallying cry."

Link.

"[H]ow to use Google's translation service to see sites that are forbidden by your company's firewall; ask Google to do an English-to-English translation." Link.

Top Ten Signs You're A Gay Cowboy

Link.

A Board of Supervisors committee approved legislation Monday that would give city officials wider powers to protect large trees in San Francisco, including those on private property.

[...]

After landmark status is granted for a tree, it could not be removed without a public hearing and approval from the Department of Public Works. Cutting down a landmark tree without permission could bring a fine as high as $1,000 and a requirement to pay for replacement of the tree.

Link.

But over in Oakland:

Take a stroll around the lake and you'll find red-tagged trees everywhere you look. Some of them are coming down because they are dead or dying; others are so old and heavy they've become a safety risk; still others have to go to make way for widened and improved paths and jogways. But others seem to have been condemned for entirely arbitrary reasons. And we're not mollified by the city's plan to plant more trees than it cuts down: We know the difference between a tree that's stood for sixty or more years and a sapling that will need to be held up by wooden poles for its first five years.

Link.

Currently, the biggest house on Santa Clara County's tax rolls is 19,951 square feet.

``When is it enough?'' said resident Robin Robison. ``We've seen it inch up: 20, 25, 30'' thousand square feet.

More generous than several affluent towns, Los Altos Hills allows people to develop 6,000 square feet for every flat acre of land. A 12,000-square-foot home could fit on two acres, 18,000 on three acres and so on. Woodside, Los Gatos and Palo Alto generally cap main residences at 6,000 square feet no matter how large the lot.

Link.

I went for a walk yesterday

Here are some random pictures from a rainy day in my neighborhood.



The Eugenia Steps.

When raccoons attack (the winter lettuce).

Oh, brother. The raccoon visited my roof deck last night.



Where there was once a thriving pot of winter lettuce there is now this:



Too funny.

What's for dinner.

This recipe in the November Sunset looks tasty. (I love Sunset.) It's a chorizo cornbread stuffing with butternut squash.

My honey's a vegetarian, so I'm substituting Boca vegetarian sausage for chorizo:



Here's the cornbread, a-baking:



Here's the butternut squash (cooked in hot water w/ brown sugar):



Cilantro and sage:



And my favorite part--mushrooms, red bell pepper, onion, and fennel head cooked together with butter:



And here is everything but the cornbread all mixed together:



When the cornbread finished, I broke it in to cubes and dropped them into a mixture of vegetable broth and two beaten eggs. Then I combined everything and put it in the oven to bake.