The Ole filter makes a pass...

So tomorrow the Winter Olympics start!  Fire up your Tivo!  I'm expecting my new Adelphia HD-PVR next Monday, so I'll have to watch the old way over the weekend.  The official website's lead story is Olympic Stadium is ready for the Ceremony, which is good news considering it takes place tomorrow night.  (Whenever I hear "Torino" I think of my Mom's car back when I was a kid, aka the world's biggest station wagon.)  Anyway I'm looking forward to it, especially speed skating, which is one of my favorite sports to watch. 

Matt Haughey notes NBC, the Olympics, and Intel's new Viiv platform.

Today's bonus question: where does the phrase "Olympic Movement" come from?  It sounds like something which might cause plumbing problems :)

Powerline notes: The gentleman from Louisiana is recognized, regarding former Congressman Robert Livingston.  Read it all.  Seems not all politicians from Louisiana are clueless. 

My favorite take on the Cartoon Wars comes from Dilbert Scott Adams: Cartoonist or Puppet Master.  "I always thought it was unfair that diplomats had diplomatic immunity.  They can run over you with their car several times a day while saying the equivalent of 'neener neener' in their own language.  And it’s all perfectly legal.  As a cartoonist, I have the power to fight back.  The next time I see an ambassador double parking, I will mumble to myself 'Say goodbye to your embassy.'" 

Daniel Dennett has a new book out, called Breaking the Spell.  Subtitle: "Religion as a Natural Phenomenon".  You know what that means (you have to read it :)  I've one-clicked it, stay tuned for a review.  Dennett is one of my very favorite authors. 

Speaking of my favorite authors, Geoffrey Moore posted his Top Ten Myths about Business Innovation.  Consider #3: "It is good to innovate.  No, it is good to differentiate on an attribute that drives customer preference during buying decisions.  Innovating elsewhere costs money and entails risk but does not create competitive advantage." 

So, have you tried Songbird yet?  "Songbird is a Web player built from Firefox's browser engine."  [ found via Xeni Jardin ]  Pretty darn cool; essentially, an open-source version of iTunes.  Although I must say I downloaded it, installed it, ran it, and then I was like "now what"?  It is a front-end for a whole bunch of music websites, but it doesn't have it's own content.  So the interface is not uniform.  It will be interesting to watch this play out... 

Some of you may be using Google Desktop Search, which is a Google Toolbar function that indexes your hard drive.  When you perform a search, Google delivers results from your hard drive as well as results from the web.  Okay as far as it goes, but recently Google has taken this further.  They now have a function described as “search across computers”.  This means the index is uploaded to Google’s servers, so they can deliver results to you from computer A even if you are located at computer B.  I don’t know about you, but I do not want Google to upload anything about my stuff to their computers.  Sure, they are doing it just to help me, sure they are.  Until the dust settles on this new feature and the ‘net has a chance to figure out the implications, I suggest people do not enable this feature.  In fact, I really suggest that instead of trusting big companies like Google or Microsoft with desktop search, you use a simple little utility like X1.  I just don’t trust these big companies, seems like the temptation to do evil things with your data is too strong. 

[ Later: The EFF agrees with me:  "Coming on the heels of serious consumer concern about government snooping into Google's search logs, it's shocking that Google expects its users to now trust it with the contents of their personal computers". ]

SpaceX did a "wet dress" yesterday, and things did not go perfectly.  Another is scheduled for today, but they missed their launch window.  Elon Musk notes: "Once we have thoroughly checked out all systems, I will post an update on what was found and when the next countdown attempt will occur. Based on range availability and logistics constraints, a rough guess would be two to four weeks."  I guess the third time wasn't a charm, this time... 

Jeff Atwood: The Day Performance Didn't Matter Any More.  "Clearly, the performance penalty for interpreted languages is extreme.  How extreme?  If you have to ask, you probably can't afford it."  Right.  This is why Photoshop isn't written in Python.  Or Aperio's ImageServer :) 

I'm actually really enjoying my new archive.  It is simple, it works, and (gasp!) it is useful, which the old calendar-based one never was.  I find myself using it to find stuff instead of using Search...