February, 2009

Automotive / CurrentEvents / Local — No Comments
25
Feb 09

Four Car Collision This Morning

I drove by this accident around 7:35 AM this morning. If I’d been a minute earlier I might have gotten caught up in this. The backup from this was very light and slightly chaotic.

The I-10 westbound is certainly an exciting way to get to work!

To make matters worse some of the people had exited their vehicles and were attempting to exchange insurance information – with their fists.

On the freeway. In L.A. rush hour.

What a mess. It’s hard to see, but there are two more cars behind the SUV. One of them was visibly dinged up. I got to do my monster car thing and drive over a piece of burgundy bodywork still in the number two lane.

CurrentEvents / WebDevelopment — 4 Comments
25
Feb 09

Recovery.gov has an RSS Feed!

This technology + transparency concept has so much potential – www.recovery.gov has an RSS feed!

Local — No Comments
24
Feb 09

Little Osaka, Part II

I went back to Sawtelle again last night. I wanted to go alone so I could walk around at my own pace and take my time wandering around. I spent a lot of time in Tokyo Japanese Outlet, trying not to feel rude for taking photos of their merchandise. I did buy some chewing gum so I didn’t feel like a leech.

I don’t get it. Why am I compelled to keep coming back here?

This is a view of the mammoth shopping center across the street, on the east side of Sawtelle Boulevard.

WebDevelopment — No Comments
24
Feb 09

Talk to the Bunny

Talk to me through the bunny.

I just got my nabaztag set up again. It is on the net and bringing weather, news, and bunny emotion feeds into our living room.

Have at it.

Send an e-mail message to quantumbunny@things.violet.net. The Violet speech synthesizer will speechify it and send the recording to the bunny, who will play it.

Technology — No Comments
24
Feb 09

LDAP Date Converter

I used to always have to go look up how to convert dates to and from UNIX format. I still would, if I hadn’t made this little Excel spreadsheet that does it for me.

Whenever I need to bring a date in or out of UNIX format (especially for LDAP filters) I use this little spreadsheet. It wasn’t worth the effort of making an app, or even a web app to do. I hardly ever use it, but when I do I’m glad I have this around!

LDAP Date Converter.xls

Local / Mobility / WebDevelopment — No Comments
23
Feb 09

Search LA Tweets

Search “jazzercise” near:los_angeles

TWITTER PROTIP:

Use an inclusive location-based filter to search tweets. Visit search.twitter.com, enter your search term, then add “near:your_geocode” to include in that location in the filter.

Tighten it down by specifying a search radius by using the “within” parameter. E.G., “freeway near:90404 within:5km“

Automotive / CurrentEvents / Local — No Comments
23
Feb 09

Spun Out on the Freeway This Morning

EvolutionSpinout

Spotted this Mitsubishi Evo spun out on the embankment this morning. The traffic report on KCRW this morning said a car had spun out westbound on the Santa Monica freeway just before the 405 interchange. Sure enough, it was still there over an hour later.

Click for embiggenned version.

The traffic was moving so slow I was able to snap this photo during the stop section of some stop-and-go traffic.

It looks like the vehicle took out the street light (visible resting in the emergency lane). The left rear wheel seems to have been taken off, but if there is any other damage it must have been facing away from the camera.

MassMedia — No Comments
23
Feb 09

Tina Fey and Steve Martin Poking Fun at Scientology

- “No one wants to hear about our religion (that we made up).”

That was great!

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