I, for one, welcome our Google Overlords.

Today Google released Google Chrome (beta). How exciting; a web browser from the people that have the best web stuff.

Here's a cartoon about how great GChrome is supposed to be, and the motivation behind it.

So how does it compare? Well, it looks a lot like a normal browser, except that the address bar is below the tabs. That this is an advertised feature says a lot.

It does have an "incognito mode", where everything done within a particular tab is not stored -- cache, sessions, browser history, etc. Basically, this saves you the step of clicking Tools > Clear Private Data... in Firefox. Also, you can selectively operate on single tabs instead of all your private data. This is nice when you need to check your bank account or pay a bill online.

Google is proud of V8, a new JavaScript engine designed from the ground up to enhance JavaScript heavy applications. So far there seems to be no discernible speed up in animation using the canvas element, which is disappointing.

A huge hit against GChrome is the inability to right-click on an area of the web page and operate on that frame only, if it is a page that uses frames. I use this feature heavily at work. GChrome's lack of this simple functionality is a real blow to the browser in my eyes. I would use it exclusively except this kills it for me.

A lot of the "features" (stability, robust JavaScript interpreter, fast load times) seem to be aimed at the hideous Internet Explorer, and are already addressed in Opera and Firefox. Hmm.

The biggest hit: available on a Mac? NO. FAIL. Epic Fail.

Summary: Some glaringly lacking features. Well, they're in beta, so hopefully simple functionality like reloading a frame will be in the 1.0 release. Hopefully. Advantages of V8 are not apparent. Otherwise, nothing particularly striking -- yab [yet another browser] imho.

I've been wanting to update the site for a while. I think the fixed-width look is much cleaner, and the text is easier to read when in skinnier columns.

I've also decided to rip out WordPress entirely and use my own system. WordPress just provided too much for the simple things I wanted to do, in fact making it more difficult to integrate into a custom site without using its templating system. I was also getting loads of spam comments (several a day). There are ways around this, but I didn't feel like adding extra crap to my website, so I've opted in favor of striped down functionality.

My new RSS feed is here. If you're using a feed reader to read this, please update the RSS link.

I spent the better part of Saturday afternoon writing scripts to migrate the WordPress datebase to my own (yuck). I'd ask for feedback on the new look, but right now I can only display existing comments; there's no system in place for creating them.

In other news, Burning Man is coming to an end. I didn't go, but I did head down to Ocean Beach last night where rumors suggested a mini-burning man would be happening. The original burning man started here, after all.

We got down to the beach around 10:30pm; there were a few small fires and gatherings scattered about the beach, which is not unusual for a Saturday night. A larger collection of people were hanging out around a generator, a turntable, and a much larger fire. We were told a 6 ft effigy was recently burned. But the SFPD was already on the scene, breaking up even the smallest individual gatherings. Guess no burning man for us.

I just discovered the Engrish site, a derivative of Lolcatz and the FAIL blog.

It reminds me of a great moment in Indonesia. I was in Jakarta, navigating the glorious bureaucracy to obtain my permits. There was an Indonesian woman that hung out in front of my hostel, looking for English lessons.

I agreed, so we set a time for a one hour lesson.

So I meet her in the pavilion outside the hostel with the only teaching materials I have: some flash cards for my own use and my craptacular pocket dictionary. I begin by asking her where she needs improvement; what she hopes to get out of these lessons. She tells me she enjoys studying English, but has poor fuckability. "I want you to teach me fuckability".

Me: Umm

Her: Don't worry about grammar. Just teach give me fuckability.

I know she's serious about learning English, so I'm confused. I am staying on Jalan Jaksa, notorious for its gaggle of women with high "fuckability". But it's broad daylight, and she has a genuine interest in learning.

So I ask again, "your what?"

"Fuckability".

She begins providing examples. This confuses me further.

I try to reason it out. I know Indonesian doesn't make the same clear distinction between "v" and "f" that English does. I narrow the possible meanings down to "vuckability". Oh. Voc-ability == vocabulary. Of course.

It isn't the first time an Indonesian woman has suggested rather lewd behavior without realizing it. English just has so many ways to say it.

Quite a weekend.  Friday night I saw Tropic Thunder with my co-workers.  Funny but forgettable.  I'd wait until it's on Comedy Central.

Saturday I made it up to Japantown for the first time.  After a bit of searching, I found some great Rilakkuma paraphernalia. I found my first Rilakkuma doll in a 3 story toy store in Shinjuku, Tokyo about four years ago. I bought it because, of the many bizarre things there, it seemed overly sexually suggestive, yet intended for children.

I have since obtained a Rilakkuma-themed deck of playing cards (Singapore), a Rilakkuma bear companion doll (Tokyo), and a now a Rilakkuma coffee mug (San Francisco Japantown). Also, I have a Rilakkuma eraser.

I geeked out on anime and picked up season two of The Big O. I looked for "Kyo Kara Maoh!" aka "God(?) Save our King!", but was told the franchise is changing owners, so I can only buy scattered episodes rather than a convenient box set.

After that I met up with fellow Parkies Terrell and Saket for a night out in the Castro (aka The Gay District). Went to Sushi Time, a nice little hole-in-the-basement (no pun intended). Excellent Sushi. Thanks iWant / Yelp!

After Sushi Time, we went to a decent bar...with underwear clad men dancing in the corner. The odd thing was how people reacted to this. No one inside the bar took any notice / watched / paid any form of attention, while we amused ourselves by observing the passerbies seeing the men for the first time.

Of course, that was before two completely nude men breezed past the bar on the sidewalk.

On Sunday, Terrell, Saket, and I went began the day at the Chihuly exhibit at the de Young museum in Golden Gate Park. Blown glass. Amazing stuff. My favorite piece is Reeds, consiting of 6+ foot tall purple spires of glass mounted on logs. I can't quite comprehend how these were made, but it was something to do with a glass studio near a fast flowing river.

The rest of Sunday was spent getting sunburned at the Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate Park. I learned about two new amazing artists: Andrew Bird and Rodrigo y Gabriela. Rodrigo y Gabriela are Mexican born Dublin-dwellers. It was like Flamenco meets Celtic. So fast! Gabriela used the entire guitar as a plucked string instrument, a percussive instrument, a slidy-damped instrument....I've never seen/heard anything like it.

And then we finished off with Jack Johnson. Good times.

It's Monday night (well, Tuesday morning), and I've just gotten back from O'Reilly's where my boss plays in a Celtic band each Monday night. A great place -- relaxed, not too crowded, good tunes.

I'm now on Twitter as mekin. Follow me.

I'm also checking out the canvas DOM element -- trying to get some animation going. Almost got demos going before O'Reilly's this evening.

I bought an iPhone yesterday.  The Apple store in San Francisco still has a 2+ hour wait at all times of day, so I got clever and went to an obscure-ish AT&T store in the Mission, near my apartment.

Rumor has it the 3G network rivals DSL for speed, so I was excited.  The thing they don't tell you, is that some areas (a lot of areas) aren't 3G compatible, even though there's no way to decouple this from your plan.  That means, if you live in a rural area / small town like most Americans, you pay for the badass 3G network, but you get craptacular Edge.

I am not most Americans. I live in a major metropolitan city. I should have 3G access.

Should.

The iPhone was conceived, designed, and prototyped a few miles from San Francisco, after all. So here's how it has worked out so far:

At home (Mission district): No service

At work (financial district, downtown San Francisco): Between 1 bar and no service

Commute (subway): decent service -- intermittent 3G, mostly Edge.

WTF AT&T?? At home and work I have wireless access, so at least I can use iPhone's Safari. But come on; I work in the bloody FDIC building, and I can't use an AT&T cell phone? That is complete nonsense. I hope someone gets fired over this.