Happy 4th of July!

A couple of my favorite videos to commemorate the day.

The Muppets

Robin Williams

Houston Restaurant Weeks 2010

Despite my best efforts, I was a latecomer to the Houston Yelp Eats! this year. It's this week--that's right, it's going on now, and ends on Sunday. Details here. Last year it was in July, so I was a little thrown off.

Also, the Westchase District (I'm not as much of a latecomer to this, but I didn't announce it early) is having Westchase Wednesdays. Here's a list of coupons usable on Wednesdays this month. Details here.

But, have no fear--the 'main' Houston Restaurant Week is yet to come, starting August 1 and lasting a massive [i]three weeks[/i]. Details galore here.

Enjoy the dining!

Summer, OLED, and charities

Welcome to Grilled Cheese Season! I've heard that the best grilled cheese sandwiches are made with gruyere and green apple.

I like hearing about OLED stuff. Sony's making notebook-sized OLEDs.

Houston is the second most charitable city.

Cameras, Syrup, USB, and Geeky Stuff.

Here's one way to get back your stolen/lost cameras. I wonder if this actually works.

Unsurprisingly, high fructose corn syrup is really bad for you. Stick to sugar.

I really love these chainable USB plugs. Why hasn't this been done earlier?

I know I'm a geek, but I think this Mario statue is really cool. And so is this watermelon death star.

Lastly, if you need a laugh, check out this webcomic or Joe Wong. Joe went to Rice University, too! I'll be watching to find out if he ever comes back.

Follow up on Schmit

Following up on a previously mentioned mention of Schmit, I've found further confirmation that chef Schmit will be opening a restaurant this year (though, not necessarily in the same area mentioned before). Also, Smarty Pants Consulting lists chef Philippe Schmit as one of their projects...

Chef Philippe Schmit (2008/2009)

Acclaimed Houston chef

------------------------------------------------------------------

PROJECT: New signature restaurant

Business Plan Development (define concept, assess marketing strategies, analyze pro forma projections and return on investment) and location strategy and selection.

Exciting!

Best of Houston 2009

Alison Cook makes her list of best new restaurants of 2009--Houston-area places, of course. Gotta say, I should travel north more often, not that I subscribe to the believe that Houston's good restaurants are all in the loop. Rioja, after all, is outside the beltway.

And, the Loop Scoop gives their list of Houston's top 10 coffee shops. Salento used to be in my top 5, but they've changed a lot. It's now sleek-wine instead of cozy-coffee. The top three places, I'd say, have been among the best for many years, though I'd probably have put the old Salento at #3. This place should really be on the list, though. Top 5.

Houston food and quirk

There are a lot of good restaurants in Houston. There are also a lot of popular but not so great restaurants. Try some of these out: under $25, and hidden gems.

Here's a tribute to some good restaurants of Houston's past. Among them, of course, my old favorite Bistro Moderne.

Speaking of Bistro Moderne, in this review of Max's Wine Dive, the author casually mentions that the ex-Bisitro Moderne chef Philippe Schmit (misspelled in the article) is opening up a new restaurant soon! What big news to tuck away! More information must be coming. For the record, Max's Wine Dive is good (maybe not as good as Block 7), but is old news nonetheless.

Lastly, quirky Houston things. I've been wanting to go to the Beer Can House.

Heroin, latino Catholics, Android, and solar cells

Heroin is apparently an effective treatment for heroin addicts.

Latinos might be the future of the U.S. Catholic Church? They were part of the Catholic Church already. The story should be about latinos moving to the United States, and being the largest ethnic minority in the United States.

Android is now a battlefield tool.

Sharp sets a new record for solar cells. 35.8% conversion efficiency.

Hyperdrive, Anglicans, the black Wii, and the D&D Surface

A physicist wants to test hyperdrive. You thought it was science fiction?

The Vatican is making conversion of Anglicans a bit easier. They've been working on this for some time, though.

Nintendo is releasing a black Wii! ... In Europe. That's a pretty good bundle.

Some people are using the Microsoft Surface to play D&D. Looks pretty cool.

Lee Kuan Yew

On Charlie Rose, Lee Kuan Yew seems like a good, intelligent man with a multi-polar view of the future, a grasp of how globalization can help the world, and recognition of the importance of technological and social progress.

He was the first prime minister of Singapore, and currently the 'Minister Mentor'.

Google

Use iGoogle to help you find a job.

Will more people be able to use Google PowerMeter soon?

In Google's continuing effort to help everyone out, they release flu trends for more countries.

Search in Google Groups doesn't work. Ironic for a search company. Problem is that it's a huge Usenet archive, basically detailing the history of the internet.

Houston, wireless power, salsa, and abortion

The Boston Globe highlights Houston parks.

Sony is working on wireless power. Two-foot transmission isn't too shabby.

Enjoy some real Texas salsa at Whole Foods.

Support for abortion rights are apparently waning.

AIDS, doodles, GPSs, and e-readers.

Wow, modest success for an AIDS vaccine! That's pretty neat.

What do you get when you combine Google Maps and doodles? This neat site, Big Doodles.

Neat, a mini-GPS. Put it on your keychain to remember where you parked your car, and a few other places.

I admit, I'm pretty excited at the possiblity of cheaper e-readers. $100?

10^100

Google started a project last year, called 10^100 to try to come up with an idea to help as many people as possible. 150,000 ideas were submitted, and now Google needs your help choosing one idea from the 16 finalists.

While there are good ideas for the project, some of these 16 aren't actually that great. Many of them would benefit with a more expanded, specific mission statement, not a broad idea. Here are my thoughts on the ideas.

Build real-time, user-reported news service
It's... well, unoriginal. Not that it's a bad idea, but it's been done, with varying degrees of success. A problem with user-reported news is that it varies greatly in quality. Rating systems don't work very well with real-time reporting, though you could rate reporters, I suppose. What would be better would be to aggregate news sources (a la Google News) and rate news sources.

Help social entrepreneurs drive change
This sounds a bit recursive to me. It's kind of what Project 10^100 is already. How do we decide what social projects get funded? Besides which, it's already being done. There are lots of organizations that are attempting social change. What would Google add? How about supporting them with some other idea?

Besides, there's a lot of silly politics about who gets funding for stuff. I don't think it's in Google's best interest to go down that route.

Make government more transparent
Also being done already.

Provide quality education to African students
People have been trying to accomplish this for a very long time. I'd like to see details on how Google could tackle this differently and decisively. I honestly don't think the resources exist to do this decisively.

Create real-time natural crisis tracking system
I imagine Twitter data will be instrumenal in this.

Promote health monitoring and data analysis
I think this is an interesting idea, actually. And, it builds on Google's Flu Trends.

Enhance science and engineering education
Interesting idea. I'm not convinced there's a lack of scientists and engineers.

Create real-world issue reporting system
Isn't this the internet?

Create genocide monitoring and alert system
Another interesting idea, possibly supported by Twitter. I'm concerned that this only helps a very small portion of the world, though it's a portion that needs a lot of help.

Work toward socially conscious tax policies
Wow, this would be very controvertial. This is something best handled by economists, I think. People have a lot of opinions on what would constitute good tax policy, but there are people who devote their lives to this sort of research and they're still looking for answers. And, "socially conscious"? Wow, that's vague. Are we trying to maximize GDP or using a concept of fairness? Are we going to consider metrics like the Gini Coefficient? That'd be interesting, but I don't think it'd be very popular.

Build better banking tools for everyone
Bill Gates started an initiative to do something along the same lines of this. It seems like he's focusing on savings accounts. While potentially giving people a return on money rather than hiding money, this also potentially increases the velocity of money, which potentially has a number of benefits in the economy.

Collect and organize the world's urban data
I love this, as well as Google's first attempts to do this. I thought they were going to continue working on this regardless.

Encourage positive media depictions of engineers and scientists
This seems to have a similar goal as another idea, and I'm still not convinced that we need more scientists and engineers.

Drive innovation in public transport
I remember hearing about research concerning analyzing the traffic patterns of ants to enhance our own traffic. I wonder how that went. Being from a transport-needy city, I understand the desire for this, though I'd want to know how much this is projected to actually help people.

Make educational content available online for free
There are many attempts to do this already. The more the merrier, I suppose.

Create more efficient landmine removal programs
My understanding was that this actually affects a very small part of the world.

Weekend events

Enjoy the Discovery Green this weekend. Here's the events calendar.

Venezuela, Twitter, and a couple of cool gadgets.

Here's a NYT blog post about the murder rate in Venezuela. Seems worse every time I see it...

On a lighter note, here's a cool Twitter map. See what the world is talking about!

And, a couple of cool tech stuff. Intel has a four screen laptop. It looks cool, but when you watch a video, the video controls should stay on a mini-screen. For any media, the media controls should stay on the mini-screen.

Microsoft has a concept they're playing with--the dual-screen "courier" booklet. This seems almost like what netbooks should be. There could also be on on-screen full-size keyboard, with half of the keyboard on each screen. This gadget almost looks like a PDA-like device.

Best of Houston, Houston Press

Houston connoisseurs rejoice! Houston Press's Best of Houston list is out! While I don't agree with all of the winners (Cheap Seats, Coach, Coffee, Empanadas, Greek Restaurant), it's a good starting place for discussion.

Best Cheap Seats
Winner: Astros
Should be: Dynamo or Aeros

Are you kidding me? While there are sometimes deals on Astros tickets, it isn't usually very cheap. For much less, you can see a Dynamo game or an Aeros game. The Dynamo are at the top of their league and feature a number of national team players, and the Aeros... well, hockey means you can watch fights. How's that for testosterone? They each also sometimes have deals.

Best Coach
Winner: Some Katy football coach
Should be: Dom Kinnear, Dynamo

I don't think there's even a comparison between a high school coach and a pro anything coach. Kinnear also has helped develop younger players to stars (Stu Holden, who got robbed for best Dynamo, but the guy who won is also a good player). Another acceptable option might be UH football coach Kevin Sumlin, but I think it's too early to tell.

Best Coffee
Winner: CoffeeGroundz
Should be: Catalina

All right, this isn't as much of a tragedy, but the CoffeeGroundz is just a popular choice, not necessarily a good choice. If you want good coffee, though, there are a number of better choices. Catalina, Taft Street Coffee, Minuti, Salento, and so on.

Best Empanadas
Winner: The Original Marini's
Should be: Tuttopane or Shell (in Katy)

Marini's was another popular choice. It's in a part of Houston that gets a lot of traffic. If you're willing to drive farther out, though, you can find some empanada treasures. And, yes, there is a Shell gas station in Katy where you can get great empanadas. Plus, you can get them either fried or baked.

Best Greek Restaurant
Winner: Yia Yia's Greek Restaurant
Should be: Alexander the Great.

Truth is, there are a bunch of great Greek restaurants in Houston, and Yia Yia's isn't a bad choice. However, it's also in the great-location category. Yia Yia's is good but overpriced, and Niko Niko's is a much better deal and is more homey. Droubi's is good, Phoenicia is good... truth is, if you want great Greek food that is well worth the price, go to Alexander (though, this also happens to be in a great location).

Also, benjy's should have won something.

Fast Flip, Product Ideas, Calendar, and Zune HD

Google announces the new service Fast Flip, an attempt to make reading the news more like reading a newspaper. Try it out!

Weight in on Product Ideas for Google Docs. I'd like analysis tools in spreadsheets, personally. Seems like Google is coming out with a Google Moderator-powered Product Ideas page for each of their products.

Staying organized with Google Calendar. Is it obvious I like Google?

The Zune HD actually looks cool. I wonder how the apps will be once they come out (email would be nice).

GoogleOS, your power usage, Wii price, and 43 marathons

On Google's quest for an operating system.

Some neat energy-saving gadgets. A power clock! It doesn't tell you what time it is, but it tells you when you use your power. Also, there are solar-powered blinds that absorb light during the day and emit light at night. I hope you can turn them off when you want to sleep.

Might the Wii be getting a price cut? Everyone else is cutting prices.

43 marathons in 51 days. Wow, Eddie Izzard is amazing.

Console wars, the internet, Velazquez, and DSL speeds

If you can trust the data, it looks like the XBox 360 and the PS3 may have finally caught up with the Wii. For a week. Yay for price cuts. Then again, the Wii has dominated so long, they probably can't catch up in total sales. Still, the top selling console is the DS.

An article on the history and future of the internet. September 1 marked its birthday, as well as for Google Chrome and Gmail.

Here's an article on a painting by the old Spanish master Velazquez. Makes me think of Alatriste.

Some guys in South Africa, complaining about their slow internet connection, claimed that a carrier pigeon would carry data faster than their DSL line. They set up a race.