Well, it was cold here today - brrr... - but not as cold in Green Bay or Foxboro, where neither of the teams I was rooting for won.  So be it.  At least Shirley's chili was delicious :)  Meanwhile I also spent the day wrapped around the axle on a coding project, dug a big hole, filled it, and have now declared failure.  Sigh.

This gives me an excuse to link Paul Graham's excellent article: Holding a Program in One's Head.  "A good programmer working intensively on his own code can hold it in his mind the way a mathematician holds a problem he's working on."  Exactly.  He goes on to list the eight things you can do to help keep a program in your head, including my favorite: start small.  I violated this today, and paid the price. 

In the course of reactivating hotlink redirection (!), I found the picture at right of the world's tallest building being erected in Dubai.  You really have to click through to enlarge; this is an amazing structure!  It dwarfs the surrounding buildings, which are also huge and brand new.  Looks like something from a science fiction movie. 

{ Yes, I have reactivated hotlink redirection; hotlinks to images on this site now display this little badge.  I am happy to share images, but I am not happy to host them! } 

At least I'm not as mean as this guy; he figured out how to sign off MySpace users when they hotlinked to images on his site.  Of course those kids have no idea what they're doing; they don't understand hotlinking, or why they shouldn't do it, and they surely won't understand why they keep getting signed off every time they reload their page...

About a year ago I bought an AppleTV; at the time I was pretty excited about being able to watch movies I had already downloaded (from "somewhere"), and less excited about being able to buy movies from the iTunes store.  In the intervening year I have used it some - mostly as a music server for parties - but that original vision of being able to watch downloaded movies wasn't realized.  However now that I've found Visual Hub, I'm happily using it as I originally intended.  The other night Shirley and I watched A Good Year (which is a good movie, by the way, featuring Russell Crowe, a beautiful vineyard in Provence, and the wonderful Marion Cotillard).  I'm happily transcoding all my movies from MPEG4 (Divx/Xvid/whatever) to Quicktime (H.264).  More downloading / watching will ensue, I am sure... 

Related; the Macalope writes about that $20 upgrade.  I have an iPod Touch, so this applies to me...  "You can't argue that Apple shouldn't charge for the update.  It's too late.  You do have some recourse, however.  If you think $20 is too much, don't buy the upgrade."  Exactly!  [ via Daring Fireball ] 

And some good news: Slipstream scores Giro invite.  Excellent.  Let's hope they get invited to the Tour and the Vuelta also; that would give us a U.S. Pro team to root for this summer!  Go Argyle...