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Notes from Vancouver
Dec. 28th, 2006 02:29 amGot back from Vancouver today.
Highlights from the trip:
- Vancouver combines a lot of the good city stuff (culture, restaurants, shows etc) with a lot of good nature stuff (6000 foot mountains within a half hour drive, skiing, sailing, beaches) all in very close proximity.
- There's a sizable Burning Man contingent up there. They came out en masse and firedanced for the winter solstice.
- Japanese tapas restaurants kick ass. I wish that form of restaurant would come out to SF.
- The population there is like 50% Asian. I had no idea. As a result, there is really good, really affordable Japanese food everywhere. You could buy friggin' sea urchins in the regular (as opposed to the ethnic) supermarkets.
- They keep their city really clean. Clean like Japan. Crime is low too. Pot is legal. (hey, legalizing it *does* lower crime, though the two aren't necessarily connected in this case)
- In their Castro St equivalent, all the trashcans and bus stops are painted pink. Funny...
- Many of their taxis are Priuses. Now there's a good idea. You get the biggest cost savings out of a Prius by driving it *a lot* and doing it on city streets. Typical taxis will run around 70000 miles a year, which means that getting 50mpg instead of 25mpg saves you 1500 gallons, or $6000 at Canadian prices every year.
- Played with my brother's Wii. The gesture and pointing interface is just brilliant. It's a more natural way to play video games. Overall, Nintendo managed to create the right mix of features to foster a strong and passionate group of users, and all at a very low price. By focusing more on creating a great user experience and culture, and less on raw graphics power, they have made a very successful product.
-
Highlights from the trip:
- Vancouver combines a lot of the good city stuff (culture, restaurants, shows etc) with a lot of good nature stuff (6000 foot mountains within a half hour drive, skiing, sailing, beaches) all in very close proximity.
- There's a sizable Burning Man contingent up there. They came out en masse and firedanced for the winter solstice.
- Japanese tapas restaurants kick ass. I wish that form of restaurant would come out to SF.
- The population there is like 50% Asian. I had no idea. As a result, there is really good, really affordable Japanese food everywhere. You could buy friggin' sea urchins in the regular (as opposed to the ethnic) supermarkets.
- They keep their city really clean. Clean like Japan. Crime is low too. Pot is legal. (hey, legalizing it *does* lower crime, though the two aren't necessarily connected in this case)
- In their Castro St equivalent, all the trashcans and bus stops are painted pink. Funny...
- Many of their taxis are Priuses. Now there's a good idea. You get the biggest cost savings out of a Prius by driving it *a lot* and doing it on city streets. Typical taxis will run around 70000 miles a year, which means that getting 50mpg instead of 25mpg saves you 1500 gallons, or $6000 at Canadian prices every year.
- Played with my brother's Wii. The gesture and pointing interface is just brilliant. It's a more natural way to play video games. Overall, Nintendo managed to create the right mix of features to foster a strong and passionate group of users, and all at a very low price. By focusing more on creating a great user experience and culture, and less on raw graphics power, they have made a very successful product.
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