Epinions Recent Reviews for vacuum

Buy a lot of floppies, you'll need them

Wed, 18 Apr 2001 15:04:48 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - I really like the MVC-FD90's ability to save pictures to floppy disk. We often go for days between times that pictures get uploaded to the net for storage and printing, and I can't even imagine needing to go back to a computer regularly to save files...

Well thought out and interesting

Thu, 6 Jul 2000 15:14:33 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - Paul Duguid and John Seely Brown talk at length about how computer network interactions are embedded in a broader social context, and how the folks who talk about how daily life will be reduced to a stream of interactions with brute machines totally...

Postal Services: Good experiences with a local PMB

Mon, 13 Mar 2000 00:35:24 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - Prompted by MichelleS's review of the local alternative postal services in her area, here's my comments.

I've been using a store called the Mail Shoppe in Ann Arbor MI for 10+ years. I have a mailbox there (PMB in new postal jargon) and we...

Panasonic Mid-Size Microwave Ovens: Everything including a "Bacon" key

Thu, 6 Jan 2000 22:24:42 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - We went out and got a microwave the other day after our 10 yr. old Panasonic Jr. bit the dust. After checking out features and looks and everything else on the 1.0 cu ft or so microwaves on the market today, we ended up with a white Panasonic model, the...

Sidewalks are for people

Wed, 5 Jan 2000 21:15:12 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - In Jane Jacobs _Death and Life of Great American Cities_ (1961) there is a great story told of the corner store owner who is the hub of his neighborhoods's public space. He holds newspapers for the regulars, sets kids right if they start to misbehave,...

Sixdegrees: Two or three degrees, max

Thu, 16 Dec 1999 02:55:44 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - Six degrees is an interesting experiment in community building. You enter in links to all your friends, who link all their friends, and so on and so on. When you're done you can figure out your best friend-of-a-friend angle to approach someone new, or...

Nightmare South of Market

Thu, 2 Dec 1999 02:26:31 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - "Close to the Machine" is on my small but growing "neo-luddite" shelf, full of works by authors who are really good at the techie stuff that they do and who hate with a passion some of the truly weird stuff that being a techie means...

Good to watch over and over again

Thu, 2 Dec 1999 02:06:27 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - Groundhog Day is one of the few videos that we own that survives (even thrives) on repeated viewing. The structure of the plot is such that once you've seen it a few times, you can pretty much stop anywhere, let it sit for a while, and start up again...

For morning people

Tue, 23 Nov 1999 04:31:55 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - Morning pages are a great idea. Every day, before you get started with the barrage of interruptions and distractions that forms most people's days, sit down and write out three pages (longhand) to empty yourself out and get ready for the day.

...

University of Michigan Credit Union: Convenient, friendly local credit union

Thu, 11 Nov 1999 22:29:53 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - I have gone through four or five checking accounts from various local banks, brokerage accounts, and money market funds. After trying each of these out (and watching most of them get acquired, one after the other, and ruined in the process) I'm pretty...

A cut above the average rental

Thu, 11 Nov 1999 04:18:04 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - I'm driving a Corolla this week, which was what was available at Hertz in San Jose. (I had to wait 2 hours at the counter before the car got ready, totally unacceptable in any other part of the world, but about what you'd expect in car-clogged Silicon...

Theater packed with enthusiastic fans

Sun, 7 Nov 1999 02:21:36 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - Saw this film in a full theater - the balcony seats, which we normally have to ourselves, were pretty full, and the crowd waiting outside the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor (great place to see movies) was thick for the second show.

I laughed an...

The network structure of social capital

Mon, 1 Nov 1999 20:25:01 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - In part of my recent over-fondness with Six Degrees (really, it's a parlor game, but perhaps a useful one) a conversation started up that carriedover to e-mail. The ad hoc collection of people on tap for that

interaction included Jock Gill, who put...

Hertz does a good job

Fri, 29 Oct 1999 04:36:41 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - I probably drive more miles per year in rental cars than I do in my own car. The corporate agency is Hertz, so I've seen a lot of Hertz cars.

I've never had a problem, breakdown, or difficulty with a Hertz car, except in one case where there...

Dinner table reference essential

Thu, 28 Oct 1999 22:27:21 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - Our 1976-vintage World Book encyclopedia lives in bookshelves in the dining room. There it gets referred to a couple of times a week when some dinner conversation turns up an odd item that requires an immediate reference work, as long as those kind of...

Brave story

Wed, 27 Oct 1999 01:57:12 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - Mental illness is the last taboo in American society. Most people who have received or who are currently receiving psychiatric care for diseases like manic depression and schizophrenia and who manage to build a functioning life for themselves with the...

Inside a Victorian mental hospital

Wed, 27 Oct 1999 01:40:19 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - The Professor and the Madman gives a fascinating insight into the life of a well to do and intellectually curious man who is incarcerated in a Victorian mental prison (calling it a hospital would be too charitable since little in the way of healing was...

Written quickly

Wed, 27 Oct 1999 01:01:02 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - Blur is a collaboration by two E&Y consultants on "the speed of change in the connected economy". Their mantra is "Speed * Connectivity * Intangibles = Blur"; everything runs in real time, everything is connected to everything...

Good bibliography of "great groups"

Wed, 27 Oct 1999 00:49:10 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - The stories of seven "Great Groups" are described in this analysis of what environments surround groups that work exceptionally well together. The author relies largely on secondary source materials for the book, retelling the stories of Xerox...

Incoming: An ordinary heavy pot on the stove

Tue, 26 Oct 1999 02:28:18 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - We cook rice in an ordinary heavy pot on the stove. The pot was my grandmother's - "Club" is the brand. Doubt that you can still buy it.

One cup basmati rice from the People's Food Coop, two cups water. Cover. Bring to a boil...

"Information Rules" Rules

Tue, 26 Oct 1999 01:11:57 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - Hal Varian and Carl Shapiro have a new book out, "Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy". Hal is dean of the School of Information Management Studies at Berkeley and was my undergraduate advisor at Michigan. The book is...

Keep track of who you're in touch with

Mon, 25 Oct 1999 23:54:12 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - I've been using ACT! 4.0 for about a year now. The current release is ACT! 2000, and I haven't made the jump (yet? ever?).

ACT! is designed for someone who is in sales who needs to keep track of contacts, prospects, and other people who are...

Wall Street Journal: 75c well spent

Mon, 25 Oct 1999 21:12:41 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - The Wall St. Journal is ideally read on the train on your way into The City. (Doesn't matter which city as long as it's The City). If you don't have that kind of life, then every experience of the paper will be that much less authentic.

It's also...

How Buildings Learn

Mon, 25 Oct 1999 20:21:00 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - "How Buildings Learn" by Stewart Brand is an excellent discussion of what happens to buildings after they are built. So much of architectural thought and design hinges on the master attempts of the architect to impose his will upon space and...

Living More with Less

Sun, 24 Oct 1999 21:21:40 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author vacuum - Living More with Less is a very practical book about living simply and being less attached to wealth and material possessions. It is full of hundreds of small and workable suggestions for making do, getting by, reusing old materials into new ones, and...