Brad Lauster .com

The Oyster laptop stand makes so much sense. I've always wanted to open my laptop vertically and stand it up on my desk. Neat!

I can't believe I've never seen a post about this before...

If you were going to use a weblog service, that is, a service that handled all aspects of the hosting, archiving, reporting - everything other than actually writing the entries for your blog, what would that service look like?

What would you be able to do? How would you sign up? How would you access the software? What configuration options would you want?

If you're feeling inspired, post your thoughts in the comments of this entry. Describe the features or focus on the experience. Let me know what's on your mind.

Marc Sandalow writes, "Don't sell Bush short on why he marches the U.S. to war" looking at Bush's rhetoric to explain why he wants a war. I don't doubt Bush's motives, I just don't think war will get Bush what he thinks it will.

Dave Winer mentioned the Blog Project I'm running at Stanford today on Scripting News. Right on, indeed!

Yous truly was quoted by the Stanford Daily today, in an article about weblogs and Google's puschase of Pyra.

This afternoon there was a naked girl in the fountain by Green Library. Maybe the students at Stanford aren't that lame after all.   ;-)

I'm the type of guy for whom lyrics are a really important part of a song. Song lyrics are a great source for inspiration and quotation, but finding the song a lyric came from is sometimes a pain...

You know what would make it a lot easier? An iTunes plugin that added lyrics to the list of things matched in an iTunes search.

For example, let's say I search for "down" with this plugin installed. iTunes might return:

1. All the tunes from Sondre Lerche's album "Faces Down."
2. Liz Phair's song, "Stratford-on-Guy," because of the lyric, "As the ground raced beneath them thirty thousand feet down."
3. Frank Zappa's song, "Bobby Brown Goes Down," because of the title.
4. All the songs by System of a Down (if I listened to that crap*) because of the band's name.

Seems pretty simple, huh? ...and think of the fun you could have if you extended this idea to Smart Playlists?

You could create a playlist that only included songs with the lyrics "big" and "butt." This playlist would, of course, include Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" and Nelly's "Hot in Herre." ...just think of the possibilities!

LazyWeb, can you help?

* What blog entry concerning music would be complete without dissing one of those horrible nu-metal bands?

There I am. Look at me! At the Google Blogger party.

Last year, my friend Brad Marshall sent me an article that challenged just about everything I knew about what it meant to "eat healthy." That New York Times article, called, "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" set off a several-month-long process, educating me about diet, nutrition, fats, oils, hydrogenation, vitamins, minerals, organic farming, grass-fed livestock, raw milk, et cetera and so on...

Yesterday at lunch, my friend Lisa and I had a brief discussion about nutrition. I asked her if she was of aware of the ridiculous set of circumstances that led to the current set of dietary recommendations in the United States.

The Oiling of America is a fascinating look at how a combination of bad science and politics led to a set of recommendations that both make up the most basic components of what you think to be true about nutrition, yet at the same time are certainly not the best for your health.

I encourage you to read "The Oiling of America," for your own health and because it will be the basis for a string of nutrition-related entries I'll be posting to brad lauster (dot com) over the next month.

Here's to your health!

Now that you've read "The Oiling of America" (which was linked in the entry I posted on March 13, 2003) you might want to take a look at this article, also from the Weston A. Price society, "Soy Alert - One Woman's Story."

This is one woman's claim about the affect of soy-based products on her health. In particular, she claims the soy was the cause of her cancer.

This was a pretty disturbing and sad story, but it wasn't based on any studies or real data, so it left me with a lot of questions. Luckily, I had my friend Brad Marshall was around to give me some answers.

My questions were:

1. So let's say it was the soy that was the primary cause of her cancer. What do you think it is about the soy that caused it? The trans fats?
2. What's the difference between olive oil and, say, corn oil. Is it simply the monounsaturated fatty acids (in the olive oil) vs. polyunsaturated fatty acids (in the corn oil)?
3. So what exactly is the difference between a "fatty acid" and just "fat"?

My next entry on nutrition will be part one of Brad's answers to my questions.

I introduced myself to Andy Hertzfeld [image] at my favorite local restaurant (La Morentia) this evening.

Matt Jones asks, "If you had to get someone of guru-status to both introduce and inspire a group of about 100 designers from various backgrounds about the field of interaction design, who would you pick?"

Here's my list:

John Grimes — professor of Interaction Design at IIT. I saw John speak at Intel's Human-Centered Product Innovation Conference II. It was hands down, the best talk of the conference. Very highly recommended.

Gillian Crampton Smith — director of the Interaction Design Institute at Ivrea. Really attune to the challenges facing the Interaction Design community. Good speaker. Highly recommended.

Alan Cooper — the obvious choice. Depending on the audience, he might be the best choice. His message remains pretty consistent though, so if the audience has seen him before, they might not hear something new to inspire them. Highly recommended.

Some others suggested:
Bill Moggridge — I've seen him speak several times and I've never really been impressed. Definitely knows what he's talking about, but comes from an Industrial Design background, so I think he focuses too much on "what looks cool."
Bill Verplank — coined the term Interaction Design with Bill Moggridge. Great teacher but unlikely to get the audience fired up about Interaction Design.
Nathan Shedroff — never seen him speak.
Jared Spool — Great speaker, but I think of him as an evaluator of the Interaction Design community rather than a participant and as such, probably not the best choice for this talk.
Jef Raskin — more curmudgeonly than inspirational; not really attune to the interaction design community either.
John Maeda — never seen him speak.

Hello there! If you're still following this string of nutrition-related posts, you'll have read "The Oiling of America" and "Soy Alert - One Woman's Story."

I felt better informed after I read them, but as I mentioned in my last post, I still had some questions. So, I wrote my friend Brad Marshall, asking the following:

1. So let's say it was the soy that was the primary cause of her cancer. What do you think it is about the soy that caused it? The trans fats?
2. What's the difference between olive oil and, say, corn oil. Is it simply the monounsaturated fatty acids (in the olive oil) vs. polyunsaturated fatty acids (in the corn oil)?
3. So what exactly is the difference between a "fatty acid" and just "fat"?

Brad responded with an interesting and entertaining primer about fat. Click below to read it.

Just wanted to let you know that I registered for DUX 2003 today...hope you can join me!

My favorite word to type has got to be interested. I just like how the keys for "terested" are so close together. Give it a try. You won't be disappointed. What's your favorite word to type?

I'm not sure what my deal is today, but I suddenly have this amazing proclivity for recalling numbers.

Here's part two of my friend Brad's primer about fat:

So then, you may ask, why is vegetable oil bad for me if it isn't partially hydrogenated? The simple answer is oxidation. Double bonds are less stable than single bonds and therefore the more unsaturated an oil is, the more prone it is to oxidation. Oxidation of fats is bad.