adapted from ICanHasCheezBurger

My good friend Anuraag had some excellent observations about Google Chrome which he shared with me via gChat while I was in jury duty today (don't get me started). Since I have gotten home and found time to play with Chrome, I wanted to share with you our (combined) opinions on the new browser.

The bottom line: it's worth your time. Here is some of what I took away from our conversation after revisiting my chat history in GMail, in no particular order.

1) Pro: Chrome is light (memory), fast (speed) and clean (UI).

It is in this way the quintessential Google product (like GMail when it first launched way back in 2004). It was well-engineered, with efficiency and simplicity in mind. Just start it up and you'll see what I mean.

2) Con: there is very little customization (so far).

With the above-mentioned simplicity comes with what is for an end-user, a lack of sophistication. (Chrome under the hood, might I add, appears to be anything but "simple" as it has a brand-new JavaScript engine and a novel memory allocation system which allows each tab to be treated as an individual process-- and let's you see them in a Chrome task manager). This is only the beta release so I expect much more from future releases. In fact, this is hardly a "con," since even where there is room to improve, we see the seeds for growth-- such as tight Google Gears integration. However, so far as customization goes, the bigger problem is the lack of Firefox-y about:config fun or toolbar personalization. Again, I'm confident that will change in the future but at this point ("launch early and iterate"), that's a disappointment.

3) Pro: Omnibox, "Speed Dial," download manager are good.

The Omnibox behaves similarly to Firefox 3's "Awesome Bar," looking through your browsing history and bookmarks to suggest as you type; Chrome also does Google search through this bar. The default start page, which looks something like Opera's Speed Dial (which you can mimic in the 'Fox with this add-on) is intelligent, useful and good-looking. The download manager by default is large enough to read descriptions easily on one line.

4) Con: Ugly icon.

Anuraag thought the icon was ugly. I agree. I don't get what exactly it is...a compass...a robot eye...a stylized Noogler hat with propeller...?

5) Pro (and this is a biggie for me): Chrome is respectful.

Much has been wondered about Google's distribution for Chrome. Sure, Google doesn't need to do much to get the blogosphere in a tizzy about its release of any product (let alone a web browser) but some have suggested that Google may use the Google homepage to promote Chrome, or package it with updates to Google Toolbar or some such thing a la Safari and iTunes. I hope not. And the way Google has acted so far with regards to the product has been respectful. When asked to import preferences from other browsers or whether to add desktop shortcuts, Chrome was respectful and made it easy for me to deselect any or all of it. It didn't step on anyone's toes to make itself the default browser on my machine, it delicately-- even graciously-- asked me at each step what I wanted to do with it, and when. Even upon starting up, Chrome asked me if I wanted to leave Google as the default search engine. Search! The one thing you'd think Google can get away with pushing hardest with the least resistance, is search with its 60% market share.

The ultimate question is, of course, how many people will use it. How many people, perhaps not over the next few months, but over the next 2 or 4 or 6 quarters will switch from IE or Safari (or even Firefox) for day-to-day browsing?

Right now, Chrome is Windows-only but Googlers are "actively working" on Mac and (more importantly, at least for me) a Linux version. I'll expect them soon. There are many arguments that can (and have been) made about Chrome as it pertains to Google's advertising arm-- where I worked this summer-- but for a moment, I just wanted to comment on the pure fun of playing around with and getting to know a piece of software which, without a doubt, will become verryyy important to an increasing number of consumers in the near future.

This summer I read a book that shocked me. It made me realize that I, an intelligent female, had put myself in situations where I could have been date-raped. And before I read the book, I never even realized how close I could have been. Now perhaps I'm slightly naive- but honestly, until it happens to you or your friend, who isn't?
I was lucky- I wasn’t one of the unfortunate women who said no and were ignored. But I want to share with everyone “The mindset of justification” that can lead some men into date-rape. Without remorse. Without regret. Without recognizing that they did anything wrong.

The following are sections of the book I read- How Dangerous Men Think. This is from the date rape chapter. (Note- the book was written in Australia, so some of the words are a bit foreign- like lift instead of elevator)

“I remember interviewing a young guy under arrest for the rape of a young woman he had met at a nightclub earlier in the evening. To my surprise he was quite happy to talk about the events of the evening, even to the point of admitting that he had had intercourse with the young woman in question when it was quite clear that she didn't want him to. In an attempt to defend his actions he told me he had been invited back to the woman's place, that he had been buying her drinks during the night and had even paid for the taxi. He added that they had already had sex once that evening and that about an hour later he wanted to do it again, but she wasn't so keen. He told me she "wasn't so keen" because she was yelling and screaming at him to stop and trying to push him off. I asked him what he did at this stage, to which he replied, that he held her down and had sex with her. When I asked if he could see the problem with that he said "mate, I’d been buying her drinks all night; I paid for the bloody taxi; we'd already done it once. Yeah she was saying "no", come on mate, they all say "no" what's the problem?” The “problem” was he had just admitted to committing sexual assault. The "problem" was he ended up going to prison for it. The "problem" was that he didn't think he had done anything wrong"

As Sophomore College draws to a close, and first-years and the rest of us come back to campus, many of us will return and ask each other befuzzledly, I'm hungry -- Where should we eat?!

And while some of you may have taken Food and Politics with Rob, Erin Gaines, and co., some others of you might have passed by Slow Food Nation this last weekend in SF.

I myself took part in Slow Food Nation as a youth delegate, attending an Eat-In for young leaders in the good, clean, fair food movement, held this last weekend in Dolores Park.

But let's skip the trans-fatty introductions for a moment, get the skinny (my skinny) on it, on this question of where (not!) to eat on Campus. This is clearly a biased guide, but then again, that's what blogs and baedekers are for--to help you find your own way.

What follows is a first draft of a Guide to Sustainable Deliciousness at Stanford. It is both incomplete and not unbiased. But it is a start. With that, let's eat!

Where to Eat

The following establishments receive an A-class rating/grade in terms of sustainable deliciousness.

A+ -- Cool Café at the Cantor Arts Center (hours here) gets one of our highest ratings. As its website reports, this "chic café overlooks the Rodin Sculpture Garden" and offers a "menu of gourment sandwiches, soups, and salads [that] changes seasonally".

Jesse Ziff Cool's CoolEatz restaurants make a point of offering regionally and sustainably produced foods. For example, Cool Café often offers pasture-raised chickens, grass-fed beef, and an array of seasonally based salads, fruits, and wines.

Dishes are served on re-usable plates & dishes, with pitchers of water and real silverware nearby. (For a map, see Cool Cafe on Yelp!.)

A+ -- Columbae and Synergy House, vegetarian co-ops. Our next two establishments to receive an A+ in sustainable deliciousness are Columbae and Synergy House. Founded in the 1970s, these co-operatively run Houses offer strictly vegetarian fare to their undergrad & grad residents, and "eating associates" that pay a certain board bill every quarter.

Like Cool Café, these co-ops try to source local, sustainable, and ethical food products whenever possible. For example, dairy goods may come from Clover-Stornetta, the first dairy in the States to be American Humane Certified, flour may come from Giusto's--the brand favored by artisan bread bakers--and produce may come from co-located gardens tended by hand.

Also like Cool Café, these co-ops offer easy access to composting bins, and err on the side of container and silverware re-use. (You can find these Houses on the Campus Map. If you'd like to try the food some time at these co-ops, talk to a friend that lives there or a student manager for more details.)

A -- Nexus / Bytes. Nexus and Bytes, two cafes located near the Engineering campus, offer tasty dishes, re-usable plates & silverware, and fast service. Unlike Cool Cafe or co-ops on campus, these establishments may or may not serve organic, sustainable, or fairly-traded goods. More research is needed to understand the provenance of their meats, dairy, and vegetables.

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The following establishments receive a B:

B+ -- Treehouse. A Stanford student favorite, although the Treehouse hands out an excess of plastic and cardboard containers every day, food quality is generally high, with reportedly hand-made focaccia breads (para tortas) and "fresh" chicken, whatever that means. (At Tresidder.)

B- -- Thai Cafe. Another hit-and-run establishment favored by students who need to grab a quick meal between classes. Props for the price and speed, but synthetic food service containers abound. No claims made on where the Chicken Sautee comes from, and it seems unlikely that the Shrimp offered are raised in a highly sustainable way.

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Where not to Eat

The following establishments receive a C-class grade, or lower, in terms of sustainable deliciousness.

C+ -- the (old) CoHo. Please don't eat here. Say No to the CoHo('s food), or, if you feel the need to support their business, bring your need-to-gain-weight friends or you buddies who were unblessed with a lack of tastebuds (non-tasters as they say on Wikipedia) and have them eat here.

I posted a review on the CoHo re-opening earlier this year, but have to downgrade my rating based on further experience at this Corporate Bread-serving institution, where I was served sandwiches and Vienoisserie that looked decent but tasted... far from decent.

The CoHo does sometimes serve food on an actual plate, but the questionable ingredients, taste, and food sourcing bring the sustainable deliciousness rating down to our lowest score of the bunch, a C+.

(05-SEP-08) Update: I have retracted the previous paragraphs as per in-depth interviews I had today with multiple staff members, bakers, and managers at the new CoHo. While the old CoHo still has some length to go towards sustainable deliciousness, it's clearer from my discussions today that they are headed in a great direction. Thus, I will abstain from re-grading the new CoHo until these new measure are applied (hopefully soon after the school year begins), and describe these improvements in another post.

At this point, no one can know the full effects of Sarah Palin. Initial reception was shocked and more than a bit contemptuous; the reception to her speech was as rapturous as the earlier reaction dumbfounded. But, in the end, my guess is that the 2008 election will be the 2004 election run again—for considerably better results this time around.

For anyone having flashbacks during last week’s Oregon State game to UCLA, 2005, the similarities were strictly coincidental. Jim Harbaugh is NOT Walt Harris, and anyone suggesting this ought to be shipped to the nearest sanatorium.

That said, the game wasn’t exactly encouraging, either? The defense, in particular, worried me. The run defense was great; the pass defense not so much. Yes, I realize there were three turnovers, but the Oregon State passing offense moved the ball too well and too quickly on us. The problem was, I suspect, the secondary. When the secondary tried to play the Beaver wideouts close, they went long and over the top. Results: an easy touchdown and a should-have-been touchdown. When the secondary laid off—and this was most of the game—it was nothing but quick hitters, three step drops to the wideouts. This meant that the front seven couldn’t generate a lot of pressure, and the Oregon State offense nicked us, nearly to death.

Thank god for Bo McNally’s pick six, Toby Gerhardt and Catchings’ (ironic name in this instance) fumble into the endzone. But Arizona State’s probably a better team, so we simply cannot have the same flaws as last week in order to win. Carpenter’s a better QB than Moevao—he certainly won’t throw that boneheaded interception to McNally where McNally read his eyes for the entire play. On the other hand, Arizona State’s line is weak and their running game not particularly strong. I suspect a loss for Stanford, but Stanford will cover the spread. Then again--and this is a salient fact for anyone to remember--I don't actually know anything about football, I just want to finally see Stanford join the ranks of the mediocre and go to a bowl, dang it!

Massive server failures over at YouTube, it seems. I recorded this screenshot and tweeted a quick blast at 5:24pm PST and I was the not the first (that distinction seems to go to omegamb). I was the twelfth.

Dunno what's up, but this obviously will cut into my time watching some of my all-time favorite vids like Afro Ninja, Fat kid gets owned, Aladdin in Compton, Dave Chappelle and grape drink, or the classic Can I Have Your Number?

NOTE: When I tried to report the error via the provided link, I got the following page after submitting the info.

UPDATE: 5:40pm PST-- false alarm, YouTube's back up...PHEW! Now I can go back and watch those videos instead.

From Sports Illustrated

The Stanford Daily

One of the Daily's lead stories today was on the "mixed reactions" (read: NEGATIVE reactions) to the new White Plaza. (On a side note, the new Daily website is very nice, you all should go check out the cleaned up look).

The story mentions a lot of the reasons (and there are many) but it got me thinking so let me give my 5 reasons:

(1) It screws up traffic of all kinds in that area: Why can bike traffic only go in front of the Bookstore now? If I'm going from the clock tower towards the Row and I actually decide to follow the traffic circle just "below" the Claw Fountain, it would make logical sense for me to continue up on that side of the Claw, past Old Union. No can do. So then they encourage people just to make a left up the roundabout because we have to go past the Bookstore.

(2) A corollary to number one, it makes the area less safe to bike/walk/skate/run through: Those big brown blocks (see number three below for more on them) are placed everywhere, and seemingly with no reason or logic. With the closure to bikes on the Old Union side of the Claw, it's pretty simple to see that with the same space in front of the Bookstore (the Claw hasn't moved) and the same number of bikes, it will be more heavily congested right on that little 12-foot wide patch. Another thing, something they certainly didn't consider was about the sidewalks being raised. It sounds good so that there are delineated places for pedestrians to walk, but the problem is, many many people bike through the area near Tresidder and alongside Old Union and when there are new ledges and 4-inch drops everywhere, it can cause trouble.

(3) It's really ugly: With the exception of that new raised platform beside Dinkelspiel, the entire thing just looks worse, from landscaping to those aforementioned big brown blocks everywhere.

(4) It seems to discourage student assembly: Before, White Plaza was an actual plaza: a place where students could rally. We could stand shoulder to shoulder, filling the entire area of the space, to demonstrate a policy or to get excited about an athletic event. Now, the new setup discourages traffic through the area and makes organized assembly more difficult. Let's just say that it'll be really interesting to see the Student Activities Fair tomorrow. White Plaza has looked really cramped this week already with a few booths out, but wait until all the various VSOs have a table and all the freshmen head out there in the afternoon...

(5) It's just illogical: Pathways start and stop. I can be walking alone one of those cobblestone part-gutter-part-ankle-twister things and then, inexplicably, end up standing in front of a tree. I'm not kidding: try it as you walk from the Post Office steps towards Tresidder.

Is it just me or does White Plaza honestly suck a lot more now? Let me know what you think in the comments...