Author Archives: skierpage

About skierpage

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

books: a dull book about design

Posted on 2011-04-22 by skierpage

Small Things Considered is lazy and downright terrible. Continue reading →

Posted in books | Leave a comment

web: Amazon Cloud music, digits online, and piracy

Posted on 2011-03-29 by skierpage

Amazon’s Cloud Drive/Cloud Music Player is intriguing. It lets you play music from an online storage folder. It’s easy for Amazon to implement since they already have all the music files, so the millionth user with a hit song doesn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in web | Leave a comment

art and excess: $1M Red Tibetan Mastiff vs. Jeff Koons’ Puppy

Posted on 2011-03-17 by skierpage

A multi-millionaire coal baron in China just bought “Big Splash”, a red Tibetan Mastiff, for $1.5 million because “they have become highly-prized status symbols for China’s new rich.” The dogs are thought to be a pure “Chinese” breed and they … Continue reading →

Posted in art | Leave a comment

software: Google/Android doesn’t know how to link

Posted on 2011-02-01 by skierpage

Why doesn’t Google/Android understand that “John Smith” or “Monk’s coffee shop” in an event, event location, or task refers to a contact in their own Contacts application? Continue reading →

Posted in semantic web, software | Leave a comment

web: Why is there Facebook at all?

Posted on 2011-01-12 by skierpage

Social networking sites are weird. All they do is host shared bits of data between groups of people they mislabel as “friends”. But why on earth do we store our  private thoughts, pictures, and information on a central site that … Continue reading →

Posted in web | 6 Comments

computers: I want to be browser-based

Posted on 2010-12-10 by skierpage

Google’s ChromeOS “nothing but web” replacement for the heavyweight PC environment is nearing release, though overshadowed by Android’s unstoppable rise for smart phones and tablets and Google TV. I wish Firefox and the Linux distributions would proceed with similar initiatives. … Continue reading →

Posted in computers, web | Leave a comment

audio: a Walkman down cassette land

Posted on 2010-10-25 by skierpage

I was present at the birth of the Walkman and its pre-history. Continue reading →

Posted in audio, electronics | Leave a comment

cars: every car will have an electric motor

Posted on 2010-10-11 by skierpage

* Every accessory becomes electric so that the engine can turn off at a standstill. *The car recovers some energy from braking to recharge its battery, energy that’s otherwise wasted as hot brake pads. * The car has an efficient motor to propel it with electricity from the battery. Continue reading →

Posted in cars | Leave a comment

cars: GreenDriveExpo

Posted on 2010-10-10 by skierpage

After I ate my vegan granola, I pedaled over to the Green Drive Expo to celebrate alternative fuel vehicles (“Stupid smug eco hippies!” – Cartman) I missed Toyota’s talk, I would have loved to say “What the hell have you … Continue reading →

Posted in cars, eco | 1 Comment

open source: YOU are the marketing department

Posted on 2010-10-07 by skierpage

There are hundreds of thousands of open source projects, each addressing a problem and hoping to make the world a better place, and most struggle to gain traction.  It’s disheartening that so many open source contributors fail so badly at … Continue reading →

Posted in open source, web | Leave a comment