On Monday, November 8, 2010, the Federal Communications Commission will sponsor an Open Developer Day event at FCC Headquarters in Washington, DC, to promote collaboration between Web developers in the public and private sectors, in furtherance of FCC goals to further innovation in accessible technologies and foster citizen participation in open government.

This will be a public, single-day event that prioritizes accessibility goals, though other Web solutions are also of interest. The event will feature guest engineers from the Yahoo! Developer Network and Yahoo!’s Accessibility team, and will have a component addressing the requirements and opportunities in the new Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act.

FCC Hosts Open Developer Day: Accessibility Innovation – Yahoo! Accessibility Lab

I’ve been playing with government data to make it ready for quick mashups. I threw a challenge to some other developers for creating a quick map mashup with a series of map points generated by a spreadsheet on Data.Gov. This is what Anthony Ettinger put together with Yahoo! Pipes:

It’s great to see how you can grab a spreadsheet from the government’s repository, convert it to CSV format, upload it to your server, and quickly parse that data for mashups. It would be easier if data.gov had the file in csv format instead of xls or zip. I could have saved the first few steps.

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But then things started going bad. Yelp became the landing place for people desperately trying to be hip and clever. They write stupid, nasty reviews to get laughs and props from friends with no concern for the business involved.

Take this jewel by a pathetic poser in San Diego who tries to impress us with her hipster cred of wearing vintage clothes, smoking hookahs and going to La Jolla salons. She also likes to pepper her reviews by calling anyone she doesn’t like a hag

My “server” was this repulsive arabic hag that was so bitter from the second she came to are table saying “are you ready what do you want” the first 60seconds we were seated. We asked her to come back in a little bit….A little bit does not mean 2 minutes…. Anyways we ordered are drinks and hookah. 2 cokes, and MINT. She returns with sprite we say we asked for coke she stands there arguing for 2 minutes saying we said sprite…. OK WHATVER so then thy bring us are hookah. Is it mint? NOPE it’s grape. I tell her this is grape she said “This is what you order” at that point i found her funny. After 5 minutes of arguing that we said grape not mint she finally just walks away with the grape and someone else returns with a mint 15minutes later…
HERE COMES THE DRAMA:
We payed the bill and attempted to walk out. She sees us leaving and says “Did you pay?” I said “It’s on the table.”
We begin walking to the car and i hear her comming after us saying “EXCUSE ME” we turn around. She says “You are short of pay you only paid for the total where is my extra tip?!”
At that point i snapped. I went off on her telling her she has nerve 1.asking for a tip and 2.thinking she deserves anything.
She made it into a huge scene! I swear! She had the nerve to tell us we were there for over 3 hours smoking hookah and asking for constant refills.
Funny part is we only got to smoke that hookah about 12 minutes because they would not give us coals and we did not get one refill on are drinks. HAHAHA
PoshP

Why is Yelp to blame

It’s not Yelp’s fault that hags like PoshP need a forum to make people think they are cool. But it is their fault for encouraging this behavior and making it difficult to add reality to these comments. Another user could rate the above comment as useful, funny, or cool.

Where’s the reality check? Users should be able to give crap like this negative ratings. Is this rating: shitty, pathetic, or lacking in reality.

You can follow the reviewer and send a compliment, but you can’t leave a comment on the review. Yahoo! Local, on the other hand allows other users to leave comments and give negative ratings. Here’s an example of a rating I wrote about the Millenium restaurant in San Francisco. It didn’t live up to my expectations and I said so:

This was a big disappointment. I was told to expect the French Laundry of vegetarian cuisine. It cost as much as the French Laundry, but the food was simply mediocre. If you are looking for Vegetarian/Vegan food in San Francisco, go up the street to the Indian/Pakistani dives. The food is much better.

Another user pointed out the relevancy of expectations:

That’s a poignant observation – people I know either like it or hate it and I really think it’s a matter of price and expectations

Which led me to agree and give a followup comment:

Expectations are a large part of it. I received gift certificates and returned a year later. As I wasn’t expecting as much, I enjoyed the meal more.

Death to Yelp

So Yelp is dead to me now. I’ve gotten tired of wading through useless reviews by people more interested in expressing their inner asshole than helping others decide if a place is worth visiting. I’ve removed Yelp from web sites and applications I’ve built and replaced it with Yahoo! Local or other more specific resources. It still has potential as the site moves to new areas, but they need to introduce some reality checks before it becomes a total loss.

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I visited with Silvana, a fellow Yahoo!, and her husband Brian at their abode outside Geneva. They’ve got a great flat with a view over lake Geneva. Trigger and I enjoyed watching the fog rise over the lake as I plugged away on the computer. Yep, it’s always a working weekend.  I added caching and some user-friendly features to InsiderFood.com. So let’s get to the cheese and fun activities.

Geneva

I rode the TGV directly from Paris to Geneva and would recommend paying the extra 10 euros or so for first class. It’s nice to have a power outlet and room to stretch out, read, etc. While Gare de Lyon in Paris is large, bustling, and confusing, the Geneva train station is smaller, quieter, and still a bit confusing.

I needed to grab a surface train from Geneva to Lausanne to get to casa Silvana. There were no ticket windows but plenty of little computer kiosks. They’re fairly easy to use and are more satisfying than the coffee I suffered through from the station cafe.

Keep an eye out for the surface trains. The screen only mentioned a single train, but I barely missed one on the platform and another arrived as I was waiting for the one mentioned below in the main station.

Geneva was not an exciting city. I was expecting something very “Swiss”. I didn’t know what that would mean, but Geneva was not inspiring my Swissness. I would compare a Swiss vacation in Geneva to a trip to California and staying in Sacramento. The mere thought sends shivers down my spine, although it could be worse… Riverside!!!! AGGGGH

Not to completely diss Geneva; they had some nice Catholic churches that were stripped of their fabulousness during the reformation, the lake is super clean, the United Nations had some interesting buildings, and I found a great Hello Kitty smart car. The Hello Kitty car was enough to give the city an ounce of respect.

We also had our first fondue experience in Geneva. The Swiss Chalet featured a huge pot of the melting goodness with piles of bread. I was afraid that I would trip and roll down the street like the chewing gum girl in Willy Wonka, only my inflated bratbody would be creamy yellow instead of purple.

After the Chalet we discovered a great Russian orthodox church. It was small but full of gilded goodies. More than anything, it revved us up to visit France, a mere stone’s throw away.

Evian was our destination. We’ve got water to drink.

I didn’t know what to expect of Evian. I figured it would be a small, artistic village on the side of the lake. There would probably be some shrine to the water and a huge industrial complex in the center of town. The people would probably be quiet and friendly.

Fortunately we arrived for the Carnival, their belated Mardi Gras celebration. The Evianers know how to party. It was a blast to watch the parade and the interaction between the paraders and the parade watchers. Everyone knew each other and particularly enjoyed blasting horns, pelting with confetti, and spraying silly string on their neighbors.

The ground was littered with confetti, hats, children writhing in pain after throwing confetti in the face of the wrong person (who shall go nameless :) ), and the detritus of a festive event. The parade was so good they decided to have an encore as all the floats returned down the same street in a faster, albeit still explosive manner.

We finally went in search for the Evian spring after the parade. Lo and behold it was right there on the main street. It is a gorgeous Art Nouveau folly. It looks like it belongs in Disneyworld. It was closed for the parade but the spring is always flowing for whoever is thirsty. We drank our fill and then climbed the hill to see the rest of the city and lake.

Evian is a great town. I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in pre-modern architecture, the spas, and enjoying a small city that knows how to party.

The ride around the lake

We continued our trip around the lake and stopped off at a restaurant named after Alexandria, one of Napolean’s nieces. It was a bit hoity toity, but good for a rest stop.

Montreux, where the uppity ups spend money and listen to jazz

We drove through Montreux, a city known for its jazz festivals. Its a beautiful city and looks like it costs thousands of dollars to even walk on the sidewalks. It reminded me of Beverly Hills, only without the hookers down the street and people on every corner selling maps to stars’ homes.

Lausanne

We didn’t pull into Lausanne until after 10p.m. and I was pretty damned tired. The city was fascinating. It’s an ancient city on the shore of the lake. It sits on the edge of a very steep mountain and the city rises like a terraced rice paddy. The city is built with layers and bridges fly over buildings as they cross from one section to another. I have a fear of tall bridges and these were freaky high. It reminded me of the futurama drawings of cities with monorails that zoom through sky scrapers.

The city’s heart is an ancient chateau and cathedral high up on the mountain. The views are amazing as the city pulsates below you.

That was the end of a great day touring the towns around Lake Geneva.

Gruyere – cheese, cheese, and more cheese

We planned a few activities for Sunday. Visit the Chateau de Gruyere, the cheese factory, an artist space for Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely (thanks Jana for the correction), and finally go to the Ice Palace, a fantasy construction of frozen water.

Gruyere was supposed to be a quick stop to look at the cheese factory, buy some cheese, and see the chateau. We were not expecting the town to be so fabu! We spent the entire day here and threw our plans out the window.

The Maison du Gruyere is a small factory, restaurant, and gift shop. There’s a small trailer out back with two men making the cheese the old fashioned way. They started with buckets of milk and a huge copper cauldron heated by a wood fire. The cinders floated up and into the milk. I was sold, I wanted some of this cheese!

Inside is a more modern fromagerie with a large glass cave for cheese fermentation. Wall-e’s little buddy works inside here. The robot travels down the rows picking up large cheese rounds, flipping them, and placing them carefully back on the racks. It also does the hokey pokey when it reaches the end of the aisle.

The gift shop was super expensive but had some unique items. I got some postcards and butter from Gruyere. Yep, no cheese.

The Chateau de Gruyere

Above the cheese factory sits Château de Gruyères and village. The village reminded me at first of many towns that live off the chateau’s tourist traffic. But this one was different, it had soul, artistic blood, and a huge fat kitty that loved everyone.

What can you say about a tiny midievil village that boasts not only artisinal cheese makers, a wonderfully restored chateau, and an H.R. Giger museum/cafe. This ain’t your standard tourist trap.

The chateau tour starts with a short movie about its history. The small auditorium projects images against every wall and ceiling to give the user an immersive experience. I have to say it was very well done. I’ve seen a lot of places attempt this without the sophistication of this chateau.

The chateau has been nicely restored and is completely open to tourists. There are no guides and equally few areas are off limits. You are free to explore the rooms and grounds.

You are also free to photograph to your heart’s content. The only rooms with restrictions include delicate fabric and works on paper, so don’t use a flash! Each flash is like sticking the object in the sun for a day. It makes paper and cloth based items fade quickly.

The windows look out onto the Swiss mountains and landscapes. It was nice to have a few openings without glass for better picture taking.

The chateau at one time was owned by an artist who made some restorations and decorations. Corot was invited to spend some time and helped paint a room. It’s quite a time warp as you go from ancient castle to impressionist parlor.

The ramparts surround the back of the castle and provide various openings for photographing the scenery. You could also shoot invading armies and dump boiling oil on the uprising cerfs if needed.

H.R. Giger museum

Giger is a polarizing artist. You either like or appreciate his art or run out holding your stomach and swear in disbelief. It’s an erotic vision without the eroticism, violence and degradation join self-idolatry. Giger is most known for designing the sets and monster from the movie Alien. His figures morph between human and machine, organic and industrial.

It’s surprising to see his museum and cafe in such a small tourist village. But it actually makes sense when you think of the artistic pulse that has survived in the city, especially after Daniel Bovy took over the chateau in the 1800′s and invited his friends to help decorate the chambers.

The village also houses multiple restaurants that naturally encourage large cheese-based meals. I threw caution, and a month long diet, to the wind and had fondue two days in a row. I survived yesterday’s pot so why not? I even had raspberries with la double crème de Gruyère afterward for dessert. I’m so full of dairy products my udders are swollen. I also bought some bizarre local specialty. It’s a spread made with mustard, honey, chocolate, and god knows what else.

Gruyere ate up the day like a fat Ted wolfs down melted cheese on bread. Before we knew it we were on the freeway trying to get back to Geneva before my train took off. We made it about 10 minutes before the train took off. I was able to waddle onto the train just in time.

Paris is only a few miles away. I don’t think I could look at cheese for a few days. But I could use an Evian right now.

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Check out my site when you need some new food ideas: InsiderFood.com

Bucharest is a city of dichotomies

In many ways, the country is very young; they got a fresh start in the 1989 revolution. But it is also a very old city and you see the taces of history every where you look. Within a few blocks you can see centuries old churches, 19th century grandeur, post WW1 boom, the communist blocks, the inflated classicism of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s projects, and flashy contemporary casinos.

It’s a relatively poor country where the people still live well. It’s also a very rich country with the same love of status objects as any other quickly developing economy. Food is cheap, good, and simple. Hotels are relatively expensive. The national art museum was a bit pricey, but the one down the street was super cheap.

Bucharest is also a city I feel like I’ve visited before. I just can’t place it. There are parts that remind me of Vienna, Seattle, Tijuana, Los Angeles, and dozens of other cities.

The humongous palace has to be the symbol of the city. This is the second largest building in the world and it is imposing. It sits on a mount to increase the perception of power. Surrounding it are other elephantine, yet classic buildings.

Ceauşescu was the leader for 24 years and transformed the country. It reminds me of what would happen if Donald Trump became a dictator of a country. Huge projects were created for the sake of having the feature. Some of these projects sit unfinished and empty 20 years after his death. Others, such as the metro system, are widely used today.

Beyond the surface of the city and its buildings, I found a river of optimism. It’s still a “new” country and opportunities abound for the motivated and energized. This brings me to why I was in Romania.

Bobby Voicu, the most famous Romanian blogger (TM), is the community outreach person for Yahoo! Romania. He invited me to speak to a group of university students about the Yahoo! BOSS search API. This is a tool that Yahoo! provides for people to quickly and easily build their own search engine and more. This group of students are meeting regularly to build web sites and applications with Boss, Adobe Flex, and lots of elbow grease.

They reminded me of my days as a photo student at Palomar College. There was a small group of us that met regularly in and out of class. We challenged, encouraged, assisted, and fought with each other. It was an incredibly productive period. I’m looking forward to seeing the products coming from this group.

I’m in Romania today to give a lecture to a university group on using Yahoo! Boss for building search applications. Imagine my embarrassment when I noticed the PowerPoint was filled with Budapest instead of Bucharest… arggggh. I feel like a nincompoop.

I tried to prepare for the trip by watching Romanian films. Unfortunately the selection on Netflix was a depressing story about two college women arranging for a illegal abortion during the communist era, a documentary about prostitution at the train station, and a vignette of peasant life in the country before the revolution. Somehow Netflix overlooked the happy go-lucky, feel good movie of the Romanian century.

First impressions of Bucharest

• Some stretches reminded me of the area between Seattle and Canada, minus the mountains.
• There are lots of stray dogs and my hotel room has a blurry painting of an angry dog running at me.
• Everyone speaks perfect English, as well as 5 other languages. Americans speak English and Loud English.
• There’s a big mixture of architecture. I’ve seen abandoned shacks, Victorian, Romanesque, Classicism, Communist Block, Las Vegas Glitz, and Hollywood ala Sunset and Vine.
• While everyone tells me there’s no vegetarian food and to look for Indian restaurants, I had a great meal at an old communist soup kitchen type place. I had a sauerkraut/potato soup, polenta, marinated mushrooms, and a rice/vegetable dish. It wasn’t fancy, but tasted great, was inexpensive, and great fun. I’d go back in a minute.
• There are way too many cars. It reminds me of the song “nobody walks in L.A.” by the Missing Persons.

I’m looking forward to seeing more of the city tomorrow and the art museums on Saturday. Now, if I could only stop calling it Budapest…

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Not that I’m comparing Yahoo vs. Microsoft to WWII.

Frankly, I thought the Microsoft/Yahoo merger would have been ok. At least Microsoft respects its engineers and has some money to invest in Yahoo products. The worst-case scenario for me was a merger with NewsCorp.

But that is over (for now). I join my fellow Yahoo’s with a sigh of relief and big hopes for getting some shit done and moving our company up. Thanks Jerry for giving us another chance to make this company great.

Yesterday was the International Workers’ Day (May Day). We not only got that day off, but today as well. Don’t tell anyone, but I still logged in and worked on Yahoo stuff both days. Just don’t let Sarkozy know, I’d hate to have my visa pulled for not taking the required time off.

Today I used my extra time for shopping. I was hoping to buy an Aeron chair for work, as the provided chair is killing me. I could buy an Aeron off ebay in the US for about $600. It costs about $400 to ship it. But, could I get a similar price in france? $1,000 is roughly equal to about 650 euros right now. The same chair in a Paris store is selling for only 1,700 EUROS! Ouch!

Needless to say, I didn’t buy anything during my shopping expedition. I did look around. More importantly, I walked around, enjoyed the weather and got this great shot of Pont Neuf.

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