Category Archives: Uncategorized

Obituary: Soy Sauce Designer

Article from the New York Times.

TOKYO — Kenji Ekuan, the Japanese industrial designer whose instantly recognizable soy sauce bottle — red-capped and elegantly teardrop-shaped — became one of his country’s most ubiquitous postwar exports, died on Sunday. He was 85.

His death, of heart failure, was confirmed by GK Design Group, which Mr. Ekuan helped found in the 1950s and he continued to lead as chairman. He had a form of arrhythmia and had been hospitalized since early this month.

Mr. Ekuan was a prolific and widely lauded designer whose work shaped products closely associated with modern Japan, including Yamaha motorcycles and a bullet train used in the country’s Shinkansen high-speed rail network.

Ummm

How crazy can things get in Argentina?

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/world/americas/argentine-leader-criticizes-alberto-nisman-dead-prosecutor.html?emc=edit_tnt_20150120&nlid=60326459&tntemail0=y

Argentine Leader Criticizes Dead Official

By JONATHAN GILBERT and

BUENOS AIRES — Facing a public outcry over the mysterious death of Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor leading the investigation into the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center here, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her allies lashed out at the dead man on Tuesday, questioning whether he had allied himself with forces seeking to weaken her government.

In a rambling 2,100-word letter posted on her Facebook page, Mrs. Kirchner, whom Mr. Nisman had accused of orchestrating a cover-up to protect Iranian officials implicated in the bombing in exchange for Iranian oil, said that Mr. Nisman had been part of an effort to “sidetrack, lie, cover up and confuse” attempts to finally resolve the case.

Again with the Hunchback

As some people already know, strangely, the children and adults in the Pierce family seem to be totally addicted to the sung-through French musical Notre Dame de Paris. On the weekends it plays almost continually at the house.  Here’s a sample, featuring Esmerelda, Quasimoto, Phoebus, and Archduke de Notre Dame Claude Frollo, who Robert always feels strongly resembles his former colleague Michael Engelhardt (minus the exquisitely crafted eye-brows).

 

 

Chess Puzzles

Robert and Rory have been learning about Chess.  Right now they are of approximately equal skill-level. There are lots of online resources for learning the game.  Many of them are free of charge. Including puzzles, most of which Robert does not solve.  Here’s some he managed to solve.