Author Archives: Beau Woods
Beer Market Shakeup
This is the first year that sales of Bud Light have declined. Is it a better year for good beer? Are other cervezas overtaking the 27-year old product? Well certainly one is – Snow beer in China. And it’s a Miller product. And it’s (also) a terrible beer.
Get A Diploma Online – Free!
A quick post, as much for my own reference as anything.
Resources for your free online education: http://www.popsci.com/freeschool?page=4
This one costs $99/month, but that’s almost free compared to most colleges: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/college_for_99_a_month.php
100 incredible lectures from the world’s top scientists: http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2009/06/18/100-incredible-lectures-from-the-worlds-top-scientists/
And finally, print your own degree: http://thunderwoodcollege.com/
Location Of The Mystery Trip (Part 3)
This is part 3 in the series, where I speculate on where I might be going and tell you where I’d send me. Here are some things that I’ve learned in trying to figure out where I’ll be heading:
- Did you know that the official language of Guyana is English and that it is more similar to the Caribbean than to South America?
- Did you know that the three least known countries in the world are Tuvalu, Nauru and Kiribati? Nauru has a very interesting story. Kiribati is the only country in the world that spans all four hemispheres.
- Did you know that this will be the 199th year of Oktoberfest in Munich? It will be held September 19 – October 4.
- Did you know that the second largest Oktoberfest celebration in the world is in Blumenau, Brazil? And that the third largest is in Cordoba, Argentina?
I think that the most obvious place to send me during those dates is Oktoberfest in Munich. So obvious, in fact, that I doubt this will be it – or there will be an added element of surprise thrown in. Like “You fly into Munich and out of Prague. You are not allowed to take any form of motorized transportation during the three weeks.”
So where do I think I’m going? I think I’ll be flying into Venice, then following the Eastern coast of the Agean down to Greece and out of Athens. None of those countries require a visa and it would be a really cool trip. I put my odds of being right at about 15%.
Paris Urine Sauvage
Many people don’t believe me when I tell them about the streets of Paris running yellow. They think I’m making it up. They say things like “That can’t be. The French are very refined, especially the Parisians.” They’ve also never been there.
Paris has public toilets on the streets, but they cost money to use them so tourists mostly use them. I saw more public acts of excretion in Paris than in Beijing, which is shocking. And now comes a story of Paris buildings designed to splash back.
That’s one more layer of defense for me next time I hear how my culture is what’s wrong with the world today.
Location Of The Mystery Trip (Part 2)
This is the second part on where I might be going on my Mystery Trip, wherein I let you know where other folks have suggested to send me and stop just short of revealing where I think I’m headed and why.
My boss said he’d send me to one of the following locations:
Kerguelen Islands
Canary Islands
Tajikistan
A Finnish lake
I like the idea of Tajikistan. The mountainous region of Afghanistan and Pakistan – two of its neighbors – is someplace I’ve long wanted to go, and Tajikistan is 90% mountains. They also share a culture with Persia, another place I’d love to visit. The border with Afghanistan has been guarded by a modern army since at least 2001 and the country has ties with the World Trade Organization and NATO. I’d feel safe heading there, although I’d better get there quickly, according to Barnett.
A couple of my friends said they’d send me to Thailand. I like that idea, too. If nothing else I’m sure I could get some spectacular Tom Kha Gai soup. Though it will be the rainy season, that just means fewer tourists and cooler temperatures.
South America has been a popular suggestion. Specifically Peru and Argentina. I’d be alright with either of those. Machu Pichu looks incredibly beautiful and I’ve wanted to go to Buenos Aires for a long time.
Spotting Fake Travel Reviews
I learned something today from AOL. I had to read that sentence a couple of times before I believed it myself. But it’s true! They’ve got an article on how to spot fake hotel reviews and it’s worth a look. Many of these are something that you look for anyway, but some aren’t obvious. After reading this I have a better sense of what I usually do when I spot a review and say “This looks like an ad.”
Location Of The Mystery Trip (Part 1)
It’s now less than two weeks from my Mystery Trip and I have no more idea where I’m going than I did when I started this crazy idea. This is part one, in which I lay out what I know so far and stop just short of providing speculations on a location.
I’ve started working on the skills that I’ll use when I am wherever I am. I’m using an Asus eeepc 1005HA-B to type this up now. The screen glare is killing me. I’ve uploaded photos to Flickr and done some other basic tasks on here which will be required if I’m going to blog my trip.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s what I have been told so far:
I have been told that I have at least one mission planned.
The location will be North of the equator. (I suspect that this may be a red herring, since the real intent is so I don’t have to deal with Winter conditions where heavy clothing is essential to survival.)
I will be traveling Internationally.
I will not need to get a visa in advance.
I depart Saturday, September 19th and return Saturday October 10th.
I will be on a direct flight from Atlanta.
I need to travel light and carry boots.
I should have connectivity to the Internets available to me, though not at all times.
ASUS eeepc 1005HA-P Review
I went and grabbed the Asus eeepc 1005HA-P for my upcoming Mystery Trip. It is very light and is quite powerful for its size, though there are some down sides. I’m dual booting Windows XP with Linux Mint as my primary OS and it’s pretty impressive.
The 1005HA-PU1X-BK, as it is officially known, is small in size, lightweight and gets 10.5 hours of battery life! I considered the 1101HA, which has a larger screen and slightly longer (advertised) battery life. But all the reviews said the processor was anemic (1.33GHz) so I decided to stay away and I’m happy with my decision.
That said, this is a very solid and capable netbook. It is built and designed quite well – it looks nice and feels sturdy and refined. The screen tucks behind the keyboard the way Macs do and the body is sleek and comfortable to hold. The system is very responsive and quick compared to the eeepc 900 – the last netbook I used – especially after upgrading it to 2GB of RAM.
I run Linux Mint most of the time and it is pretty well tailored for the eeepc. The current version (Gloria, based on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope) installs fairly smoothly but, like with much new hardware, my network drivers weren’t loaded out of the box. That was easy enough to fix with these instructions, though, and the next version (based on Karmic Koala) seems to work with the hardware just fine. There is one issue I ran into with the eeepc tray software where the wireless network would drop out fairly often, but that was solved by adding the following line to my /etc/default/eeepc-acpi.local file:
WIFI_DRIVER=”ath9k”
Overall, I am very satisfied with the laptop and am sure it will make a great companion on my trip. I’ll keep you posted on how it works out – starting September 20th.
Here’s how the 1005HA stacks up against other netbooks:
Pros – powerful, long battery, sturdy and polished construction
Cons – hard-to-use trackpad
A note on netbooks
The size of all netbooks, however, has its disadvantages. The 1005HA is best-of-breed in many aspects, though there are inherent weaknesses in this breed. The screen size, though standard to large by netbook standards, is difficult to get used to. I can only see a few lines at a time and some interactive interfaces are too big to fit the 1024×600 screen. A higher resolution would have been MUCH appreciated. The keyboard and trackpad (again, standard to large by netbook standards) are also smaller than I prefer. I’ve got big hands and they are quite squished in the small space. It’s not very comfortable to type for long periods of time. And the processor, fastest available in its class at 1.66GHz, can be a bit sluggish. I can stream TED videos, for example, but sometimes it gets jumpy.
Filipino Cuisine
I was in San Francisco – one of my favorite cities – this week and went to a Filipino restaurant out there. I had no idea what to expect from the food – I was guessing pork-based or heavy on the seafood with Spanish influences. But beyond that I wasn’t sure.
If you can read the menu you can see that it is pork and fish based with Spanish influences. But they’ve also got some stuff that I’ve never seen on a menu before. Like paella with squid ink rice and squid flakes. And grilled cuttlefish stuffed with a fresh salsa-like concoction.
Everything was excellent. My favorite was the cuttlefish. It was less chewy than squid typically is with a little more flavor. You could taste the grilledness in it and the salsa fresca was excellent. The squid ink gave the paella a slight sea taste, though not quite fishy.The squid flakes were dried tentacles and were slightly crunchy.
The Tyranny Of The Bulkhead
The worst seat on a plane, IMO, is a bulkhead seat. Those are the ones that have a white wall in front of them. There’s no place for your feet. There’s no place for your eyes. It’s confining. Planes are already confining enough without that.
I’ve actually given up a First Class bulkhead seat for a coach seat! Now granted, it was on a CRJ-700 where the First Class is fairly limited (can’t even stand up in the bathroom). And I was moving to an exit row. And my only motivation was to kick my feet out and sleep. But still, bulkheads suck!
</rant>
meanderingwoods 
