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Had a couple of really busy days, whew... working on some analysis tools to extract information out of data, and then writing up the results. I know it sounds dry and clinical but really it has been pretty fun. Just way behind, never enough time. This has been an excellent example of W=UH in action, I went about this one way, it was hard, but workable, and yet felt "wrong", and then I had a good suggestion and went about it another way, it was suddenly easier, and now feels "right".
 The big news of the day is that my daughter Jordan (22) bought a car! Yep, she has her very own spiffy little BMW 320i. Very very nice. It is a welcome addition to the motor pool :) In addition to Jordan wanting her own car and working hard to be able to buy one, the impetus for this was the upcoming change in Alexis' (15) status to a driver. (dum dum dum) Whew. 
Note to self: always buy a car on the last day of the month. Nothing like having a motivated salesperson :)
Old tech rules: I just (re)discovered that I can use IR to sync my Palm smartphone with my laptop! No wires, no bluetooth configuration crap, nothing. Push the button and poof it works. Yay I like it.
Not good: the GDP drops 6.1%. "Economists had predicted a drop of 4.7 percent, and the steep dip could dampen expectations that the pace of economic declines had begun to ebb. The decline was almost as sharp as in the previous quarter, when the economy shrank at a pace of 6.3 percent, its worst drop in a generation." But ... as Ann Althouse notes, it was stimulated.
I happened to watch some of President Obama's '100 days' press conference today, while waiting at the car dealership. He's a great politician, of that there is no doubt. I thought he handled the rather inane questions rather well. Unfortunately he seems to be better at handling the press than managing the economy ... at least so far.
 David Letterman interviews Elon Musk of Tesla. Pretty interesting, but reinforces the general impression I always have of David Letterman, he's a jerk. Seems he's not really interested in his guests, it is all about him. Still Elon did a good job of working in some good information... and the car itself (the prototype sedan) looked beautiful :)
 And so it seems the rumor of the day is the Palm Pixie / EOS / ????, a rumored smaller version of the Palm Pre, sort of a Centro with the WebOS running on it. Excellent, but I want my Pre... please?
Tim O'Reilly: reinventing the book in the age of the web. "But simply putting books onto electronic devices is only the beginning. As I've said for years, that's a lot like pointing a camera at a stage play, and calling it a movie. Yes, that's pretty much what they did in many early movies, but eventually, the tools of production and consumption actually changed the format of what was produced and consumed." Interesting, and quite true I suspect...
 I'm sure you've heard about the great Air Force One photo-op fiasco, in which the plane itself was flown low over New York to get a PR shot of the plane with the Statue of Liberty in the background. You probably had the same thought as Will Campbell, why not just use Photoshop? Save Taxpayers $328,301, Prevent Nationwide WTF!? Yes We Can!
News you can use: how to be a successful evil overlord. My favorite tip, when you have the would-be-hero captured, kill him. Just pull the trigger. Yourself. Then you can laugh... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ...
So, are Microsoft the Detroit of software? Not a nice thing to say, is it, but perhaps true... what was the last thing Microsoft did that was actually cool? [ via Daring Fireball ]
 BTW, if your answer is "Windows 7", read this review of Windows 7 RC 1. I'm not saying it isn't a great advance over Vista, and perhaps I will upgrade from XP to Windows 7 someday, but I don't think it rises to cool.
PS W7RC1 is available right now for your downloading pleasure...
Finally, loved this from Josh Newman, quoting Mario Andretti: "If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." I believe I may be going fast enough :)
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