Lighter Blogging

Apologies for the slow updates of later. The Wall Street Journal article hit us pretty hard. Much of the demographic that found out about the software through the WSJ were not geeks like me and there were a fair number of support emails to answer. There have actually been very few serious problems, but each one feels quite personal to me, mostly because its been my responsibility to get these things right. Hopefully over the next few weeks we will clear up the remaining issues and have an even better product.

GreenPrint on CNBC!!

European food

Went to an after-hours spot in Portland called Ararat. If I had walked into this place in darkest Romania I would not have been surprised. They even had a multi coloured lighted dance floor. I think kitsch would be the word, but I am not sure any of the management would have understood it. Apparently European food is Eastern European food, like Borsch, which at three in the morning has limited appeal. aside from the decor and food they did actually have quite a cool DJ playing and its definitely adding material to my future novel.

CNBC

Here is a link to a fantastic video of GreenPrint on CNBC with Walt Mossberg. http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=151202420 I can not believe it.

My current theme song

Wall Street Journal

GreenPrint just got reviewed in the WSJ by Walt Mossberg, probably the most important person in tech journalism. We got a great review! Its a fantastic start for our small company. I am pinching myself!

Overall, GreenPrint is a good product -- a simple solution to an annoying and wasteful problem.

P.S. This is why I was in D.C. last week. It should be up here later today: http://ptech.wsj.com/ptech.html

Have I been here too long...

I am starting to enjoy American Football, I am concerned what other American pastimes I might pick up.

A weekend in the country

I spent the last weekend on the East Coast with Richard in Philadelphia. With beautiful weather we spent much of the time out in the garden felling and clearing trees. I am not sure that garden is the right word, for 10 acres of land with a sizable pond. Living in Portland and London I am generally very urban and stuck in front of a computer for much of the time, so it was a great change to sped some time out in the cold but sunny weather burning calories and doing manual labour.

Flying back to Portland

Writing this from a cramped plane somewhere over the central United States. Philadelphia International airport was struggling to deal with all the passengers on Sunday night, there were no queues to check in, but the security line was enormous. I am increasingly annoyed at the whole farce that is airport security. I wouldn't mind so much if they managed to design the security areas in a way that people could actually use them. On approach to the security area, people shout at you to remove your shoes, laptop and liquids. Could we please get clear well designed signs, so that you don't have TSA employees shouting increasingly loudly at non-english speakers. Can you stop yelling at us to get in line, as though its our fault there aren't enough scanners or staff to do the job in an efficient and pleasant way. Can we get a large enough area to take our shoe off and prepare our possessions for screening, not one small table that was found in the cafeteria. Can you find ways of rescanning bags without stopping everybody else in the line. Can we have a place to put our clothes back on and gather our possessions, not dump us in to a shopping mall in socks, holding our trousers up with half a dozen peoples bags mixed up on a table. In the plane: Can we get a sack that isn't 70% salt and might actually stave off hunger for part of the six hour flight.

Lion Mutilates 42 Midgets in Cambodian Ring-Fight

I missed this back in May, but it is too good not to post

The fight was slated when an angry fan contested Yang Sihamoni, President of the Cambodian Midget Fighting League, claiming that one lion could defeat his entire league of 42 fighters. Sihamoni takes great pride in the league he helped create, as was conveyed in his recent advertising campaign for the CMFL that stated his midgets will "... take on anything; man, beast, or machine."

http://www.fmft.net/archives/BBC_NEWS.htm Hint: Its a spoof.

Four Legged Scooter

I like it.

Via Make

D.C.

Its 20 deg C here on the not so chilly east coast, I flew around most of the country yesterday, thanks to my flight from Cincinnati to D.C being canceled. I was rerouted to Atlanta and then on to D.C. Looking at the map, thats jut crazy. More impressions from D.C. when I am not sitting in a cafe thinking about the upcoming meeting .

Off to D.C.

I am at PDX using their excellent free wifi on my way to Washington D.C. It will be my first time in this nation's capital, unfortunately I am only going to be spending the day, so won't be doing much sightseeing. It' a really important meeting for GreenPrint and all being well, I will blog about it later in the week.

Japanese Humor not so different from English

This video shows the japanese comedian, Hard Gay, going to the offices of yahoo and trying to get into an advert. There is something about the reserved nature of the Japanese people he interacts with and his complete lack of embarrassment that reminds me of some british comedy such as Denis Penis and even Ali G.

The end of the Gillette tax

I have finally had enough of paying the exorbitant price of Gillette razor blades. I dutifully swallowed the marketing line and bought a new Fusion 5 bladed razor, and It was o.k. until I came to buy replacement blades. The cheapest I could find them was at Costco for $42.00 for a 16 pack. I couldn't bring myself to do it. So after a little research I have gone and bought myself a classic safety razor. After two days of using it, I can definitely say I prefer the experience, the shave is at least as close, if not closer. The razor feels good, not plastic and cheap. The blades are $15 for 30. The downside, there is only one I can see so far, you have to be slightly more careful while shaving, though its by no means easy to cut yourself even when you are as clumsy as me. Its an amazing triumph of marketing over results that we are in the position we are in today regarding razors. Over the past 80 years we haven't managed to improve the shaving experience at all. we have just increased the price and kept lots of mediocre copywriters in jobs, creating the same cliched ad of closely shaved man and attractive woman variously stroking them. So based o my (limited) experience so far, throw off the shackles of cartridge razors and go back to the old school.

Wicked Cactus

This is my current favourite mash up. Love the lyrics and I actually think something greater than the two individual tracks came out of it. Its from the awesome Flying White Dots psychedelic mash up album which you can get at their site. Mixes the instrumental from Chris Rea's Isaak's (thanks Chris) wicked game with the vocal from David Bowie's Cactus. Listen here using the awesome Audio Player Plugin [audio:wicked-cactus.mp3]

Death before Deraileurs

Sticker seen outside stumptown, on a fixie. I want one. Sorry no photo blame the awfulness of verizon and their mangled version of the RAZR, ugh.

Death before Deraileurs

Experienced the camaraderie of the fixed gear rider today, as I rode into town another rider struck up a conversation about the stupidity of the Portland traffic laws regarding bikes, no filtering between cars, no going through amber lights etc etc. The friendliness of riders here is definitely one of the positives though.

Voodoo doughnut Disaster

The fryer at Voodoo Doughnut has blown up, Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! No doughnut fix, lets hope the elite emergency fryer repair team are on their way.

MacBook Pro Display

The display on my MacBook Pro is so bright whenever I turn to use my old G4 PowerBook I keep trying to turn up the brightness, I would take a picture of the two side by side, but it is such a hassle with the incredibly crippled Verizon Razr that I am using for a phone that it really isn't worth it. That however is a story for another day.

Google knows what time it is

I'll keep this short. you can now type Time in xxxxxx into google and get the current time in that city. google you truly know what time it is. Time in London Time in Portland