I’m trying to log into my YouTube account, and it’s not accepting my password (even though I logged into the same account from a different machine using the same password a few minutes ago), so upon the advice of the help screen I asked for a password reset. Partway through the process I was presented with this:

Wow. ‘Fraid I can’t answer that, Google. As much as I’d like to be able to read questions presented in Japanese, I can’t.

Thanks, once again, to our friends Richard and Rafael, I recently sampled another one of the mysterious special-edition Pepsi products from Japan. This post is rather late in its arrival since it covers a product which is no longer in production. I confess that I sort of forgot that I had the bottle tucked away in the back of the refrigerator until I noticed it recently.

It’s called Shiso Pepsi, and it’s a nice shade of green:

The label says “Japanese Refreshing Flavor” and that’s pretty accurate. It’s refreshing and it does taste oddly Japanese. It has a very herb-like flavor and is somewhat sweet (as you’d expect for a soft drink). Imagine if you’d rarely or never tasted an herb like basil or oregano, and you tried a beverage sort of like 7-Up flavored with basil or oregano–that’s pretty much the impression that Shiso Pepsi gave to me. It was quite good; I understand why Richard wanted a case of it after he tasted it. read more

Strange but true: Barbie has a new career as a computer engineer:

Yes, this looks like yet another Photoshop job, but it’s the real deal. Barbie’s 125th career, determined for the first time by public vote, is as a computer engineer. The press release doesn’t say whether she’s in hardware or software engineering; her shirt seems to have suggestions of both.

[From Gizmodo]

Here’s a pair of essays that go together nicely: author Charles Stross examining the widespread misinterpretation of the phrase “information wants to be free” and dangers and fallacies therein; and songwriting legend Paul Williams reflecting upon a specific instance of these dangers.

Case in point here.

There’s a nice animation here that illustrates the size of Earth relative to the rest of the known universe. I should say that it attempts to illustrate that, though, since the scales involved are rather beyond our comprehension. Watch it in full-screen HD if you have the bandwidth.

(Thanks go to Chris for this one.)

There’s an hour-long BBC interview with Brian Eno posted here. I haven’t watched more than the first four minutes so far, but Synthtopia described it as a “must see”. If, like myself, you don’t happen to have time to watch it right away you might want to download yourself a copy. The last time I looked at BBC documentaries posted on Vimeo they didn’t stay around long before the copyright police impounded them.

Eno’s one of my biggest–if not the biggest–musical influences and inspirations, so I’m looking forward to watching this interview. read more

Today is one of those rare days on which the weather conditions are just right for producing beautiful snowflakes. There is some magic combination of temperature, humidity, still air, cloud formation, etc. that produces big, symmetric crystals that accumulate without damage. Here is a photo of the front step:

Click that photo to see a larger version, and click here to see several others taken at the same time and location.