San Francisco

When it comes to wedding expenses, sometimes it’s hard to understand just why a particular element costs what it does, or why there’s such a range in rates. Something as seemingly simple as cake can cost anywhere from $1.50 to $12.00 a slice! Well today we thought we’d take a look at bridal bouquets to see if we could better understand some of the factors that might result in a certain price tag… 1. The Flowers Let’s start with the most obvious thing: the flowers themselves. For all flowers, there is the cost of labor and resources required to grow and transport them, which can fluctuate based on things like weather and the cost of gas. And of course some flowers are easier to grow and/or transport (in-season sunflowers, for example), while others are more difficult and delicate (say, cattleya orchids). Just like with fruits and vegetables, seasonality affects both the quality and cost of flowers. If you want peonies at the tail end of the season, they won’t be as full or lush as their peak-season counterparts, so you’ll need more stems to get the same effect. You might even be able to get peonies in November, but they have to be shipped from around the world, meaning you pay extra transportation cost. 2. The Florist Sometimes called a floral designer, the florist you hire will play a role in what you pay for a bouquet. The more experienced, skilled, and in-demand the florist, the more they can charge for their work. In addition to their time and talent, and the retail mark-up on materials, florists have overhead expenses you might not expect, and that gets factored into what they charge: rent and utilities (retail space or work space), transportation costs (to and from market, to and from venue), and supplies (tape, foam, tools, buckets), to name a few. And as with everything else, their costs depend on location (overhead will be higher in San Francisco than in Milwaukee), which results in a higher or lower mark-up on their product. Florists may also have to purchase more flowers than they’ll actually end up using in your bouquet. Even if a bouquet will only include 6 tulips, the florist might need to buy twice that many to guarantee they open the right amount at the right time, and that they aren’t damaged or bruised. 3. The Bouquet And then there’s the bouquet itself. A large bouquet of tulips will obviously cost more than a smaller bouquet of tulips. If your bouquet includes more delicate flowers that require refrigeration, you may end up paying more. And what about the size of each flower? Garden roses and lily-of-the-valley might each cost $10 a stem, but you’ll need far fewer garden roses to make an impact. Something we see a lot in wedding magazines and blogs is bouquets tied with beautiful ribbon – not something that immediately comes to mind as an expense! Though some brides prefer a simple ribbon wrap, a more elaborate ribbon embellishment will cost more – and that cost goes up depending on the quality of the ribbon, which can run anywhere from $4 to $20 a yard. If you’re thinking about your own wedding bouquet, and wondering how all these things might factor into what you carry down the aisle, here are three similarly-styled bouquets, each from the same Los Angeles-based florist, with three different price tags… Some of the reasons this might be a $150 bouquet: medium size, use of a few expensive garden roses, use of less expensive sweet peas and crab apple to fill things out, simple color scheme and design. Why this bouquet might cost $250: slightly larger size, uses more large flowers than the previous bouquet (such as peonies, lilac, and ranunculus), uses fewer “filler” flowers like sweet pea and crab apple, accented with four unique ribbons. Now for a major splurge! Reasons this bouquet might run you $350: quite a large bouquet, almost no “filler” flowers except to add some texture, uses more

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Few have explored the remote volcanic islands of the Galapagos archipelago, an otherworldly landscape inhabited by the world's largest tortoises and other fantastical creatures that inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.Soon it will take only the click of a mouse or finger swipe on a tablet to explore some of the Galapagos Islands' most remote areas, surrounding waters and unique creatures.More...

Mock drafts in baseball just aren't the same as they are in other sports. "Say, here's a player you've never heard of. He plays a position your team may or may not need right now, but, whatever, that might not be the case when he's ready for the majors. Which might be never. And these mock drafts are rarely accurate because it's hard to predict what 30 scouting departments are really thinking. Enjoy." Still, I'm a sucker for them. And some new ones are out, so let's see what the Giants are expected to do when the Draft rolls around in a couple weeks. First, MLB.com and Jonathan Mayo: 25. San Francisco Giants: Hunter Harvey, RHP, Bandys HS (N.C.) The son of former big league pitcher Bryan Harvey has size and stuff, and it's clear he wants to enter pro ball. That could add up to him going before the Giants pick, but San Francisco knows how to develop young pitching. Sounds enticing. Some video: Your browser does not support iframes. By golly, that fresh face makes rookie Tim Lincecum look like Vicente Padilla. But almost every other mock draft I've seen has Harvey going just a little higher (with Sickels being the lone holdout), so this might be something of an unlikely pick. SI.com has a mock draft up, and it has the Giants taking Ole Miss righty Bobby Wahl. The defending World Series champions are built around pitching, and typically so are their drafts. A comfortable fit at this pick would be Wahl, a mature, a close-to-the-majors hurler with a drop-and-drive delivery and a wide range of pitch offerings. He has a 93 mph fastball but his out-pitch is a quality slider, which would fit right in in San Francisco. This sounds like a double-down on the Chris Stratton strategy of getting a mature slider-tosser from a big program. Your browser does not support iframes. The MLB.com video doesn't mention a slider, but you can see it around :30 of it. Looks good from here. Keith Law's mock draft (Insider subscription required) has the Giants going for Eric Jagielo, a third baseman from Notre Dame with projectable power and defense that shouldn't push him off the position. The ESPN summary says he's … … agile enough to stay at the position even though he's going to be among the bigger third basemen in pro ball. But not the biggest! Maybe the Giants can move Sandoval to short and put Crawford in right field when the time comes. Also "Jagielo" sounds like "Juggalo", and that's good enough for me. Wearing animal hats is so last year. Spraying Cotton Candy Faygo on your seatmates after a home run? Probably the new thing. Your browser does not support iframes. I'm a little wary of a left-handed power guy in the first round, though. When fourth- or fifth-rounders like, say, Brandon Belt come around, that's great. But a first-round pick is expected to make the majors, so you have to factor in the ballpark just a little. I'd rather go power arm and hope the Giants can mold him in the tradition of first-rounders past. While the odds are the Giants don't get a starter from the #25 pick, the odds are at least decent that one of these names will be a big deal in five years. Which one? That's the point. Good luck, Giants.

Box indicated on its blog Thursday that the cloud-storage company has “acquired the technology” for the Folders iOS app enabling users to open many kinds of files on the iPhone. The deal marks Box’s third acquisition, closely following on news of the Crocodoc deal. While Box has been taking an industry-by-industry approach to enterprise adoption, the Crocodoc buy showed that Box is also serious about serving up a slick and intuitive consumer-grade user experience for the enterprise. The Folders deal is more proof of that, and offers important capabilities that keep Box competitive as enterprises let employees bring their own devices — many are iOS based — into the workplace. Folders code viewer. Source: FoldersIn picking up Folders, Box gets an app that can do a bunch of neat tricks. Files can be copied and deleted. The app can work with the Mail app, upload files to a cloud and download pictures to an iPhone’s Camera Roll. Offline access is available. Users can search and flip through pages of PDFs. The app opens Microsoft Office files in full screen. A text editor has support for markdown, and a code viewer lets developers highlight code in preview mode. Users can also search files stored across Box, Dropbox or Google Drive. But perhaps this support for multiple clouds could fall away as Folders gets absorbed into Box — Google and Dropbox, after all, are key competitors against Box in the fight to be the Dropbox of the enterprise. The Folders technology will be worked into “the next generation Box for iOS” that’s currently in the works, according to the Box blog post from Sam Schillace, Box’s vice president of engineering. (Schillace will talk with my colleague Derrick Harris at GigaOM’s Structure conference in San Francisco on June 20.) The Folders app was designed by Martin Destagnol, the CEO of Reedian. It’s unclear how Reedian will be affected by the acquisition. Even though getting enterprise adoption is important, in day-to-day reality, sometimes it’s the small things that matter to people. If enterprise employees see that they can open certain documents on their mobile phones, they might be less likely to get annoyed. And if employee discontent is minimal, companies could end up sticking with Box instead of flocking to other cloud-storage providers. The Folders deal looks like it will help Box move closer in that direction. Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.NewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeoutWork media tools in 2012 and beyondNewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeout

photo by Naomi Culleton Move over kitties! It’s time for some “Dog Beards” action in this scruffy canine equivalent of the popular photo meme “Cat Beards.” You can view more photos of people sporting a dog beard by searching in the Instagram tags #DogBeard and #DogBearding. photo by Laura Blanc photo by Lachie Stewart photo by Gordon Tarpley photo by murdobeans photo by Serenity Storrow Vetter photo by Laura-Chase McGehee photo by galactic_firefly photo by Shovebug photo by Amanda Mottola photo by SNARK Films photo by Dustin Seales photo by Spencer Lane

photo via Arbore Historic Floors Spanish flooring company Arbore Historic Floors created this fantastic wooden floor inspired by the famous lithograph “Reptiles” by M. C. Escher. The custom floor was created at the request of a client in Madrid back in 2011. photo via Arbore Historic Floors image via Official M.C. Escher website via Technabob, Archie McPhee’s Endless Geyser of Awesome

Oh, how things can change in a short amount of time. As the 2013 season dawned, most people reasonably assumed the Rockies would not be a contender, or even above .500. In a preseason article, I said 74 wins would be a reasonable goal for the 2013 Rockies. It wasn't difficult to see why fans and pundits were less than excited about the Rockies' chances this year. They were coming off the worst season in team history in 2012, and weren't anything to write home about when they posted a 73-89 record in 2011. The only big changes were the addition of Walt Weiss, a first-year manager with no prior professional coaching experience, and returning players who missed time in 2012 due to injury. One analyst, whose identity and employer shall remain nameless, picked the Rockies to go 53-109 in 2013. Additionally, there seemed to be two superpowers in the National League West, the defending champion Giants and the uber-rich Dodgers, who added Zack Greinke and Hyun-Jin Ryu to a team that won 86 games in 2012. It was taken for granted that Los Angeles and San Francisco would fight for the division title in 2013 while running away from the Diamondbacks, Padres and Rockies. But then something interesting happened. The Giants' vaunted starting rotation, which led them to two of the last three championships, suddenly looked mortal. As I write this, Matt Cain's ERA is only slightly better than Jon Garland's, and their defense went to shambles; their 35 errors are currently second-most in the NL. The Dodgers, meanwhile, have been a train wreck, almost from day one. Greinke broke his collarbone in a brawl with the Padres. Since then, L.A. is just 12-23. Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, among others, aren't hitting and Chad Billingsley is out for the season. Farther east, the Rockies finally have Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki healthy at the same time, and the pair have combined to hit 20 home runs. More importantly, the starting pitching, historically bad in 2012, has been solid, if unspectacular. This all adds up to a three-way tie for first, with the Rockies, Giants and Diamondbacks each sitting at 26-21. The Dodgers are in last place at 19-26, six games behind the division leaders and the Padres sit in fourth at 21-25. The current outlook in the NL West has changed the thinking of Colorado's brass, which has exhibited clear signs that it intends to try to contend and maintain the 90-win pace the team is currently on. Going into the season, the team likely, and understandably, had an eye toward the future. But, with the early success, the focus has changed to trying to win in the present. The first, and most significant sign that the Rockies view themselves as able to compete in 2013, came the night of April 27, when the Rockies designated Chris Nelson for assignment and called up Nolan Arenado from Colorado Springs. A team that thought its 15-9 record at the time was a fluke surely would not have risked making Arenado a super-two player to get him a few weeks of MLB at bats. No, the Rockies clearly thought it was important to have the best player playing right now, and that the best player was Arenado. A few days later, the Rockies signed Roy Oswalt. Yes, they acquired veteran pitchers during the 2012 season (Jonathan Sanchez, anyone?), but none were the caliber of Oswalt. If he makes a start with the big club, Oswalt will become arguably the most successful pitcher to ever don the purple pinstripes. Oswalt's 5.80 ERA with Texas in 2012 was underwhelming, but was aided by some atrocious BABIP and HR/FB luck. Oswalt actually posted a 4.23 FIP and a 3.27 xFIP last year, the latter of which is right in line with his career numbers. Surely the team would not have been interested in Oswalt, nor he interested in them, if both parties didn't think the Rockies could contend in 2013. We saw another sign that the Rockies view themselves as contenders last night when they optioned Josh Rutledge to AAA. If the team was staring down the barrel

Someone to Cuttle is a short erotica story by Luna Loupe starring gay cuttlefish shapeshifters. Loupe has written numerous other erotica titles like His Pirate Werewolf Lover, Milked by the Aliens, and The Catgirl and the Tentacle Monster, and all of Loupe’s works are available to purchase from Amazon. Businessman Paul is on a beachside vacation to unwind and enjoy the sun, the sand and the surf – sometimes from below the waves. While scuba diving, he encounters a trio of cuttlefish that turn out to be much more than they seem: they’re shapeshifters, and they want Paul for their own! Warning: 18+ only! Contains partial shifting, hot gay sex, and a cuttlefish shifter gangbang! image via Luna Loupe via Patrick Lucas Austin

Brooklyn mobile app design and development shop Thumb Labs has been acquired — or acqui-hired — by Adobe. Thumb Labs is the group behind the mobile apps for Behance, the design community startup that was bought by Adobe late last year, and Thumb Labs says it specializes in stylish and hip apps for iOS. Details about the price of the acquisition weren’t disclosed. Adobe acquired Behance for close to $150 million, we reported last year. Thumb Labs says in a release: At the end of this month, the Thumb Labs team will begin focusing our mobile talents on a united mission to empower the creative world. Thumb Labs has worked on apps like Bondsy, an iPhone app for buying, selling and trading stuff with your friends. Fast.co.design described it recently as eBay for the Instagram set. The mobile app design purchase is part of Adobe’s vision of using the cloud to empower designers and the design tech community. Adobe has been integrating Behance into its own Creative Cloud community and tool-sharing site that it launched for designers and developers early last year. Designers are officially the rockstars of the tech industry. We’ll be featuring the tech industry’s most innovative and forward-thinking experience designers at our RoadMap event in November in San Francisco (tickets will go on sale this Summer, and sign up here to get first access to them). Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.Social fourth-quarter 2012 analysisThe 2013 task management tools marketThe state of cross-platform media measurement

Apple has confirmed to AllThingsD that this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will kickoff with a keynote address on Monday, June 10th. Apple typically kicks off its WWDCs with keynotes. Apple previously said that it would debut new versions of iOS and OS X at WWDC. The conference runs from June 10th until June 15th. We’re expecting Apple to debut a redesigned iOS 7 with improved in-car integration, more social network connectivity and OS X 10.9 with an improved Finder and power-user features. We will have live coverage from Moscone in San Francisco during the keynote.