Oct 092004
 

On Thursday night, I went to ‘inoteca with Sarah and Jeremy. It was quite good. It’s a small restaurant with wines, small plates, and sandwiches. We had to wait around an hour to get a table, but I think it was worth it. There were 25 wines by the glass and a very nice wine list. Jeremy and I shared the assorted meat plate; it had a selection of five or six different cured meats. We all shared a heirloom tomato salad with buffalo mozzarella, fried risotto balls, and a couple of sandwiches. Sarah and Jeremy split a nutella panini for dessert; I had some roasted fruits.

They serve food until 3 am; the waiter and the host said they will be opening for breakfast soon. When their full schedule is in effect, they will be open 19 hours per day!

 Posted by at 3:47 pm
Oct 092004
 

I now have high speed internet access from Time Warner Cable in my house. I purchased my own cable modem/wireless gateway/switch/firewall from J&R; a couple of weeks ago. I was a bit concerned that TWC wouldn’t add my cable modem to their systems. However, less than two hours after the installation guy came by, my setup started to work perfectly. It’s interesting that they insisted on sending a technician. The technician was in and out in under 15 minutes; all he did was a line check and activation.

The Linksys device I bought was the Wireless-G Cable Gateway. By law, you should be able to use this device with any cable provider that provides internet access. However, cable companies really don’t want you to use your own equipment. When I was ordering the service, I was asked many, many times if I was sure I wanted to use my own cable modem. On the bright side, when my access goes down for some reason, I can go into my box and see exactly what is causing the problem.

 Posted by at 1:03 pm
Oct 082004
 

Salon is reporting that President Bush used a radio earpiece during the first debate. If this is true, I find it simply appalling. At worst, this is frightening. Is the president incompetent? I don’t generally like calling the president stupid. I don’t feel it is productive, and I used to think it wasn’t totally accurate. However, this kind of story makes me reconsider.

Check out the Salon article. It is well worth sitting through the day pass.

[Original link courtesy of Electoral Vote Predictor 2004.]

 Posted by at 10:16 am
Oct 072004
 

Solaris 10 adds a really neat tool called DTrace. I wasn’t impressed at first, but I finally sat down and read a detailed explanation of the tool. It is very cool. Basically, DTrace allows you to stick a debugger on any process running on a Solaris box without impacting performance. It is a great feature, and I wish it were present in Windows. There are definitely times when we attempt to track down application stalls or excessive memory leaks; this kind of tool would allow us to pinpoint exactly what was causing the problem.

Bryan Cantrill from Sun wrote up an excellent description of using DTrace on his blog, The Observation Deck. I recommend reading the entire entry. It will take a while to work through the entire article, but it is fascinating.

 Posted by at 10:43 am
Sep 302004
 

On Saturday, one of the owners of Superfine, a terrific restaurant in DUMBO, turned 35. They had a large party that apparently ended mid-day on Sunday. It is amazing to me. 35 is not that far off for me, but I can’t really imagine owning a successful business in five years.

A 3 at SuperfineA 5 at Superfine

If you get a chance, stop by Superfine for lunch or dinner. The food is varied and tasty, the decor is constantly changing and interesting, and the wait staff is well trained and friendly. If you don’t like the food one day, go again another day–the menu changes every day.

 Posted by at 7:51 pm
Sep 302004
 

Milan was one of my favorite cities in Italy; Sienna was my favorite. A lot of people told me that I wouldn’t like Milan because it was all about industry and commerce. I listened a bit too much to them; I loved Milan. It reminded me a lot of New York City, but it was Italian. [Note to self: next time you travel somewhere, pay more attention to what Betsy tells me!]

The Duomo of Milan was pretty great. You could climb up steps and roam around the top of the cathedral. I enjoy climbing up steps and seeing far off locations. I think I like the fact that the heights scare me a little bit.

View of Milan from Duomo

View of Milan from Duomo

View of Milan from Duomo

I mentioned earlier that I think Italy had some great public art. A perfect example of this was a photo exhibit on the streets of Milan. Canon sponsored a photo exhibition of works by Yann Arthus-Bertrand called “Earth from Above.” The point of the exhibition was to provide discussion regarding the state of the world as it relates to people living in a sustainable manner. The exhibit was very beautiful. There were over 100 large prints mounted in small kiosks in the middle of a busy pedestrian thoroughfare.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand photo exhibit in Milan

There is a lot of information about Yann Arthus-Bertrand available on the web. He has several web sites set up; I think browsing his photos is a good way to get to know his work.

 Posted by at 7:36 pm
Sep 242004
 

I think I have been in New York City too long. I have started to say “axe” instead of “ask” and “eggactly” instead of “exactly.” For example, I will say something like, “When people axe me for directions, I tell them eggactly where to go.”

I probably use a lot more New York-ese without realizing it.

 Posted by at 11:16 am
Sep 232004
 

Siena was one of the highlights of my trip. I loved this city, and wish I had spent more time there. Siena does not allow vehicles into the city center. It is a city with many twisting, hilly roads. The city is made of 17 different neighborhoods. In the center of the city is the Piazza del Campo, where they run a horse race every year.

Looming above the Piazza is a giant tower. It is over 400 steps to the top of the tower, and there is no elevator. I climbed to the top of the tower. I’m no expert with distances, but I would estimate that the 400 steps took me two or three miles above the city. It was really high.

Quite honestly, the top of the tower was the high point of my trip both figuratively and literally. Once you get to the top of the tower, your heart is beating quickly, and you feel like you can see for hundreds of miles.

The tower in the Piazza del Campo

A view of the tower from a corner of the the plaza.

The tower in the Piazza del Campo

Looking up at the tower from a courtyard at the base.

The Duomo in Siena

View of the Duomo in Siena from the top of the tower.

The Duomo in Siena

Me at the top of the tower. As you can easily see by this photo, we are clearly several miles above the Earth’s surface.

The Piazza in Siena

The plaza from above.

The Tower in Siena

A long, long way down.

The Duomo in Siena

The Duomo in Sienna is very similar in style to the Duomo in Florence. The tower is not actually bent; that is just an artifact from the camera lens.

Street in Tartuca, Sienna

I mentioned that Sienna has 17 different neighborhoods or Contrade. People are very proud of their neighborhoods. I believe this is a street in the neighborhood of Tartuca. You can read more about the horse race in Sienna; this site has a pretty cool description of the horse race and the city in general. It’s mainly in Italian, but there are also English links.

[For the literal readers of this site: yes, I know that the tower is not actually two or three miles above the Earth’s surface. Cut me some slack.]

 Posted by at 1:08 pm
Sep 232004
 

Today I read an interesting post entitled If America were Iraq, What would it be Like? I wish more people would think about the level of carnage occurring in Iraq right now. The post reminded me of another post I read on a different blog a few months ago. It would be nice if people who favor violent intervention in other countries were fully aware of the consequences of war to a civilian population.

[First link courtesy of popular links on del.icio.us; second link courtesy of Raed in the Middle]

 Posted by at 11:56 am
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