Blast from the past

In honor of Google's tenth birthday, they brought back the search engine as it was in 2001. Naturally, I Googled myself to see what would come up. And to my surprise, I found the intro graphic that I made for the first professional web site I designed in my career back in 1995.

Back then, big intro graphics were all the rage, and this one clocked in at a whopping 56kb. At the time, I knew next to nothing about file size optimization, and being on a university T1, I didn't really give much thought to the roughly 10 seconds it would take download the page over a 56kbps connection. But hey, at least I thought enough to offer them a low-bandwidth option!

Here's the accompanying text from the page:

Remember the rotating S? That was the handywork of two designers/techs from SU. They were Daniel Modell and Jing Jia. These two were the creators of the original Sybercuse, what we like to call Version One! The Project Manager assigned to the task of overseeing this huge undertaking was chief engineer Conrad Trautmann. With a couple of Macs and a high speed connection the making of Sybercuse was under way. When the time came for the unveiling of the site.. Joel thought what better place than the New York State Fair?

I'm pretty interested/freaked out to see what else I might find.

Dead, again

Dead, again, originally uploaded by dM.nyc™.

This is the second time in about a year my camera has had a "fatal" error. I paid over $200 last time I had to send it in. Not so sure I want to do that again.

Despite the fact that film costs an exponentially higher amount than digital, and that you can't see what you've taken until after you develop the roll, there's something to be said for the fact that between my wife and I, we have a pair of cameras between 20 and 35 years old that still function as well as ever.

Will there ever be a digital camera that can outlast a mechanical one? I doubt it, but two disasters in 13 months? That's just bullshit.

Vaya con Diós, Burritoville

Well, it wasn't a surprise but it was still a shock. It had only been a few weeks since our last trip to Burritoville on 23rd St, and tonight we tried to visit the 72nd St location but the gates were down.

A helpful passerby noted that we should try the Chipotle a block away.

Great, but you can't get a vegetarian chili burrito, a spinach and mushroom quesadilla or Bob Marley's Last Burrito there. Not to mention the "TLT Wrap", a salad burrito consisting of pico de gallo, a spicy secret sauce and tofu bacon, which hadn't been on the menu for years but could still be ordered with a wink at any of the remaining locations.

It's a very sad day. Burritoville was not without its quirks (locations without bathrooms, basement doors that open right below the line where you order food, etc.) but it was a lovable, reliable place to grab a moderately healthy bite on a budget.

The New York Times confirmed my suspicions, that the local chain had been on its last legs for some time and couldn't handle the steady decline in business since the arrival of Chipotle.

I guess people just like to have a personal relationship with the creator of their burrito. But sometimes, you just want food that isn't quite so corporate. And it's getting more difficult every day. Even in New York City.

Now leaving Burritoville. Population zero.

Thwart Design Launches Tools for Dying

Thwart Design Launches Tools for Dying, originally uploaded by La Mariposa.

I saw this today on one of my friends' Flickr photostreams. Very clever.

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