Wow, the last day of August, already!  Where did the year go? 

Did a great ride this morning; got up at 5:00AM (pronounced "oh-dark-hundred") and proceeded to ride 80 miles, through the Valley, down to the Santa Monica pier, up PCH, climbed Latigo Canyon, and down Decker Canyon.  Nice to do a long ride early, to have a lot of day left afterward, although I was a bit tired.  Sleep seems indicated...

Meanwhile, it's all happening (yawn)...

Today's big news is Hurricane Gustav, of course; the threat to New Orleans, and the consequent postponement / rearrangement of the G.O.P. convention this week.  Noemie Emery analyzes What Gustav Does...  be careful what you wish for, indeed! 

Weirdly, today I had over 4,800 page views!  What could explain such a thing?  No new referring links, no major search engine activity... strange.  The whole world just decided to read my blog today, I guess :)  In other blog-gazing news, this is my 50th post this month, and 319th this year (but who's counting?)  My busiest blogging year since 2003, which was my first.  Interestingly, September has been my least active month of blogging.  We'll see what happens this year - stay tuned! 

An interesting post: the designers have spoken again...  various posters made in response to a design contest to encourage people to vote.  "Good design makes choices clear."  The posters are supposed to embody the reasons why people should vote, and many of them do, pretty nicely. 

Of course people who aren't informed or interested enough to vote should not be encouraged to do so; it just dilutes the votes of those who are informed and are interested...

The MythBuster's Adam Savage has three ways to fix science education.  "When Jamie Hyneman and I speak at teacher conventions, we always draw a grateful crowd. They tell us Thursday mornings are productive because students see us doing hands-on science Wednesday nights on our show MythBusters, and they want to talk about it."  I like his way #1: Let students get their hands dirty! 

This is awesome, NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day is actually a panoramic view taken from the top of Mt. Everest. 
Wow, that's just about all I can say.