Chains

Down and Out: Ellis Brooks Chevrolet to Close — No bailouts here, folks: the family-owned Ellis Brooks Chevy dealership at 1395 Van Ness will close December 15, just shy of the place's 70th birthday. The dealership is currently liquidating all stock and, as Brooks told the Chron, "No reasonable offer will be refused." So what's next for the Van Ness Corridor and the once-glorious Auto Row? We would suggest a mixed-use Whole Foods, but with the new no-chains ordinance for this stretch of Van Ness, Ellis Brooks' demise could mean more room for luxury condos rentals and quaint neighborhood cafes that surely have the capital to start up in... [Tags: 70th birthday, amp, auto row, chains, chevrolet]

Burger King Burger Shots — From A Hamburger Today Over the weekend, while I was trying not to work, we at A Hamburger Today received this email from longtime reader and frequent commenter Phauxtoe: Hey, I got a bone to pick with you guys. Today (Friday) I stopped at Burger King to get a road coffee (nothing else). I saw an ad the menu for "BURGER SHOTS," with and without cheese.I guess they have moved into the slider market.Here is the problem: I read your site everyday or so—why do I have to hear about this on the streets?Thanks but no thanks, Phauxtoe Trying my... [Tags: 80s, bk, burger king, burger world, chains]

Supes Give a Last Ditch Lame-Duck Effort — Apparently outgoing supervisors Aaron Peskin Jake McGoldrick and Gerardo Sandoval shall not go quietly into the night: the trio are planning "to try to cross the finish line sprinting". (By the by, we hope the new supes look as good in Speedos as Pesky does.) That means last-minute pushes on several pieces of nabe-relevant legislation including levying a litter tax on fast-food restos and convenience stores to help pay for local clean-up, plus the renaming of several streets, including Chelsea Place, to become Timothy Pflueger Place in honor of the architect, and Merchant Street, which will be changed to Harold... [Tags: aaron peskin, amp, architect, bud, capitalist bastards]

Blocking A Neuropeptide Receptor Decreases Nicotine Addiction — Scientists have found that blocking the receptor for a specific neuropeptide, short chains of amino acids found in nerve tissue, significantly decreases the desire for nicotine in animal models. In addition, these data may explain intriguing findings from human smokers who spontaneously quit smoking when they suffer brain damage restricted to a small portion of their frontal cortex.... [Tags: amino acids, animal models, brain damage, chains, desire]

The ShoZu Campaign begins on MIR! — ShoZu is a service that helps you easily get your content off your handset. So, for example, install the application on your handset and every time you take a photo, you can be prompted by ShoZu to send it to your online Flickr gallery, or to your blog or the like. Press ‘OK’ and the image sends in the background via your handset’s data connection. Genius. Once your content is freed from the chains of your average handset, all bets are off and the excitement arrives. You can actually DO stuff with all that content you’re creating. There is little... [Tags: bets, blog, chains, excitement, facebook]

Has Harajuku Lost Its Cool? — While Gwen Stefani continues promoting her Harajuku Lovers perfumes in the US, The Japan Times reports on some local concerns that Harajuku’s reputation for being the coolest district in Tokyo is on the decline. The latest addition to the Harajuku landscape comes in the form of a 1,500 sq meter H&M store. Isn’t it interesting how in some parts of the world, the arrival of an H&M might be deemed a gift from the fashion gods. In Harajuku, here’s what one shopkeeper had to say: “What concerns us about big chains coming to Harajuku is that the special atmosphere... [Tags: amp, atmosphere, chains, decline, epicenter]

On the Docket: Van Ness To Go Unchained — The chain-hate is spreading. Next stop: Van Ness. Legislation is going before the Board of Supes today that would require new chains to go through a special permitting process with the Planning Commission in order to open up shop on the avenue. With the Van Ness Corridor becoming more residential, city planners are concerned about the availability of the necessary goods and services in the area. Staples, Guitar Center, BevMo and all those car dealerships might be fun to live next to in your luxury condo, but what about the usual neighborhood restaurants and cafes? Just be glad the original... [Tags: amp, bevmo, cafes, capitalist bastards, car dealerships]

Quirky Sizes — Back in the day, you could order a “small”, a “medium”, or a “large” of just about anything. The names have changed! Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will find out how well you know the cutesy and creative names companies give to their sizes. I scored 60%, which is better than I expected, since almost none of these chains exist where I live. Link... [Tags: chains, creative names, lunchtime, mental floss, quiz]

Tweetie, A Fast, Easy To Use, A Full-Featured Twitter iPhone App — I agree with John Gruber on this one, so far Tweetie is the best iPhone app for Twitter out there (I’m sure more are on the way). It’s meets most of my mobile Twitter requirements. You can download it for $2.99 from the iTunes Store. Here’s a breakdown of it’s features: - Handle multiple twitter accounts. - View your timeline, replies, direct messages and favorites. - Browse your friends and followers. - Post new tweets, retweet - Reply directly to tweets and send direct messages. - Follow and unfollow people. - Mark tweets as favorites. - Navigate reply chains.... [Tags: adobe, amp, api, chains, custom searches]

Chainless Bicycles — SPORTS BUZZ: Trek bicycles are bringing the chainless bike back to the mass market. I kind of find the click-clacking sound of the chain reassuring, but these noiseless bicycles will ensure a quieter ride and no more ripped pant cuffs. Contribute: Add an image, link, video or comment » The Best Links: Coming to a Store Near You: Chainless Bicycles How Internal-Gear-Hubs Work on Wikipedia The Benefits of the Chainless Bike No More Dirty, Noisy Chains... [Tags: best links, buzz, chainless bicycles, chainless bike, chains]

First Detailed 3-D Glimpse Of Bacterial Cell-wall Architecture — The bacterial cell wall that is the target of potent antibiotics such as penicillin is actually made up of a thin single layer of carbohydrate chains, linked together by peptides, which wrap around the bacterium like a belt around a person, according to scientists at the California Institute of Technology. This first-ever glimpse of the cell-wall structure in three dimensions was made possible by new high-tech microscopy techniques.... [Tags: architecture, bacterial cell wall, bacterium, california institute of technology, carbohydrate]

How do You Manage Your Email Inbox? — Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed How much email do you get on a daily basis? I receive a ton of it, and I’m sure many of you do as well. There is a lot that demands my attention. I tend to forward some of them to people who manage certain tasks for me. I tend to freak out if there are very many emails piled up waiting for my attention, so I try to stay on top of them throughout the day. There may come a time when I’ve got... [Tags: auto response message, batching, benefit, cell phone, chains]

What do you call the shop on the corner? — What do you call the shop where you get your miscellaneous stuff? I grew up in Toronto, where they were called "convenience stores," "smoke shops," and sometimes "Becker's" or "Mac's" (names of chains that got genericized). In New York, I learned to call them "bodegas." In Montreal, "depanneurs" or "the dep". In Costa Rica, we went to the pulperia (or "pulpe") for supplies, and in Honduras, we went to the "super." Here in London, they're "bottle shops," "off-licenses," "newsagents," "offies," and "cornershops" (not all identical in meaning). What do you call 'em? (Image: Cheap Booze, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike... [Tags: becker, bodegas, chains, cheap booze, convenience stores]

The upside of a 2009-style depression — Boston.com riffs on what a modern-day Great Depression would look like, and Tim O'Reilly extends the analysis. The fascinating thing I found in both is just how much good would come from a serious meltdown. For example, Tim calls out the following: Desurburanization, and a preference for renting over owning a home [In other words, we'd go back to the world as it was before when you actually had to have saved money in order to buy a home - is this a bad thing?]; The re-legitimization of hand-me-down culture..., including national second-hand chains [Again, this sounds excellent - people... [Tags: appliance shop, chains, cheap entertainment, child care and education, convenience]

Tweetie: The new Twitter app for the iPhone [Preview] — Earlier on this week I got the opportunity to road test a new Twitter app for the iPhone/iPod touch. Tweetie was developed by a company called atebits and was submitted to the app store pending approval on the 11th of November so it should be out very soon, in the mean time I thought I would quickly run through some of services and features of Tweetie and some early thoughts. Okay so first up is the feature list. Handle multiple twitter accounts. View your timeline, replies, direct messages and favorites. Browse your friends and followers. Post new tweets, retweet, reply... [Tags: 11th of november, api, blue arrow, chains, custom searches]

DNA Strands Modified Into Tiny Fiber-Optic Cables — holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports on the latest idea from researchers trying to make microcomputers use photons in place of electrons — to make optical interconnects from strands of DNA. Mixing DNA strands with the right dye molecule upgrades them into wires for light, like microscopic optical fibers, able to absorb photons at one end and transmit them to the other. One of the neat things about using DNA is it is the right scale to play nicely with existing and future chip lithography. Quoting: 'The result is similar to natural photonic wires found inside organisms like algae, where they... [Tags: algae, calamity, chains, dna strands, dye molecule]

Evolution's New Wrinkle: Proteins With 'Cruise Control' Act Like Adaptive Machines — Scientists has discovered that chains of proteins found in most living organisms act like adaptive machines, possessing the ability to control their own evolution. The research, which appears to offer evidence of a hidden mechanism guiding the way biological organisms respond to the forces of natural selection, provides a new perspective on evolution, the scientists said.... [Tags: biological organisms, chains, control act, cruise control, evolution]

Get Your Coffee and a Dividend — David Peltier, portfolio manager of the Dividend Stock Advisor, says companies like Starbucks are out but other fast-food coffee chains have the right price and the right dividend.... [Tags: chains, coffee, david peltier, dividend stock, fast food]