Sean's Blog

Cloud Computing: Are You Ready for Co-Creation?

2010-08-13T08:47:00.000-07:00

Cloud Computing: Are You Ready for Co-Creation?

Oracle sues Google over Java use in Android

2010-08-12T22:48:00.000-07:00

Oracle sues Google over Java use in Android

Charlotte with guitar

2008-04-06T15:00:00.001-07:00

kraftwerk- tour de france

2008-02-05T21:47:00.001-08:00

The Best Football Skills

2008-02-02T21:32:00.001-08:00

Friday's Foaming Rant: Rockin' out

2008-01-13T10:22:00.000-08:00

Friday's Foaming Rant: Rockin' out: "ot afraid it's going to end badly. I'm just afraid it's going to end too"

Revolution 2 track cycling Crash fence

2007-12-21T06:24:00.001-08:00

The Saturday Strangeness

2007-10-27T13:51:00.001-07:00

24. Haunted Roads For Halloween!

Despite London’s congested roads and the daily chorus of thousands of beeping horns, ghosts of the cities roads are in fact sporadic. Look through any catalogue of phantom hitchhikers or ghostly vehicles (for example http://www.roadghosts.com/) and you’ll notice a distinct lack of activity within the capital pertaining to tarmac terrors. Why this is we’ll never know – maybe it’s simply down to the fact that elsewhere in the country, where such spooks are in abundance, there is always the quiet dark lane, the wood enshrouded B-road and other perfect settings for such hauntings.

On Gloucester Drive in Finsbury Park, ghostly children have often been heard running up and down the street. Highgate’s very own ‘vampire’ has company, as in the village there have also been reports of a phantom cyclist. Meanwhile at East Heath Road, in northwest London, a grinning old gent has been seen.

However, the eeriest of London’s road-associated ghosts haunt Enfield, Stanmore and the Blackwall Tunnel.

At Enfield, a witch, rumoured to have been executed in 1622, is said to prowl Hadley Road on misty nights. Also as sinister is the Bell Lane black coach, last seen in November 1961 as it drifted off the ground!

In Stanmore, a ghostly wind is said to swirl along Honeypot Lane, whilst on the A41 during October 1985, a motorist claimed to have hit a man walking his dog. Both bodies hit the bonnet but were nowhere to be seen upon investigation.

The Blackwall Tunnel is haunted by a phantom accident as well as a hitchhiker who may well have been a motorcylist who died during an accident in the ‘70s.

US Navy covering up swastika barracks

2007-09-29T17:35:00.000-07:00

Seen here is a Google Earth image of US Navy barracks in Coronado, California. The US Navy has now budgeted $600,000 to cover up the swastika shape through the installation of solar panels and various landscape modifications. They were encouraged to do the modifications by several parties, including US Rep Susan Davis, Anti-Defamation League regional director Morris Casuto, and radio talk show host Dave vonKleist.

Navy officials say the shape of the buildings, designed by local architect John Mock, was not noted until after the groundbreaking in 1967 -- and since it was not visible from the ground, a decision was made not to make any changes...

"I don't ascribe any intentionally evil motives to this," Casuto said, referring to the design. "It just happened. The Navy has been very good about recognizing the problem. The issue is over."

Link (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)

CyleSport on the Death of Disco

2007-09-29T17:11:00.000-07:00

Unbeknownst to many, I don't actually get to read everything written in the English language on the sport of Cycling, so if I missed this in other outlets, just ignore this post (yet again) and move along...

But I want to give some props to Lionel Birnie & co. at Cycle Sport for a rather thorough and cogent analysis in this month's mag of why the Discovery Channel/Tailwind folks really decided to pull up the stakes and get on with B-school or starting blogs or whatever "pursuing other interests" is supposed to mean. As I understood it, the official position was that they could have continued but for unexplained reasons decided not to. Obviously nobody believed that, and the real reasons were assumed to be lack of sponsors or something about doping.

The real truth now seems like a complexity of all of the above, and goes something like this:

Cycling is a mess right now, so sponsors are already a tad nervous about investing in the sport.

Discovery/USPS have been the subject of rampant suspicion but no real black eyes. Still, they were very successful at a time when everyone else was doping, so you can draw your own conclusions.

ASO were not fond of the Disco juggernaut and have gone out of their way in the last couple years to paint Lance in an unfavorable light. They were also fully prepared to block the team from trotting out Ivan Basso this July.

The Basso signing is roundly considered the team's downfall, or the single biggest impetus for it. From that moment on, Discovery were on bad terms with the entire rest of the peloton and branded themselves as old-style, win-at-all-costs pariahs.

Given all of this, plus ASO's new-found freedom from the Pro Tour structure, they were by no means guaranteed an invite to the 2008 Tour de France. The idea of excluding Contador's team is outrageous, but not beyond ASO.

All of this taken together -- bad image, murky prospects, huge expenses -- means that they couldn't find a sponsor.

There's an interview with Sean Yates where he admits as much, as well as a clip of Bruyneel saying the same thing to a Belgian paper, despite the official position that sponsors were waiting in the wings. But even still, there's room for elaboration: they couldn't find a sponsor before the date in August where the Tailwind guys got fed up with/exhausted from all the bullshit (in their eyes), so they gave up.

Part of the disconnect seems to be that Discovery feel unfairly singled out... and in Cycling, singling out anyone from the last decade is kind of silly. That said, one cannot understate the fallout from the Basso affair: Bruyneel supposedly spoke loudly for Basso's exclusion from the 2006 Tour based on the Operacion Puerto link... but then, at the earliest opportunity, signed him on as their grand tour captain. Discovery argue that there's no sin in trying to win, but such rank opportunism turned out to be really bad for business in the end. More than the hypocrisy, Discovery broke ranks with teams trying to send a very different message at that time... this may actually be what hurt their fellow teams and riders most of all.

Anyway, it's all a good read and I tip my cap to them for good, canny journalism.

Cancellara...Look familiar?

2007-09-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

Your winner and still world time trial champion, Tony Montana! I mean, Fabian Cancellara! I haven't watched the coverage yet, but he was apparently comfortably in front from the get-go, a true patron performance to cap a glorious year. His 52-second win represented the largest gap between any two consecutive finishers on the entire leaderboard, and a crushing end to the race. As late as the final 31km time check his lead was a narrow 22 seconds.

Time trials aren't always made-for-TV excitement, but Cancellara's prologue in London was pulsating, and his win on the road two days later, in the maillot jaune, will be one of 2007's truly lasting images. He also held serve at home in the Swiss Championships and Tour de Suiss ITTs, while otherwise focusing on the cobbled classics. Cancellara certainly still has mountains to climb in his career, most notably the Tour of Flanders, where he showed solid form this year but somewhat impatient tactics. But when he dons the rainbow jersey he rides with true class, and another year of such displays is something to look for

Fellow local cyclist designs Slipstream Cycling team jersey

2007-09-29T16:52:00.000-07:00

September 27, 2007 - SLIPSTREAM SPORTS LLC ANNOUNCES "GET IN THE SLIPSTREAM" WINNER

Joe Yule of Redondo Beach, California, Named Official Designer of the Slipstream/Chipotle 2008 Team Jersey

Las Vegas, NV - September 27, 2007 - The fans have spoken and Joe Yule, a graphic designer and avid cyclist from Redondo Beach, California, has been selected as the winner of the "Get in the Slipstream" contest, sponsored by Slipstream Sports LLC and its chief venture, the Slipstream/ Chipotle Professional Cycling Team. The first-of-its-kind contest invited fans to submit design ideas for the official 2008 Team Slipstream/Chipotle jersey.

Full press release link and Jersey after the jump...

Full Release

UK police using hovering camera for surveillance

2007-09-22T13:57:00.000-07:00

Police in Britain are conducting trials on a small battery-powered, radio-controlled helicopter called the Microdrone that comes with a camera and a loudspeaker. The manufacturer's demonstration video points out that the copter works as a peeping tom device. (Not that the police would ever misuse it.)

It's battery powered, so it's quieter -- apparently at 350 feet it is rarely noticed from the ground -- but more limited in terms of performance. Although it might seem flimsy, the video shows how stable it is in flight. It is said to be quite rugged and can return to base even if it loses two of its four rotor blades. One unusual feature is a speaker so that police can give instructions to those on the ground.
The video ... contains some footage shot from a Microdrone, which gives an impressive display of its powers. Zooming in on a sunbather in a bikini as a demonstration is not likely to allay fears about how intrusive this technology might be. And the ability to hover outside a window and peer in is one which is equally open to use and abuse.

Link

All Other Countries Have Inferior Potassium

2007-09-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

Remember how Kazakhstan invited Sascha Cochen to visit, to show the actor how the country actually was? Or how they blocked access to his website because they felt the Borat character was so unrealistic? Well, someone apparently forgot to pass the “Kazakhstan is not backward” memo along to the sports ministry, as now the Kazakh cycling federation is claiming that Kashechkin has tested negative. In what test this result came about was not mentioned explicitly.

While Team Astana’s spokesperson shrugged cluelessly, Nikolai Proskurin, Kazakh cycling federation president, claimed, while never specifying how, that the tests of Kashechkin were “erroneous”, that Kashechkin is currently preparing his defense, and that Andreas Kloden has no intention of quitting the Astana Team. In fact, the German will be co-leading Astana at next month’s Vuelta a Espana, which, as luck would have it, the team has been re-invited to. High five! Proskurin concluded the interview by noting that all other countries have inferior potassium.

Returning to reality for a moment, the people who actually carry out dope tests have admitted that maybe there’s a little room for tweaking how the ProTour works after all. It’s a good plan, as some prefabbed ProTour races (such as the currently running ENECO Tour) are struggling to draw fans and competitors alike, though Tyler Ferrar’s 4th place in today’s prologue won’t hurt American audiences. As he’s only 3 seconds out of the lead, let’s not forget, the American is a solid sprinter.

As the roads should be...

2007-08-08T21:42:00.002-07:00

I can only dream

Getting back

2007-08-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it's been a few weeks since I have updated this. Since my last blog post we have had the Tour de France, which went a big sideways with the UCI not showing any leadership. I feel bad for T-Mobile; Sinkewitz you tosser! All kinds of alternative podium finishes were possible if you try to imagine what would have unfolded if Rasmussen was banned before the start, Michael Rogers had not dislocated his shoulder and Evans, Contador and Leipheimer did not have to expend so much energy trying to escape from Rasumussen on the climbs. In any case, well done to the Discovery boys though; not sure yet who will be sponsoring them next year though. Looking forward to seeing Slipstream racing on the continent. Hopefully they will get a wild card into next years Tour.

Also went to see David Beckham's debut with the LA Galaxy against Chelsea. David ~ I'm an Eastender living in LA too, give me a call :))

Of course the footy season (English Premier League) starts next weekend too. Come on you Spurs (Tottenham Hotspur for the non-Brits). Spent 40 million quid this summer so we are expecting a finish above 5th this year.

The Police @ The Staples Center - 6/20/07

2007-06-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

After a twenty four year hiatus, the gentlemen of The Police brought forth their inimitably singular sound, serenading a record-breaking crowd at the Staples Center last night with over 20,000 people in attendance.

Sting, looking like a buff and affable Malcolm Mcdowell, was not the egomaniac many expected to see on stage. Rather, he was vital and focused and seemed at ease. Andy, transfixed and charmingly intent, didn't smile at all, but Stewie, with his gloves and jingly chimes, beamed from ear to shining ear.

Their performance was nothing like the comedy of errors Copeland described on his blog. Minus a few minor timing issues, the boys sounded like...boys. Not like old men. Not like a cruise ship flashback act. They sounded like The Police. There were a few moments that bordered on jammy, but largely they played true to form. A brilliant concert....well done......

...this is a picture of Jennifer Aniston taking a picture. I know, major excitement.

SETLIST / The Police @ The Staples Center - 6/20/07
Message In A Bottle
Synchronicity II
Walking on the Moon
Voices Inside My Head
Don't Stand So Close
Driven to Tears
The Bed Is Too Big
Truth Hits Everybody
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Wrapped Around Your Finger
De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
Invisible Sun
Walking In Your Footsteps
Can't Stand Losing You
Roxanne
King of Pain
So Lonely
Every Breath You Take
Next To You

Photos by Lisa Brenner

2007-06-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

free espresso for life

Congratulations, dude!

Seriously, could there have been a better person to win the first Grand Tour of the year? And without a radio, either! I'll bet you a biscotti that all the people at Bianchi are absolutely kicking themselves right now. He also nabbed the ProTour lead and has a nice fifty point buffer between him and Rebellin.

What a badass.

2007-06-06T16:51:00.000-07:00

Soho Square, London - Timewarp

And so over to Soho Square, home of New Media, the Football Association and a strange garden shed. 1927 and 2007.

From this angle, looking eastward, alterations to the square appear minimal. Only the buildings to the extreme left and right have changed. The two plane trees in the foreground have grown, but retain their mutually repulsed angles. The clearest mark of 'progress', aside from the vehicles, is the presence of Centrepoint, almost obscured by trees.

Soho Square was built in the 1680s on land owned by the Earl of St Albans. Most of the surrounding buildings have changed several times, but the gardens are little altered since Victorian times. The famous tool shed at the centre appeared in the 1870s, replacing a statue of Charles II.

Images taken from the Wonderful London Flickr group.

2007-06-06T05:05:00.000-07:00

Sacha Baron Cohen moments on MTV awards

5:41 - Sacha Baron Cohen (looking handsome as ever) berates Will Ferrelll for not calling him after their tender on-set moment in Talladega Nights. He pulls Will Ferrell in for a long, shameless lip-lock that leaves them both rolling on the floor like fictional teenagers in a fictional meadow.

6:07 - Sacha Baron Cohen announces that unfortunately Borat couldn't be here because the pressures of being a celebrity have taken a toll on him and he's entered rehab. "He crashed his car into Jewtown," SBC explains. "He was caught driving drunk on fermented horse urine. Also, he had more than the legal limit of roofies in his car. And he actually went on a chat show and made pro-Jewish remarks." SBC thanks the crowd and finishes his speech with, "I can still taste Will on my lips!"

2007-06-06T04:52:00.000-07:00

Bloomberg On JFK Plot: "Stop Worrying, Get A Life"

Ethan Korngold says: "Finally, a politician with a reasonable view of the true risk of terrorism relative to all of the other risks in the world. Refreshing, indeed."

"On Monday, Bloomberg finally weighed in, but his response was not what some would have expected.
"There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life," he said.
That "What, me worry?" attitude pretty much sums up Bloomberg's advice to New Yorkers on the terror plot. As far as he was concerned, the professionals were on it, so New Yorkers shouldn't let it tax their brains.
"You have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist," he added."

Link

2007-06-04T19:05:00.000-07:00

The Best Current Music Artists

My tastes in music are varied. Tastes vary from Dance/Techno to Rock to Classical. The genre of particular interest these days contains artists usually dropped in the "alternative" category (whatever that means). Strangely, these artists are currently all receiving a lot of air-time and chart success.

Here are my favourite 'alternative' artists (alphabetical):
The All-American Rejects
Black Eyed Peas
Blink-182
Bowling for Soup
Coldplay
The Dandy Warhols
Death Cab for Cutie
Duncan Sheik
Fall Out Boy
Foo Fighters
Goo Goo Dolls
Green Day
I-94
Jesse McCartney
Keane
The Killers
Lilly Allen
My Chemical Romance
Relient k
Rihanna
Robbie Williams
Ryan Cabrera
Sean Paul
Semisonic
Snow Patrol
Sugarcult
The Vines
Yellowcard
The Idan Raichel Project

2007-06-03T20:34:00.000-07:00

Bests and Worsts of the Giro d'Italia

As Ghisallo notes below, this year's Giro was a smash hit in Italy. I'm guessing a few of us here would agree as well. So while it may take some work to figure out what didn't go over well, the only challenge to listing the good parts is not forgetting anything.

Let's start small:

Five Things to Love About the 90th Giro d'Italia

The sprints. There was just about everything you could ask for in the sprinter's program. We were treated to Alessandro Petacchi's emotional comeback, and yet rarely were the sprints as dull as that previous sentence might have implied. Petacchi won five stages, but between his wins were some crazy finales, including the spectacular curves of stage 5 (won by Förster), the crashes on stages 2 and 11, and so forth. Other stages featured great straight-up competition, including Danilo Napolitano's two-day burst of speed which saw him win in Petacchi's hometown. And artful touches, like stage 7's finish on the F-1 track at Mugello, and stage 8's conclusion at the legendary Ferrari test track.
The Scenery. The early and transitional stages are usually a chance to tune out the long race for a day or so, but there were few such chances this year. The start in Sardinia was upstaged only slightly by the turn around the Amalfi Coast, a site beautiful enough to make the UNESCO list. Warm-up climbs to Montevergine and Santuario Nostra Signora Della Guardia were beautiful as well. And of course, the Alps and Dolomite stages were postcard-ready too, as usual.
An impeccably balanced parcours. From day 1 possession of the maglia rosa was contested. OK, there were a few days off around stage 6-9, but the opening team time trial got things started, and the absolutely brilliant Montevergine stage succeeded in drawing out the competition on day 4. And while everyone knew where the biggest challenges lay, the Tre Cime and Zoncolan stages did NOT overshadow the latter half of the race: stages 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17 and 20 all mattered.
The maglia blanca. Often a grand tour will showcase an up-and-coming young talent, but rarely are we treated to talents as young and impressive as Andy Schleck and Riccardo Riccò. Schleck was nearly impervious to the pressure and the demands of either the attention, the competition, and the course. He showed great form on the climbs and time trials alike. Riccò, for his part, could use some ITT practice, but his transition from Classics ace to grand tour climbing stud thrilled the home crowd. Schleck may be bound for France in future years, but Riccò looks like a future maglia rosa for sure.
The Winner. Much will be written about Danilo DiLuca's brilliant Giro, but for me, nothing is more significant than this:

Di Luca, from the region of Abruzzo, became the first of the Giro's 64 Italian winners come from south of Tuscany.

The first rider south of Tuscany? There are a lot of Italians south of Tuscany, not to mention some 70% of the land mass, and it took 90 years for one of them to win. This is big.

Thanks Podium Cafe

2007-06-03T20:32:00.001-07:00

Tour de France Wild Card Drama

Well, it is now official. Unibet, the Claytons ProTour squad (that’s the ProTour licence you pay for when you are not really getting a ProTour licence), will be sitting out this year’s Tour de France.

It is the announcement that nearly every cycling observer has expected and the one that the Unibet Cycling Team has feared most.

On their official race website, Tour organiser ASO have announced that the 18 ProTour teams pre-selected in December for July’s race, will be joined by three wild cards, of which Unibet is not one.

The invitations have gone to the Swiss registered, very Kazak Astana team, the French registered and very French Agritubel team and the British registered, South African sponsored, but very Italian team, Barloworld.

The 21 teams will each field 9 riders, giving a total of 189 cyclists making their historic lap of London in the prologue time trial on July 7.

2007-06-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

Riis and Giro

The past few weeks have seemed like the movie Sparticus with some riders. Instead of everyone saying “I’m Sparticus” we have all the former Telekom riders saying “I’m a doper”. The two confessions that were the biggest surprise because of their current roles are Zabel and Riis. Zabel because he is still racing and there might be pressure to leave him off races like the Tour de France and Worlds. For Riis it is not a surprise that he used drugs I would put his ride in the ’97 Tour as equal to VDB’s Liege win in ’99 or the Gewiss team in the ’94 Fleche Wallone (along with some other ’94 races) as performances that were always the most obvious ones to wonder about. The surprise was that he did not confess. He owns and runs the CSC team so it is not like he could be fired, but he risks loosing and not getting new sponsors. He also risks having his team excluded from the big races as well. Never mind that there is no obvious link between the current CSC team and doping, but they could punish them for Riis’s past.

For current racing the Giro has continued to be the best race since the ’05 Giro. Di Luca has been the only consistent in the race, but we have been treated to lots of other good rides. Garzelli, Ricco, Piepoli have all put in exciting rides. Di Luca chasing down Mazzoleni to limit his loses was great racing. So far the only disappointing stage was the Oropa time trial that only confirmed the strength of Di Luca.

I love the finish that the Giro does in Briancon. Up the narrow streets always brings exciting racing. Whenever the Tour de France goes to this city they go the easier way avoiding the narrower roads. Maybe only the walled city of Avila at the Vuelta is a better finishing city.

2007-06-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

Satan Starbucks

I know I shouldn't laugh, but Charles Clover's piece in today's paper regarding the evil Starbucks put a smile on my face.

Too much guilt: are we really what we buy?

Not that I don't agree with him, but it put me in mind of another more notorious critic of the coffee chain: the Reverend Billy, pastor of the Church of Stop Shopping, pictured here being arrested earlier in the year at a Starbucks by the New York Police Department.

The Rev. Billy believes Starbucks to be so evil, he regularly goes about performing 'exorcisms' in them, trying to cleanse those who run and frequent them (well, he is as much performance artist as activist).

A friend of a friend who experienced one such exorcism at a south London Starbucks - complete with a rip-roaring performance by the holy-roller 'Stop Shopping Choir', said it was one of the most extraordinary and wonderful things she had ever seen.

(By the way the Rev Billy will also perform the same service for you on your credit card if you desire).

Anything that makes you laugh and think at the same time can't be bad, but joking apart I wonder whether having to worry about everything from where your morning coffee comes from to the diamond in your engagement ring isn't going to backfire at some point.

How much guilt can one person experience before they tie themselves in knots and give up?

It all used to be so straightforward in my youth: no products from South Africa or Chile and no student at university ever joined Barclay's Bank. Now there are so many things to potentially feel guilty over - the logical conclusion would seem to become a Jainist (the religious people you see in India walking with a cloth over their mouth, lest an insect should fly in and be inadvertently killed).

I am not one given to eco-guilt, but since looking into the details of coffee production, it is something that I think about every morning when I go for caffeine re-fueling after my morning bike ride at the local Starbucks.

Yes, it probably used to be the local baker's shop and is now a big chain, but this coffee shop has also become the hub of our area.

Teenagers can go and meet with friends there, hordes of mums who stay at home looking after their children go for a treat and a chat with mates, to set them up for a day of household duties. Local writers pitch up with lap-tops and at the weekends you'll see plenty of dads taking the kids out, giving mum a well-deserved lie-in.

This isn't to eulogise Starbucks, it's just to say that people are so bombarded with ethical questions these days that I wonder if it isn't all going to become a turn-off, or, whether big businesses will just pay lip service to the demands of consumers by putting labels and certifications on products that have not been thoroughly checked out by independent sources in order to keep people quiet.

I don't feel 'eco-guilt' because I try to do what I can and I also feel that a lot of policy change needs to come from government and big business (although that is not to say there isn't room for improvement by me).

But there is also the wider question of what it actually means to live an 'ethical life', which has nothing to do with responsible consumerism.

My parents passed on to me (and I try to instill the same in my own children) the philosophy of 'do no harm'.

You can try to do no harm to the environment but there is still the question that we are social beings: Are we good neighbours, do we offer to help older people around us? Do we help our family with good grace when they ask? Would our workmates say that we are a generous colleague or team player? Do we give back anything to the community we live in by finding time for even the smallest bit of 'one-off ' voluntary work?

Those are the wider ethical questions I occasionally ask of myself when I'm swigging my 'unethical' coffee.

2007-06-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

How Google Gears Will Change Your Life

The announcement of Google's latest development, Google Gears, was met with a lot of excitement over the last few days -- understandably so. The ability of web applications to work even when off-line is a huge step forward for web software, and even if there aren't a lot of apps that can take advantage of this yet, the beta release of Gears signals big changes in coming months.

But how will Google Gears change your online life? In more ways than you might think.

Let me first issue a disclaimer: there's a lot of work that needs to be done on Google Gears, and it will be awhile before enough web apps adopt this feature. It's not going to change the world, but it's a start in a new direction.

How will Gears change things? Here are just a few ways:

Office domination. For the first time, Microsoft's domination over office suite software will be challenged. Google Apps (currently consisting of word processing, spreadsheets, email and calendar) has been out for awhile but hasn't gone anywhere in terms of widespread adoption. The biggest reason: you can't work when you're off-line. With Gears, this changes. Now, Google Docs and Spreadsheets still won't measure up to Word and Excel, but the appeal of being able to access and work on documents from anywhere is a big plus, and Gmail and Gcal are considered by many to be better at what they do than the Microsoft equivalents. It'll be awhile before there's real competition in this field, but Google took a major step toward being a competitor with the release of Gears.

Everything online. For the last few decades, computer users have been reliant on an operating system and hard drive storage on their computer. But with online apps getting better and better, and now with the release of Gears, a user is no longer tied to any operating system or hard drive. You can work on your documents anywhere you have an Internet connection -- and soon, the Internet connection won't be necessary. All you'll need is a browser. Even files can be stored online instead of on your hard drive. Of course, you'll still need an operating system and hard drive, but which one you're using won't matter a bit.

Offline work. This is the obvious one. Those who use online email apps such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail, or any online apps, can currently pretty much only do work while connected to the Internet. But soon you'll be able to do work at any time -- while in the bathroom (assuming you have a laptop), on an airplane, in the remotest areas of the world. This will liberate you from Internet access. Do a load of work somewhere off-line, then go back home or to the office and connect and upload your work.

Down time won't matter. Another obvious one, but this will make a big difference. Many areas have bad Internet connections, with major down time or up-and-down time. That kind of unreliable connection is a major deterrent for people to use online apps, but now it won't matter. Internet's down -- just work off-line until it's back up. Connect, update, and disconnect. This brings serious online computing to a much wider group of people, worldwide.

Disconnected offices. A side effect of the growth of online apps will be an acceleration toward an office-less office. Laptops will become king, as you can do work from anywhere, Internet connection or not, an workers will become liberated from the office. Why do I need to be at my desk, as long as I get my work done? In fact, the lack of an office greatly reduces the cost of running a small business, and those businesses who learn that decentralized, disconnected offices are most efficient will have a competitive edge.

Distraction-free work. This is my personal favorite. Currently, if you use online software such as Google Docs or Gmail to do your work, you have to be connected to the Internet -- which just happens to be the greatest time-waster ever invented. So as you do your work, you've got the constant pull of other Internet sites (beyond the ones needed for productivity), the Siren's call beckoning you at every turn. Eventually, you cave in, and there goes your productivity. With off-line work, you can disconnect from the Internet, only have the apps you need be available off-line, and work without distraction for an hour before connecting and caving in for a little while. Disconnect again for more distraction-free work. Productivity soars, you work less, and soon you're sipping Margaritas on a deserted beach in Baha, work a distant memory.

2007-05-20T19:56:00.000-07:00

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it...Oh, and dream a bit

This quote by Amy Webster could make you more paranoid about riding on the street: "The sound of a car door opening in front of you is similar to the sound of a gun being cocked."

This quote by David Perry makes sense if you have ever had a car door open in front of you: "What do you call a cyclist who doesn't wear a helmet? An organ donor."

As much as I love and promote biking (even in Los Angeles), there is nothing more stressful than riding a bike in the street with parked cars on one side and speeding by cars on the other. It's just not fun on some streets, even those with Class II Paths (bike lane on a street)

The shot above is a nice dream though...

Okay, so that picture is from a Kaiser Permanente commercial. And the title is a quote from Mark Twain in Taming the Bicycle

2007-05-19T18:08:00.000-07:00

Wear helmets!

This is making the rounds.

As a person who has had his brain on the inside of his skull for twenty-five years and who is in no hurry to reverse that dominant physiological paradigm, I'd also like to point out that the title of the article is "Strange but True", not "Strange but True AND a Good Idea!".

As much as people might lean on the above study to feel better about riding without a helmet, I believe this is all the proof needed to justify wearing one (via Bicycles and Icicles).

StreetFilms.org-The Case for Separated Bike Lanes in NYC

2007-05-17T22:59:00.001-07:00

Tour de Cure

2007-05-17T22:58:00.000-07:00

I will be riding 100 miles in the Tour de Cure this weekend. If you would like to sponsor me the please do so at my page on the American Diabetes Association fund raising page.

iTunes cracked

2007-05-17T22:56:00.000-07:00

The current (?) version of iTunes, 7.1.1 has been cracked by the QTFairUse6 project. Now is the time to uncripple your purchased iTunes tracks (especially those brutally expensive, hard-to-rip audiobooks) before Apple spends more engineering dollars to punish you for wanting to "think different," "switch" and otherwise enjoy the stuff you bought from them. Link (via Digg)

Update: Note that this crack is only for Windows -- Mac users are still punished for buying from Apple.

Macaframa SF Track Bike Promo

2007-05-12T13:56:00.001-07:00

Death traps can be graceful, too.

And NO, there will not be any of this in my future. My proximity will not increase my predilection for this type of riding; I can wreck myself just fine on USCF-approved road and CX courses, no need to do it on my morning commute as well.

You, You, You -- you really are special

2007-05-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

This is a very amusing article...and somewhat concerning..

Here is the opening text..written by

By Jeffrey Zaslow
From The Wall Street Journal Online

You, You, You -- you really are special, you are! You've got everything going for you. You're attractive, witty, brilliant. "Gifted" is the word that comes to mind.

Childhood in recent decades has been defined by such stroking -- by parents who see their job as building self-esteem, by soccer coaches who give every player a trophy, by schools that used to name one "student of the month" and these days name 40.

Now, as this greatest generation grows up, the culture of praise is reaching deeply into the adult world. Employers are dishing out kudos to workers for little more than showing up.

2007-05-10T21:38:00.000-07:00

Lost Delivers

How good was "Lost" last night? Damn!

Unlike many of its critics, I was/am happy with this crazy show meandering and wandering and dragging its feet. I don't need to know why The Others are obsessed with babies. I don't bother myself with details such as why the fat guy hasn't lost a pound on that island despite eating better (less greasy, no fast food) and moving around more. And I don't care that we haven't seen a polar bear in years.

I am very satisfied just seeing these interesting characters move around on the screen and weird shit befalls them. Hell, I even like all the new people they bring on board as if this whole thing is just a parade. Seriously, for a show about an island, the amount of people that have ended up with a credit on Lost has got to be nearing 1,000.

Which is why, I think, they need to kill so many people.

The only problem when you do that though is you don't get to answer any of the questions that those who want answers keep demanding.

Which is part of the beautiful mystery of the Lost "plot", and one of the reasons I like it so much. You seriously never know what is going to happen from one episode to the next.

And if you haven't yet seen last night's episode, go watch it on ABC.com because after the jump I'm going to get into some spoilers that will spoil part of the goodness that went down.

Everything was great last night.

We learned about creepy Ben and how he got on the island and what his parents were like and why everyone bows down to him.

We learned about how The Others began their rule on the island, and what happened to the Dharma Initiative peeps.

We learned about the dead guy with the beer cans in the back of the VW.

And we got to see Locke be the badass that we love. He beat the crap outta eye patch guy, he showed Ben up in front of The Others, and he marched right into the lair of one of the scariest semi-invisible creatures we've seen so far, Jacob.

And then we see him get shot!

But if he actually dies, how will we learn how it was that he was no longer paralyzed?

However, Ben alluded to the fact that Jacob still could "save" Locke, which I'm not so sure I want to see. Because if he is a god the way Ben is presenting him as being - a pissed off, bitter, lo-fi god, then why can't he stop the new moms from dying and why can't he cure Ben's spine?

Fie on you, Superheroes and your limitations!

Television Without Pity has an interesting take:

Turns out that Craphole Island really is the Land of Bad Dads. (Do I see a Disneyland ride in the future?) Ben's craptastic father was so awful that he turned Ben away from the peacenik lovey-dovey ways of the Dharma Initiative and towards the dark side of Otherdom. Ben's chosen path was chockfull of evil doings: he not only killed his Bad Dad (remember Roger? The dead guy with all the beer?), but was actively involved in the Purge of the Dharma Initiative off the Island. The nasty hostiles, lead by a hirsute Richard, gassed those hippies right good! To top off his campaign to be most evil shrimp ever, Ben admits that he lied about being born on the Island and then shoots Locke in the stomach leaving him to die in the mass grave where they left the woebegone Dharma Initiates. Did I mention that he had a Bad Dad who didn't love him enough?

I just want to see more from Ben's daughter now.

Because we haven't learned to love enough characters yet.

Photos via ABC.com

2007-05-10T21:34:00.000-07:00

Yetti LA

The Yeti boots are rebelling against me. They have mutated, grown wheels, and are preparing to take over Los Angeles. Take cover people. This is your warning.

2007-05-10T19:38:00.000-07:00

Il Giro v. Le Tour

OK, everyone knows Le Tour de France is now and will always be THE race of races. But that doesn't mean we can't find ways to compare No. 2 to No. 1 and see who comes out ahead in other, less meaningful ways. Also, below is a partial list of comparisons; I invite all others to add to the list and make verdicts.

Since things are getting crowded on the main page I'll do this on the Flip:

Competition: Campionissimi v. Galacticos

The only serious note on this post... so the Pro Tour hasn't exactly saved the Giro from the intramural scrum it has been for a decade or two? Once upon a time Tour heroes like Indurain and Hinault and LeMond came to Italy to win. But while the Giro will always fall just short, the comparison could be closer... if Italy weren't producing so many great cyclists. Face it: home teams have big advantages in grand tours, and Italy almost always fields a formidable home team... while French racers have made the Tour available to any foreigner who wishes. If you're Joe International Cyclist, do you want to go take on all of Italy, or wait til July to duke it out with a select handful of outsiders?

Verdict: Le Tour... for now.

Aesthetics: Pink or Yellow?

Kind of a hobson's choice. But the pink has grown on me, and actually looks kinda cool with just about any Pro Tour kit that isn't red.

Verdict: Il Giro

Wine: Chianti or Bordeaux?

As a grandson of Italy, I've tried for a long time to like Italian wine. Ain't happening. Yes, everyone can gin up a nice bottle now and then, but speaking in broad brushstrokes, there's a reason they wrap Italian wines in straw. But don't ask me what it is. Anyway...

Verdict: Le Tour

Crowds: The Nation or the World?

Nobody can top the Tour for crowd size, enthusiasm (albeit largely imported from across the Spanish border), and drunks. The Giro's crowds are smaller and more manageable, though I'm confident it has its share of drunks. Italians are said to harbor the most love for their race... Still, Le Tour has given the world the sport's most intense fan-images, where riders count on the sea of flesh parting just in time to let them turn the pedals again.

Verdict: Le Tour

Scenery: Pyrenees or Dolomites?

The Tour has its monuments, but it also insists on long, flat stages across Normandy, Bordeaux, and the North with nuthin much going on. This may be overly subjective, but almost every inch of Italy looks interesting to me. Look at this year: Sardinia, Salerno (Napoli), Tivoli (Rome), Tuscany, the Riviera... and that's all before the mountain stages. Also, seeing them racing on roads cut through towering snowbanks is awfully dramatic. This year's edition will be non-stop postcards.

Verdict: Il Giro

Randomness: Nature vs. Nurture

Well, the Giro is occasionally undone by foul weather beyond the likes of what the Tour would ever experience. French audiences, however, have a knack for making things interesting, blocking the road, punching Merckx in the kidney, stuff like that. And there's no Italian equivalent of riders sitting down in protest, a decadal event in Le Tour.

Verdict: Le Tour

2007-05-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

Cycling Media by some numbers

What is the size of the US cycling market. Here's the results of some googling:

Number of USCF license holders as of 1997: 30,000

USA cycling currently claims 58,000 members on its web site:

Recognized by the U.S. Olympic Committee and the Union Cycliste Internationale, USA Cycling promotes American cycling through its 58,000 members and 2,000 annual events.

Bicycling magazine claimed a circulation of 340,000 in 1989:

James McCullagh, editor and publisher of Bicycling, said the acquisition would increase his magazine's circulation to at least 340,000, from 310,000, after eliminating duplicate subscribers.

I've also seen circulation stats of 400,000 (Sports Illustrated is about 3.2M, Golf Digest is 1.5M)

AMERICANS BUY BIKES
More than 20 million new bikes were sold in 2000, a record high. Throughout the 1990s, sales averaged more than 16 million bikes per year, including more than 11 million adult bicycles. The bicycle industry generated sales totaling $5.89 billion in 2000. More than 5,400 specialty bicycle dealers and 1,000 companies are involved in the manufacture, distribution, and sales of bicycles in the United States.

How many hard-core fans of the sport are out there in the USA?

My wild-ass-guess is that it's far short of the 300,000 numbers of Bicycling magazine. Maybe on the order of the USCF membership, somewhere between 30-50,000. A total WAG at how much cash the hardcore cyclists invest in their equipment each year. Assume the average is $1000, and the population is divided up into a normal distribution.

30000 Hard Core US Cyclists

3930 Spend 0-500 per year $982,500

10230 Spend 500-1000 per year $7,672,500

10230 spend 1000-1500 per year $12,787,500

3930 spend 1500-2000 per year $6,877,500

Total $28,320,000

Some sanity checks on dollar figures above: So if the high end folks buy a higher end machine @ $5K a pop only 1200 are sold a year? That seems way low!

Holy Shit

Armstrong's seven Tour de France victories between 1999 and 2005 added jet fuel to the bike boom. In 2000 there were 145,000 high-end road bikes -- averaging about $1,100 -- sold across the country, they made up just 4 percent of the total number of bikes sold and accounted for 11 percent of the retail dollars spent, according to Jay Townley, a bicycle market analyst in Wisconsin.

Dayum, that's $159M clams if 145,000 can be believed.

VS 2006 Tour de France Ratings

Live viewership improved 77 percent from the day before. Overall gross total viewers--the addition of OLN's multiple airings on the day's events--gave the network 1.3 million viewers, some 50 percent higher than the first 19-day average of 809,000 for the event. For the rest of the weekend, OLN made significant viewers gains versus earlier parts of the race. For example, its live telecasts on the final weekend rose 85 percent to 622,000 from the weekend before. All major male demo ratings also climbed significantly--men ages 18-34 were up 93 percent; men 18-49 rose 90 percent; and men 25-54 were 98 percent higher.

2007-05-09T22:28:00.000-07:00

Microwave popcorn is the new asbestos

Diacetyl, the buttery-flavored chemical used in microwave popcorn, may be banned in California by 2010. The fumes from it cause terrible lung-disease in people who work around it.

Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (D) has introduced a bill to ban diacetyl use by 2010. The chemical is an artificial butter flavoring most commonly used in microwave popcorn. Numerous study have found links between the chemical used by flavor workers and a rare disease called bronchiolitis obliterans. For those of you who aren’t 2000 yr old Romans, that means that the bronchioles and some of the smaller bronchi are obliterated by masses made up of fiberous tissue. It’s like sticking marbles into the networks of tubes in your lung that connect fresh air to the alveoli, the little sacs where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged with the blood. As you Romans can imagine, that’s haud sanus. According to the WaPo, flavoring manufacturers have paid out more than $100 million due to health lawsuits. An excellent case study and background to this whole mess can be found at Defending Science.

Link

2007-05-09T22:24:00.000-07:00

Disney World as a Google Map:

A Walt Disney World enthusiast has placed every ride, shop and restaurant in the park onto a Google Maps mashup! Link (via The Disney Blog)

2007-03-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

Is track cycling Britain's biggest Olympic hope?

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say there's been a revolution in British cycling; track cycling.

GB won only three golds at major championships during the 1990s. Yet since the Millennium, they have won 15 golds.

There are five main reasons for this:

1) the advent of lottery funding in the late 1990s
2) the building of the Manchester velodrome
3) excellent leadership from Peter Keen and then Dave Brailsford
4) a superb structure
5) top-class coaches and support staff

Things are so good that an official from British Cycling told the BBC they expect to win five gold medals at Beijing 2008, with an outside chance of a further five.

Credit to BBC

2007-02-24T17:03:00.000-08:00

Pics from around the world

[image via Pictures from the Sky]

2007-02-24T16:48:00.000-08:00

Interactive copyright navigator

Cory Doctorow:
Here is a cool interactive Copyright Navigator that goes through the fundamentals of U.S. Copyright Law." This is a pretty intuitive way fo exploring what copyright does and doesn't do. Link (Thanks, Sarahfenix!)

2007-02-22T19:44:00.000-08:00

W.W.G.W.B.D.? flow chart

This chart nicely sums up the Bush presidency. Link (Via Why, That's Delightful!)

2007-02-20T20:35:00.000-08:00

On-Demand Harvard Courses: Click, View and Learn

If you have some spare time, why not put it to good use?

Harvard University has dozens of online courses that you can view on demand. It's literally as simple as making a selection and clicking through. You obviously can't get any credits for taking these courses but if you want to brush up on a topic or really fine tune your knowledge, this is the place to go.

Here is a summary of the Spring 2007 online offerings. Not included here is the Fall 2006 course guide, which is still listed on their site.

Computer Science (15 courses) - Linux, Unix, Java, Web Development, Nanobiotechnology...

Liberal Arts and Sciences (33 courses) - Intermediate French lessons, Statistics, Metaphysics...

Management (4 courses) - Accounting, Decision Making, Marketing

Harvard Distance Education

2007-02-20T20:34:00.000-08:00

Beckhams Are Looking At Madonna's Mansion

David and Victoria Beckham have reportedly approached pop star Madonna about buying her Beverly Hills compound.

The British soccer star and the former Spice Girl have recently been on a whirlwind house-hunting spree in Los Angeles.

Beckham, who has signed a five-year deal with the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team that's potentially worth $250 million, is hoping to spend under $20 million for their new home.

The Beckhams' agent, Barry Peele, of Sotheby's International Realty, refused to comment on reports the couple has spoken to Madonna about buying her property, saying he had signed "a lengthy confidentiality agreement".

The celebrity couple reportedly saw 20 homes during their last trip and are looking at properties in the $18-30 million range in Los Angeles' Westside.

Kurt Rappaport of real estate firm Westside Estate Agency tells the Los Angeles Times, "They'll be away three weeks. There will be more homes for them to see when they get back."

2007-02-20T20:28:00.000-08:00

FBI and MPAA train Swedish copyright cops

The MPAA and the FBI have gone to Sweden to train six cops in the art of fighting copyright infringement. Sweden is home to the Bittorrent tracker PirateBay, and is the birthplace of the Pirate Party, an international political movement dedicated to destroying the entertainment industry. The Pirate Party arose in the wake of a raid on the PirateBay's ISP, instigated by a Member of Parliament. The MP acted illegally in ordering the raid, and he did so at the behest of the MPAA and the US State Department.

This US meddling in domestic affairs so outraged Swedes that they sided with the Pirate Party in great numbers, throwing their lot in with local rogues in favor of American bullies.

Apparently, the MPAA hasn't learned its lesson: when you intervene in local politics in Europe, locals see you as an evil representative of American hegemony. It's like they want the pirates to win!

In an effort to help stamp out pesky Swedish pirates, FBI agent Andrew Myers and the MPAA have given a group of six Swedish police officers extensive training on how to effectively combat piracy and catch people who engage in illegal downloading from the internet...

Together, Agent Myers and the MPAA's instruction to this new Swedish anti-piracy unit ranged from rules and regulations governing copyright enforcement and piracy, to examples of anti-piracy initiatives in other countries that have already proven effective. The most shocking revelation is a report of a lecture given by the MPAA in which officers were shown the ins and outs of movie camcording, or "CAM-ing."

When the police were asked about possible conflict of interest by having a private interest group such as the MPAA involved in the training of enforcement personnel, they apparently saw none.

credit Cory Doctorow

2007-02-19T18:03:00.000-08:00

Tim O'Reilly sounds off on Yahoo's new "Pipes" service

Yahoo this week debuted a new service called Pipes. Here's the official description:

Pipes is a hosted service that lets you remix feeds and create new data mashups in a visual programming environment. The name of the service pays tribute to Unix pipes, which let programmers do astonishingly clever things by making it easy to chain simple utilities together on the command line.

Take BoingBoing, for example. You might enjoy one author's work, and find another not to your liking. Pipes provides an easy way to only read specific author(s), and filter out all other posts. Or, if the only subject you're interested in here is Disneyphilia, or ukeleles, or cat macros, or nanotechnology -- or you can't stand any of those, but like other stuff here -- Pipes provides easy ways to filter in or out particular content.

I'm sure other people could come up with far more interesting BoingBoing-related examples, and those are really pretty crude ideas of what this thing's capable of. Here's something else: the most popular Pipe right now is called New York Times through Flickr...

This Pipe takes the New York Times homepage, passes it thru Content Analysis and uses the keywords to find Photos at Flickr.

That's pretty badass.

Reactions from a number of internet-thinkers are very positive. Tim O'Reilly has an extensive post about why he likes Pipes, and he sees it as a manifestation of ideas that have been circulating for some time now:

[It] is a milestone in the history of the internet. It's a service that generalizes the idea of the mashup, providing a drag and drop editor that allows you to connect internet data sources, process them, and redirect the output. Yahoo! describes it as "an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator" that allows you to "create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant." While it's still a bit rough around the edges, it has enormous promise in turning the web into a programmable environment for everyone.
Before I get into the details of what it is and how it works, I want to give a little background on why I'm so excited. This is something I've been waiting nearly ten years for.

Read the whole post here -- it's a good one, and provides much to chew on: Link.

2007-02-19T17:49:00.000-08:00

The Morning After The Night Before - What Went Wrong For Spurs?

The morning after the night before is often a sobering occasion. Why am I chained to a lamppost? Why the f*ck aren’t we in the League Cup Final? That kind of thing.

For the long suffering fans of Tottenham Hotspur, last night was just another chapter in a miserable catalogue of underachievement and disappointment. 20 minutes of scintillating, breathtaking, poetic football thoroughly spoilt by 190 minutes of dogged defending, dodgy tactics and the inability to double-check a team sheet. Only Spurs.

The kneejerk reaction of a minority has already started to call for the head of Martin Jol, something that is as unlikely as it is ridiculous, but the thought that the great man himself might be scratching his head this morning over another heart wrenching derby defeat is worrying to say the least.

This tie should have been out of sight by the end of the 1st leg, perhaps even the 1st half of that game. The so called ‘youth team’ of Arsenal possess a great deal of talent yet their limited experience should have been punished in front of a White Hart Lane crowd baying for blood after Julio Baptista scored the first of his unorthodox hattrick last Wednesday. They should have been buried by a side keen to show that they would not tolerate facing a second XI in a domestic cup semi final.

Instead, we put the brakes on, a tactical switch that would prove all the more costly considering our two attacking focal points, Lennon and Berbatov, would play no further part in the 2nd leg. It should be abundantly clear that, when fielding an inexperienced side that had already proved themselves in reaching a semi final, Wenger’s brief would be that they had nothing to lose. “Go get those goals back”.

The advantage was lost pitifully and very rarely has a draw tasted so authentically like the bitterest of defeats. Baptista got his 2nd and 3rd goals of the evening, Spurs groaned and Arsenal sang. And when that happens, it really must be going their way.

Yesterday began even better than most ‘big game’ days. ‘Sheringham heading back to Spurs’ read the tabloids, along with 3 or 4 promising names that had been mooted for several weeks. Had we known at the time that none would have signed by the stroke of midnight, it might have been translated as an inadvertent message from the cruel red top hacks that it would have been better off staying in bed.

No Lennon, no pace. No Berba, no physical presence upfront. No attacking changes until a goal down, no ambition. Even passion, surely inherent during a cup semi against your local rivals was lacking from so many of the players. Are Jermain Defoe and Jermaine Jenas REALLY as upset as the fans this morning? I hate to say that I don’t think they are.

What Tottenham need is a battler, an Edgar Davids minus a few thousand miles. Nolan, Barton, even Savage, all wear their heart on their sleeve, run for ninety minutes and, perhaps most importantly, aren’t shirt swapping and hugging their local rivals after losing a cup semi final. And that’s why they are so adored by their fans and so despised by the opposition: they want to win.

All is not lost for THFC and this defeat will be nothing more than a minor blip should our cup form continue and the final victory of the season takes place at Wembley or Hampden Park. But if the current incumbents of that famous white shirt aren’t motivated for a game like Wednesday then it could all be a little too familiar when the silverware is handed out in May.

2007-02-19T15:03:00.000-08:00

An American hero is dead

A great American passed away at the weekend. A man who shaped the way this nation conducts itself, symbolises what it stands for and provided an essential tool for living that, on average, each US household has four of.

Ah the remote control...where would we be without it?

Without him, Americans would be a few pounds lighter, some marriages might have lasted longer and those old coins stuck down the sofa would have remained undiscovered, along with dog hair and peanuts from Christmases long ago. I am talking, of course, of Robert Adler, inventor of the television remote control, who flipped channels for the last time in a nursing home in Boise, Idaho at the age of 93.

There is no truth in the rumour his remains were lost somewhere in the couch or that he was cremated and his ashes immediately misplaced. Millions of couch potatoes hit the mute button for a few moments of solemn remembrance. Books called "TV and the Remote Control: Grazing on a Vast Wasteland" and "Remote Control: A Sensible Approach to Kids, TV, and the New Electronic Media" had already examined his legacy.

But really, Bruce Springsteen's "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)" () told us all we needed to know. Except that it's about 300 channels now, Bruce. Adler himself didn't fully enter into the spirit of the thing and continued to be an avid hiker and skier. "First and foremost, I hardly ever turn the TV on," he said in a 1996 interview. "And I certainly never channel surf." His wife said: "He was more of a reader."

On another occasion, he remarked: ""People ask me all the time -- 'Don't you feel guilty for it?' And I say that's ridiculous," he said. "It seems reasonable and rational to control the TV from where you normally sit and watch television."

This seems to me to be the same kind of approach taken by Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of that other gadget that defined the 20th Century - the AK-47 - who shrugs when asked if he feels responsible for the war and death his weapon has been associated with.

Has a remote control ever killed anyone, I ask you say? I seem to remember a story about an obese woman who had to have a remote surgically removed from a fold in her stomach which had grown over it after it got stuck in there. Or perhaps this was an urban myth (aka urban legend).

I'd be surprised if there hadn't been a murder or two over custody of the remote. I know my wife has contemplated it at least a couple of times. But none of this takes away from Mr Adler's contribution to the American Dream - the God-given right to sit around doing sod all but watching crap television and getting fat.

Credit: Telegraph

2007-02-19T09:45:00.000-08:00

Google Mashup Mania

I absolutely adore stuff like this! It's a google maps mash-up of handy sites in Los Angeles from Google Maps Mania. You can find the latest real-time traffic jams, where the closest vegetarian restaurant is, what clubs to hit in your area and what's going on with the LA Police, Fire Fighters and 911. There's also a Beer Map, a guide to all the Starbucks sites (heads up Markland!) and a big listing of Real Estate data. Fun stuff!

11 great Google Maps Mashups to get you started..

Real-time LA Emergency events - Real-time map of Police, Fire and 911 Events
My California Traffic: LA - Shows real-time traffic conditions on all LA area freeways. To get started, select Los Angeles from the list
Track inbound flights to LAX - Real-time flight tracker for all inbound flights to LAX
LA Weather Mashup - Current conditions, forecasts, weather cams. Lots of weather info for LA
LA Starbucks Map - Map of all LA Starbucks locations.. Search for Los Angeles, CA to get started!
LA Life - A great LA Real Estate resource with things like home info, community safety and school data to help you out
Trulia LA - Currently mapping 1180 LA properties for sale with an fantastic user interface
LA Beer Map - Find brewpubs, breweries, beer bars, beer stores and homebrew stores in LA
LA FastFood Map - Mapping every McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Wendy's, KFC, Jack in the Box, Hardee's, Carl's Jr. and In-N-Out in LA
Wikimapia LA - Describes hundreds of locations throughout the LA area. Take a look and add your own locations!
Sightseeing with Google Satellite Maps: LA - Scroll down through the list to see a great list of LA points of interest and landmarks zoomed in on a Google satellite map.

Now for the entire list..

Housing & Real Estate:

LA Life - A great LA Real Estate mashup with things like home info, community safety and school data

RentSlicer LA - Rental property statistics for the Los Angeles area

Trulia LA - Currently mapping 1180 LA properties with an awesome user interface

LA Apartment Ratings - 679 Apartments mapped and rated

HomePriceRecords - See recent homes sold by specific address. Search any LA address

HomePriceMaps - Mapping LA MLS listings sale prices

Neighboroo - Zoom in and click on areas of LA to learn about housing, schools, safety, health etc.. for specific LA communities

HousingMaps - The first Google Maps mashup ever mashes up Craigslist housing listings and Google Maps. (Search for LA)

Food and Restaurants:

MenuRequest LA - Mapping menus and restaurants by cuisine and community

MenuMap - Choose the type of restaurant you want to map out and be sure to select LA neighborhood from the list

LA FastFood Map - Mapping every McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Wendy's, KFC, Jack in the Box, Hardee's, Carl's Jr. and In-N-Out in LA

LA Taco Map - Maps Taco places and a whole lot more!

RealFood Finder LA - (Zoom into LA).. Find restaurants, cafes and delis with organic menus or markets, grocery stores and farms with sustainable produce, meat, and specialty products.

LA Eats with Maps - displaying 84 LA restaurants

HappyCow LA - LA vegetarian vegetarian dining and shopping guide

Transit and Transportation:

My California Traffic: LA - Shows real-time traffic conditions on all LA area freeways. To get started, select Los Angeles from the list

Track inbound flights to LAX - You must know the flight number. Works for other US cities as well

Google Transit Planner: Burbank, Orange County

Los Angeles Airport Parking - Map lots near LAX

Los Angeles Red Light Cameras Map - Shows location and associated fine

LA Gas Prices - Search for your location or just key in Los Angeles to get started.

Beer, Wine and Nightlife

Dr. Vino's LA Wine Shops - Only the best shops are listed

LA Beer Map - Find brewpubs, breweries, beer bars, beer stores and homebrew stores in LA

PartyGPS LA - Bar, Club and Liquor Finder for LA

LA Gay Bar and Club Finder

Living in LA:

Recent LA Police Fire 911 Events

Find a bank in LA

Go golfing in the LA area - Bikely can help also!

Find or map a jogging or running route

Find out the weather

Locate a Starbucks (Search for LA)

Map a USPS mailbox

Map LA zip codes (Enter your zip code or zoom in)

Find a WiFi hotspot

Exploring LA:

Wikimapia LA - Describes hundreds of locations throughout the LA area

GeoNames: LA - Browse LA "geo locations" and Wikipedia articles. (If link doesn't work, zoom into LA on the map)

Placeopedia - Map Wikipedia articles to their location - Search for LA

Platial.com: LA - User created maps for the LA area

Tagzania.com: LA - Shows tagged places for the LA area

CommunityWalk.com: LA - DIY Maps for the LA area

NaviTraveler - Zoom to LA for points of interest

Jotle - Zoom to LA for Wikimapia, Placeopedia, Flickr photos and YouTube videos for the LA area

GeoWalk - Zoom into LA for lots of LA related travel info - Wikipedia articles, hotels, photos, weather etc..

Los Angeles Historical Cultural Monuments - Plotted by location around the city

Hollywood's Hottest Hotels Exposed - HotelChatter maps stories of famous hotels

MovieMappr - Find out what hotels were shot, where.. (Search for LA)

LA Priceline Hotel Map

Jargol's LA Shopping Guide - Described as "A map of the coolest independent shops in Los Angeles"

Check "Living in LA" section for more useful mashups for your trip to LA!

LA Photos and Satellite Views:

Loc.aliz.us: LA Photo Map

Panoramio: LA Photo Map

Sightseeing with Google Satellite Maps: LA - Scroll down through the list and check out LA points of interest and landmarks linked for you on a Google satellite Map

GoogleSightseeing.com Stories and comments about LA landmarks - LA Convention Center, LA Zoo, The Getty Center, LA Coliseum, Dodger Stadium, Griffith Observatory

2007-02-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

Democracy Player gets even better

Democracy Player, the killer free Internet TV app, is edging closer to 1.0. The new version fixes a ton of little bugs and cleans up the UI even more. Democracy is like iTunes for Internet TV, without the DRM. Just tell it what channels you like (or pick from a huge menu, or your favorite YouTube or Google Video keywords) and it will download a steady stream of programming with BitTorrent. Democracy uses VLC to play back video, so it doesn't matter whether you're trying to view a QuickTime, WMV, or plain MPEG (or DivX, or FLV, or whatever...) -- it just works. And because Democracy has BitTorrent built it, it's cheap and easy to publish your own Democracy channel -- the more popular your channel gets, the cheaper it is to serve and the faster your fans get your video.

Democracy runs with equal ease on Linux, MacOS and Windows. It's solid, easy to use, and free. (Democracy also has a new Ubuntu repository for fetching binaries of the latest versions)

Refined interface. simpler, smoother, easier to use.
Share menu. New ’share’ menu on each item lets you email a video or post to Video Bomb, del.icio.us, Digg, or Reddit...
Pause / Resume downloads. Long awaited! You can now pause and resume any download or all downloads.
Better BitTorrent support. BitTorrent performance is significantly improved.

2007-02-19T09:26:00.000-08:00

Teacher faces jail time over "accidental porn" in classroom

The Connecticut substitute school teacher who exposed 11 and 12-year-old students to porn in the classroom -- unintentionally, she says, because of malware on an infected PC -- may now go to jail. If her claims are true, she'll be the first American ever jailed for having had the misfortune of being forced to use a buggy school computer, with incompetent or nonexistent tech support from that school's administration despite repeated requests for help.

From the New York Times story excerpted below, it sure sounds like the school administrators bungled the hell out of this one, and are now scapegoating Julie Amero instead of fessing up to their own failure to protect children:

Ms. Amero’s husband, Wes Volle, was emphatic in saying she was clueless about computers and was in over her head once the pop-ups began. Mr. Volle, a graphics designer, accused the school system of sacrificing his wife to deflect attention from its own failure to install effective filters on its computers.
“The computer was infected long before Julie walked into that room,” he said. No other staff members in the southeastern Connecticut district have been charged or are expected to be charged.
During the trial, Robert Hartz, the information services manager for Norwich’s schools, said the computer’s filters that would have blocked such ads were not fully operational, since they had lacked the proper updated information for several weeks.
In an interview, Pam Aubin, superintendent of the Norwich schools, said that Mr. Hartz had ordered an upgrade, but that the supplier had sent it to the wrong e-mail address, using “B” for Bob rather than “R” for Robert in Mr. Hartz’s name.

reg-free NYT Link. Brian Krebs at the Washington Post interviewed Ms. Amero, and has a thorough, updated writeup on the case here: Link

2007-02-19T09:22:00.000-08:00

Google Earth: helpful for evading death squads in Iraq

BBC News Baghdad correspondent Andrew North reports that some people in Iraq are using Google Earth to avoid sectarian violence in Baghdad:

One tip - on the Iraq League site, one of the best known -- is for people to draw up maps of their local area using Google Earth's detailed imagery of Baghdad so they can work out escape routes and routes to block.

2007-02-18T23:06:00.000-08:00

Hijacker beaten and burned by passengers

guy who tried to hijack a plane going from Africa to the Canary Islands was ambushed by flight attendants and passengers (with help from the pilots), had scalding water dashed in his face, and was then pounced on and beaten.

Speaking to the gunman during the hijacking, the pilot realized the man did not speak French. So he used the plane’s public address system to warn the passengers in French of the ploy he was going to try: brake hard upon landing, then speed up abruptly. The idea was to catch the hijacker off balance, and have crew members and men sitting in the front rows of the plane jump on him, the Spanish official said.
The pilot also warned women and children to move to the back of the plane in preparation for the subterfuge, the official said.
It worked. The man was standing in the middle aisle when the pilot carried out his maneuver, and he fell to the floor, dropping one of his two 7mm pistols. Flight attendants then threw boiling water from a coffee machine in his face and at his chest, and some 10 people jumped on the man and beat him, the Spanish official said.

Link

2007-02-18T23:03:00.000-08:00

Financial Times poll on DRM

This is a link to a poll currently taken at the Financial Times of London. It simply asks, 'Should music companies drop DRM?'" Link

New York City Bike Messengers

2007-02-05T19:32:00.001-08:00

Check out this video.
Insane to say the least and so are the bike handling skills.

2006-12-29T17:30:00.000-08:00

Runaway!

This story from Middle East Online is worth a post simply to show the photograph of the British PM scurrying back onto BlairForceOne like he suddenly remembered he left the gas on.

Not only do observers believe the prime minister's stock is damaged at home due to the war in Iraq, they find the conflict and his close alignment with the United States have harmed his reputation in the Middle East. Add to that the lack of specific details about what was discussed to help improve the deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the question could be -- and indeed at one point was -- asked: what was the point of the trip? Blair's office repeatedly stressed that the visit to Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian territories and the United Arab Emirates was for him to assess those countries' views on the Middle East situation.

Can someone buy the Blairs a telephone for Christmas please.

Tony: Hello, is that the Middle East?
Middle East: Yes, who's calling please.
Tony: Ha ha you're so funny. I was wondering how everything was.
Middle East: Well everything's pretty much the same. Fucked.

"Political sources in Jerusalem last night did not attribute any special significance to Blair's visit, and noted that the British leader travels abroad often because of domestic weakness,"

Now you mention it if you look at that photo closely he does seem to have a bit of weakness around the domestics. A telephone and a truss please Santa.

2006-12-29T07:30:00.000-08:00

NYC is waiting...

Sinatra sang it best, New York New York so good they named it twice / New York New York buy your crap there half price.

In case you needed a reminder that the dollar is getting the living shit beat out of it by the mighty pound then just keep your eyes peeled on the tube:

NYC & Company, an official marketing body controlled by New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has taken out an aggressive advertising campaign in London pointing out that the British capital is one of the few cities in the world that makes the Big Apple look cheap... NYC & Co's head of tourism development, Fred Dixon, said: "Brits are probably the savviest travellers in the world - they're keenly aware of the value of their currency. They're very comfortable in New York - the language is the same, there are cultural ties and it's good value."

Now all the Brits need to do is get past the fog and terrorists and ignore that pesky rule about declaring any purchases whose value exceeds £145.

2006-12-27T20:03:00.000-08:00

Old FBI memo: "It's a Wonderful Life" is commie propaganda

FBI documents from 1947 show that government officials once believed the Christmas movie classic "It's a Wonderful Life" was Communist propaganda. About the FBI memo titled "COMMUNIST INFILTRATION OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY," Blogger Will Chen writes,

I love It's a Wonderful Life because it teaches us that family, friendship, and virtue are the true definitions of wealth.

In 1947, however, the FBI considered this anti-consumerist message as subversive Communist propaganda (read original FBI memo).

According to Professor John Noakes of Franklin and Marshall College, the FBI thought Life smeared American values such as wealth and free enterprise while glorifying anti-American values such as the triumph of the common man.

Link. 1947 was the same year in which the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) began investigating suspected Communist influence in Hollywood. This led to the blacklisting of many directors, writers, and other talent. More background on that: Link.

2006-12-12T21:14:00.000-08:00

Bathamatics

Has the London bath become threatened by climate change? It would seem so:

Moves to tackle climate change may spell the end of the bath. A London council is set to introduce planning rules encouraging builders to provide only a shower.

I would have thought a much more fun campaign to preserve water would be to advise Londoners always to take someone into the bath with them.

Will Londoners take this lying down? If this becomes the norm they won't have a choice but to stand up and be loofered.

Estate agents will probably swing this to their advantage as the extra space freed up due to the lack of a bathtub would provide plenty of room for a good sized London bedroom. But more importantly how will this news effect people who blog about bathmats such as Salvadore over on Smaller Than Life?

Will more bathmats be released into the wild for him to document or should we hang on to them for after the bathtime prohibition kicks in? Having one folded over your arm could gain you entry to one of the bathe-easy bars that are sure to spring up across the capital.

Blondes vs Tyres...or tires?

2006-12-03T20:16:00.001-08:00

Approximately 85 years of life in just 40 sec

2006-12-03T19:42:00.001-08:00

2006-12-03T17:16:00.000-08:00

Can Spurs Play In Europe Every Week?

Whoever said this European football lark was difficult was talking a load of old cobblers. Five games into Tottenham’s 2006 European Tour and with five straight wins we’ve finally found the natural home for our style of play.

Unfortunately our natural home seems to be on the continent rather than the bread and butter of the Premiership but if we keep up the fantastic form we’ve displayed in Europe, both home and away, then there aren’t many of the sides who will join us in the last 32 that we should worry about.

The threat of Barcelona dropping down fron the Champion’s League still looms large although, as with any cup competition, if you have aspirations of lifting the trophy then eventually you’ll have to face the very top teams and, still surprisingly for me despite our 100% record, Spurs are right up there with holders Sevilla as one of the UEFA Cup favourites with the football bookies.

After another clean sheet and another Berbatov goal on his old stomping ground all I can say is bring on allcomers, we’ve been so engrossed for seasons in getting that elusive European place that we’ve forgotten what it’s really all about - getting out there and beating the cream of Europe and bringing home that old pot to White Hart Lane where it belongs and who’s to say that 2006/2007 isn’t shaping up to be as good as chance to do that as anyone could possibly have dreamed before a ball was kicked in Prague the other month?

Photo credit: EPL Talk on Flickr

2006-12-03T17:09:00.000-08:00

Even More Adu About Nothing

The will he or won’t he sign for United debate is hotting up as teenager Freddy Adu has just four days left of his trial at Man U to convince Mr Ferguson that he can be a star for the Old Trafford faithful. He has been on a two week trial from D.C United to judge whether he makes the grade for playing at the top level of the Premiership.

So far it seems the teenage sensation has impressed the coaching staff but winning over Sir Alex may prove to be a more arduous task. Adu has been tracked by the Manchester Club since he was 14 years old and it seems that this is the time if they are to make a move to capture his signature. Chelsea have also shown an interest in the Ghanaian born midfielder and a move to Old Trafford could be seen as a coup d’etat for United over their title rivals.

Adu is hailed as a footballing superstar in the Major Soccer League but whether he can transfer his skills to the English game is another question. With the big names such as Sheva failing at Chelsea it begs the question whether players can adapt to the style of play of the Premiership. Adu has said “MLS has been great. I’ve enjoyed my time with D.C. United and I’ve really grown as a professional - but to see a huge change in my abilities I need to go to Europe with all the best players”. It seems Freddy wishes to make a move to Europe and if Man United turn the youngster down then other clubs could be happily waiting in the wings to snatch his signature.

Should Man United take a chance and put pen to paper or will Freddy end up as another “what should have been” contender together with the likes of Veron and Rebrov?

2006-12-03T17:05:00.000-08:00

He’s Got No Hair and We Don’t Care: What The F*ck Was That?

Lee on the ball, right hand edge of the Arsenal area, he beats his man and cross to the near post. Lehman goes to collect, spills, Berbatov…… GGOOOAAALLLL!

That’s how it should have went instead, about an hour into the game and Spurs 2-0 down it went like this

Lee on the ball, right hand edge of the Arsenal area, he beats his man and cross to the near post. Lehman goes to collect, spills and comfortably collects because Berbatov cannot be bothered to even chase in the cross.

It was a feature of today’s humiliating defeat to Arsenal and I feel for any fans that paid their money and made the journey across to the Emirates Stadium to watch the game. There was talk before the game of naughty workers that had hidden Tottenham scarves in the cement when building the Stadium. If it is true, it was the only thing anyone from the white half of North London did to try and win this game.

I am going to be critical but what I saw on TV today was an embarrassment and for the first time in my life, I turned off the TV before the end of the game. I could not watch and I was getting too annoyed. I was literally screaming at the TV, it was as bad as I have seen Tottenham play for a long time. I have no problem with the team getting beat, it is part and parcel of the game, but the lack of effort the eleven that started game but in was unbelievable. The only person that can probably hold his head high was Pascal Chimbonda, I thought he had an OK game but even he was not at his usually best.

Yes, there will be some fans that blame the referee. That is fine, have a go at him, have a go at the assistant linesman but finding a scapegoat does not solve the problem. Below is how I saw it.

1st Goal
Onside or Offside? I am going with onside. I thought Chimbonda was playing him on. However, the blame does not lie with Pascal, it lies squarely on the shoulders of Michael Dawson. He was miles away from Adebayor, I was sitting at home in California and was closer. He jumped out, with Ledley it must be said, not knowing where his full backs were or where the striker was. If it had been flagged offside, it would still have been shocking defending. Also, Robinson should have closed him down a lot quicker. For someone that is regarded as one of the best goalkeepers in the world, he is doing a very good impression of being the opposite.

2nd Goal
Penalty or not a penalty? Not a penalty in my mind and the ref got it wrong. However, again you have to look at the build up. Assou-Ekotto always looks so laid back to me, chewing his gum and wandering around the pitch. Ledley dropped the ball off to him and it should have been up the field, quick as you like. Instead he tried to turn and lost out. Yes, Poll did get the decision wrong and it cost a goal and perhaps 1-0 down at half time we have a chance but it was poor defending.

3rd Goal
I could not tell you. I turned off at about 65 minutes. Why? It was not good for the old heart! I was screaming at Lennon when I turned off the TV. He had just gone down the right wing and lost the ball. If it was me, I would be turning around and chasing the defender down, trying to win it back. This was, after all, a North London derby, wasn’t it? Lennon jumped up and down on the spot in frustration as Arsenal, under no pressure whatsoever, carried the ball clear. It was a joke and I was embarrassed to be watching.

The only positive thing in this game was the fact that Martin Jol looked how I felt. I still think he is the right man for the job and I hope in a couple of years time we will have a really competitive squad that can compete in the league and Europe on a regular basis. Jol is the man to lead us to that and I bet he put a rocket up the arse of each and every player in this game. You could see the look on this face. Yes, he would be disappointed with the ref’s decision but I bet you he was more disappointed with the players. Prem Plus should his reaction to the first goal. He was shaking his head well before the ball went into the back of the net and why? Because Berbatov had gave the ball away far too cheaply. It was typical of the Bulgarian front man. Brilliant one minute, absolutely awful the next.

I think the attitudes in the tunnel showed it was not going to be our day. While Henry chatted to his team mates and gave them a last minute good luck, you could see Dider Zokora walking over to the Arsenal players and shaking hands with them? I looked again, surely not, but yes, shaking hands with them. I know he is friends with Toure but wait till after the game for this kind of thing. It was a joke and something I hope Jol disciplines him about. Ledley did this thing where he turned to the players behind him, clapped his hands and (presumably) said “Come On”. How many players joined him in an “I am up for it” clap? Zero. If you have not got the right attitude before you go on the pitch, you will not have it when you get on.

All in all it was a shocking day at the office. It was joke, an embarrassment and the team were a waste of space. This was billed as the North London derby. One of the best in the world. If only the Tottenham players knew this. I was so disappointed in their effort and I think each and every one of them should give their daily wage to charity because they did not deserve it.

2006-12-01T22:14:00.000-08:00

Facts about Sleep

Since we all understand that sleep can basically make or break you, I've pulled a couple of facts from a study by the National Sleep Research Project:

A new baby typically results in 400-750 hours lost sleep for parents in the first year

REM sleep occurs in bursts totaling about 2 hours a night, usually beginning about 90 minutes after falling asleep. Here is a wikipedia definiation of REM.

Dreams, once thought to occur only during REM sleep, also occur (but to a lesser extent) in non-REM sleep phases. It's possible there may not be a single moment of our sleep when we are actually dreamless.

Seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%.

The "natural alarm clock" which enables some people to wake up more or less when they want to is caused by a burst of the stress hormone adrenocorticotropin. Researchers say this reflects an unconscious anticipation of the stress of waking up.

After five nights of partial sleep deprivation, three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six would when you've slept enough.

Ten per cent of snorers have sleep apnoea, a disorder which causes sufferers to stop breathing up to 300 times a night and significantly increases the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke.

Teenagers need as much sleep as small children (about 10 hrs) while those over 65 need the least of all (about six hours). For the average adult aged 25-55, eight hours is considered optimal

Some studies suggest women need up to an hour's extra sleep a night compared to men, and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible to depression than men.

2006-11-30T21:31:00.000-08:00

Cactus building

Rotterdam's Urban Cactus housing project (UCX Architects) uses ingenious staggered terraces to make huge, sunny spaces, and a building profile that seems to have been parachuted in from 1945's future.

They placed the 98 residential units on 19 floors, using the pattern of outdoor spaces to determine the overall appearance of the project.
The slightly irregular pattern alternates these outdoor spaces to create what are in effect double-height spaces. Each unit then receives more sunlight than a typical stacked composition.

2006-11-29T22:52:00.000-08:00

Winner of “not my job” award

2006-11-29T21:56:00.000-08:00

London Timewarp

This is Holborn Circus. That masterclass in spatial economy, which packs the junction of six major roads into an area the size of a portacabin. I like to think of it as the neutron star of road infrastructure. And you can quote me on that.

The shots here are from around 1920 and 2003. Certain similarities remain, like the fairytale pinnacles of the Prudential Insurance building in the distance, the location of the streetlamps in the centre. And equestrian Prince Albert still raises his hat to salute nearby Victorian engineering marvel Holborn Viaduct. But look at all those cocksure Edwardians, jaywalking round the junction like they haven't a care in the world. They didn't have dedicated crossings back then.

The earlier photo also shows two important and now defunct London retailers. Gamages (on the right, where the awnings are) was one of the great department stores of London, before going out of business in the 1970s. Today, the site is occupied by a newly refurbished (and strangely likeable if you see it in the flesh) Richard Seifert block. On the other side of the road, the impressively glassy Sainsburys HQ has taken the place of Thomas Wallis the drapers, on which the curtains came literally down during a WWII bombing raid. Between the war and the new Millennium, this corner was taken by an absolutely shocking office block, home to the Daily Mirror.

2006-11-29T21:47:00.000-08:00

World's Largest Joint Determined to be Smoked in LA

Stock up on Doritos before New Year's, LA, because there's a man who's planning on rolling and smoking a three foot jay on December 31, which means there are going to be some people with the world's largest case of munchies soon afterwards.

Brett Stone, the brains behind DaBronx News, a website that claims to contain "All the 'dope' on marijuana in the news", recently heard about a group of Dutch pot smokers who had to nix their plans of rolling a joint filled with 17 ounces of weed, because such a spliff would be illegal in Amsterdam.

Because Stone is a card-carrying medical marijuana patient here in California, he realised that he could legally roll and smoke a joint that large right here in LA. And that's just what he plans on doing.

"I thought the world's largest joint would have been a lot larger," Stone was quoted as saying in the Daily Breeze, adding that it would be legal since it would be toked in a place designated for such things. "It will be smoked in a local medical marijuana collective here in L.A."

2006-11-24T14:10:00.000-08:00

One step closer...

At last we know what Jack the Ripper looked like. Probably.

Laura Richards, head of analysis for Scotland Yard's Violent Crime Command, analysed evidence from the case using modern police techniques to form what is claimed to be the most accurate portrait of the Ripper ever put together. She says that the 118-year-old evidence shows he was aged between 25 and 35, stood between 5ft 5ins and 5ft 7ins tall and was of a stocky build.

A break at last. This should be a relief for any prostitutes still working in the 19th century as police finally draw closer to apprehending the fiend. Experts believe that we can expect a resolution to the case sometime soon because now that the police know he had a moustache it will make it easier to spot the 148 year old man in a crowd.

Once this is cleared up police will move onto other pressing cases such as the menace of Spring Heeled Jack. Don’t expect them to get round to your burglary until 2118 though.

2006-11-18T08:40:00.000-08:00

Free Long Distance Calling from Google Maps

Today Google Maps added a very cool feature to their service. Let's say I am in San Fransisco and want a pizza. I quickly search for "pizza" and in addition to their store's information, you see a little "Call" link displayed just after the phone number. See image below.

If you click on "call", you are prompted to enter your phone number. Google will then call you and the pizza guy to connect you together. Oh, and all of this for no charge.

Check it out next time you are in Google Maps.
US Only.

2006-11-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

London's Most-Loaded

Forbes Magazine have just published their list of the world’s richest, including a break-down of the most lined pockets in London. The full article’s worth a read. Did you know London is something of a tax haven for the super-rich? Here’s a run-down of the top five:

1. Laksmi Mittal
Who he? The world’s fifth richest chap. Made a few bob from trading in steel. A magnetic magnate?
Worth? $23.5 billion – with which he could buy enough pints of beer to fill Wembley 1.5 times over. Bet he won’t, though. Boring bastard.

2. Roman Abramovich
Who he? Smarming Chelsea uberlord and alleged love rat. Swimming in oil money. Worth? $18.2 billion…at least until the divorce bills.

=3. Leonard Blavatnik
Who he? Another oily Russian.
Worth? $5 billion.

=3. Charlene de Carvalho-Heinekin
Who she? Beer heiress. Refreshes the boutiques other purses can’t reach.
Worth? $5 billion. Or about a billion four-packs of Heinekin. Now that’s a party.

5. David and Simon Reuben
Who they? Metal traders who keep it in the family. A bit like Steptoe and son, only with a little more success. Also, the only British billionaires in the top five.
Worth? $3.6 billion.

2006-11-16T13:41:00.000-08:00

Want Some Good Free PC Software?

I love to do new and wonderful things twih my PC, but I want to pay zip, nada, zero, zilch and bupkis for the privilege. What are some great free tools that will make my heart sing and my wallet happy?

There's some amazing free software out there, and you can do some amazing free things with it. Here's a few of my faves:

The grandaddy, the winner and champeen of all the Internet browsers: Firefox! It just turned 2.0, and it rocks. Grab it at getfirefox.com -- it loads pages like a weasel on speed, it's safer by far than Internet Explorer and its ActiveX nightmares, and it's beyond customize-able with hundreds of amazing extensions like Adblock and others that let you tune your Internet experience to fit you. The new version 2.0 adds spell-checking in text entry areas, session-saving so you can pick up right where you left off, and some other great enhancements.

Google gives great search, but how about a super-cool photo downloader and album program that's quick like a bunny even with several thousand pictures, lets you do some pretty sophisticated image correction, and create slideshow CDs, e-mail pictures and more? Get Picasa at picasa.com -- it's a great tool for images, it's well-written, easy to use, and free.

Speaking of Google, if you've got a Blackberry, you've got to grab the new Google Maps application -- it's free, it will do mapping and directions, and it's even got live freeway traffic info. If you don't have an unlimited data plan from your cell carrier, this may not be the application for you, but if the thought of bringing up a satellite photo from your phone makes you feel like Jack Bauer, go to http://google.com/gmm with your Blackberry's browser.

There's no excuse for being without up-to-date antivirus software when one of the best programs is free. A trip to http://free.grisoft.com will give you access to a free (for home use only -- businesses, educational institutions and other entities, for profit or otherwise, will need to pony up) antivirus program that's low-footprint, rapidly updated, and far less intrusive than the big boys like Norton and McAfee. Config tip -- turn off "Certify" in the E-mail settings, and you won't get their little ad on every e-mail you send.

2006-11-16T06:50:00.000-08:00

iPod, uPod, airPod

Attention LAXers, BURbankinos, ONTarioids, John Wayne SNAholes and LGBeachettes… !!

Six airlines announced yesterday that they will be adding iPod connections to their fleet of big Tylenols. For those flying the friendly skies on United, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM and Air France you will soon have the power to run and charge your iPod while in flight, as well as watch videos on the seat-back display of the fidgety, sweaty guy in front of you.

And ooh, ouch Microsoft. This announcement came practically in unison with the launch of their much ballyhooed “iPod killer” Zune. Current estimates show Apple as the proud seller of nearly 70 million iPods, and more than 1.5 billion songs through iTunes. In addition, 70+ percent of all new autos sold in the United States this year are expected to have iPod integration.

Naysayer-doomsdayer analysts have “voiced concern that there is limited room for growth in the iPod's market share because it already has more than 75% of the U.S. market for digital music players.” Sounds like someone’s not thinking outside the pod.

Let’s reminisce about what Apple has done so far… They made an iPod with a scroll wheel and a few gigs. Then one with a touch wheel and way more gigs. Then pictures. Then minis. Then nanos. Then smaller nanos. Then video. Then shuffles. Then bigger video. Then smaller shuffles. You get the point.

They will keep making better what you already like, and/or create something new that you’ll love even more. And now, their shiny little devices can jive with your car and your airplanes. Soon, all you’ll have to do is think about what song you want to hear, and it will play in your head. To recharge, just take a nap. And payment? Direct payment from brainwaves to bank account. Nothing short of complete and total assimilation will suffice.

Resistance is futile.

Borat on Jay Leno 9.11.06 - Part 2

2006-11-12T15:16:00.001-08:00

2006-11-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

Backside firework prank backfires

Finally, something to smile about

2006-11-12T13:44:00.000-08:00

Iconic London

A few distinctive London eyefulls have been awarded icon status.

Westminster Abbey, the tube map, red telephone boxes, Wimbledon and the Thames itself have now joined previous London icons Big Ben, Routemasters, Brick Lane, Notting Hill Carnival, The Globe Theatre and The Tower of London.

The full list can be seen here.

The idea is for the icons to develop into a vibrant portrait of England.

The 21 additions, which also include English weather, Iron Bridge and Doctor Who, have been revealed by the government's online Icons project. Officials plan to expand the list to 100 by the end of the year.

This project is funded by Culture Online, part of the Department for Culture, Media, Sport and Stating the Bloody Obvious.

The Dr. Who iconic? I look forward to seeing Black Cabs and Hating the French being added in the next round.

2006-11-12T09:50:00.000-08:00

Recovery set backs

Sitting indoors when you are used to riding 250+ miles a week is tough. Thank god for the Fox Soccer channel and Setanta Sports. Lying down is still a little rough so I spend most of the sleeping hours in a reclining chair.

After a CT scan last Tuesday, it was determined that fluid build up between my right lung and the chest wall needed to be drained off. On Thursday, a litre of fluid was drained. My breathing should have improved significantly after this procedure, but instead declined and I also developed chest pain.

Back to the hospital on Friday. It turns out that the draining procedure resulted in new perforation of my lung. The right lung now being 15% deflated as a result of this separate incident. I can truly do without the hospital inflicting new injuries; I seem to have managed to do that well enough on my own. The doctors had to decide between re-inserting a tube into the lung or just keeping a close eye over the next 24 hours. We elected for the latter. I returned home Friday afternoon and returned again for another chest x-ray on Saturday morning. The results indicate that things are stable. The lung had not deteriorated any further. Back for more chest x-rays on Monday.

2006-10-29T13:56:00.000-08:00

The Imperial History of the Middle East

...in 90 seconds.

Michael J Fox Responds To Rush Limbaughs Lies

2006-10-29T13:10:00.001-08:00

In an exclusive interview with CBS' Katie Couric, Michael J Fox responds to Rush Limbaugh's allegations that he (Fox) deliberately didn't take his medication in order to exaggerate the symptoms of Parkinson's.

2006-10-28T10:33:00.000-07:00

Recovery Trail

Not being able to fly, I was driven back to LA from San Francisco on Thursday morning. Thursday afternoon and all day Friday consisted of multiple x-rays and doctor visits. All the broken bones were confirmed. Lungs seem relatively clear. Fortunately, everything else looks good. Now it all about pain management and healing. It should take about 6 weeks for the breaks to fix themselves, 3 months before feeling like I have fully recovered. Breathing is difficult given the ribs breaks, but that too should improve as the ribs heal.

Thanks for all the help, offers of help and well wishes from colleagues/friends/cycling buddies etc..
I shall be catching up with everyone very soon.

2006-10-25T05:20:00.000-07:00

Bike accident…No car involved?

I now bolster the statistic that shows the majority of bike accidents resulting in hospitalisation are not the result of cars or their drivers.

Whilst I live in the Los Angeles area, I am currently in San Francisco until Thursday 26^th for the Oracle Open World Conference. Like many dedicated bike racers I brought my bike with me; the plan being to get in some early morning scenic miles on either side of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Sunday evening at 4:30 pm, taking a casual ride through the Presidio of San Francisco, descending on a left-hand bend, my wheels got fixed in a narrow depression/groove in the road. Slowing, slowing, still slowing, I ran out of road before being able to pull out of the rut, striking the steel roadside barrier. Even though my speed had been cut, it was not enough to prevent me from being tossed onto the barrier with the right-side of my back / chest striking the top corner of one of the 8 sq inch wooden blocks that support it.

The impact was traumatic. Gasping for air, unable to move, focusing only on remaining conscious, breathing and seeing my kids again, I lay in the ditch hoping the rescue services would be there soon. The car behind me witnessed the entire event and was able to call 911 immediately. Incredibly they arrived within two to three minutes. (Thank you SFFD). Within a frantic few minutes they had taped my head down, secured my neck and back and hauled me out of the ditch and into the back of the ambulance.

A 10-15 minute ride in the back of the ambulance still concentrating on trying to breath in a regular pattern and remaining conscious seemed like it would never end. Having arrived at the San Francisco General Hospital Trauma Unit I was diagnosed (after x-rays and CT scans) with 6 fractured ribs, 2 fractured vertebrae and a collapsed right lung. (Road rash and cuts don’t rank sufficiently to warrant mentioning).

When a lung is punctured it usually sucks in blood or other fluids; in my case both. An surgical procedure to cut through the chest so that a tube could be inserted into my right lung was performed. The tube in fact served two purposes; draining the lung and also facilitating the natural re-inflation of the lung once drainage was complete.

Now as you might imagine, the Trauma Unit in San Francisco is not only a busy place but one that brings in all walks of life. Lying for three hours in the trauma unit corridor as ‘next-in-line” for a CT scan, I was bumped time and again by what seemed like a constant flow of pediatric emergency CT scans. I could not tell what was going on with most of these cases though there was one kid that had been attacked on the back of the head and neck by a dog. Another case involved a patient in chains with two SFPD officers at his side. He had had his lips bitten off during an altercation with a fellow inmate. By far the most common admittance was of motorcyclists being separated from their motorbikes. These patients were usually the loudest as each underwent the removal of grit from their extensive road-rash.

Tuesday evening. I should be at the Elton John concert (apparently Oracle are paying him $6million to play for the conference attendees, of which there are about 50,000), but instead I am being discharged from the hospital to return to my hotel room. The insertion that was made to re-inflate the lung means that I cannot fly for 6 months. So tomorrow we will need to make arrangements for driving my back down to L.A. on Thursday.

Morphine, Percoset, Vocodin ... the wonders of pain medication. Fingers crossed for tonight……and a special thanks to some special people (you know who you are) who have stepped up to help both me and my wife though this unfortunate situation.

2006-10-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

Random Graffito

A lifesize stencil of Jack the Ripper in the heart of his former stomping ground. The stark silhouette managed to scare the bejesus out of some passers-by, hugging the wall of Parliament Court as one approaches from Artillary Passage. The Ripper would have known these alleys well, and commited his most gruesome murder on the next block.

Judging from Flickr, this one's been up since early August, but no one seems to know who's behind it. Whoever stenciled this, it's an excellent example of how graffiti can work with, and add to, the character of an area. Don't you agree?

2006-10-16T19:46:00.000-07:00

Under Bush's law, guilty until confirmed guilty

When President George W. Bush rammed the bill on military commissions through Congress, the Republicans crowed about creating a process that would be tough on terrorists but preserve essential principles of justice. "America can be proud," said Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the bill's architects.

Unfortunately, Graham was wrong. One of the many problems with the new law is that it will only make it harder than it already is to separate the real terrorists from the far larger group of inmates at the American military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who were bit players in the Taliban or innocent bystanders.

Graham and other supporters of this dreadful legislation seem to have forgotten that Amerian justice does not merely deliver swift punishment to the guilty. It also protects the innocent.

Bush ignored that fact after the Sept. 11 attacks, when he tried to put the prisoners of the war on terror beyond the reach of American law and the Geneva Conventions. For starters, he dispensed with one of the vital provisions of the conventions: that prisoners must be screened by a "competent tribunal" if there is any doubt about who they are and what role they played in hostilities.

As a result, hundreds of men captured in Afghanistan and other countries were sent to Guantánamo Bay and other prisons, including the network of illegal CIA detention camps, without any attempt to determine whether they were any sort of combatant, legal or illegal.

The Bush administration showed not the slightest interest in fixing this problem until the Supreme Court said in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld that the president cannot simply lock up anyone - even a foreign citizen - without giving him a real chance to challenge his detention before a "neutral decision maker."

In response, Bush created Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which gave the most cursory possible reviews of the Guantánamo detainees. These reviews took place years after the prisoners were captured. They permitted the use of hearsay evidence, evidence obtained through coercion and even torture, and evidence that was kept secret from the prisoner. The normal burden of proof was reversed: The tribunals presumed prisoners were justifiably detained and the prisoners had the burden of disproving government evidence - presuming they knew what it was in the first place.

The new law makes this mockery of justice stronger. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 makes it virtually impossible to contest a status tribunal's decision. It prohibits claims of habeas corpus - the ancient right of prisoners in just societies to have their detentions reviewed - or any case based directly or indirectly on the Geneva Conventions. Even if an appeal got to the single appeals court now authorized to hear it, the administration would be very likely to argue that it cannot be heard without jeopardizing secrets, as it has done repeatedly.

The new law dangerously expands the definition of illegal enemy combatant and allows Bush - and the secretary of defense - to give to anyone they choose the authority to designate a prisoner as an illegal combatant. It also allows Bush to go on squirreling prisoners away at secret CIA camps where none of the rules apply.

Bush wants Americans to trust him to apply these powers only to truly dangerous men. Even if the American system were based on that sort of personal power and not the rule of law, it would be hard to trust the judgment of a president and an administration whose records are so bad. The United States has yet to acknowledge that it kidnapped an innocent Canadian citizen and sent him to be abused in a Syrian prison. In another case, a German citizen has accused the United States of grabbing him off the streets of Macedonia, drugging him and sending him to Afghanistan, where he was brutally treated. Then there is the Ethiopian living in London who said he was grabbed by American agents and brutalized by Moroccan torturers until he confessed to plotting with Jose Padilla to set off a "dirty bomb." Padilla was never charged with the crime. The Ethiopian remains at Guantánamo Bay.

Republicans who support the new law like to point out that it only covers foreigners. But Americans have never believed that human rights are just for Americans.

The United States is outraged when an authoritarian government jails an American, or one of its own citizens, on trumped-up charges and brings him or her before a phony court. Surely that is not the model that Americans want to follow in their own prisons.

2006-10-14T08:56:00.000-07:00

A Look at Floyd's Case

Hm, I sense another high traffic day coming on. This is getting interesting in a hurry...

I've downloaded the slide show offered by Landis on his website and parsed a few arguments from it. At least from a cursory review of the slideshow, which itself is a cursory review of his case, it looks like he cites the lab for a seemingly unending chain of typos concerning the ID number of the subject rider, making one wonder who exactly was being tested. These aren't to be lightly dismissed, but it seems like there are three bigger points to his case.

On the flip...

First point: The sample was contaminated and therefore unreliable.

Remember: More than 5% means the specimen is contaminated or degraded and should not be used. Just like food with mold or maggots, such a sample should not be used. The table shows the math: 7.7% degraded epitestosterone. According to WADA protocol, since the epitestosterone level exceeds 5% (it is 7.7%) the specimen should not have been evaluated for an adverse analytic finding. It should have stopped here.

Pretty straightforward. Sounds like a decent case right there, at least until we hear from the prosecution.

Point two: there is a huge disparity in test results.

When the sample was screened for T:E ratio, the calculated ratio was 4.4. When the sample was tested to confirm the ratio, it was 11.8.

Hm, 4.4 is itself a problem, I seem to recall, so I'm not sure they want to pin their hopes on this point too much, but the threefold increase suggests some serious inconsistency in what (we're led to assume) should be a very consistent process.

Point three: the Carbon radioisotope test was applied four times, with three negative results.

Considering the criteria for positive (3.0) and stated accuracy of the lab (±0.8) isotope absolute values must be higher than 3.8. Only one of Floyd's four breakdown products examined even arguably met the criteria to determine a positive result.

OK, so here a 3.0 or higher is a positive test, with 0.8 variable, making 3.8 or higher a clear positive. Floyd's four results were 2.02, 3.51, 2.65, and 6.39. The next slide explains that for some reason the 2.65 result was from the application that should be the most reliable. Making the score one positive, one maybe that looks bad, one maybe that looks good (if the variable is 0.8, then you have to score under 2.2 for a definitive negative), and one clear negative. Now, Jacobs' statement that only one result "even arguably" is positive is overblown -- arguably three of them raise concerns, but only one of them is inarguably positive. Conclusion:

[chirp... chirp...]

For all I know the arguments I skipped over here (e.g. the low testosterone conundrum) are actually more powerful, but these three excerpts are fairly simple cases drawn from empirical data, all of which suggest the case against Landis is somewhere between foggy and complete bullshit. I hate to get sucked in by an accused rider, but this is a far cry from a "disappearing twin" hypothesis. I had wanted to tune out the Landis litigation, but that's not possible anymore.

2006-10-13T21:59:00.000-07:00

To fly or not to fly?

Should we still be flying? It’s a loaded question and one that gets some heated responses

Is it frivolous to fly so much?

A few months ago I read a story by TV presenter Nicholas Crane, who gave up flying 10 years ago.

Nicholas was a travel writer for twenty years, which meant he spent the better part of two decades jetting around the world.

But following a particularly harrowing lecture at the Royal Geographical Society on global warming, he decided that his actions were damaging the environment.

Wracked with guilt, he saw only one solution: give up flying.

His article generated a huge response from readers. Some hailed him a hero. Others called him a hypocrite. A few even contested that flying has an impact on climate change at all.

It can’t be denied that carbon emission from airplanes are damaging. A return flight to India, for example, releases around two tons of carbon per passenger.

That’s about the same amount as each Indian produces in two years.

Three per cent of all carbon emissions are attributed to air transport – and although that doesn’t sound like that much, the percentage is likely to soar in the next few decades.

And it’s not just an issue of carbon emissions, either.

There’s the issue of ‘radiative forcing’. This is when plane vapour trails, or contrails, persist for hours in the atmosphere and behave in the same way as high altitude cirrus clouds, which trap warmth in the atmosphere.

So what do we do? The Bishop of London has argued that we have a moral obligation to be environmentally friendly. Jetting away for a holiday, he says, is a sin.

And yet we’re all flying more, thanks in no small part to the low-cost carriers.

In Europe alone, no-frills flights have doubled in the last five years. Perhaps we should be avoiding long-haul destinations and sticking instead to trains and cars and bikes.

Avoiding flying is certainly becoming a more popular notion.

The travel section recently launched a new Going green column, which focuses on European destinations which can easily be visited by train. It seems a sensible option – why fly when you don’t have to?

Alternatively, there are now a number of schemes which let us “off-set” our flight emissions, where you pay a company or charity to plant trees or invest in energy-saving projects in developing countries. This should, in theory, make your flight “carbon neutral”.

2006-10-12T22:47:00.000-07:00

Wham Bam It's Christmas Time!

Puffy haired pop duo Wham are staging a special one-off Christmas gig complete with backing singers Pepsi and Shirlie!

A friend revealed to British newspaper The Sunday Mirror, "George is thrilled that Andrew's agreed to perform. "It was something George had thought about for a long time. He couldn't be happier and can't wait for the gig."

This news comes hot on the heels of reports that BMG will not drop the pop megastar after he was found "slumped in a stupor in his car" last week after a few too many puffs on a big fat doobie.

The label said they supported Michael fully and added, "We'd never tell him what to do...We never bully our artists. If there was a time when record companies did that, it is long gone."

So far so exciting - all we need now is the immortal line - "Ladies and Gentlemen, Mister Elton John!".

I still can't believe people didn't realise he was gay...

2006-10-12T22:43:00.000-07:00

Smoke & Mirrors

The Blitz may have been started entirely by accident, it was claimed yesterday. A Luftwaffe pilot may have kick-started the second Great Fire of London by dumping unused bombs on the East End instead of the English Channel.

During the war, it was common practice on both sides (for reasons of safety) to jettison surplus ammo in the Channel before heading for home. But Captain Rudolph Hellensleben – recommended for the German equivalent of the Victoria Cross, for acts of 'bravery' – may well have dumped his excess payload too soon, secret documents reveal.

The documents list all the Captain's raids including one just days before the Blitz, in which he mistakenly hit civilian targets on London's outskirts. The papers are part of a private collection being auctioned in Shropshire on the 25th of this month.

Directly because of this act of incompetence, Churchill ordered a smattering of bombs to be delivered with his warmest regards to the people of Berlin. A garden shed was apparently damaged in the attack. Hitler, an amateur gardening enthusiast, was incensed and retaliated by withdrawing a previous ruling of his that Central London was not to be targeted.

Capt. Hellensleben also took part in the first (official) London raid on Black Saturday, September the 7th, 1940.

Image culled from Google.

2006-10-12T22:32:00.000-07:00

Floyd Landis Takes His Case to the People

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what the Internet was created for: Floyd Landis, the tainted Tour de France winner, has used his website to post a voluminous defense against doping charges. The material includes:

+ his attorney’s motion for dismissal

+ a “complete World Anti-Doping Agency document package, inclusive of the testing information from Landis’s ‘A’and ‘B’ samples”

+ a PowerPoint presentation including: “the details of the carbon isotope ratio test (CIR), demonstrating that the CIR conducted on Landis’s urine sample does not meet the WADA criteria for a positive doping test … Demonstration of an unacceptable variation in sample testing results … [and] Errors in fundamental testing procedure and protocol”

I haven’t had a chance to look at this material yet, but figured a lot of you might like to know about this. Here are some other articles posted on Landis here and here and here.

2006-10-12T22:17:00.000-07:00

A Photo a Day - How to change your Perspective on ...

This sounds like quite an undertaking but in reality, how long can it take to snap a picture a day? Once you understand the point of this, you can see why I think we're giving this a shot at home (with our kids).

Photojojo shares how a normal guy snapped a picture each day for a year and the memories he now will carry forever. How many little things do you forget about? If you're like me, a ton. In fact, most of the things I forget are those good little moments at home that get lost in the daily grind. I'd like to keep that goodness because next year I may need it to get me out of a slump.

Taking a photo a day is a big undertaking with big payoffs. Here are just a few reasons why you should consider doing it:

Imagine being able to look back at any day of your year and recall what you did, who you met, what you learned… (Often we find it hard to remember what we did just yesterday or even last night, let alone a whole year ago!)

Your year-long photo album will be an amazing way to document your travels and accomplishments, your haircuts and relationships. Time moves surprisingly fast.

Taking a photo a day will make you a better photographer. Using your camera every day will help you learn its limits. You will get better at composing your shots, you’ll start to care about lighting, and you’ll become more creative with your photography when you’re forced to come up with something new every single day.

How to Google from your Cell Phone

A few months back while traveling, I had some time to kill in between meetings. Unfamiliar with the area, I used the Google SMS service to locate a bike store (because I admit to being a bike fanatic). I entered the search on my cell and within 1 minute, I had the address and phone number of 2 high end bike stores in the vicinity.

This morning the Cool Tools site shares how to actually use the service:

The steps (given by Google):
1. Start a new text message and type in your search query
2. Send the message to the number "46645" (GOOGL)
3. You'll receive text message(s) with results

One of the tough things is understanding what to enter and what Google understands. Here is a few samples:

To get business listings:

Enter what you want to find. You can search for either a specific business (Pizza Hut) or a general service (pizza).
Make sure to include both a city and state, or a zip code with your search terms.
If you want to make sure you get local listings, put a period between the business name and the location ('pizza.10013' or 'pottery barn.boston ma')'

To get driving directions, use any of the following combinations as your query:

Address + zip code
Address + city + state
City + state
City (for major metropolis)
Zip code
Airport code (e.g., EWR for Newark Liberty Airport, LAX for Los Angeles Airport)

To get answers:
Sample queries:

population of Japan
Mark Twain's real name
who wrote hamlet

There are a ton of things you can do. If you want to read up on more options, go to Google SMS.
Visit Cool Tools for more, well, Cool Tools.

2006-10-10T21:18:00.000-07:00

The bi-coastal bug

Two and a half years ago I traded New York for Los Angeles - and from time to time I need to reflect on what proper city living is all about.

New York's grit is an antidote to LA's glam

It’s a radical transition – to palm trees from skyscrapers, foot to freeway, seansons to sunshine and non-stop, in-your-face hustle and bustle to selective human contact.

New York is an invigorating place and a great reminder of the infectious buzz the combination of frantic industry, crowds and a spectacular urban setting can create.

For me, New York is normally the geographic halfway point to London. In many ways, of course, it’s far closer to the UK capital, my former home of a decade, than LA.

Both New York and London are cultural hubs brimming with creativity and multifarious experience, oversubscribed and overpriced with signature skylines and majestic landmarks. Both have proper public transport, cold weather and permanent branches of the exclusive members club Soho House.

It’s not surprising many London-to-New York transplants find they are frequently torn between the two.

Los Angeles and New York are much more distant relatives. So much so I always find it puzzling when people declare themselves truly bicoastal, unable to choose just one, with an apartment in both cities and a life split between the two.

Manhattan is compact, a pedestrian’s paradise. Los Angeles is a sea of never-ending development and a hundred different cities, most accessible only by car. Parts of downtown LA yet to receive the developer’s makeover - the fashion district or Broadway – may feel like a movie set built to resemble 1940s New York.

But many of the wealthier enclaves, with their ostentatious mansions, desert vegetation and infinity pools, couldn’t be further from NY’s urban grey. Then there are artsy beach communities of Santa Monica and Venice where the beautiful disco dance on roller-skates or haul themselves into the surf. You don’t see much of that on Park Avenue.

LA is mainly low-rise. The car is king. You don’t think twice before driving 20 miles for dinner and people’s homes are, compared to Manhattan, vast.

In LA, you can climb a vertiginous canyon trail amid lizards and cicadas and feel miles from the city, only to turn a corner and spy shimmering sprawl stretching to the horizon. It can take an hour to travel five miles. There are so many car crashes LA has its own accident lexicon such as ‘the sig alert’: “any unplanned event that causes the closing of one lane of traffic for 30 minutes or more”.

But you can also feel a bit removed from other people. In New York there’s no escaping the density – 10,300 people per square kilometer as opposed to 3,100 – and there’s a different kind of intensity: life in close-up with never-ending shrieking sirens, blaring horns, pavements jam-packed with pedestrians.

Returning to New York t’s nice to forget about driving and just walk or hail a cab and find it actually stops. Energy hums from every street corner, bar, subway station, park. You can’t help but soak it up. Maybe I could catch the bicoastal bug.

2006-10-07T10:52:00.000-07:00

Where Are They Now?

This week, Enron's Andy Fastow was sentenced and WorldCom's Bernie Ebbers reported to jail. Here's our up-to-date tally of what happened to executives at five of the most infamous financial frauds in Corporate America.

The outcome of five major financial-fraud trials
Company	Status	Prison Sentence
WorldCom
Bernard Ebbers, former CEO	Guilty verdict	25 years
Scott Sullivan, former CFO	Pleaded guilty	5 years
David Myers, former controller	Pleaded guilty	1 year, 1 day
Buford Yates, former accounting director	Pleaded guilty	1 year, 1 day
Enron
Kenneth Lay, former chairman	Guilty verdict	Deceased
Jeffrey Skilling, former CEO	Guilty verdict	Due to be sentenced 10/23
Andrew Fastow, former CFO	Pleaded guilty	6 years
Lea Fastow, former treasurer	Pleaded guilty	1 year
Michael Kopper, former managing director	Pleaded guilty	Due to be sentenced 11/03
Adelphia
John J. Rigas, founder	Guilty verdict	15 years
Timothy Rigas, former CFO	Guilty verdict	20 years
Michael Rigas, former executive VP	Not guilty*	—
James R. Brown, former vice president	Pleaded guilty	Awaiting sentencing
Michael C. Mulcahey, former assistant treasurer	Acquitted	—
Tyco
Dennis Kozlowski, former CEO	Guilty verdict	8 to 25 years
Mark Swartz, former CFO	Guilty verdict	8 to 25 years
Mark Belnick, former general counsel	Acquitted	—
HealthSouth
Richard Scrushy, former CEO	Acquitted	—
Malcolm McVay, former CFO	Pleaded guilty	7 days**
Weston Smith, former CFO	Pleaded guilty	2 years, 2 days
William T. Owens, former CFO	Pleaded guilty	5 years
Michael Martin, former CFO	Pleaded guilty	3 years
Aaron Beam Jr., former CFO	Pleaded guilty	3 months
Emery Harris, former assistant controller	Pleaded guilty	5 months
Found not guilty of conspiracy and wire fraud. Will be retried on 15 other charges. *Sentence has been appealed by the federal government and is under review.

2006-10-05T22:37:00.000-07:00

Teens: E-mail is for old people

Is e-mail only for the old? That's the contention of a string of articles published in the last four months, the most recent appearing today in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle says that in a study last ygers preferred new technology, like instant messaging or text messaging, for talking to friendear, "teenas and use e-mail to communicate with 'old people.'" The Mercury News says, "For those of you who have just figured out how to zap spam or manage your inbox, prepare for the bad news: E-mail is, like, so yesterday." And then there's USA Today, which makes the claim that "E-mail is so last millennium."

Those are pretty dramatic statements, and they're based in part on last year's Pew Internet & American life study on teen Internet habits. 87 percent of teenagers in the US now use the Internet, and many of them prefer instant messaging to e-mail. According the report, "Teens who participated in focus groups for this study said that they view e-mail as something you use to talk to 'old people,' institutions, or to send complex instructions to large groups. When it comes to casual written conversation, particularly when talking with friends, online instant messaging is the clearly the mode of choice for today's online teens."

This is a problem for institutions that use e-mail as an official communications tool, since students often miss announcements or deadlines. Unfortunately, IM isn't great for sending out reminders with lots of specifics, such as instructions for registration. What's a college to do?

For some schools, the correct answer is: set up a MySpace page. After all, there's nothing hipper for students than being "friends" with your college registrar or school principal. The intriguing thing about this method of reaching students is that it's most often not "instant" at all; students receive messages when they log in or they visit the school's MySpace pages—the equivalent of using e-mail and a Web portal.

E-mail isn't dying, but it's grown a little sick. comScore Media Metrix found that in April 2006, teen e-mail use was down 8 percent from a year before. Teens are using IM and MySpace for communication with friends, but they haven't abandoned the tool—that's why 89 percent of teens who use the Internet still use e-mail, while only 75 percent use instant messaging.

But they have learned its limitations. One of those limitations is the staggering volume of spam that clogs most inboxes and the aggressive spam filters that make it impossible to know if any particular message got through.

And for those worried that we are raising a generation of children who develop friendships only by staring at their monitors, the Pew report also contains an encouraging word. Teenagers till spend more time interacting face-to-face with friends than they do using technology.

2006-10-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

The future of Europe's military

I thought I would recommend, strongly, a read of a bleak, but fascinating new policy paper on the future of the European military.

Britain is balancing between the EU and Nato

The thing is the work of a newish defence procurement agency for the EU – the European Defence Agency – and you may be less than surprised to learn that having decided the future looks very bleak, the EDA’s solution is lots of harmonised defence procurement and research spending, to be channeled through the, um, EDA.

Leaving aside that fairly typical piece of Brussels self-actualisation (to use the psychiatrists’ term), the paper itself is amazingly blunt about how weak Europe may be in the future.

Its most dramatic prediction is that traditional ideas of “victory” have to be jettisoned in favour of limited, multi-national campaigns to restore “stability” to conflict zones, with the grudging consent of an ageing, ever more casualty-averse European population.

The paper, entitled: “An Initial Long-Term Vision for European Defence Capability and Capacity Needs”, paints a vision of Europe in 20 years time, in which plunging fertility rates leave militaries struggling to recruit young men and women of fighting age, at a time when national budgets will be under unprecedented strain to pay for greying populations.

At the same time, increasingly cautious voters and politicians may be unwilling to contemplate casualties, or “potentially controversial interventions abroad - in particular interventions in regions from where large numbers of immigrants have come.”

Voters will also be insistent on having UN backing for operations, and on crafting large coalitions of EU member states with a heavy involvement of civilian agencies, and not just fighting units, the paper suggests. They will also want military operations to be environmentally friendly, where possible.

All these changes may drive a wedge between the United States and Europe, creating a “characteristically European approach”, which is “different in ambition and character” from a US vision of war-fighting, with for example, a stronger emphasis on “civil-military interoperability”.

This European approach can be “nested within NATO conceptual frameworks and standards”, the paper says, in a nod to the trans-Atlantic alliance which has underpinned European security for decades.

The tone could not be more different from the Bush administration’s talk of fighting for victory in a global war on terror. The paper predicts future European defence and security operations “will be expeditionary, multinational and multi-dimensional, directed at achieving security and stability more than “victory”.”

It gives warning that militaries will have to cope, even more than today, with round the clock media attention.

“In the conduct of war, ever greater attention will be paid to proportion and justification in the application of force, with an increasing tendency to hold individuals responsible for their actions not just at head of state or military commander level but down the command chain. Attention to collateral damage will be ever more acute,” it says.

The paper was drawn up at the invitation of ministers by the EDA, an EU body which exists to push for more common spending and research by different EU defence ministries and industries. Accordingly, the paper’s favoured solution is steady harmonisation of European militaries, ideally using the same equipment, and using intelligence from pooled spy agencies.

“The best form of interoperability for equipments and systems is commonality – using the same kit. This operational perspective matches the defence economic imperative to consolidate the demand side of the European defence equipment market,” the paper says.

It calls for radical cuts to the standing armies of Europe, which currently number two million men and women, though a far smaller number of combat troops. “Approaches include out-sourcing; increased automation (from warships to robots); and reducing superfluous capability (do Europeans between them really need nearly 10.000 main battle tanks, and nearly 3.000 combat aircraft?).”

The overwhelming tone is unremittingly bleak. “The global context is sobering,” it says, predicting a future of demographic and economic decline for Europe, in which EU citizens will have an average age of 45, and will find themselves utterly dependent on the outside world for energy. At the same time, the populations of Africa and the Middle East will be young, crowded into ever larger cities, and bitterly aware of their exclusion from the fruits of globalisation.

America may lose interest in Europe, as well, the paper predicts. “Relatively poorer, older, and more anxious about its security, Europe may also find itself increasingly alone in confronting the problems of a difficult neighbourhood, as the focus of US foreign policy, following economic and geopolitical developments, shifts towards Asia.”

The paper was presented at an informal meeting in Lapland, hosted by Finland, holder of the EU rotating presidency. Ministers endorsed it, but that does not mean they sign up to everything in it. Here is a press release on the ministerial meeting.

Does Britain sign up to this kind of thing? Well, we are happy, I am told, maintaining a balancing act between the EU and the US-led world of Nato. It is too crude a generalization to say Nato is for the wars where people need bombing, and the EU is for the cuddly, hearts and minds stuff, but not by much.

In more formal terms, a Ministry of Defence spokesman told me about the paper: “We see this as a pragmatic view of the future, and an important part of a long term strategic planning process. The UK is comfortable with our position of working with both Nato and the EU.”

2006-10-03T20:47:00.000-07:00

Greasing of Wheels Halts LA Traffic

Well, as if we didn't have enough to be pissed at President Bush for, we come to find him responsible for the hours-long traffic nightmare that's virtually shut down the Westside this evening.

Yes, the most unpopular president since Herbert Hoover, who's treated California as virtually a foreign country for the past six years, came to town to get a little grease poured on his wheels by a few wealthy constituents (the fundraising dinner being at the house of venture capitalist Elliott Broidy, appointed early this year to Homeland Security's Advisory Council).

Broidy's house being in Holmby Hills, naturally the entire 405 is shut down in rolling strips this evening, in both directions, while Sunset Blvd. is completely closed from 4-8 PM from Westwood to the freeway. So as hundreds of thousands sit in gridlock, burning precious gasoline at $3.00 per gallon, it's worth remembering who really owns this country.

We'll breathe a lot easier when the ape has taken his circus and left town. And so will the Governator, who's been running from the freakshow all day.

2006-09-28T21:25:00.001-07:00

CC Cock Up

Big oops regarding the congestion charge:

The London congestion charge regulator has apologised to a motorist after wrongly sending him 31 bills for non-payment followed by a further 34 repeat bills... Mr Timothy, 47, from Brecon, Mid Wales, initially received £2,480 worth of bills and told BBC Radio 4's You And Yours programme the cost had been set to increase if he did not pay up. "It amounts to £4,650 if it's not paid by October 2 or then the bailiffs will come round - you know quite threatening," he said.

The only thing was that the poor bugger hasn't been to London since 1981. Wonder if he was here for the wedding.

TFL have apologised and are sending Mr Timothy some money to make up for the hassle. They should really offer him a trip to the capital to see what he's been missing for the fifteen years.

2006-09-28T14:20:00.000-07:00

Branson's SpaceShipTwo interiors to look amazing

Wired Magazine's NextFest is taking place in NYC this week, and I wish I could be there.

Among the many amazing things at NextFest today: Sir Richard Branson unveiled the concept interior for SpaceShipTwo, the Virgin Galactic spaceliners on which passengers will soon be able to space-vacay with cushy intergalactic recliner seats and lots of big windows looking out on the great beyond.

“It won’t be much different than this,” Branson told reporters here at Wired Magazine’s NextFest forum. “It’s strange to think that in 12 months we’ll be unveiling the actual plane, and then test flights will commence right after that.”
Virgin Galactic’s spaceliners will be specially-outfitted SpaceShipTwo vehicles built by Mojave, California-based Scaled Composites and veteran aerospace designer Burt Rutan. The new spacecraft, designed specifically for space tourism, will be three times the size of Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, which won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for privately-developed piloted spacecraft capable of reaching suborbital space twice in two weeks.

Link to Space.com story. Image: Mock-up interior of SpaceShipTwo. Michael Soluri, for SPACE.com