I’d been exposed to electronics at a young age… I must have been only about five or six years old when my – six years older – uncle was already building radios from scratch and opening every electronic device in my grandparents’ household. I distinctly remember the sharp smell of the soldering iron when we [...]
Great news for lovers of San Francisco and podcasts – Sparkletack podcasts are back! After a few months of silence Richard has restarted the podcast with a new twist: He is now producing a This-Week-In-History version of Sparkletack, and the first episodes are out and they are very promising. These shorter episodes are accompanied by [...]
Two young artists working on acryllic paintings on Stockton Street just before midnight. Photo taken and post created with Palm Centro
Another post about my geeky childhood follows… Maybe two years before I bought my first computer I read one of those “Science for 12-year olds” compilations with short illustrated essays about everything a boy in his early teens should be interested in – space rockets, lasers, radios, racing cars… One of the articles in the [...]
A recent post over at the excellent DadHacker blog as well as my post from yesterday reminded me of my early programming days. The Sinclair ZX81 came with an exemplary programming manual that made it very easy to start programming immediately in Basic. Those first small programs – in 1K of RAM, no less – [...]
Back in the early 80s – before the Web, the Internet… modems and BBS, really, it was pretty hard to get any kind of information about the just-then available home computers. The only real option were computer magazines, which at the time were of a much rougher quality than anything you’d see nowadays. I very [...]
An unexpected effect of the Internet has been the Maker Movement. Forums, blogs and magazines have sprung up everywhere for people to share all the things that they make and how they make them. There’s not very much that is not made by somebody who shares their knowledge online, from suborbital balloon satellites to knitting [...]
Our good friend Vera Costa just launched her new site – Sillydot.net. The site features her beautiful and extremely cute clothing designs for kids and also offers wall art and pillow covers. If you have young kids or know somebody who does – here’s a chance to take care of your gift shopping with some [...]
Just found this via the excellent Market Street Railway blog… It’s amazing how little the city has changed in these 40 years. Many of the scenes around Nob and Russian Hill just look different because the trees have grown a bit along the streets.