July 2011 Archives

Photography

Posted on July 10, 2011July 10, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Photography

For a while now I’ve been meaning to set up a photography portfolio website. I have some pictures here, but the coding I used to build the site is held together with the equivalent of duct tape, making it fairly tedious to update. I’ve also tried using Flickr at least three separate times, and the rest of my photos are sitting on either Facebook, Picasa, Google+, or this blog. I need a better system. So I’ve decided to give Flickr a more serious go, with the hope of eventually using it to host my files for a portfolio website. I probably failed in the past because I was too ambitious. I’d try to upload all of my files at one

When History Was Made

Posted on July 9, 2011July 9, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Economics, History

Via The Economist, this is fascinating: “More person years have been lived in the first decade of the current century than in all of the 17th century. And nearly 80% of the economic output of the last millenium has been produced in just the last 110 years. Everyone likes to think that they live in historical times. As it so happens, we do.”

Things That Don’t Work

Posted on July 8, 2011July 8, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Current Events

Via Creative Review: For his new project, Err, artist Jeremy Hutchison contacted various factories around the world, and asked if one of their workers would produce an ‘incorrect’ version of the product they make every day: in doing so, the functional objects became artworks. “I asked them to make me one of their products, but to make it with an error,” Hutchison explains. “I specified that this error should render the object dysfunctional. And rather than my choosing the error, I wanted the factory worker who made it to choose what error to make. Whatever this worker chose to do, I would accept and pay for.” Here are some of the results:

The Rest of the Road Trip Photography

Posted on July 7, 2011July 7, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Photography, Travel

Here are the rest of my pictures from my road trip out west. The ride up to Glacier National Park, from Wyoming to just a few miles shy of the Canadian border, was one of the highlights of the entire drive out west: Unfortunately it was cloudy at Glacier, and many of the roads were still closed because they have frequent avalanches until early July. The photography opportunities weren’t great, but I still enjoyed the park: Redwoods in northern California: The coast in Mendocino, CA:

Yellowstone National Park, Final Post

Posted on July 7, 2011July 7, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Photography, Travel

Better late than never. I haven’t had great internet at home over the past few weeks, which made it somewhat tedious to upload files to my website. I recently moved, which actually made my situation worse. Until the Comcast guy comes, I now have no internet at home. But I’ve found a solution: I’m sitting in a lawn chair near my neighbors house picking up a “free” (and fast) wireless network. So finally, I can post the rest of my Yellowstone pictures. Previous Yellowstone posts here and here. These were some natural hot springs, again colored with orange microbes that can survive in near boiling water: It’s an elk: Baby buffalo: It’s a moose: Yellowstone’s biggest canyon. It’s appropriately referred

YouTube Parties

Posted on July 6, 2011July 6, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Cartoons

This is very true. I’m guilty. Via xkcd:

Talent War

Posted on July 6, 2011July 6, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Current Events, Economics

It appears that Facebook is winning:

China’s Got My Back!

Posted on July 5, 2011July 5, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in General

The other day I received this strange email: Dear Manager: This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration and dispute internationally in China and Asia. On June 20th 2011, We received Tianhua Ltd’s application that they are registering the name ” somethingsbrewing ” as their Internet Keyword and ” somethingsbrewing .cn “、” somethingsbrewing .com.cn ” 、” somethingsbrewing .asia “domain names etc.., It is China and ASIA domain names. But after auditing we found the brand name been used by your company. As the domain name registrar in China, it is our duty to notice you, so I am sending you this Email to check. According to the principle in China, your company is the

The Sierra Nevadas

Posted on July 4, 2011July 7, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Beer, Travel

I drove through yesterday on my way to Mammoth Lakes as part of my holiday weekend road trip. They’re extremely impressive. And as far as I know, they’re also the first mountain range to be named after a brewery. Happy Fourth!

TripAdvisor Going Public

Posted on July 4, 2011July 4, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Current Events, Technology

I recently learned that Expedia is planning to spin-off TripAdvisor, with hopes of an IPO later this year. My initial reaction: this is a win-win-win. Expedia gets to cash out, and use the proceeds however they wish. TripAdvisor (employees) will likely have more flexibility to be more aggressive and daring without having to worry about what the parent company says, or whether there are conflicts of interest.* And most importantly, if the company gains the capacity to be more innovative, we’ll all have an even better travel site. I briefly worked at TripAdvisor in the summer of 2005. From my limited experience, I got the impression that it’s a well-run company, with dedicated, serious, and smart employees. In fact I once overheard