Cool San Francisco Maps

I heard this story on NPR the other day about maps and thought it sounded cool. Folks have found old fire insurance maps from 1905 and put them into digital format with the idea of overlaying them with current city topography. It's amazing to see what was where (I found my current block used to have a billiards factory and some hotels as well as a stable). Worth checking out if you're into maps and random cartography fun!

Story podcast?

Idea struck me today as I was recounting the plot of this cool Aphra Behn novella The Fair Jilt: what if I did a podcast retelling this kind of classic literature in under 5 minutes? Perhaps with puppets made out of popsicle sticks or something very low budget and tech. I've been summing up literature for people since high school like Macbeth (there's this dude and his wife really wants to him to be king. So they make this plan...) or Hemingway (dude likes drinking, fishing, bullfights. He goes to do these things...) (yes, that's The Sun Also Rises).

Perhaps I'll try to recreate my epic retelling and post it up for a listen. But would people want to subscribe to such a thing? That's my real question.... Also, what would it be called? Not like I need another project at this time, but it's an idea.

Screaming for Jesus

This morning there seemed to be more noise than usual outside -- a quick look showed that it wasn't a parade or protest as I'd suspected. Instead, it was a line of folks outside a Christian truck handing something out (most likely food) singing songs and chanting unintelligible things. The noise culminated in folks shouting "Jesus! Jesus! JESUS! JESUS!" over and over again, much like sports teams do before a game to pump themselves up. Was this team Jesus? It's unclear.

Little Brother 2

Finished Little Brother; great read overall and hard to put down. Give it a try and see what you think too!