This morning I had my annual physical, and you will be happy to hear I am disgustingly fit. Yay. Yet another benefit of being at 180 :) Later in the day I had a nice ride (although man, it is cold out here; 55o is not California riding weather; with rain predicted for the remainder of this week we'll have actual winter weather at Thanksgiving). Oh, and I had my teeth cleaned. In between I did a little coding and a lot of emailing. So passes another day.
And meanwhile, the blogosphere continues to discuss, well, everything...
 John Battelle linked an interesting speech by Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, on 2009. His take is more optimistic than most, and also more informed; besides his day job he is one of Barack Obama's economic advisors. By all means check it out. 
BTW, When Eric talks he seems really smart. Like Steve Jobs. (And unlike Bill Gates; I still maintain Gates is overrated as a really smart guy.)
The Economist wonders: Can Barack Obama and Tom Daschle fix American health care? "Tom Daschle, former senator for South Dakota, is to get the job of secretary for health and human services. This looks like a pretty shrewd pick, and the fact that it is the first cabinet job to be sort-of-announced is an indication that Barack Obama is in deadly earnest about one of his main campaign promises: comprehensive health-care reform. It would be hard to find anyone better placed than Mr Daschle to get the job done, if anyone can." Good luck! It will be doubly hard with the present economy...
So, should Barack Obama go to church? Of all the things he's dealing with, this seems among the least important. It would be good to have a President who isn't religious, or at least, who doesn't appear to make decisions based on his religion.
Anatomy of a meltdown: John Cassidy on Ben Bernanke and the financial crisis. A really interesting article about Ben and the current situation, and how it all came to pass.
According to Boing Boing, Nasim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan (which I'm reading right now), feels this economy could be worse than the Great Depression. Oh great.
 SpaceX successfully tested their 9-engine cluster, the Falcon 9. Yay. Kimbal Musk, Elon's brother, posted a video of the test firing...
 One of my favorite mysteries: The Sliding Rocks of Racetrack Playa. They aren't moved by people, so how does it happen? Some of these rocks weight hundreds of pounds. My vote is ... a combination of moisture and cold that lubricates the playa, and wind. But who knows?
Robert Scoble: Obsessing about new news. A nice overview of all the different mechanisms now available for receiving input... Twitter, FriendFeed, etc. I still favor RSS, but I can remember when I thought RSS was weird and useless, so I may yet find the light. Stay tuned :)
I find it interesting that so many bloggers are trying to find business models for Twitter: Dave Winer, Tim O'Reilly, and Steve Gilmor all weigh in. There seems to be a there there, but what it is remains elusive...
 The other day I reported that Floyd Landis will be riding again this year, with the OUCH team... but apparently he is not done in court, and "has challenged the ruling of the international Court of Arbitration for Sport that stripped him of the 2006 Tour de France title in U.S. Federal court, charging that the system for resolving doping cases is inherently biased against the accused." So in addition to overcoming his hip replacement and two years off from competition, he'll also continue fighting the cycling establishment. Go Floyd!
John Patrick on the demise of PC Magazine: Vertical. "The first issue of PC Magazine back in the summer of 1981 was a thrill to read and it was sad news this week that Ziff Davis Media has decided to cease publishing the magazine... The more significant aspect of PC Magazine has been the early and innovative focus on 'vertical'." Yeah, and it is increasingly difficult for "vertical" to survive in print. Seems like the web is the future of vertical...
 Apropos the week: Panda's Thumb: Meleagris gallopavo. Yes, that would be... a wild turkey. Wonderful. (Especially with a nice Pinot Noir :)
One of the happy things about thanksgiving... is getting stuffed...
 So today I was riding along, and there's one area right alongside Westlake (the lake itself) where there's a metric ton of leaves fallen onto the road, and you're basically riding through a cloud of yellow leaves; it was beautiful. And one leaf floated up and stuck to my seat post, pinned by the 20mph breeze created by my forward motion. And it was so cool; that leaf stayed there for about ten minutes before a side gust blew it away, I was sad to see it go... and I got home and saw this post by Cory Doctorow, with a picture of leaves stuck in fresh tarmac. How beautiful. All streets should have leaves embedded in them... I love fall. Yay.
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