Hello Astrid
I've been pretty busy over the last year—first a new job, then a 2000 mile move from Austin to New York City, finding a new home, and now for the biggest move of all: a new baby girl. She is about 6 weeks old now, and this slide show takes you from the first trimester to just a few days ago.
The mixtape gets a second life
smag.muxtape.comA dead simple way to share music with people. Why didn't someone think of this sooner?
On my muxtape, you'll find
8-bit Betty playing "This would be a lot easier if I didn't care" (check that out) and
Os Poligonais, a Brazilian jazz/bossa nova outfit from the 60's,
Of Montreal,
Paul Weller, and the
Pixies playing "UMASS" live in Minneapolis.
Listen now
Engineering and Design: Separated at Birth?
Today I proposed hosting a series of lectures, or Tech Talks as they're called at Google, titled "Design + Technology." My thinking is that design and engineering are really quite tightly intertwined. Two ends of a single spectrum, with a bunch of overlap in the middle. Design is generative and problem-setting, and engineering is analytical and problem-solving. One with out the other is like corn flakes without milk, like lobster without butter, like a rich man without money. You get the picture.
So, what do I see in the
New York Times tonight but an article about a new show at the Museum of Modern Art. The theme? Science and design. Take a look:
Where Science and Design Collide from the New York Times. An excerpt:
Dr. Mandelbrot, a professor emeritus of mathematical science at Yale, spoke with joy in an interview about the new exhibition, but also with an air that suggested he was wondering why it had taken so long for the world to catch up to him. "I have been fighting on that front for a very long time," he said.
Dr. Mandelbrot said the separation of science and aesthetics had always puzzled and frustrated him, though now “the separation is decreasing, or vanishing,” as more people find ways to bridge the gap.
Mr. Mandelbrot and I agree on this one. For sure. Mandelbrot, if I'm not mistaken, discovered fractals after seeing the image of England's coastline, published in a geography journal that was being discarded. Who says that science and technology have moved beyond the scale of the human eye, hand, ear, or heart? They havn't, and I doubt they ever will.
Another day of food at Google
I was working on a presentation that I'm going to deliver to my fellow user interface designers and researchers (titled 'The Making of ... ') about a project that just launched--but who can work on an empty stomach? So I went to lunch. Here's what I found:
Lunch
The Maine Seafood Pie was out of control. Lots of scallops, cod, maybe some crab? There was a semi-spicy component, something like a hot pepper, but I'm not sure what it actually was. Lots of seafoodish flavor. On the side: Baby spinach salad in a bacon and black truffle dressing. Wow. This had the best beef-mushroom flavor, squared, then cubed. We need a new word for this flavor. For vegetables, I tried the acorn squash roasted with the skin on, with a balsamic vinegar reduction glaze. Man, the skin was the tastiest part. Tender-licious. Dessert was a a walnut-chocolate mini-tart. About 1 inch in diameter, filled with about 1 tablespoon of creamy filling. Very nice. As I picked up my spiced lemonade, the guy next to me said: another day in food heaven. How do I ever top this? That is the question, indeed.
Dinner
Today is the Chinese Lunar New Year, so we are having various Chinese delights at our weekly Thank God It's Almost Friday (Tee-Gee-Eye-A-Eff) party. (Can someone please think of a better acronym for this? I can't stand typing it, and saying it aloud is sucking the little energy I have out of my brain.) I know it's a Google tradition and all, but man that is hard to say.
A day of food at Google
I can't talk about the product I work on at Google, but I can talk about the food I eat. Those of us who work at Google in New York City are lucky to have great food prepared for us each day. Here is one day of food at Google:
Breakfast
I don't usually arrive early enough to make myself a waffle, or sample the oatmeal so today I had a bowl of raisin bran with organic milk, and made myself my usual double capuccino, made with Gorilla coffee which is roasted right here in Brooklyn. Powerful good.
Lunch
Smoked pork loin with a beschamel sauce, with a side of wasabi flavored mashed potatoes (So good! I think I am going to make this at home), rice pilaf, and cornbread. For greens, I had some organic raw kale, with pears and apples, in a balsamic vinaigrette. Dessert came in the form of cranberry and nut biscotti, dipped in chocolate on one end.
Dinner
I had to pick up the car from the shop today, so I left before dinner was served. The view of lower Manhattan from Brooklyn Heights was crazy. It should be illegal to drive this way too often. I wonder how many people have car accidents because they can't resist looking at this vast curtain wall of buildings?
