aziza | san francisco : food

Great food and even great desserts by melissa chou

aziza | san francisco : food: "aziza showcases the abundance of organic produce & free-range meat, game & poultry from local farms & ranches that practice ecologically sound, slow & sustainable agriculture"

PineappleLuv: Bodysurfing

PineappleLuv: Bodysurfing: "Bodysurfing
The other day I was thinking a lot about bodysurfing and how pure that is. I think it was in the film Archy that a surfer in San Clemente was saying that a few generations ago, kids started out learning how to bodysurf before learning to surf. That sounded kind of cool to me. My dad grew up bodysurfing in Long Beach and taught my brother and I how to do it when we were kids. It's a fond memory."

Why we learn more from our successes than our failures

Why we learn more from our successes than our failures: "If you've ever felt doomed to repeat your mistakes, researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory may have explained why: Brain cells may only learn from experience when we do something right and not when we fail.

In the July 30 issue of the journal Neuron, Earl K. Miller, the Picower Professor of Neuroscience, and MIT colleagues Mark Histed and Anitha Pasupathy have created for the first time a unique snapshot of the learning process that shows how single cells change their responses in real time as a result of information about what is the right action and what is the wrong one."

The 'Web Squared' Era - Forbes.com

The 'Web Squared' Era - Forbes.com: "O'Reilly Insights
The 'Web Squared' Era
Tim O'Reilly and Jennifer Pahlka, 09.24.09, 12:19 PM EDT
The Web is gaining ears, eyes and other senses through smart sensors. This will be big."

Scala:: IDEs, Java, Adoption

Programming and politics: A Tipping Point for Scala:

"This past week's BASE meeting was all about IDE support for Scala. You can read my notes, posted to the Scala tools mailing list. I was very surprised by this meeting. Not by the findings, if you will, as I have used all three IDEs at various times in the last few months. What I was surprised by was the feedback from the group, and the logical conclusion of this discussion: Scala is near a tipping point, but IDE support is holding it back."

A year ago I was struck by breath of interest in Scala, but the interest I saw was from people with 1) strong interest in functional languages or b) major need to scale.

Now I'm seeing something very different. Many people, including Gossling and leads on JRuby and Groovy, are talking about it as a long term replacement for Java -- they are talking about it as a 'better java'. As I remember it, this is exactly how c++ moved into the mainstream -- not as an OO language, but as a 'better C'.

Last week's BASE (Bay Area Scala Enthusiasts) meeting examined Scala IDEs. This surprised me. I'd assumed that IDEs would not interest Scala people anymore than they interest Ruby people. Not so.
I don't expect any of this to have broad impact soon, but I think that in 12-24 months, having 12 months of Scala background will be nice to have on a resume.

As a dynamic language guy, I have been disappointed that jRuby (with good IDE support) or Clojure has not gotten more attention. However, Scala's design pays so much attention to the need for smooth integration into the Java ecosystem, that I no longer care. In other words they have designed the implementation as well as the language. Scala is much more than just a language that runs on the JVM.

Plus, perhaps I'll be a real for sure functional programmer in a few years;-)

FT.com / Columnists / Lunch with the FT - Lunch with the FT: Jared Diamond

FT.com / Columnists / Lunch with the FT - Lunch with the FT: Jared Diamond: "Lunch with the FT: Jared Diamond

By David Pilling

Published: August 7 2009 15:22 | Last updated: August 7 2009 15:22

Jared DiamondJared Diamond is the guru of collapse. Collapse is the title of one of the books that have made him a world-famous academic. It is a theme that captures the Zeitgeist: markets have collapsed, banks have collapsed and confidence, even in the capitalist system itself, has collapsed."

AP Delivering Nonprofits Journiasm

Four nonprofit groups devoted to investigative journalism will have their work distributed by The Associated Press, The A.P. will announce on Saturday, greatly expanding their potential audience and helping newspapers fill the gap left by their own shrinking resources.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/13/business/media/13press.html?_r=2&ref=media

[Thanks to @timoreilly. Tim's twitter suggested that AP: [You should] still link to investigative reporting at its source to give it Googlejuice in the link econ. I'm not sure most professional journalists get 'Googlejuice'. Tim is trying to school them.]

Health Outcomes Driving New Hospital Design - NYTimes.com

Health Outcomes Driving New Hospital Design - NYTimes.com: "Health Outcomes Driving New Hospital Design


Article Tools Sponsored By
By CAROL ANN CAMPBELL
Published: May 18, 2009

The curtain between two hospital beds does not stop noise from the television set, offer privacy during sensitive conversations with"

How We Feel Linked To Both Our Culture And How We Behave

How We Feel Linked To Both Our Culture And How We Behave: "How We Feel Linked To Both Our Culture And How We Behave

ScienceDaily (Apr. 19, 2009) — Scientists have long been interested in the interplay of emotions and identity, and some have recently focused on cultural identity. One's heritage would seem to be especially stable and impervious to change, simply because it's been passed down generation after generation and is deeply ingrained in the collective psyche. But how deeply, exactly?"

Why Aneesh Chopra is a Great Choice for Federal CTO - O'Reilly Radar

Why Aneesh Chopra is a Great Choice for Federal CTO - O'Reilly Radar: "Why Aneesh Chopra is a Great Choice for Federal CTO
by Tim O'Reilly | comments: 5

The news has now been leaked that President Obama intends to nominate Aneesh Chopra as the nation's first Chief Technology Officer. The Federal CTO will be an assistant to the President, as well as the Associate Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He will work closely with Vivek Kundra, the recently-named Federal CIO, to develop and implement the President's ambitious technology agenda."

Michael Pollan on Food, Energy, Climate, and Health - O'Reilly Radar

Michael Pollan on Food, Energy, Climate, and Health - O'Reilly Radar: "Michael Pollan on Food, Energy, Climate, and Health
by Sara Winge | comments: 21

In his latest column, Nicholas Kristof encourages President-Elect Obama to heed Michael Pollan's call for a radically new food policy. Pollan makes a convincing case that our current food system is a 'shadow problem.' If we're serious about working on energy independence, climate change, and health care, we have to change how we're feeding ourselves."

How To Get Uncle Sam To Fund Your Start-Up - Forbes.com

How To Get Uncle Sam To Fund Your Start-Up - Forbes.com: "The two main grant categories are Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBTT) grants. Total size of that considerable kitty: about $2.2 billion."
[Thanks to Tim's twitter.]