Silicon Valley

Hiking in the Foothills

~ katiebonn ~ 2 Comments

Last weekend Katie came down from Sacramento and the three of us (yup, Dave and the Katies) went hiking around the Foothills. We let the GPS do the thinking, which first led us to the Palo Alto Foothills Park, where we were turned away because we are not Palo Alto residents. The park ranger pointed us in the direction of the the Pearson-Arastradero Preserve that is open to the public. I got some pretty sweet scenic shots on the way there and while hiking:

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Photos in the Bathroom

~ katiebonn ~ Leave a comment

Behold, my favorite shot this week:

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Taken in the bathroom at Orchard Valley Coffee in Campbell. They have a mirror on each wall facing each other creating an infinitival effect.

This is one of those rare cases in which the graininess of my little point and shoot came in handy. I increased the contrast and sharpened it up to show off the grains and the punchy color of each. I’m sure there’s some fancy name for this. Maybe I’ll look it up and add it here later so I sound smart.

RAWR! Microsoft Hungry!

~ katiebonn ~ 5 Comments

Today it was announced that Microsoft is offering to buy Yahoo for $44.6 Billion. I am not a financial analyst or highly trained in business, but when I read, “With Microsoft paying a full price for a broken business where there’s not accelerating organic growth, I can’t make that work at all. I don’t see what they get out of it. The strategy behind the deal was wrong.” (Jon Fisher) the first thing that comes to mind is that Microsoft is simply not concerned about purchasing a successful business. They are interested in removing potential competition.

Then I read that “the Justice Department said it is ‘interested’ in reviewing antitrust issues” and realized that I don’t need to be an expert to question the motivations of a monster corporation that’s been scrutinized in the past. (I originally read about antitrust issues in this article, but upon reloading the page I noticed that sentence had mysteriously disappeared. Is that part now deemed unimportant?)

What kind of changes would MS make with their newly acquired toy?
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Soul Sloshing in the Bay

~ katiebonn ~ 12 Comments

A frequent question Dave and I are faced with since moving to the San Francisco bay area a few months ago is, “how’s California”. I enjoy talking about myself as much as anyone, but I have trouble answering the same question regularly especially when it feels rhetorical and the simple answer, “good” rolls off my tongue so quickly. In lieu of an emotionless canned response I’ve decided to create a video:

Didja catch all that? I am now open to specific questions relating to the contents of the video. Anything beyond, “how’s California/mountain view/yahoo/the west coast/the warmer weather?” etc. is acceptable.

Facebook Swings and Misses with Beacon

~ katiebonn ~ 3 Comments

After reading the TechCrunch article about Mark Zuckerberg’s 60 Minutes interview in which he said “Beacon makes Facebook less commercial”, I wondered “what is this Beacon and why haven’t I heard of it before?”

I did some checking and decided that while not keeping up with my RSS reader will most definitely keep me in the dark, I shouldn’t have to rely on it to find out Facebook is stalking me on the internet and posting my seemingly private information on their newsfeed. I’ve read that despite the privacy issue Facebook created, they haven’t lost many of their users. Could this possibly be because, like me, there are others out there who didn’t know a thing about it?

True, I’m not rushing out to delete my Facebook account, but I did spend a fair amount of time reading up on the issue and making sure I was opted out in any way I could. If you’d like to do the same, there’s are step-by-step instructions I found on WikiHow.

Strike one, Facebook. Hopefully there are enough internet watchdogs out there to keep you in line ’cause I don’t think I’ll be letting you get up to strike three.

Will Yahoo Lay Off My Husband?

~ katiebonn ~ 2 Comments

Rumors that Yahoo is gearing up to lay off employees that will number in the thousands have been circulating lately. Believe me, we’ve heard about it. Not only from friends and our RSS feeds, but also from Dave’s mom.

I even heard that an Indian newspaper reported there would be 14,000 Yahoos left without a job, but they later retracted that story. I’m not so sure about that one considering a quick search for Indian news sources shows most of them reporting the total number of Yahoo employees at 14,000. Interesting how rumors get all crazy once they’re removed a few steps from their source.

Dave and I could enjoy a good game of telephone to determine our fate, but personally I’d prefer to just wait and see. Will we be packing up and moving back to Minnesota dejected and vowing to never leave again? Not likely. But don’t be surprised if you hear about me knocking on a little wood.