Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Awas

(Awas is Malaysian for "If you fall in that hole it's your own damn fault".*)

Effect Measure is not safe to visit today. The title of this post draws a pained request from a reader, but the proprietor's response is not at all helpful.

From someone in Metafilter (here) a while back:
I remember reading at one point that having a song stuck in your head stimulates part of your lower brain, and that the dumber and simpler the song is, the more the lower part of your brain likes it. It's like having an inner moron.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Thought experiment for business people and developers

Picture this -

[hot parking lot]

It's summer.
It's around noon.
It's maybe a hundred degrees outside.

You're at home.
The house is cool.
But you need a few things from the world.

Are you going to get in your car and drive to the sea of blacktop (sporting mini-atolls of charming tiny trees and drought-tolerant shrubs, [parking lot atoll (taken in winter)]
while frying cars and customers sunny side up) to patronize the local bricks-and-mortar establishment?

Or will you just say to yourself "I can find it on the web, or else make do with what I've got"?

I know what I do.

If there was a shopping center with shade in this town, it'd be making money hand over fist.


[hot parking lot]
The Fowler center. Fry your fowl here (and at every other shopping center in Nevada County).

The shopping center is young, they're growing the shade as fast as they can right?

[tree is _shrinking_]
Wrong. Note the dieback; some trees are shrinking. (tip to landscapers: trees need water)

A solar grove solves the problem elsewhere, but up here the wildlife would be likely to log it.