June 12, 2002

San Francisco trip

Oh yeah. I’m home. It was a good trip. Good hanging out with Dave & Heidi for the last time before they have twins–good hanging out with them just in general, and likewise with Brian and Maureen. Good re-acquainting myself with San Francsisco–I love visiting that town, but it reminds me that I really like living in Austin too. Spent yesterday afternoon and this morning in San Jose, and then caught the Nerd Bird home.

Perhaps it’s just because I bought a new car myself, but I found myself attuned to the cars I was seeing out there. I continue to be amazed at what a car-oriented place California is. Not just the dependence on them, but the affection lavished on them. A lot of Porsches–everything from whaletail Turbos to bathtub 356s. But what struck me was the weird stuff–like an immaculately restored K-car of all things, with a show-car quality paint job and fancy racing wheels. Or a mint-condition 1984 Hurst Olds. Or a bizarre 3-wheeled podlet (evidently Brian knows the owner). And of course the aforementioned Hummer limo.

Wireless Internet stuff

2 Tinkerers Say They’ve Found a Cheap Way to Broadband: This is pretty exciting. Hacking the Wi-Fi protocol makes it possible to blanket a whole city with fast, wireless coverage. Well, that’s the theory.

“A French engineer would say this isn’ the most elegant solution” Mr. Furrier said, “but we didn’t care about that. We took advantage of these cheap commodity chips and we just wanted to make it work.”

Then again, wasn’t it a French engineer who invented the 2CV?