FSP 1.1

Coffee, Sir ?

For instance, when you ask for coffee at Zipangu,
a new Japanese restaurant in Greenwich Village,
reality is twisted a bit. The waiter comes to the
table bearing what appears to be a chemistry set.

There is a steel stand supporting a stack of glass
flasks. The round bottom flask is filled with water;
in the top are coffee grounds. A busboy comes
by to place a large wick underneath and lights it.

I felt we should be wearing safety goggles.

Soon, the water starts boiling, the busboy hurries
by to blow out the flame, and then — whoosh! —
the water is sucked up into the coffee grounds.

A few seconds later, it all begins shooting back
down into the round flask. For a second you
pause to wonder why a Japanese restaurant
is serving coffee at all, but the show is so
great, who cares?

AMANDA HESSER.

Compare to Starbuck Utopia

.

play money

In January of last year, Sony Online Entertainment, which runs
EverQuest, prevailed on eBay and Yahoo to cancel all auctions
of EverQuest items, asserting that the transactions were a
violation of the game's end-user licensing agreement, which
states that Verant Interactive, a Sony subsidiary, "shall retain
ownership of all intellectual property rights."

"From the player's standpoint, I can understand that there's
an eminent domain issue, which is basically, `I produced the
goods, so I can do what I want,' " said Edward Castronova,
an associate professor of economics at California State University
at Fullerton who has written a paper on EverQuest called
"Virtual Worlds: A Firsthand Account of Market and Society
on the Cyberian Frontier." "But the game runners have a
public-goods argument. They need to create an atmosphere
of play for the collective good, and if they allow the buying
and selling of items, that collective good could be ruined."

MARC WEINGARTEN.

AOL

AOL: With customers so easy to use, no wonder we're #1!

Spam King

When signing up for Expedia, there is a tickbox
to opt out of receiving spam.

I unckeck this box to avoid spam and submit my form,
and my for is rejected because I specified my data in
incorrect format, Expedia takes me back to my form
with my previously entered data intact (thanks!) so i
don't re-enter all my data, just change one item.

But, Expedia automatically re-sets the spam option to yes.

Mute

When you hit the mute button on your office
speakerphone, do you expect the speaker
or the microphone to be muted ?

Pump you up

As you exercise and build stronger muscle with
ever heavier lifting, do you increase the chance
of tearing connecting tissue ?

Or does the exercise strengthen the connecting
tissue, making it less vulnerable ?

Mini mania

Here's a car with exceptional handling.
You can throw it and catch it every time.

She said, he said.

Question of the day: Filter or seive ?

Advice

Most people on the list have offered sensible advice,
I was actually looking for more encouragement.