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Tuesday, January 20, 2009 11:26 PM >>>


Monday,  01/19/09  11:23 PM

Whew, tired; flew up to San Francisco this morning, participated in a DICOM standards committee meeting (tedious, but productive), enjoyed a wonderful view from the Carnelian Room, and flew back.  All while wearing a tie :)

I'm reading Richard Morgan's Thirteen, which is great.  He has become one of my favorite authors.  Altered Carbon was a classic, but he's proven he's not a onetrick pony.  Thirteen takes place in a plausible future and there's this woman Sevgi Ertekin who takes "syn"; some kind of vitamin supplement thing which sharpens her senses and, um, improves her performance.  Depending on the day, it hits her differently, heightens her awareness in different ways.  And it occurred to me I take "syn" too; only I call it "music".  Today my soundtrack was power ballads: Europe, Styx, Scorpions, Bon Jovi...  Excellent stuff. 

One thing I like about Morgan's writing is that he chooses alternate words for things to give an exotic feel; in thirteen he uses "actual" instead of "real".  Characters go in and out of "virtualities", then return to the actual world.  Very effective, actually :)

I continue to love my Kindle, especially but not exclusively for travel; people ask me about it wherever I go.  There are a lot of people who read out there :)  BTW I find the airline people treat it like a book and let you use it during taxiing taking off landing etc.

The news regarding my weird disaster is not good; I haven't found anyone who thinks they can repair my Kestrel's frame.  Apparently the Kestrel dropouts are no longer made, and replacing them would be difficult, expensive, and probably result in a poorly performing bike.  Unbelievable.  I am excited about the idea of getting a new bike, but not excited that a freak encounter with a coat hanger will cost me thousands of dollars.  Stay tuned :( 

Fifteen stunning examples of long exposure photography.  Indeed stunning. 

Brad Feld finally tells us what he meant: the knives all your salespeople should have.  Basically, provide customers with both capex and opex ways to buy.  Oh. 

John Gruber links Matt Taibbi who rips the NYTimes: Flat N All That.  "How can any single person be in three holes at once?  If you’re supposed to stop digging when you’re in one hole, why should you dig more in three?  How does that even begin to make sense?"  It doesn't even begin. 

A phrase I like: "beyond useless".  Could be the subject of a future post.  Could be.  Stay tuned :) 

I think this applies to the majority of iPhone apps, and the majority of blog posts which discuss iPhone apps.

I like the word "actual"...