ski

Let's face it. Utah rocks.

Snowbird with 12 inches of new powder in the morning (Bryce Roberts of O'Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures and Fabrizio Capobianco of Funambol joined me for a half-day of wicked snow). Pie in the afternoon while doing the weekly Alfresco team reviews. Maybe a little biking in the evening?

You don't live here...why? I mean, the software sells itself, right? :-)… Read more

Snowbird just won't give up. Last week the Utah resort got a foot of new powder. Yesterday? Fourteen more inches, and it's still coming down. We'll be skiing through July in Utah this year.

Friday morning is looking like a ski morning....

We've intimated before that the Segway isn't exactly our cup of tea, but we're frankly afraid of going down that route again for fear of reprisal. So without judgment, we herewith present another item on said machine that seeks to improve upon the design, regardless of how one feels about it.

Designer Sarah Park has drafted a concept that would outfit the famed personal transporter with dual handlebars that Gearfuse describes as a "skiing-like steering mechanism." The size of the handlebars would be similar to those of a baby stroller and navigated in a similar … Read more

Today is so depressing, what with Arsenal losing to Liverpool and ending another season without silverware. I'm listening to Pink Floyd. I'm drinking skim milk instead of the 1 percent indulgence I'd prefer.

So, I just have to post something that makes me happy:

Take that, Jason. Now you can feel bad, too. :-)

I'm trying to find time to get the Open Source Goat Rodeo report out, but the snow keeps getting in the way. It's rough here in Utah....

This one's for you, Jason.

Yeah...sorry about that call. It's canceled. The slopes are calling.

For those coming out to ski this weekend (you know who you are!), I just had to get even more snow for us. You're welcome.

Radio frequency identification, a technology that allows identification of objects using radio waves, hasn't exactly been a failure. The Wikipedia article on RFID lists all manner of examples of RFID use, ranging from the whimsical to the more substantive. And early proponents of RFID, such as Wal-Mart and the U.S. Department of Defense, have moved ahead with large-scale RFID deployments affecting both themselves and their suppliers--albeit at a slower pace and in a more limited way than originally envisioned.

Still, if you contrast the selective use of RFID to the ubiquity of barcodes, the contrast is striking. It'… Read more

I strained (or tore) my abdominal muscles a week ago skiing Little Cloud at Snowbird in two feet of powder with boots that didn't fit me. (The perils of evaluating ski gear.) But today I'm rethinking doctor's orders to wait three weeks before skiing again due to the following:

My family and I are up in Wyoming for a few days skiing Grand Targhee, where I used to come each year in junior high and high school. With nearly two feet of new snow....

For the last SkiTech review on The Open Road, we decided to review the Volkl Tigershark 12 Foot Power Switch ski. We also tried skis from Rossignol, Scott, and others, but this Volkl Tigershark is the one we most eagerly anticipated because it makes the most obvious use of technology. It actually features a dial on the tail of the ski that you dial up to stiffen the ski and down to soften it, depending on the snow condition.

In our tests, the dial works. But how well Volkl's Power Switch technology works (or, rather, how much you feel the difference) depends on the type of skier you are and what you weigh. For our bigger reviewers the Tigershark's Power Switch technology didn't offer much benefit. For Jaime (who runs a little on the light side - wuss :-), it was a nice feature.

But it was by no means a "must have" feature for any of our reviewers. Here's what one of our reviewers had to say: … Read more