Jurassic Park is a classic movie most people have at least heard of. A team of scientists endeavors to bring back the dinosaurs from extinction and succeeds. This premise may be closer to reality than you think. The biotech startup Colossal has begun the process of doing just that. In 2021, started trying bring back the Wooly Mammoth, and shocked the world by announcing they are resurrecting the Tasmanian Tiger.
The other day I discovered that the app, Slack, actually stands for Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge. I was shook. This is genius! And it led me down the path to Googoling (spelled like this purposefully) all the fun and weird ways in which companies’ names originated. Here’s what I found:
One of my favorite hobbies is Bonsai. Contrary to popular belief, Bonsai is not just keeping a special tree in a pot on your desk. The Japanese art of creating miniaturized trees traces back to the 13th century. The tree is trained from a seedling to grow in a shallow and wide pot and requires daily tending to stay healthy and mature. It will acclimate to the limited space in the pot and will mature as a regular tree would but remain at a fraction of the size. You can even have tiny fruit or flowers depending on the breed of the tree.
Later this week I’ll be executing a plan my wife and I have been creating for the last several years: to move me to Canada so we can actually exist in the same location! These last 4 years have been stressful, but thanks to video calls, a plethora of texting and messaging apps, and the ability to get things delivered anywhere, we’ve not been completely separated. Now, here are the answers to all of the frequently asked questions I keep getting!
August 17, 1995 – June 15, 2022
We bow our heads this month to honor the death of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, lovingly known as IE. The Blue E was a rewritten version of Spyglass Mosaic, which accompanied the purchase of Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95. Unfortunately, this free version of IE meant that Microsoft did not have to pay royalties to Spyglass, Inc. This oopsie was followed by an $8 million lawsuit settlement in 1997. Alas, the browser continued to evolve, and boringly enough, it resulted in subsequent versions 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Then, an inexplicable, unexpected, and unnoticeable name change occurred, and Microsoft Internet Explorer became Windows Internet Explorer. Versions 7, 8, and 9 followed thereafter.
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to drink more water! I was pretty good about this in 2020 but slowly slumped off during 2021. My habit of “reach for my water, and if it’s empty, get more” became “reach for my water, and if it’s empty, make a note to refill in 5 minutes (repeat for the next hour or two).” I realized I rather enjoyed carbonated water, and the fading aftertaste flavor was a natural cue to get more. However, if this were to become a habit, it’d VERY quickly become expensive. On my monthly grocery shopping trips, I’d pick up a few 12-packs of some of the store brand flavored water on sale, and without fail, I’d consumed it all within a week. As the pandemic eased, and I no longer had the “well, I’m not spending money on “XYZ” anymore” to fall back on, I searched for a solution.
If I am visiting a new and beautiful place, the first thing I want to do is explore. This is doubly true if I’m in a National Park, or someplace where hiking trails are abundant. Unfortunately my excitement can get the better of me; I’ve been led into awkward situations like wandering onto private property or, more dangerously, gotten myself lost. Usually this would mean that I’d need to visit a ranger station to find a map and quickly decide on the trails I want to hike, all while burning precious daylight. Enter the handy app, AllTrails.
Cat (a human) and I have been playing this game called Vampire Survivors for the past week or so. Effectively, all you do in the game is move; everything else is done for you. Your job is to pick up experience, gather weapons/items, and orient yourself around enemies in such a way that your weapons will hit them before getting hit yourself. I could hand the controller to my mom, and she would get the gist within a few minutes.
It’s time to admit something: I’m part of the Peloton cult. I’d like to say I was ahead of the curve (but behind on the stock surge). I bought a used bike just as COVID started to keep us indoors. I’d been interested in Peloton for a while but couldn’t justify it with a gym membership. And then my gym closed, alongside several others in the city, and I found myself outside a shuttered Crossfit, wheeling the red dream into my car. The rest is history.
I apologize if you’re looking for a technical blog, because I have someone to introduce you to (and who doesn’t love puppies?)! Karl Command is a Cavalier King Charles that added to my family over the holidays. I wasn’t really looking for a dog, but these types of things seem to happen in weird ways. I’ve had Cavaliers in the past and loved them. Well, one random night I googled ‘Cavalier puppies’ because I was bored, and as soon as I saw Karl, I knew I had to have him. It was love at first sight. A couple days later I was driving two hours to pick him up.
