putative.com

Nest thermostat

This is a gorgeous thermostat. I love this sort of smart, elegant, and pretty-to-look-at green-ness. My favorite stat from the article is that only 6% of programmable thermostats are actually programmed—which, duh, of course, because they all have shit for design.

And I think the price criticism is all wrong (although I think the writer might have been looking for something to criticize at that point, since she was starting to drool a bit). For something you buy once a decade, look at every day of the world, and will potentially save you tens of thousands of dollars over its lifetime, a couple hundred bucks extra is nothing.

Keep Wall Street occupied

Watch this now:

Viaduct demolition photo

Very cool, from Reddit (via Slog). I highly recommend coming down to my hood and watching sometime. It's a good show.

Brand new Genki Sudo video

An unemployed engineer explains taxes and the economy

You won't see this guy interviewed on Fox News:

New arrival: Porcho

This should go under New Arrivals, but I figured I'd show off the pic. This huge spider has taken up residence on our deck/porch, and built—and rebuilt,  every day—a web that spans like 8' by 5'. Like she makes this crazy gigantic web, catches tons of flies almost immediately, chows down (which we get to watch), and then the web gets all torn up and she has to build it again.

We named her Porcho. (She's on our porch, and that's one of Silas' favorite made-up names.) I'm kind of hoping that she's pregant and we'll get to see tons of baby spiders....

The point d'ironie?

From the 16th century, never heard of it. But I do like an interrobang now and then!

555 phone numbers

I wasn't sure why I couldn't stop watching this—and then I got a nice payoff at the end with a clip from Last Action Hero:

The oldest form of wireless communication

Last chance to walk the Viaduct

It's your last chance to go for a walk on the Viaduct before it's torn down! Come join us Saturday morning. You can walk between 9:30am and 12:30pm. I'm guessing we'll go around 10.