... dum dum dum ...  beware ...

Did you know?  Ides is used for the 15th day of the month, but only in March, May, July, and October.  It apparently started because the ides was a full moon, but of course every 15th of March isn't a full moon.  The lunar calendar just doesn't align with the solar calendar that cleanly, much to the chagrin of ancient astronomers.

And so I spent today further recovering from my mega-bonk - which I now believe was mostly just lack of sleep, and was locked in my little office, cold rainy crummy day visible through the windows, coding and testing up a storm.  My mood is somber as the day.

And in the blogosphere, it's all happening...

Today I was working on some code, and Megan happened into my office, and there was a comment block at the top of a function labeled "process arguments".  Which she thought was hilarious.  And now that my attention is called to it, that is a rather funny convention we use, isn't it?  Parameters, sure, variables, why not, but arguments? 

I have the world's oldest mouse, an IBM Intellimouse which has to be ten years old.  I love it.  The little pointing stick thingie is great - much less finger movement than a wheel to scroll up and down.  And even though it is a mechanical mouse (with a removable ball!) and even though it is serial and not USB and even though I don't use a mousepad, it works great. 

So I tried this augmented reality thing from GE and it works, but somehow it isn't quite as cool as I thought.  You print out this pattern on a piece of paper, and hold up the paper to your camera, and then as you move the paper around the graphics on the screen change.  I guess the pattern recognition in the camera stream is impressive, but in a dancing bear sort of way, not in a wow this is really useful sort of way.  Try it and see what you think... 

PS not clear what this has to do with "smart grids", either...

I see that uncov is gone.  Ted Dziuba has finally called it quits.  First it was great, then it faded, then it was put on hold, then it came back...  but now, it is gone.  So be it.  I still use the phrase "fail" often. 

My old friend and colleague David Sacks has a new startup called Yammer ("what are you working on?").  Seems to be a sort of Twitter for work.  Which, since I don't understand Twitter, I don't understand.  Still David is really smart - the best user-experience person I ever worked with - and he's probably way ahead of me on this... 

Thursday I noted Google Voice had launched, the relaunch of Grand Central in the wake of Google's acquisition, with the value proposition being that you have one number which routes to all your phones.  And it occurred to me that while this isn't useful for me to use, it is useful to me for you to use!  So all of you with four phone numbers, please use this service so I just have to call you in one place :) 

So Luis Leon Sanchez won Paris-Nice, defeating Alberto Contador who finished fourth after his bonk yesterday.  This was a good loss for Alberto, I bet he learns from it.  No need to attack the way he did, using precious energy.  But congratulations to Sanchez, what a great result for him! 

Finally today was NCAA selection day, the brackets for March Madness have been set.  Weirdly I have no rooting interest this year, have hardly paid attention to college basketball at all.  I guess I'll fall back on my default and root for UCLA.  Time to warm up the 'old Tivo...