I caught Charlie Lazor, talking about building furniture and houses at the University of Minnesota this evening. I found this quote on prototyping invaluable: “We spent so much time arguing whether or not it work, and when we prototyped it, it worked remarkably well. We could have saved so much time, if we had just …
Author Archives: Garrick van Buren
Fortune Cookie Actually Relevant
At today’s MNteractive PowerLunch I received the following fortune cookie message: “Explore the backroads of the north with a new friend.” It seemed fantastically relevant to last weekend’s journey. If you haven’t been to the Sawatadee in St. Paul, the service is fantastic. I haven’t been there for months and the waitress recognized me, remembered …
A Weekend in the Northwoods
Jen and I headed up to Bayfield this weekend for an enjoyable, off-season Northwoods weekend. The moment we merged onto Highway 2 in Wisconsin, our mobile phones declared ‘No Network’. It took a moment for ‘No Network’ to sink in: No using the phone’s bluetooth as a dial-up modem. No calling people you’re meeting to …
A Mac Mini in the Living Room
Since the release of the Mac Mini, I’ve been looking for reasons to pick one up. Currently, there’s a G4 tower in my basement and I’d like to return it to the 20th Century. Here’s what I’m thinking: Plug the Mac Mini into my TV, and use either the El Gato EyeTV Wonder or Plextor …
The Creative Grotto Vibe
This morning Jen brought up the Temporary Office Space idea again. It’s something she’s brought up before. As a highly-mobile professional, the idea is very compelling. To have comfortable, secure place to send faxes grab a decent cup of coffee, and recharge off a good vibe for an hour or two, I think you can …
Coffee Goes Stale in a Week
Sam over at Afongen.com reminded me of something extremely important – How Long to Store Coffee: “There is a marked decline in coffee’s flavor over the course of a week after roasting. If memory serves me correctly, something like 70% of the compounds responsible for coffee’s flavor are gone in that time, transformed into something …
First Crack 30. More Washboard, Less Cowbell
On the drive back from a Urban Hillbilly Quartet show, I interview Milo – the band’s washboard player, and his fiance (& my sister) Kari. You hear the history of his washboard playing, a washboard solo, what Kari does doing a show, and how to review a book in 5 words or less. Urban Hillbilly …
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post-humorus
I just received verification that my newest addition to PseudoDictionary has been accepted: post-humorus: Something that’s funny, only after the fact.
Better Email Tips
On MPR the other morning, they had consultant and author Marilyn Paul talking about ways to spend less time in your inbox. Her suggestion is to institute email subject line tags. You include these tags in your email subject line. Here are the one’s I remember: ty: thank you nrn: no reply necessary nbd: need …
The Principle of a Capitalist Society
“Distribute from each according to his choice, to each according to the perceived value by others of his contribution.” – Paul Heyne This from his last lecture entitled “The Moral Critics of Capitalism”. Thanks to the Idea Shop for today’s thought of the day.