Hixie’s Natural Log: Evolution in the species “Companies” – Microsoft’s dominance of the industry has killed off or absorbed many smaller companies. Those that have survived are those with strategies resistant to Microsoft’s tactics. The article looks at Mozilla, Google, and Apple.
Author Archives: Kelson
Fantasy Feuds
Epic Pooh – Michael Moorcock on the state of fantasy literature, originally written in the 1970s but updated for the 21st century. The title comes from comparing the style of Lord of the Rings to Winnie the Pooh. I have no problem reading and enjoying both his work and Tolkien’s, and it doesn’t bother me that Phillip Pullman dislikes Tolkien’s work as well.
Yes, Snow!
After the last few days of rain, today was clear and windy. I finally dragged myself out to a vantage point where I could see something of the mountains… just at sunset. This is looking northeast toward the San Gabriel Mountains from the edge of a vacant lot on the former MCAS Tustin. (You can see one of the two blimp hangars at the right.)
Update: Monday morning I went back to the same spot before work and took some photos in daylight. Katie said it looked like someone had sifted powdered sugar over the mountains.
Back to Sunday evening, I crossed the street and got some more pictures without the fence and saplings in the foreground, and stayed out until the light had faded. The view was clear all the way west along the range to Mt. Wilson. I also looked back toward the sunset, which lit up the edges of a cloud with a red-gold glow.
Yield to Confusion
Found this while wandering around the Lemon Heights area a few weeks ago, looking for scenic viewpoints. It’s on the Skyline trail, near Peters Canyon park.
It seems to be saying this:
- Cyclists* yield to pedestrians and horses.
- Pedestrians yield to horses.
- Horses yield to no one.
But if you’ve never seen it before, the meaning isn’t clear at a glance.
Apparently the idea is to make everyone stop and try to work out the diagram, so that they can start moving again in the right order.
*Or perhaps only bicycles, since there’s no rider in the picture.
Wild Things of Irvine
The Village, a disturbingly-named apartment complex across from the Irvine Spectrum shopping center, has been advertising in the nearby area for a couple of years using the slogan, “A new meaning for…” with various images and phrases. For a while, the following photo and caption seemed to be everywhere:
A New Meaning For Heated Pool
A not-terribly-subtle example of the advertising maxim, “sex sells.” Somewhere along the line I decided she looked like Rebecca Romijn, and dubbed her Mystique.
Eventually I realized what the photo reminded me of: the promotional images for the movie Wild Things:
The apartments have removed the image from their website (you can still find it on the Internet Archive), but it’s still all over the shopping center kiosks. So while watching Beowulf there, it seemed somehow appropriate when Grendel’s mother struck the same pose:
Bart? Keystone? Hmm…
I could not believe I managed to spot these next to each other. I mean, Bart and Keystone?
It’s right up there with Flash Transport.
Snow!
Okay, so it’s ~40 miles away (and likely to stay that far, barring a freak storm or new ice age), and it’s not much (compare this April 2006 view)…and I half-suspect it’s all melted by now (this photo was taken Monday morning, and it looked lighter by Tuesday), but still…
Say, all those places that are getting flooded—we’d be happy to take some of that extra water off your hands.