What I hear you saying is...

Taken at round one of our informal Topix intern talent show. I can't hear what he's saying either - just watch the hands from the half-way point.

Holy mother of ****

Next week, bassoon players in Superman garb.

That Barney Pell is one lucky (clever) guy -- $100MM+ from Microsoft for Powerset, or so Venturebeat reports.

I find it fascinating that Microsoft -- a group that has had considerable experience with their own search products -- would buy a company that has built its reputation on the potential for 'natural language' search.

Why? Because 'natural language' search is not 'natural' in the context of online search. And MSFT most certainly has reams of log data indicating that people do not approach search by constructing natural language queries.

As I posted way back in Feb 2007, this might have been an interesting acquisition if it were available 10 years ago, before Yahoo and then more importantly Google became our front door to the internet.

10 years ago, online search was still a new concept to most, and the cement was still wet for influencing user behavior. But I suspect now the masses are fairly fluent -- if only by trial and error -- in speaking the language of search.

Why would I search for "What is the capital of Egypt?" or "Who wrote Harry Potter?" when I can get the info I'm looking for with "Egypt Capital" and "Potter Author". The latter is far more efficient in both number of key strokes, as well as focus on the key terms. It rids us of low-context baggage like pronouns, prepositions, and even the notion of constructing an interrogative statement (which is implied in any query).

While 'natural language' might have some niche applications (kids products?) I share the skepticism Howard Roark feels for neo-classical and baroque elements in post-modern architecture: The form no longer serves the function.

Of course, what's a couple hundo' out of MSFT's war chest? That's stamp money, chumps! They probably bought Powerset as a hedge just in case the crazy thing every takes off. Surely they don't intend to retool Live with natural language?

Then again, MSFT does have a history of taking the figurative to literal extremes... :-)

I think this animated gif really speaks to itself. Kudos to Joyousx for having the presence of mind to capture this food-art performance at The Counter in Palo Alto.

Who doesn't love a good Rube Goldberg? Best part IMO is that the creators seem to have restricted the moving parts to items found in a print shop. According do Rob T (who sent this my way - thanks!) it's marketing for the paper roller stands that appear the end. As the video demonstrates, a lot of things can go wrong, and you don't want these accidents mucking up your nice rolls of paper!

That's how we roll...

We were very excited to hear that the defunct Cosentino's market at Lawrence & Homestead has recently been taken over by a brand new Korean Kyo-Po market. *and*, a new branch of Gombei restaurant next door, as well.

Gombei

Prior to this third branch, Gombei had two other shops -- one in San Jose and one in Menlo Park.

The San Jose is one of my favorite places for authentic teishoku lunches. I invariably order something from their daily specials and have never had a bad meal in ten years of eating there. There's a good reason for the line at lunch and often dinner. I'd give it an 8.0, sometimes 8.5 out of 10.

The Menlo Park shop is not very good. The few times I've eaten there, I've been disappointed with the quality of their dishes. Not sure why it doesn't measure up, but I'd barely give it a 5 out of 10.

How is the new Santa Clara shop? Well, for one thing, the previous shop was a horrible, horrible sushi boat place that I had prayed would go-under the one and only time I ever ate there. So I think that is a half-point demerit just for bad ju-ju carry-over.

Take another demerit for deciding to KEEP the boat infrastructure and serving sushi. That violates one of our cardinal rules of Japanese restaurants: If it's a sushi place, that's really all they should serve. If it's not a sushi place, then sushi should be buried deep in the menu as an after thought. Under no circumstances should sushi and, say, tempura have equal billing on the menu. I have never, ever in my life seen a place that can do both well.

Take yet another demerit for hiring the asshole sushi "chef" from Kubota. (The one that one that served me bad uni and then insisted on telling me I know nothing about fresh fish and refused to remove from bill when I kindly sent it back... after we were already well in over $100 on an otherwise great meal. Yes, it was 8 years ago. God I hope you're reading this you stink-eyed dick).

Needless to say, we did not order the sushi, but instead opted for... what? No daily specials? Deduct another full-point. So I ordered the "mix seafood fry". R orders the salted mackerel.

And we wait...

The "just opened" bumbling of untrained servers is pointed. Then my dish comes. Reasonably good shrimp and squid, although the salmon was a bit off. Probably the previous days sushi throwback?

R's comes after another 5 or 10 minutes. Decent mackerel, if a bit salty. But by now the luster is lost. As much as I wanted to like this place, I'm not going back. 5.5 out of 10, maybe. If I live in the hood (@bauxring) and was desperate for take out, I might order their katsu-don or something. And they are pretty cheap ($8-10) and nice service (except for stink-eye sushi dick).

Kyo-Po After finishing lunch, we waltzed over to Kyo-Po next door to see how the Cosentino's had been transformed. If you knew the old place, it's pretty funny because seemingly nothing has moved/changed in terms of where items are. Produce is where it was before, the bakery shop is the same, etc. But of course it's all Korean.

A quick cruise through left me thinking that it's probably a pretty good alternative to the stalwart Hankook if it's closer to you. Plus, they have arguably the best Korean fro-yo I've had to date -- easily in line with Fraiche in Palo Alto. They are super nice, and not only gave us samples, but also gave D his own super-junior cup. We're definitely going to go back there when we are in that area.

This "art sculpture" from Burning Man is currently set-up at here, the corner of San Carlos and Woz Way in San Jose. It is part carousel, part drum machine, and pure insanity.

Around the perimeter of the sculpture and at waist-level, there are a bunch of drum-pads in a huge circle. As people (i.e. you) increasingly beat the drums, it sets the carousel of monkeys into rotation, faster and faster.

There are also these creepy silver monkey masks with these strobe-like goggles you can wear when the monkeys are spinning.

Best of all, it apparently LIGHTS UP at night with full strobe-effect. It will be there for one month, apparently, so saddle up ravers, and check it out.

Fun for the whole family!

However, after my first trip yesterday, I have to say I am sorry to see it go. Sure, it's crusty and grizzled and there's generally not much to do there except watch and bet on horse races. But it has a soft patina of 20th century-ish-ness about it. It's one of those spots on the SF Peninsula that you can visit and feel that you've left town.

So, if you've never been, the clock is ticking. Check it out before it's too late!

Bonus: Try my sweet newbie betting strategy - I won 3 out 4 races with it:

1) Pick horse with best odds to "place"
2) Pick horse with second-worst odds to "show"
3) Celebrate with victory dance 75% of time.

I realized I hadn't Googled myself (heh) for awhile, so thought I'd better take a look. There was that pesky country western singer that had been out-ranking me from the get-go, as well as some high school sports heroes that were widely written about in small town Minnesota papers.

But now - lo and behold - We ownz the top spot for Blake Williams

Hmmm. Nowhere to go but down, now.

Some quick experiments below. Seems to work best with high contrast pics (since it's converting to monochrome) and people as subjects:

Thanks PhotoJojo

Because nothing says street-cred like having "Fruit Loops" emblazoned across your ass:

I'm a gonna FROST YO FLAKES!

(Thanks to Brand New)