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Sustainability
New York Times: Rural U.S. Takes Worst Hit as Gas Tops $4 Average. Gasoline prices reached a national average of $4 a gallon for the first time over the weekend, adding more strain to motorists across the country. But the pain is not being felt uniformly. Across broad swaths of the South, Southwest and the…
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Recession or Stagflation
If you think a recession is bad, think twice. Stagflation is even worse! The last time a recession paid us a visit was when all the Silicon Valley dot.coms started imploding. Suddenly, I found it easier to commute to work and find parking at Cupertino Village. This time around? It’s worse. Over Memorial Day weekend,…
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Sichuan Earthquake
How can one comprehend 40,000 deaths? To really understand the breadth of the destruction, at least if you live in the United States, I turn to Flickr and YouTube. You can search for Sichuan earthquake or å››å·åœ°éœ‡ photos on Flickr. Although both searches terms are technically the same, the results differ. You can perform the…
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Make Money by Losing Money
I received a bill for $0.86 from the City of San Jose. Seriously, some city official should calculate their costs for mailing a bill and processing the payment and determine whether certain sums are better left uncollected. The city sent their bill as presorted first-class mail. So, their postage costs will run between 32-36 cents.…
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Office 2008 and Office 2007 Compatibility Headache
I don’t know what to think about Microsoft. The Europeans believe that Microsoft is a bad actor that cannot be trusted. When a third-party application encounters compatibility problems with Microsoft software, the Europeans automatically attribute some nefarious monopolist motive to the Redmond behemoth. But, what if Microsoft was just incompetent and not ill-mannered? How else…
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Save the Outrage
Yahoo! / Reuters: U.S. “Outraged” by Myanmar’s Response to Cyclone. The United Nations estimates 1.5 million people have been “severely affected” by the cyclone that swept through Myanmar and the United States expressed outrage on Thursday at the delays in allowing in aid. Compare and contrast: Katrina Response Sparks Outrage. Here’s another quote: “It’s clear…
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Fujitsu ScanSnap S510M Rocks
The ScanSnap S510M Scanner is awesome. In one night of use, I managed to clear most of the documents off my desk that had accumulated over the months and, shamefully, even years! The scanner comes bundled with Fujitsu ScanSnap Manager, Cardiris 3, ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap and Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional. It also comes with…
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Costco Rations Rice
We reported last Saturday (April 19th) that Costco was rationing rice purchases. At the time, we didn’t realize that we scooped the regional and national press. KPIX issued a similar report on April 21st, two days after us. The Huffington Post/AP reported on the Costco rice shortage on April 23rd.
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Kylie Kwong: My China
The first time I opened up My China by Kylie Kwong, I was underwhelmed. It had none of the mouth-watering glossy photos found in Simple Chinese Cooking. Now that I’ve actually tested out some of the recipes, I’m sold. Yesterday, I tried out the Stir-Fried Rice Noodles with Coriander, Ginger and Chilli. Sort of. I…
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Buried Alive
I already have an Epson Perfection 2450. The scanner works admirably when scanning an isolated document here and there. However, I’m finding stacks of receipts, statements and invoices cluttering my desk. To avoid getting boxed in or even buried alive in paperwork, I need a scanner with an automatic document feeder. I’ve been reading reviews…