It's a Saturday morning, a cold crisp one, and I'm huddled over my Peet's, checking out the world...

So yesterday George Hincapie won another stage in the Tour of California, but Floyd Landis kept his overall lead.  Reading the blow by blow, it sounds like it was an interesting race, with a big climb, a breakaway, and several interesting lead changes.  Today the Tour goes from Santa Barbara into Thousand Oaks, ending up at the Amgen campus.  I'm going to try to watch it - I've never seen a pro bike race in the flesh - stay tuned. 

Wow, this is unbelievable, Cheryl Crow undergoes cancer surgery.  Right after splitting with Lance Armstrong, too.  I sure wish her the best, I guess her prognosis is much better than Lance's was... 

Did you watch Olympic speed skating last night?  Dutchman Bob de Jong put on an amazing performance in the 10,000 meters, winning with a time slightly off the world record, despite Turin's "slow ice".  American Chad Hendrick finished second, and promptly put a skate in his mouth.  "'My heart,'' Hendrick said, tapping his chest with his fingers, 'is bigger than everybody else's out there.'"  Yeah, Chad, that's why you finished second.  "He can say a lot,'' de Jong said.  'He can say America rules.  But today Dutch rules, and he cannot beat me.'''  Hendrick is an embarrassment.  Meanwhile what can we say about De Jong.  You cannot imagine the effort it takes to skate six miles at top speed.  Awesome. 

Malcom Gladwell has a blog!  (He's the author of Tipping Point and Blink, and one of my favorite contributors to the New Yorker.)  "In the past year I have often been asked why I don’t have a blog.  My answer was always that I write so much, already, that I don’t have time to write anything else.  But, as should be obvious, I’ve now changed my mind."  Subscribed! 

So, with all the brains and money behind blogging and RSS and browsers, you'd think there would be a one-click way to subscribe to a new blog's feed, right?  You would think.  And yet, you still have to copy the blog URL from your browser into your RSS reader, hope auto-discovery of the feed URL works, and then manually subscribe.  Clearly there is work to do before RSS reading becomes mainstream. 

Oh, and by the way - how does one "use" OPML?  I kind of understand what it is - a standard XML format for encoding information in hierarchical form, such as blogrolls or reading lists or even blogs' content.  But where is there a simple description of what it is and what it does?  Where is there a simple description of how to use it?  As Dave Winer notes, we have work to do... 

Mark Frauenfelder reports Richard Dawkins hosts UK TV show about religious faith.  Wow, I have to find this online somewhere, how awesome!  (This review of the show makes it sound even better.)  I am reading Daniel Dennett's latest Breaking the Spell right now.  Dawkins and Dennett are probably my two favorite philosophers. 

Wired notes Earth hurtles toward 6.5 billion.  "The planet's population is projected to reach 6.5 billion at 7:16 p.m. EST Saturday, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and its World Population Clock."  Ominously and in support of Unnatural Selection, "The highest population growth rates emanate disproportionately from the poorest regions of Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent."  Yes, rich countries are making it possible for poor countries to increase their population.  The effect of this is already being felt, and the trend is not positive.  Sigh. 

Finally, there's a new  SpaceX launch update.  "The tentative launch window for the maiden flight of Falcon 1 is March 20 through 25.  The gating items are receiving a shipment of liquid oxygen (LOX) from Hawaii and switching out the 2nd stage tank."  So be it, marking my calendar... 

The picture at right is of the "static fire" performed the day before the last attempted launch date.  This is where the whole countdown proceeds as if for launch, all the way up to starting the engines.  After the last one they learned some things and delayed the launch, let's hope fourth time's a charm.

CollegiateTimes writes Simplicity key for Musk's rocket science.  "'I said I wanted to take a large fortune and make it a small one, so I started a rocket business...   the ultimate goal is to make life multi-planetary.'"  Elon is amazing.