The Old New Thing

Non-Computer - The Old New Thing

Dunkin Donuts vs. Krispy Kreme

February 11, 2004 Feb 11, 2004 02/11/04
Raymond Chen
Having grown up on the east coast, I imprinted on Dunkin Donuts. Once a month we would stop at DD on the way home and buy a shoebox of doughnuts. Toasted coconut and butternut, those were my favorites. Ironically, Dunkin Donuts is really a coffee shop disguised as a doughnut shop. (Doughnuts account for only 20% of their sales; coffee 50...

Orkut's privacy policy and terms of service

February 10, 2004 Feb 10, 2004 02/10/04
Raymond Chen
It was bound to happen sooner or later. I was invited to join Orkut. But before clicking Submit, I always read the fine print: their Terms of Service and their Privacy Policy. (Oh great, you have to have scripting enabled just to read their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy!) Notice, for example, the terms for changes to their terms of ...

I think this counts as having come full circle

February 9, 2004 Feb 9, 2004 02/9/04
Raymond Chen
First, ABBA rises to stardom in their native Sweden with Ring, Ring. They then win the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo, which is also recorded in English, French, German, and probably Spanish. Twenty-five years later, the English-language musical Mamma-Mia premieres in London and subsequently spreads through large portions of the world ...

The Glass Engine and Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music

February 4, 2004 Feb 4, 2004 02/4/04
Raymond Chen
The Glass Engine is an interactive guide to the music of Philip Glass, organized by... um... at least they're organized. By something. Bizarre yet oddly compelling. (Perhaps if we ask nicely, we can get Marc Miller to tell the story of the time he actually met Philip Glass...) In a similar vein, a friend of mine directed me to Ishkur's Guide ...

Ikea walk-through

January 29, 2004 Jan 29, 2004 01/29/04
Raymond Chen
Jeff Davis tipped me off to this Ikea walk-through. Frustratingly, the walkthrough doesn't include any cheat codes. Even though Ikea was founded by a Swede, its company colors match the Swedish national colors, all its product names are Swedish, and it is clearly associated with Sweden in the minds of everyone, it is in fact headquartered in...

Passenger announcements in the airport

January 28, 2004 Jan 28, 2004 01/28/04
Raymond Chen
While in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport yesterday, waiting for my flight to eventually be cancelled due to weather, then waiting for a replacement itinerary (um, the weather is the same at the destination; doesn't matter which plane you take), then waiting for the replacement to be cancelled also (wow imagine that), I heard an ...

Undermining your own proclamation

January 27, 2004 Jan 27, 2004 01/27/04
Raymond Chen
I'm pulling for the Mars rovers as much as the next geek, but you still have to scratch your head at the following statement: Charles Elachi, the JPL director, said: "I am completely confident, without any hesitation, that I think we will get that rover back to full operation." So he's absolutely sure that he "thinks" something...

David Hasselhoff's daughters normal in every way

January 26, 2004 Jan 26, 2004 01/26/04
Raymond Chen
(Forwarded to me my a friend who is apparently fascinated with David Hasselhoff.) David Hasselhoff says his daughters hate his music and change the channel whenever Knight Rider comes on the TV. Okay, I defended the Germans last week, but this one baffles even me. Do the Germans not realize that David Hasselhoff is a joke? Er war ein ...

German as RPN

January 25, 2004 Jan 25, 2004 01/25/04
Raymond Chen
It should be noted that "Reverse Polish Notation" is named in honor of the Polish logician Jan Lukasiewicz, who developed prefix notation, wherein the operator comes before the operands. Postfix notation proved more useful for stack-based arithmetic computations, and so the opposite of prefix notation came to be known as "Reverse Polish ...