Apr 2, 2013

In 2010, a Florida man parted with 10,000 units of a new-fangled anarcho-currency thing called “bitcoins” in return for two hot, fresh, tasty pizzas. At the time, that was about $40 worth of these “buttcoins” (NSFW), so that was already quite an expensive pizza. (Must’ve been a pretty serious case of the munchies.) Three years later, and Bitcoin has boomed, busted, and boomed again. It’s been used by Cypriots, Iranians, dope fiends, and people who just want to buy a pizza without Big Brother knowing whether or not they like anchovies.

Mar 14, 2013

Comet PANSTARRS, originally uploaded by Shiny Things. GOT IT! I GOT THE LITTLE BASTARD AHAHAHAHAHA… I mean, here is a photo of the dim Comet PANSTARRS, low in the western sky and sinking into the San Francisco fog.

Feb 27, 2013

Short and sweet: DBS, Singapore’s largest bank, is keyword-spamming on Silicon Valley’s favourite Q&A site Quora. They’ve been doing this for ages on Hardwarezone.com.sg, a Singaporean tech forum, but their activity’s recently started spreading to Quora. The spammers’ modus operandi - and I don’t know whether this is being done directly by DBS or by a misguided external marketing team - is highly unusual, and seems designed to make the answers less likely to be flagged as spam.

Feb 16, 2013

Storm a’coming, originally uploaded by Shiny Things. Storms are looming over Lake Mead, but the Valley of Fire is lit up by sunlight.

Feb 9, 2013

Mount Tam Hikers, originally uploaded by Shiny Things. It’s been an improbably nice winter here in San Francisco. While the east coast’s been getting walloped with hurricanes and three-foot blizzards with improbable names, the west coast has been pretty much non-stop clear and mild for the last few months. Here’s a sample - a group of hikers out for a walk on Mount Tamalpais on a clear winter’s day.