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Monday, March 17, 2008 07:38 PM >>>


Sunday,  03/16/08  08:33 AM

Wow, took a bit of a blog holiday there, didn't I...  Just busy, I guess.  Yesterday began with a great ride (60 miles, through Hidden Valley, down Potrero to Point Mugu, blasting down PCH to Malibu with a tailwind, up Mulholland, down Decker), then I helped prepare for Shirley's ALCV auction, and finally took Alex to the Oak Christian Father Daughter dance, which was rather wonderful.  Actually the dinner beforehand at P6 with five other Dads and Daughters was fantastic (and featured Fiddlestix Pinot Noir, just about my favorite wine right now).  I know, too much detail, but that's what happened...

Meanwhile in the blogosphere...

Gerard Vanderleun pounds the nail through the wood with The Pitch*.  "Obama: Yeah. You could run for President as a woman who is not really a woman, except when you cry, and I could run for President as a black man who is not really a black man, except when I go to church. Democrats would buy it. They really would. They're Democrats!"  Man does that ring true.  I must tell you, this stuff about Obama's preacher is damaging, the Democrats had a bad week.  More and more people all over the country are saying "yeah, I don't like Bush, but do I really want four years of this?"  Meanwhile McCain is in Iraq... 

So I missed PI day (3/14), or at least I didn't blog about it; should have made a post at 1:59, huh?  Hope yours was, er, well rounded...  This always brings to mind the story - not an urban myth - that in the state of Illinois PI is officially 3.  They couldn't deal with the imprecision, so they passed a law to nail it down.  While the practicality of that is admirable, it, uh, didn't work. 

Speaking of bad science, this excellent chart shows bad science in movies.  You can see at a glance which movies have sound in space, easy communication with aliens, faster than light travel, etc.  Very handy. 

And here's some good science: Teen's cancer study wins Intel prize.  "A 17-year-old high school student from North Carolina has won the 2008 Intel Science Talent Search for developing a genetic method that predicts the likelihood of relapse in early-stage colon cancer patients."  How excellent! 

Check these out: awesome aerial pictures of islands, from National Geographic.  Pictured at left is Bora-Bora, which has to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. 

In reply to my note about Googling meatspace, Josh Newman emailed this link: the Robot exclusion principle.  I love it! 

I have to declare, I am completely immune to the charms of social networking software.  I read about Facebook this and MySpace that, (and Bebo, WTF?), and whatever, and it is all a giant "don't care" to me.  Am I unique in this?  I know there are billions of people who use Facebook and MySpace, and I suppose they love it and get a lot out of it.  So be it.  There used to be billions of people in AOL chat rooms (for all I know there still are?) and I was immune to the charms of that, too.