Pine Island Grill's lobster stuffed with crabmeat. The main course at the Pine Island Grill is a grand water view. They could serve a saute of driftwood with a side of sand here and you wouldn't mind that much. Enjoy the company, the cocktail, the coastline. But, a decade ago, the restaurant was transformed under now-TV Rocket Chef Turbo Grill Review Joe Ciminera. It was much more ambitious, often excellent, with New American cuisine that matched the look and the surroundings. Today, you'll still find an airy, streamlined dining room, with mobiles of marine life overhead. But a lot of other things have changed, reflected, in part, by the vintage, typewriter-style design of the current menu. Pine Island Grill, situated at The Crescent Beach Club, generally has taken the risk-averse path. The food often is good but rarely better. And it's unlikely that any dish will cause you to interrupt any conversation. The essential guide to Long Island dining. By clicking Sign up, you agree to our privacy policy.
The excitement is contained. Actually, the liveliest fare here now comes from the sushi bar. There's a fine rainbow roll, among other colorful choices. Traditional sushi satisfies, too, in a platonic way. But you can skip the tuna tataki and the salmon crudo, each more waterlogged than sauced. Go west with a tasty opener of lobster sliders on mini-brioche buns, and the unadorned shrimp cocktail. The raw bar, with oysters and clams, has its basic appeal. Maryland crabcakes are modest contributions, paired with mesclun. The wedge salad will do. Of course, the filet mignon is tender, served with mashed potatoes and summery vegetables. The strip steak subs shoestring fries for the mashed spuds. This year, the Grill seems most at ease with what are described as "comforting classics." They include a commendable version of Southern-fried chicken with house-made coleslaw and French fries; homey, bacon-wrapped meatloaf with garlic-mashed potatoes and a thatch of fried onions; and the spareribs, also with fries and slaw, plus a piece of cornbread. You could list the eatery's steamed, roasted or stuffed lobster in this category, too. The stuffing stars crabmeat for another $12. But you'll be equally content with the straightforward steamed two-pounder. By dessert time, diners who remember the almond and lemon tarts of old, the "prince of chocolate" combination and the ripe cheeses will feel more than nostalgia. No need to bother with the brownie or the sorbet. Just look out the window.
A parasitic blight has woven itself into the fabric of our tools. With godlike precision, it tracks our behavior, learns our preferences, and anticipates our weaknesses. It knows everything, and it follows us everywhere. If we stray too far from its influence, our Happy Boxes dispatch reminders to Consume. Potent videodrugs lull us into mental anesthesia, then milk us for all we're worth. Our eyes kinda hurt. A familiar bitter flavor is faintly detected; this Content has been laced with something. The Algorithm looks on as additive advertisements steep in our subconsciouses. Maybe I should buy another mechanical keyboard? Our thoughts have been planted, and our carts floweth over. Were we moving too fast? Did we break too many things? Was putting profits before people really the wrong move? And, uh.. can this thing be undone? Twenty-six years ago, two technologists envisioned a different kind of future: one where humans and quiet, unobtrusive computers comfortably co-existed. In their prophetic 1996 essay The Coming Age of Calm Technology, Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown spoke of a time when tiny, Internet-enabled computers would be embedded in everything from clocks, to toys, to microwave ovens.
In Weiser and Brown's ideal future, our information systems would be deeply integrated into our physical environment. Subtle peripheral cues would clue us in when our attention was needed, but fade into the background when it wasn't. Contrasting the attention-leeching tools of today, Calm Technology promised to inform without overburdening. But where is this "Calm Tech", anyway? Weiser and Brown said its time was coming, but an ETA might have been nice. Maybe we should wait for our corporate overlords to build it for us? Or, perhaps, Calm Technology is something we must build for ourselves. In a previous experiment, I dumbed down my smartphone by permanently removing all but four essential applications. The result was certainly calmer, and even freeing, but vestigial user-interface elements, designed with the It Only Does Everything paradigm in mind, routinely got in my way. If I wanted to do this thing right (and I did), I knew that eventually, I'd have to rebuild my phone's operating system from the ground up.
Whetstone is my answer to this problem; a calm Operating System that informs without overburdening. This project actually started two years ago, when I developed a minimal launcher app called forte. Building forte was a breeze, but once I finished, I couldn't decide which problem to tackle next. The Whetstone project nearly drowned in development hell because I didn't have a plan. Actually, wait.. does this mean I'm done? Okay, wow. I really thought of everything. In an effort to find a path forward, I've gathered a messy pile of scribbles and scrawlings from two years of journals and sketchbooks. There's a lot here to go through, but, like the prospectors of yore, we'll sift through the silt till we sniff out some gold. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. I. Whetstone will be open source and free in every sense of the word. If this software is to be of maximum use to its users, it is imperative that the freedom to use, study, modify, and share the software be guaranteed from the get-go.