Author Archives: skierpage

About skierpage

As you might guess, my site is mine. My Schema.org info is at .

design: the classic Braun watch and similar

Posted on 2011-07-11 by skierpage

The Guardian had a special offer on a handsome Mondaine watch, which reminded me of the watch I wear, which led me to a design article about it and some weird new Braun watches. The AW was designed by Dietrich … Continue reading →

Posted in design | 5 Comments

design: irrational fear of handles

Posted on 2011-06-23 by skierpage

Our kitchen is full of drawers, thus a handsome grid of handles.  Even as we installed it, the trend in modern kitchen design moved on to eliminate the handles altogether, as if you open drawers in your alien autopsy lab … Continue reading →

Posted in design | Leave a comment

software: how Live CDs can close the deal

Posted on 2011-06-09 by skierpage

I tried out the some new operating systems by booting them off a USB flash drive, including Fedora 15. Fedora 15 seemed to work fine on my hardware and looked promising, but it wasn’t dramatically better in a few fumbling … Continue reading →

Posted in computers, software | Leave a comment

art: Deborah Butterfield K.O.s AbEx at ART MRKT

Posted on 2011-05-23 by skierpage

It was interesting to go to ART MRKT and see the work that high-end galleries and organizations pay to present. I couldn’t discern any theme to it all. One gallery was hawking Damien Hirst prints, such as a 2-D diamond-dusted … Continue reading →

Posted in art | Leave a comment

books: sex and science-fiction

Posted on 2011-05-20 by skierpage

Three S.F. books, all going way beyond impersonal characterless scientists in lab coats. Sprawling, very good! 2011-02-20skierpageproduct River of Gods by Ian McDonald ★★★★☆ This does a fantastic job of presenting the foreign culture of Indian nation-states on the brink … Continue reading →

Posted in books | Leave a comment

skiing: an advanced lesson with the master

Posted on 2011-05-02 by skierpage

It’s hard to get better by skiing on your own. Teaching less talented skiers hones your technique, but doesn’t stretch you. So I paid for a private lesson. I’ve wanted a lesson from Elianne “El” Furtney for a decade, but … Continue reading →

Posted in skiing | Leave a comment

software: Fedora 15 feedback

Posted on 2011-04-25 by skierpage

The Fedora 15 announcement says A list of the problems we already know about can be seen on the Common F15 bugs page,at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F15_bugs. If you find a bug that’s not found on that page, be sure it gets fixed … Continue reading →

Posted in software | 2 Comments

computers: trying new distributions

Posted on 2011-04-25 by skierpage

I’m still running the Kubuntu flavor of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, now up to version 10.10. It’s lovely that Linux distributions get steadily better for free, and thanks in a small part to my bug reports and testing.  The glitches … Continue reading →

Posted in computers, software | Leave a comment

computers: one billion bytes of RAM isn’t enough

Posted on 2011-04-25 by skierpage

I’m typing this on a Falcon Northwest top-of-the-line desktop computer. It’s from 2004. The Athlon 3000 dual core CPU can keep up with most of my needs, the 100GB disk has enough space, the audio is fine, the video can … Continue reading →

Posted in computers | Leave a comment

books: Richard Ford’s dispassionate adultery misses his peak

Posted on 2011-04-22 by skierpage

far from his best Jan 01, 2011 by skierpageproduct A Multitude of Sins ★★☆☆☆ Richard Ford‘s short story The Womanizer in book 40 of the Granta literary magazine knocked me out, perhaps my favorite modern short story until The God … Continue reading →

Posted in books | Leave a comment