Smart cards for transit

Both Hong Kong and Taipei have RFID smart cards available for paying fares on subways and buses. Taipei even knocks 20% off of each subway ride. You don’t need to take the card out, just hover your wallet over the reader. It’s amazingly convenient. The Bay Area desperately needs something like this, especially since we …

The Chronic—WHAT?—cles of Narnia

Everyone else is linking this, so I’ll join the fun. (Thanks, Jason!) Take a look at this rap video from Saturday Night Live: “Lazy Sunday.” There are some sick rhymes in there (sick as in phat. uh, yeah). As a geek, I love this verse: Yo where’s the movie playing? Upper West Side dude Let’s …

More on the new Microsoft Office UI

I just got back from a BayCHI talk by Jensen Harris, the lead designer of the new Microsoft Office 12 user interface. He’s actually already blogged a lot of what he talked about, so I won’t repeat it here — take a look at his “Best Of” list on his blog for an overview. Instead, …