Teenagers Sharing Passwords as Show of Affection [NYTimes] – Can you believe it’s been 17 years since Seinfeld considered the shareability of an ATM password within a relationship? Now we have more passwords controlling more access to more parts of our lives, so the issue is just that much more pressing.

The digital era has given rise to a more intimate custom. It has become fashionable for young people to express their affection for each other by sharing their passwords to e-mail, Facebook and other accounts. Boyfriends and girlfriends sometimes even create identical passwords, and let each other read their private e-mails and texts. They say they know such digital entanglements are risky, because a souring relationship can lead to people using online secrets against each other. But that, they say, is part of what makes the symbolism of the shared password so powerful.

Waterstones drops its apostrophe [Telegraph] – The justification of digitalization is a curious one. Since I have no attachment to the brand, personally, I like the new name’s evocation of rocks just below the surface of a flowing brook, rather than the possessive-of-someone-with-a-classic-British-name seen in the previous version.

The country’s last remaining national chain of bookshops, founded by Tim Waterstone, has decided it is more “practical” to ditch the apostrophe. James Daunt, the managing director, who took over the chain last year following a change of ownership said: “Waterstones without an apostrophe is, in a digital world of URLs and email addresses, a more versatile and practical spelling.” One customer on Twitter responded: “Wish I’d used that in spelling tests …”. Others used the hashtag #isnothingsacred, while another tweeted that it was another step towards apostrophe extinction. John Richards, the chairman of the Apostrophe Protection Society said: “It’s just plain wrong. It’s grammatically incorrect. If Sainsbury’s and McDonald’s can get it right, then why can’t Waterstones. You would really hope that a bookshop is the last place to be so slapdash with English.”

At Bank of America, the Image Officer Has a Lot to Fix [NYTimes] – Buried in a hagiographic profile (that, given the subject matter, might have been just a tad more circumspect) is this familiar bit of corporate speak about what people do and don’t want and what they do and don’t say they want.

Ms. Finucane jumped to Hill Holiday, a Boston advertising agency, where she developed a flair for marketing. At one point, the agency conducted a study for Hyatt Hotels, aiming to distinguish between what customers said they wanted and what they really wanted.The lesson, Ms. Finucane recalls, was this: Customers don’t always know what they want. “You may say you want a bathrobe and slippers,” she says, “but the truth is you really want a telephone in the bathroom.”

Dating service connects people over their leftovers [Wired] – This little story is actually a leftover itself, from some of Julie’s scouring-the-web-for-curiosities. Might make more sense to pair up people with extra food and people with not enough food, rather than try to force a romantic connection into the mix. I guess that’s what sells, though.

Farmers cooperative Lantmännen has developed a dating tool that connects singles based on what food they have leftover in their fridges. It might not sound like the level of psychometric filtering touted by other dating websites, but Lantmännen aims to pair up fellow environmentally-conscious single people to share leftover dishes or ingredients. According to Lantmannen, a fifth of all food in Sweden is thrown away. It was this figure that led to the creation of the dating service, called Restdejting. People are invited to visit the website and enter up to five ingredients that they have hanging around the kitchen. This list is then published to Facebook for other Restdejting singles to peruse.

The Griddle Cafe, Los Angeles, February 2009

Recently, we ate Sunday breakfast at LA’s The Griddle Cafe. They offer an extensive menu featuring some interesting pancakes. I ordered Scotch On The Rocks (coconut, pecan, oat, and butterscotch-chip filled flapjacks covered in powdered sugar) and brown sugar-baked bananas. Not only did I end up with a side of bananas and bananas in my flapjacks, what I didn’t realize was that the portion size was insane: three thick flapjacks large enough to hang over the edge of a plate:

Needless to say, I couldn’t come close to eating it. The more I ate, the more the plate resembled what it looked like when they first served me. Eventually I began to feel badly: I’m a glutton for eating something like this, I’m wasteful for ordering something like this that I can’t eat, and I’m an out-of-town rube for not knowing how to order here.

While I walked away with my gluttony issues intact, we struck up a nice conversation with our neighbors who pegged us as visitors and explained that it is possible to order a single flapjack. Next time! And when we declined the to-go box (as we were headed to the airport shortly) I was very relieved when the host offered to give the leftovers to one of the homeless folk who hang out near the restaurant (presumably because this is a common occurrence).

We left the restaurant and stopped into a nearby store. A few minutes later we emerged and headed to our car. We saw some street dudes walking towards us carrying a styrofoam box. Without exchanging words with each other, we knew that it was my leftovers. But maybe we were staring or looking expectant, because as we came closer, the man carrying the box (with that extroversion borne of the streets) asked us if we wanted some, flipping open the clamshell to reveal – of course – my flapjacks, still quite intact.

Seeing that indeed my food did not go to waste while looking upon the very flapjacks that had just been on my plate was a mini-lightbulb moment. And so I moved to reply with matching enthusiasm to the man who was praising these same flapjacks. But as my jaw opened, I realized that I had no smooth way to honestly articulate my satisfaction without identifying myself as yet another of his benefactors (even as he was offering with a mix of exuberance and cynicism to share with us). Instead, I simply affirmed that the food did indeed look good, and we each went on with our days.

See more of my LA pictures here.