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A few quick notes after a long day, long night, and too much good wine... ZZZzzz...
 I liked this little article in the LATimes about Westlake Village. "A master-planned community centered on a man-made lake, Conejo Valley's Westlake Village backs up to the scrub-topped hills of the Santa Monica Mountains. Family friendly to the max, main thoroughfares here are broad avenues with roomy bike lanes where the sporty life is found around every curve." That's why we live here! 
 BIG NEWS! SpaceX have successfully placed a satellite into orbit (click image at right for video). Wow. Congratulations to them; this is one small launch for SpaceX, on huge step for commercial spaceflight. And just two days before the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 (our first manned flight to the moon)!
Have you been following the Sotomayer confirmation hearings? I haven't really; I regard them as a formality, she's going to be confirmed, and really these hearings are just an opportunity for senators to transmit hot air, but apparently she has been rewriting history a bit: Sotomayer's nose grows longer. I don't know why it is so controversial that people with different backgrounds judge differently because of that... although I'm glad to see her asserting the importance of law over opinion. Personally I'm in favor of conservative judges, where "conservative" in this context means they interpret law rather than make it...
Interesting: the WSJ reports Bankers are suddenly smitten with small IPOs.
An important analysis: Why France still makes the world's best wines. Personally I think the premise here is flawed; France make great wines, no question, but so do California, Italy, Spain, Australia, Chile, etc. - there is no "best". I had a Gainey Pinot Noir from Santa Rita Hills, California tonight, and I would put it against the finest Burgundies.
Henry Blodget thinks Bing will bomb. "The heart of Microsoft's problem here: Search isn't broken. The reason almost 70% of folks use Google is that most folks like Google and most folks are used to Google." I think that's right, and I'm actually surprised it is only 70%. I am an early adopter and try every new search engine, but unless I had a compelling reason to switch I'd still use Google for everyday work.
Speaking of massive market share: Apple press release trumpets 1.5B app downloads in first year. "'The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality,' said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. 'With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.'" Yep, the network effect is fully under way. Congratulations to Apple, the iPhone is to smartphones as the iPod was to MP3 players.
 Check out this awesome clock, using OLED technology. I want one!
 ZooBorn of the day: a little Koala hitches a ride. Unlike some species pretty much all Koalas are cute, but you have to admit the little ones are cuter :)
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