Apparently in SoCal, there’s a fad where they make purses out of Capri Sun pouches. You too can make them as well.

Photo by Marshall Astor

Yesterday, we had a going away lunch for Kurt, who will be leaving Scribd for greener pastures. He brought us to his favorite small restaurant in San Francisco — Roadside Cafe — which specializes in South Carolina style barbecue. While chowing down on some ribs and pulled pork, we discussed the finer points of souther cuisine. It really made me realize how alien southern food is around Northern California. Trust me, it’s tough finding a good BBQ place in the city.

This reminded me of a passage in Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma where he discusses the lack of food culture in America. Okay, that’s an extreme thing to say: of course, we do have some strong culinary rituals, like the Thanksgiving turkey, southern barbecue, and Louisiana creole food. But, all of this still pales in comparison to the fanatic food cultures in other countries, like Spain or France. Let’s face it, the general public in San Francisco doesn’t nearly think about their food heritage as much as people in San Sebastian, Spain.

Pollan goes on to explain that we’re a nation of people who eat many of their meals in cars. This is the antithesis of European cuisine, where the food is ingrained into everyone’s life. It’s no wonder that American’s are suckers for food fads, like the low-carb diet and health shakes.

Many times, I’m envious of these older countries that have such a rich culinary heritage.

On the flip side, I’m also glad that we’re young and diverse nation, allowing us to explore more gustatory options. I just hope that someday in the distant future, our ancestors don’t find themselves closely guarding the culture of Frito-Lay chips and Cheetos.

I woke up to the big news today that Microsoft has made a bid for Yahoo at $31 a share, a hefty premium. What I find amusing during big announcements like this is that aggregraters tend to go a little crazy.

The chart for YHOO on Google Finance is a big jumble:

And Techmeme is just one long thread about the acquisition offer:

What’s sad is that the only mention of anything MSFT or YHOO on Technorati is on the bottom of the page, way below the fold:

Come on Technorati, a big story like this should be nearer to the top!

Ever since getting my iPhone, I’ve been almost exclusively reading my RSS feeds on it with the well designed iPhone version of Google Reader. Typically, I’m reading during my commute to and from work (ever since the rains, I haven’t been able to bike as frequently). I usually finish scanning my river of news by the time my homeward bound commute is over.

The information geek in me also loves the cool but not very useful trends feature of Google Reader. Below are some of my daily reading trends.

A few observations:

• My biggest reading day is Friday. I don’t feel like I read for longer periods of time on Friday, but perhaps there’s just more news.
• You can tell I typically roll into the office somewhere around 9-10am.
• I had major issues with Edge on my prepaid AT&T account 1.5 weeks ago (thus, the flat weekly graph). I barely caught up with the news.

Effectively, my iPhone is creating time for me to catch up with my daily RSS feeds. It’s place shifted my reading, which is one of the biggest reasons why I bought a mobile internet device.

Google Blogoscoped is reporting that SmugMug’s private photos are really not that private. You’re able to get access to them with simple URL rewriting. The URLs are not appended with a GUID, and the photos pages are not password protected.

SmugMug has replied with a semantic argument:

Thanks for writing. This is expected behaviour. A private gallery just means that that gallery will not show up on your Smugmug homepage but it is accessible by knowing the direct URL to it. You do have the option of turning off external links so that no one can link to an individual photo. You may also password protect galleries so that no one can access them without a password.

This functionality is simply irresponsible. When a user sets a photo to be private, they expect the URL to be either password protected, or at least have a secret hash appended to the URL. Without such a hash, any visitor with a little bit of coding skill would be able to retrieve all your photos. SmugMug claims that they don’t have the bandwidth right now to implement such a GUID system.

The problem really is of expectation. On other sites, setting an object to private means either a GUID or password protected page. Regardless of the semantics of the wording, SmugMug needs to either follow the precedent, or put in big bold letters that your private photos can still be accessed by anyone.

At Scribd, our private documents require a secret password to be inserted into the URL.

Tonight, I was annoyed to discover that I had run out of rice. So, I had to settle for some bean thread noodles. The plate is my usual stir fry with tofu and green beans, this time with the addition of mushrooms.

I’ve been on a simple meals kick — trying not to make anything too fancy. I added Hoison sauce to my normal cadre of soy sauce and oyster sauce for a sweeter kick. I overcooked the fresh noodles, and they were a bit too soft for my taste. Don’t cook fresh flat noodles more than 4 minutes, you’ll regret it.

For years, Brown Cow yogurt was my favorite. Saint Benoit definitely rivals the top spot in my books as the best yogurt you can buy at your local overpriced organic mart.

Plus, you get cash back by returning the sturdy ceramic container. However, even with the rebate, it’ll still be one of the most expensive yogurts on the shelf.

Tay Zonday has officially sold his soul to Dr. Pepper.

After a few dozen stir frys, my wok has a nice dark coating of goodness which will add to the flavor of each new dish. If you have a carbon steel wok, you need to season it before your first fry. I found these directions at About.com to work just fine.