Ripple Effect of Silicon Valley Cafeterias

This article came out in the NY Times today and from an urban planning perspective it certainly is fascinating. I think the article blames a little too much on cafeterias for the problems of urban development in transitional neighborhoods. It can’t all be pinned on whether companies should feed employees. People do more than just eat around their office building. Gyms, dry cleaners, hair salons, shopping all can be accomplished near your office despite being fed inside the building. However food is clearly a contributing factor as this article shows. It is a fascinating observation.

From Flash to HTML

According to a good friend who is fast becoming a very savvy SEM specialist, websites that contain flash are fast becoming a thing of the past. Why? Because they are not SEO (Search Engine Optimize-able).  Internet activity has the remarkable added value that you can track activity, potential customers, and the performance of marketing campaigns and their direct effectiveness. Flash was preventing this however, and so now HTML is far more important. It’s funny how fast flash has come and gone. In a flash! Ok, that is nauseatingly cheesy and I apologize.   Google labs, which I have blogged about before, is at the forefront of solving every problem. They have now come up with Swiffy, a web-based tool that converts Flash into HTML5. Isn’t that wonderful!   Here is a link to a demo of the tool.

Tags: Flash, Google Labs, HTML, technology

Moving Platforms

This is a brilliant idea. Mostly for Europe right now, because America has not really bought into the benefits of high speed trains.  As the population grows, we really won’t be able to get around with cars. There are many cities that are stuck in the American Graffiti era (LA I’m talking to you), where cars are a symbol of ones wealth, individualism, status etc… It isn’t practical, and this video really shows the true benefit of a free flowing train system. It saves you TIME!!!! That is something we will all need more of as technology continues to progress.

Tags: high speed trains, trains, transportation

Cafe Bliss

 

I know it has been a while since my last post. This is mostly due to my move down south and a quick east coast trip. I did however stumble upon a friends terrific food blog, which inspired me to get back to my own! I realize that not posting for long stretches certainly can be annoying so I offer my humblest apologies. Inspired by said food blog, I want to give praise to one of my new neighborhood restaurants! There happens to be one shopping center within walking distance of my new apartment, which offers a plethora of culinary delights. Two Mexican restaurants, one chinese, one sushi, two pizza places and an American bistro called Cafe Bliss.

It was blissful. I tried a cup of their chili to start and it was the perfect blend of spicy and cinnamony-sweet. They even offered the cheese and onion topping which I welcomed. It always adds a savory and creamy texture to chili.  For my main meal I had the chipotle pulled pork sandwich and the side salad. The dressing on the salad was a dry raspberry vinaigrette. Sweet but not syrupy. The sandwich was on one of those buttery rolls that melts with each bite , and the chipotle seasoning really substituted any authentic smoky flavor that a true pig-pickin would create on the fire. I realize they didn’t have a giant pig cooking back there, and it amazed me what that seasoning can do. The sandwich already included a delicious cole slaw, which anyone who has lived in the south knows is a required condiment for pulled pork. A delicious lunch all around. Can’t wait to go back!

Follow the Mob

Yet another Google Labs idea that popped into my head.  As a person in my mid-twenties…ok LATE twenties, I’m looking for fun weekend activities that involve others my age.  Sometimes events pop up that seem enticing such as farmers markets, concerts, charity events, sporting events. While I often go despite the turnout, wouldn’t it be nice to know where fun and hip things are going on and if they are drawing a crowd?  This is where Google comes in. We all know that our android phones are walking GPSs, and while we hate to give away too much information about where we are at any given time, I think that if we did so anonymously it might just work. ( Some people already “check in” to where they are on Facebook, giving away their identity, so this idea isn’t even as intrusive as that one).

Follow the mob would be a Google site that you elect into, where through being signed into your gchat or Gmail on your phone, Google will project your image as a red dot at an event. The idea is that if you find a cool thing to do on the weekend and the attendance could be better, or if you just want people to know where you are, you can allow yourself to be “part of the mob.”  Many red dots with people your age at a place will show up as a “hot spot” on a Google Map online. Again, this is a tool for regional use. I believe that many of these online tools should be broken down by region, but the idea is that you can track online clumps of red dots and see where large groups of people are. This could also be useful for single people trying to find a date, especially if Google can customize it by demographics such as age and gender.

I remember living in Arlington VA, and going to the Harris Teeter grocery store on Sunday afternoons and thinking I was in a bar in Georgetown on a Saturday night. I even got a phone number once! It just so happened that THAT grocery store at THAT time was teeming with people my age.  This is the type of information Follow the Mob could help with.

Tags: Android, events, Google Labs, new ideas, tracking

Coffee House Live

This is a Google Labs idea I had while browsing the site. Basically, coffee houses are a great place people go to access the Internet, and in theory Google Chrome. In addition, many people have Ipads, androids, iphones and laptops with cameras. This leads to my idea. Music by local artists typically get showcased at coffee shops. There is folk and acoustic talent in america, it is just hiding in your local java factory. I also believe in coffee shops NOT named Starbucks, because they offer better tasting coffee, fresh pastries, and a community of music. Anyway, there could be a push to get Google users to record local shows on a special coffee House live site. This would be good publicity for the coffee shop, the artist, and create a log of local talent in the area. As people transition away from MySpace and move toward Facebook, there is a void for me in terms of places to find good music, and more importantly good local music I can go listen to! Live music will always be the best way to experience music, and what better way to create a local music infrastructure, and allow participation by Google Chrome users, than through something like Coffee House Live!

Tags: coffee, Facebook, Google Chrome, Google Labs, ideas, local, music, Myspace, participation

Google Labs

I want to refer any of my readers to Google Labs if they have free time. It is an open source way to help Google engineers with their new ideas for Google services. What it all boils down to, is how to get people to pay attention to their website, and some of these ideas are really creative. My favorite is Fast Flip, which allows you to see dozens of websites all at once by category. The idea is to get all your news quickly without having to go from website to website. As a former journalism major, it was like eating a bag of M&Ms.  I admit, I made my way to Google Labs because I was applying for a job there and a survey sent me to the link, but it has got me to thinking about my own Google Lab ideas, which I will post on this blog momentarily. For now, enjoy the site.

Tags: creativity, disruptive technology, Google, Google Labs

Taken For a Fool

I just heard this song on the radio and liked it!  I’m not even a Strokes fan but this is a catchy tune!

The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Hello!! I haven’t posted in a while because I just moved from Oregon to San Francisco! I wanted to let everyone know because my posts will reflect the new environment and culture I find myself in now.  I’m so excited to be here, and can’t wait to get going on my life here! In the meantime, I took one final stop to Powell’s Books in Portland before I left. What a fantastic bookstore. It literally has everything, and being that large is the only thing keeping it from being taken over by the Borders and Barnes and Nobles of the world. Anyway, I just picked up a book called “The Partly Cloudy Patriot”  by Sarah Vowell. She was interviewed on The Daily Show by John Stewart recently.  Now unlike some of my other friends, yo soy liz, you know who you are, I don’t blog about all that I read anymore. Partly because 95 percent of the books I’ve been reading the last two years are business related. Not all that fascinating to the masses.  To commemorate the passing of my strictly business school diet of prose, I will read this book over the next two weeks. Look at this as an opportunity to share in a digital book club with me.  I will post my thoughts on the book around the beginning of June. If you run out and get it, you can read it with me

Movie Trailers

I love movie trailers and I hate it when I arrive at a theater late and walk in mid-trailer. I know trailers are irrelevant to the movie I’m going to see, yet I still love them. I even enjoy watching trailers online in my free time, and recently I realized why.  Movies today, with the exception of about 8 a year, and I’m being entirely generous with that figure, are overwhelmingly bad. This is not the revelation (wait for it).  Hollywood continues to be all about concept and not about quality.  Despite the massive success of quality movies last year (Inception, The Social Network, The Fighter), both in ticket sales and Oscar recognition, terrible movies still get green lighted, and continue to dilute the art. Cowboys and Aliens? Really? I was ever so cautiously optimistic that we would see more of a shift this year to more quality. It does not appear to be the case so far in 2o11.  I wish there was a vetting process to prevent bad movies from making it to theaters. If you want to see crap, go ahead and download it, bootleg it, or watch it on Netflix, but if it makes it to the big screen and you have to pay 12 dollars plus popcorn to see it? It should be VERY good, and worth every penny.  This all relates back to my original point about trailers (Here it is!).  Trailers by contrast are usually all really good! Even bad movies can be dissected into a 2 minute clip to make you intrigued. I enjoy 90 percent of them, even if I can predict their eventual poor plot line and derivative nature.  This is precisely because they are all concept and no substance.  In trailer form that is entirely OK.  It is usually a terrific 2 minute adventure regardless of the film.  Trailers at least allow you to fantasize about how good the movie could be, how you ideally would flesh out the story so that it would be emotionally impactful for you.  I know this is a common analogy, but it is very similar to going to a bar as a single guy.  Although the meet cute at a bar (like a trailer) has been done before, it still holds a power over you.  The girl smiles from a distance, her good looks are amplified by her make-up, her flesh revealing outfit, the dim light hides any noticeable flaws in her complexion. The alcohol fuels the libido and dulls or creates innate intrigue to any personality traits that might otherwise cause exception. That hyena laugh, her inability to pause between ideas or constant way she can’t keep focus must be the Redbull and vodka talking, not OCD, insecurity or a combination of unattractive qualities that will matter starting with the second date.  Those quick cuts in the trailer hide the physics altering ability of that stunt which takes it from awe-inspiring to (that’s impossible). Those clever one liners that make you laugh during the trailer are ruined by the three minutes of bad dialogue that precede them during the movie. I often notice how few people laugh the second time around.

A side note with special effects: Since the Matrix (which spent a large chunk of the first movie justifying its science fiction origins to make its physics defying scenes based in some sort of reality, movies today just assume they can bend gravity and the like in many of the same ways and we are just supposed to buy it. Why? Because we all saw the Matrix and it was really cool, so this knockoff should be cool too by some osmotic law of film watching? FALSE.

Despite these complaints, trailers don’t give me time to pick anything apart, because it’s on to the next green screen with the little ratings box that refers me to the ratings site. I don’t have time to be my cynical self.  After rereading this it is a wonder I am not still single…probably because I didn’t meet my girlfriend in a bar. Take notes.

Final note about ratings. Puritanical America skews far too much toward the acceptability of violence over sex in our movie ratings. Oh right, because our society will really deteriorate more if our children learn to be  more comfortable with sex rather than shooting each other at a young age? There is no logic to it.

Tags: Inception, movie trailers, movies, Redbull, The Fighter, The Matrix, The Social Network