Those of you who are Bay Area (or San Jose) aware may find this a bit amusing:

Somehow, I doubt the Fairmont chain will be too pleased with this page.

(Hint)

I do proclaim this house, the House of the Day!

Yeah it’s a little pricey. But you’re getting .25 to .5 acres in East Palo Alto! Just look your neighborhood!

Why your dog is smarter than a wolf | csmonitor.com

Until recently, domestication was thought to have dulled dogs’ intelligence. Studies in the early 1980s showed that wolves, from which dogs probably descended, can unlock a gate after watching a human do it once, while dogs remained stumped after watching repeatedly.

That never sat well with Vilmos Csanyi, the recently retired head of Mr. Miklosi’s department. Mr. Csanyi, who had dogs of his own, suspected the dogs were awaiting permission to open the gate, that they regarded opening the gate as a violation of their master’s rules.

In 1997, Csanyi and his colleagues tested 28 dogs of various ages, breeds, and closeness to their owners, to see if they could learn to obtain cold cuts on the other side of a fence by pulling on the handles of dishes while their owners were present. Dogs with a close relationship to their owners fared worse than outdoor dogs. But when the dogs’ owners were allowed to give the animals verbal permission, the gap between the groups vanished.

More interesting stuff

Lying Is Good For You – Forbes.com

“So while we’d like to say we value honesty, we also value dishonesty,” says the University of New England’s Smith. After all, we’ve been taught the importance of lying from a very early age. The catch is, we don’t call it lying, we call it tact or social grace.

More interesting thoughts from this forbes site.

Jane Goodall On Why Words Hurt – Forbes.com

I think we’re still in a muddle with our language, because once you get words and a spoken language it gets harder to communicate.

Chimps are very quick to have a sudden fight or aggressive episode, but they’re equally as good at reconciliation. They make an appeasing gesture–reaching out a hand, crouching, giving little cries of fear or sadness. Then, very often, the aggressor will reach out and pat or reassure–offer an embrace or something like that–and the victim relaxes, and it is over.

When humans get these sudden outbursts of anger, we add words to the mix. And as you’ve probably experienced, it is much harder to forget a word than it is a slap. Words can be said in bitterness and anger, and often there seems to be an element of truth in the nastiness. And words don’t go away, they just echo around. So even if you can make up, the words come back.

Interesting thought. Very interesting.

The other day someone asked me what I’m using as my mail service provider.

Right now I’m using Fastmail. Or, in my case, it’s called mailcan because that’s the domain name I use.

Fastmail/Mailcan’s spam screening has simply been incredibly awesome. It’s fast as well, and a basic account is pretty cheap. I actually have the $20 a year account because I wanted some more of the nifty features.

Give it a try!

Dear Apple,

I recognize that from time to time it is necessary to offer of updates to your software – after all, I work in software too. That said, could you please make your iTunes installer smarters?

Last week I finally got around to upgrading to iTunes 6.0. I noticed that it installed QuickTime 7.0.3, and of course, QuickTime ignored its previous settings and showed itself in the tray – again. I went and turned that setting off.

Today, I launched iTunes and it informed me that 6.0.1 was available. Fair enough, I installed it. And again it installed QuickTime, and again it reset the settings such that I had to turn the try setting off again.

This is pretty lame to begin with, but what really exacerbates the lameness is the fact that iTunes installed QuickTime 7.0.3 again. QuickTime wasn’t even updated!

My advice to you, Apple: if the same version of a product is installed already, please don’t install it again. And if you do, please don’t stomp over the settings.

Thanks.
-Dennis