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Oct 18, 2008 • In Thursday Geek-isms

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Thur…I mean, FRIDAY Geek-isms

Once again, I am one day late in my Thursday Geek-isms post. Can it be that I completely forgot about it last night?

Um, yeah…

(Hangs head in shame)

Forgive me, for I have sinned.

But I had a good reason! I was distracted by a very legitimate cause. (Check my private blog for more info.)

On to the links!

Attn, Satirist of the Spoiled of Wall Street: Bad Timing, Dude, NYTimes. Possibly the worst timing for a book release. Just one year (or even a few months) earlier may have made all the difference.
Google Has a Remote Kill Switch For Android Apps, Gizmodo. This was the tech news du jour yesterday. Although the idea of a Big Brother always makes me uneasy, does a kill switch constitute as evil?
Periodic table of branding, Logo Design Love. I’ve bookmarked the link and was saddened to see that you have to rollover each “element” to get its full description…because I wanted to print it so I can hang it up at the office! Yes, I’m a logo/branding dork.
Masculine Insanity, Jezebel. Feminine Beauty really is a fascinating read, discussing (you guessed it) feminine beauty from biological and anatomical perspectives. I always knew that my facial features are more “handsome” than “pretty” – now I know how and why.
Will the Neo-Depression Create a Drug Epidemic? Consumerist. Crime levels have already started to rise…will drug use increase as well?
Today’s LA TImes cover: inspired juxtaposition? Boing Boing. No explanation needed. Just look at the image of the cover.
The 6 Most Disastrous Uses of Work Email Ever, Cracked. I’ve heard of a couple of these before. Haha. Idiots!
Candidate Supporters’ Use of Gadgets as Symbols Reveal Power of Brands, Wired Gadgets. Gadgets and brands. The power of brands. And humor. Read. Now.
Long Overdue GPS Upgrade Could Save Airlines $10 Billion a Year, Gizmodo. Did you know that our current air trafficking system goes back to the WWII era? Dude. Maybe now they can stop charging for soda and water.
Mail Puzzles by Harriet Russell, Neatorama. As much as I am a technophile, I still love a good, old-fashioned letter. This postal experient is ingenius…and I’m sure at least some postal workers had a good chuckle over them.
What Idiots Are Running NBC? Perez Hilton. How can you host the most successful televised event of the summer, turn in $1 billion in revenue, and still lose money?
Why print designers are not web designers, Webdistortion. Great point, and very well-written. I am very happy to say that I do web design and print design on a daily basis…and I fully understand the difference between the two!

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Oct 17, 2008 • In Personal

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Sugar & Spice, Naughty & Nice

When he was good, he was very good…

When he was bad, he was very bad…

돌솥비빔밥 (dolsot bibimbap), The Easy Way

I had a very busy but fabulous day today! For details, please check my private blog.

(For access to my private blog, please register – I promise I’ll never spam you or share your name/email…this is just to know who’s reading my personal posts. Be warned, though, that I periodically go through the list and delete accounts that look bogus. Once you log in, you’ll see a link to my private blog under the “Navigation” section of the sidebar.)

Today, I’ll teach you how to make 돌솥비빔밥 (dolsot bibimbap)…the easy way!

돌솥비빔밥 is one of my favorite dishes to order at Korean restaurants because it’s pretty difficult to screw up!

Now, you can be old-school and make all the different components from scratch, but I’ve seen first hand that this can take forever. The easiest thing to do is to purchase the ingredients pre-made at a Korean grocery store. You can buy them separately, or in a package especially made for 비빔밥 (bibimbap) like this:

As you can see, it even comes with small cups of beef and red pepper paste! Each package is good for about 3-4 servings so the $5.99 price tag isn’t too bad at all.

A key ingredient in 돌솥비빔밥 is the 돌솥 (dolsot), or stone pot. Most Korean grocery stores sell these in various sizes, and they’re not expensive…I think I got mine for under $10.

Drizzle some sesame seed oil to the bottom of the pot and fill it up with some pre-made rice:

My rice has some color because I put some extra grains in it. Obviously, plain white rice works too! Also, I should mention that older rice works a bit better than freshly cooked rice.

Place the ingredients on top and place on a stove. Soon, you will start hearing sizzling sounds as the oil starts to heat up the rice. If you’re like me like burnt rice, leave it on for a bit longer. You can check the progress by carefully lifting the bottom with a spoon.

That’s it! If you want to add an egg, fry one while the rice & veggies are cooking.

Although the pre-made package came with its own red pepper sauce, I used this instead:

There are many kinds of red pepper sauces available, and this one is specifically made with extra vinegar and corn syrup for that hot-sweet taste.

Mix up everything, and dig in!

Big Apple Tuesday

In case you live in a cave, I am happy to tell you that Apple made some big announcements today.

(I followed the live blog at Engadget, which seemed to have some good pictures of the event. As such, the following pictures come courtesy of Mr. Topolsky at Engadget, unless otherwise noted.)

The new MacBook Pros and MacBooks are cut from solid blocks of aluminum like the MacBook Air:

That chunk of aluminum in the picture above is cut with (frickin) laser beams to form this:

In my opinion, the biggest announcement of the day came when Steve Jobs spoke of the integration of the new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M chip with the laptop lineup:

It is a chipset and GPU in one! It is capable of delivering up to 6x faster performance, which is music to the ears of any graphics designer, or, as demonstrated in this graph, gamer:

The new glass trackpad is “eh.” Cool, yes, but superfluous in my opinion.

As for the newly designed MacBook Pros and MacBooks:

(images courtesy of Apple)

…They are kinda fugly, no?

Admittedly, they are not horrible-looking, but I prefer the old designs. I know that Apple was trying to mimic the design of the MacBook Air, but they seem to be venturing into the Sony Vaio and HP product design territory here.

As the presentation came to a close and transition to the Q&A session, Steve Jobs made this quip: “We can’t answer questions about the quarter ending, and secondly…110/70…this is Steve’s blood pressure.”

LOVE it!!!

…What did you think of today’s Apple event?

Star Wars ABC Cards

I want to add one more item to my list of baby geek items: Star Wars ABC Cards!

My favorites:

J is for Jawa

R is for R5-D4

S is for Sarlacc

Created by TweedleBopper, I’m not sure if these cards are available for purchase…yet. Because I have no doubt that they will garner enough interest for mass production in the near future.

Via TheForce.Net.

Dog-Sitting

Both J and I love, love dogs. However, we have decided to wait to get a dog because we feel that it wouldn’t be fair to the animal as we are at work most of the day.

In the meantime, we show our appreciation and love for dogs via dog-sitting for friends and family.

Tomorrow, a friend (our pastor’s wife) will be giving birth via c-section. Since she will be in the hospital for at least a week recovering from the surgery and they will both be undoubtedly busy with the new baby, we volunteered to watch their shih tzu for a few weeks.

We’ve had him for 3 days now, and I can’t help but be attached already.

When I sit with my legs straight in front of me and place him on my legs, he goes into a trance-mode:

I love how small dogs lie on the ground with their hind legs spread out behind them:

Our pastor and his wife warned us that he can be very bad sometimes, but he’s been an angel so far. Or maybe it’s because J and I are so used to bad dogs that “normal” dogs seem very good in comparison.

I’ll be very sad to say good-bye when he leaves in two weeks. I can’t wait until we have more time in our lives to be able to get our own dog(s)!

Cooking Saturday

We are having a bunch of people over tonight for dinner and video games. I am preparing my famous 갈비찜 (galbijjim, or Korean style braised short ribs). I bought about 18 lbs (!) of short ribs and am currently draining the blood:

I will post “after” pictures later!

(My 갈비찜 takes at least four hours to prepare, so I will be gone all day cooking. Have a great Saturday!)

Thursday Geek-isms

I had a pretty rough day today. So as soon as I came home, I slapped on my yellow rubber gloves and went Mr. Clean on the bathrooms. Perhaps I overdid the scrubbing, because my arms feel like spaghetti.

Looking at Post-Boom NYC, Gothamist. According to Joel Kotkin, NYC is the ultimate trickle-down economy, with only a small percentage of the population driving the economy. It needs to model itself after other cities such as San Francisco or Chicago in order to save its middle class. Do you agree?
Nerd library to end all nerd libraries, Boing Boing. I remember reading this in the latest issue of Wired and thinking, “Wow, I must blog about this.” Unfortunately, I was on the john when this epiphany hit me and hence it immediately proceeded to leave my mind once I flushed the toilet.
On the Typography of “Mad Men”, mental_floss. Font nerds and fans of the fabulous show Mad Men unite!
Scientists Find Gene That Makes You Good at Halo Also Makes You a Premature Ejaculator, Gizmodo. At the risk of sharing TMI (well I’m already guilty of that – see #2 above), I beg to differ.
5 Ways To Visualize The U.S. Elections, ReadWriteWeb. Charts, graphs, and colors galore! I’m too predictable.
Why Don’t Economics Textbooks Focus on Financial Crises? Freakonomics. Economics was never my forte. To be more precise, I suck at economics…I remember pulling all-nighters for my Intro to Macro- and Microeconomics classes to only manage dismal Cs. After reading this article, I thought back to this painful period in my life and realized…he’s right! I can’t recall learning about previous financial crises even in my higher-level economics classes. If history is doomed to repeat itself, why do the most popular economics textbooks fail to mention such important events?
Yep, We’re Screwed: National Debt Clock Runs Out of Numbers, Gizmodo. You’ve most likely heard this already, but I felt that it warrants a mention on this blog as well. Well isn’t that the pickle on the giant crap sandwich that has been this financial crisis!
“Muji To Go” lands at JFK, Core77. Those darn Japanese! Isn’t there anything they can’t do better? Muji has always been a great source of inspiration and eye candy, and an entire store devoted to their travel products is just…well it’s a good thing it’s located all the way out in Jamaica, Queens! Just be warned that the next time you’re at JFK, you may see an Asian girl throwing a “Me! Want! NOW!” tantrum at the Muji store.
Eli Manning’s Apartment, Curbed. There’s just something about a simple guy who chooses to reside in Hoboken when he can easily afford a penthouse in Manhattan. One who marries his college sweetheart. Oh, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that he is a Superbowl MVP. Who knew that he was such a techie too?
Apple Co-Founder Wozniak: The iPod Will Fail, Wired Gadget Lab. I like Woz, because he tells it like it is!
Google Spreadsheets Get a Real Menu, Mashable! When I excitedly shared this news with J, he said, “Oh, I almost forgot the public didn’t have that. I’ve been using it for a while. Pretty sweet, huh?” Fine! I’ve been playing with a…super secret…thingamajig in my spare time so there!
Nikon D90 unboxing and hands-on, Engadget. Sigh. You will be mine. Oh yes, you will be mine.

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Oct 9, 2008 • In NYC, Personal

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Would You Sacrifice Space for Location?

Yesterday, the NYTimes had an interesting article about families to opt to stay in cramped quarters in Manhattan, rather than move to the suburbs (or even just outside the island) where they can afford bigger homes.

There’s the family of four who squeeze a queen sized bed, a crib, and a toddler bed into one bedroom.

Or the couple who gave up the only bedroom to their two kids, taking the walk-in closet for themselves.

I couldn’t help but cringe as I read the stories of these families. Sure, Manhattan has its charms. But it’s damn expensive as well.

Is it really worth it?

J and I chose to live just outside the city (just across the Hudson River) for the extra space. We always joke that we will move out of NJ before having kids, lest our kids become “New Joi-sians.” However, seeing as a decent two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan costs at least $1.2 million (with the average being $1.5 million), we’re highly doubtful that we will be able to save the minimum $240,000 down payment in time.

We hope to be able to afford a nice two-bedroom in Brooklyn or Hoboken in a few years. But even if our plans don’t pan out, our current 1,067 sqft condo with two bedrooms and two bathrooms allows us plenty of space for a little one.

I can’t imagine how full families choose to live in spaces half the size of our condo.

What about you? Would you sacrifice space for location?