DD shot this, and the first and second frames of the film overlapped. On one layer is the limestone waterfall 30km up the mountains from Luang Prabang, Laos; on the other layer is the kitchen area of GHRE’s office in Phang Nga, Thailand. They were both my favorite places to be.

BBC published an interesting (albeit grammatically odd) opinion article called “The technology with impact 2007″ which had some decent insights into the devices, trends and policies that have shaped our technological year.

Every reviewer was impressed with the interactivity and communications potential of Facebook (yawn), but I agree with Darren Waters that the biggest impact has come from rich web applications — shared, platform neutral, accessible and FREE. I also thought Jonathan Fildes shed some necessary light on a new innovation: Witricity.

“In July, US researchers showed-off a relatively simple system that could deliver energy to devices, such as laptop computers, without the need for wires. The setup, called Witricity, was able to make a 60W light bulb glow from a distance of 2m (7ft). The bulb was even made to glow when obstructions such as wood and metal were placed between the transmitter and receiver…If the system can be refined it has the potential to banish the annoying and ever-growing tangle of wires needed to recharge today’s electronic gadgets to the past.”

Machinist also shed some proverbial light on the most influential technology of the year, looking back at the iPhone not in terms of what cool new things it allows us to do, but in what it represents as a metaphor for a consistently wired society, a mass of cyberpersons texting away in the shadow of Google’s approaching bid to control the 700 MHz wireless radio space soon up for auction by the FCC:

“Every conversation about tech in 2007 spirals into a conversation about the iPhone; the device, as I wrote after two weeks using it, marks a new way of living. For some people constant access to the Internet is a pleasant dream, while for others it’s a dreaded nightmare. This year, for all of us, it became a reality, the unavoidable future.

And this suggests the iPhone’s true impact — it forced us, for the first time, to confront the thorny public policy issues that the mobile Web will raise, issues sure to consume Silicon Valley, Hollywood and regulators in Washington for the foreseeable future.

When, a decade from now, you think back on these times, you may well remember the iPhone’s launch as a mere footnote to a more momentous story: 2007, the year the mobile Internet got its start — or, you know, the year Google finalized plans to take over the world.“

We opened presents on the living room floor last night, DD & my mom and I, sometime after midnight. I prefer that to waiting til morning, especially since Doughertys sleep til noon, when given the opportunity. It’s Christmas now, although it doesn’t feel like it: there’s no snow, my grandparents haven’t been around for 14 years, there’s a sad lack of little people in the house, and I’m not spending the week in Philly. However, Boston is calm, and my mother is here, and we’ve been making whirlwind visits to longtime friends, and even ran into my ex-stepdad and his kids at church last night, which was entirely random, or not. I helped my old pal A. clean out the last remnants of his childhood from his parents’ attic last night, which included Star Wars figurines and four albums of mildewed basketball cards, which I remember him meticulously collecting through the 80s.

I love Christmas, but it’s strange time. It seems as if the earth should open up and magic gold tinsel should fly out and cover us all, and the Harlem Boys’ Choir should levitate while singing a cantata, and our dead relatives would rise, and bake their cookies again, and together we’d run over icy asphalt which smells like candy and the sea. Maybe I should just attend the Macy’s Parade.

Ciao!

Wondering what to get that vegan lefty in your family who prefers raw food and won’t buy makeup or facial products that contain parabens, medicines or other harmful chemicals?

Well, check it out: C., a friend-of-a-friend, makes a bunch of quality skin/hair/bath products in her kitchen, and has been selling them for years. Check out her holiday catalog, and buy some stuff! (It’s also affordable, and the casing is attractive.)

In doing this you’ll inadvertently support the Savin Hill community, which is always a bonus.

The week your grandmother died, we sat in her kitchen

and the old oak was silent, and no dust hung

between us. Just the clean floors, the emptiness of death

and echoes of her movements were left. We went through

the cabinets to cook whatever was still fresh.

You sliced potatoes, I held my breath.

Imported cocoa almonds appeared — she had good taste,

so I tried them timidly as you pinched rosemary

and resurrected the broiler’s flame. Did I even

know her name? Do you even remember

what happened later, in the library, in the driveway,

in my borrowed blue car? I’ll remind you: a proposition was made,

politely, that I come back in and stay

because you were lonely and she was your favorite and suddenly gone

and the house was so huge and belonged to no one now. But she was still there —

I could feel it on the stairs, in the hallway, in the

bathroom where puffy toilet paper remembered the feel of her skin.

Because I was a character who’d wandered in

someone else’s plot, I left you without hesitation in front of the garage door,

grown, alone. For what would be the last time

I drove down the hill and past the lake

to where the future still sits,

still waits.

You might have noticed that tapioca.tv/blog doesn’t work, and you get funny errors if you make a typo in the URL. In the spirit of being an ambitious learner, I tried futzing with the PHP and WordPress directories and ending up screwing things up. Please comment if you have suggestions! I see nothing wrong with my tapioca.tv/index.php, tapioca.tv/blog/index.php, or tapioca.tv/blog/.htaccess files (although permalink updates don’t seem to update .htaccess unless I do it manually).

HELP!

ON EDIT: Fixed things. Just can’t get 404 pages to customize anymore, and I think I’m abandoning the idea to move all subpages into the root directory.

As you might have noticed, I’ve been making a few changes to the site: new static root page, new photo & video galleries, new web projects, and once I figure out some PHP, I’ll be changing sidebars per page. Hope you like it.

In non-Wordpress news, I’ve spent all weekend in a sitting position. The snow has taken over Boston and blanketed my non-cyber productivity. Maybe at some point in January I can get back to reading and running and smiling. I can’t wait for this season to end!

“I think being a grownup is all about alienation and homesickness; what’s lonelier than being grown?”

- SDR, in Germany

“I think they’ve gotten worse.”

My teeth, I meant. Doc was hanging over me, looking concerned. He stared into my mouth a few moments before pronouncing his verdict, which no 29 year-old who’s spent 2.8 years at the orthodontist wants to hear:

“Hmm, I was hoping to see a finished case here, but I guess I was wrong.”

A really skilled female assistant switched the chain (chain gang of connected elastics, horrible) on the upper teeth, put a thinner wire on bottom and removed the bottom chain, slapped two elastics from my upper canines down to my lower canines and said, “Happy holidays!” All this without digging any fingernails into my gums. A wonderful present indeed.

Doc took a look and declared: “Looks good. Maybe next time you’ll be finished.”

Well, we’re entering 2008 under oral construction, but we can’t stop now. I can’t put my left molars together, so that’s a problem. The e-files on Doc’s computer still have my band date as 9-22-05, not 4-28-05. I want to go on record as having endured those five months! Those five months saw four oral surgeries and some major progress! When I reminded Doc (for the eighth time) that his records were not showing the correct treatment time, he shrugged, “Honey, your treatment time has gone waaaay too long.” I think he’s trying to save face by not updating my file to show the actual time that’s elapsed. How shady!

I better get free whitening from all of this.

BB, always remember our single days.

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