One Brick Short

Tumblr is now One Brick Short

2008-03-04T00:29:00.002-04:00

I've opened a microblog at Tumblr to jot down ideas to develop for the blog. You can drop by there to see what's coming up on the site.

Do you Tumbl? Well, everybody does now and then. One misstep and down we go. It's convenient to be male and not have to worry about skirts when one tumbls, I think. Well, have fun!

Will America Suffer a Euro Invasion?

2008-02-28T16:04:00.005-04:00

NPR's All Things Considered had an interesting little segment last night that featured Billy Leroy, a Manhattan antiques dealer whose Billy's Antiques & Props in Manhattan accepts payment only in euros. The idea started after a failed antiques safari to France. Mr. Leroy found he was unable to make any purchases at all because of the 1.5 dollar to euro exchange rate. So, to build up a stockpile of euros, he put up his sign reading “Euros only” and now his store is frequented by European antique buyers. Pretty slick, if you ask me, eliminating his personal need to suffer through the currency exchange.

From a consumer's viewpoint, this seems to me a natural consequence of the way we do business online. We're used to buying products from the far reaches of the planet without worrying about what currency the seller wants. We plug in our credit card and the transaction is completed, with some nameless middleman (a trained orangutan in Peoria, for example) handling the details of converting my plastic dollars into pesos or yen.

Therefore, why not expect businesses to eventually accept any currency – or at least the most widely circulated? Given the weak dollar and the global mindset of today's consumer, will we see the Piggly Wiggly accepting Iraqi dinars? Well, the reporter certainly didn't have any luck trying to get a hot dog in Times square with a five euro bill, so I'm gonna hold off on going to Starbucks with my collection of Spanish pesetas for a while.

Click here for the NPR story: Yes, We Take Euros.

How to display your Google Calendars in the Gnome Clock Applet

2008-02-08T20:48:00.000-04:00

The Gnome Clock applet is an extremely convenient little widget that sits in the corner of your Menubar and gives you the time of day (unlike the knock-out that totally ignored the geeky coolness of your Hipster PDA and sleek Macbook). It also displays events from your Evolution calendars -- if you use Evolution calendars, that is.

Personally, I don't. I'm a Thunderbird man. It just sounds so nice to be able to say that, don't you think? "Thunderbird man", sounds muscle-car-ish, doesn't it? I keep my events in Google Calendar and use the Lightning extension to display them in Thunderbird. Well, it turns out that with a simple terminal command you can set your Clock to display Google Calendar events. Presented here for your viewing pleasure (for Ubuntu):

/usr/lib/evolution-webcal/evolution-webcal/
evolution-webcal YOUR_PRIVATE_ICAL_URL

Follow the magic link: Linux Tip: Automatically Subscribe to Your Google Calendar [via Lifehacker.com, Cagdas's blog]

Super Sunday, Super Tuesday

2008-02-06T00:16:00.000-04:00

So Sunday was Super Bowl Day. Tuesday is Super Primaries Day. Be honest: Which do you prefer?

Dude! All of a sudden, I feel hungry

2006-10-13T00:45:00.000-04:00

The enemy hides in a forest of enourmous marijuana plants. CNN.com reports what troops in Afghanistan tried when faced with that problem -- they tried to burn them. Doesn't that sound like a good idea to you?

A wall twixt the sun and I

2006-04-16T01:51:00.000-04:00

I have a wall twixt the sun and I
It lets me slumber longer
Before the light hits my eyes
Before slumber retreats
I cavort a while more with the three-headed rhinoceros.

Ok, that went a little wide of the mark.

Hello world

2006-04-16T01:49:00.000-04:00

Greeting the world, and then signing off.