Still in Seattle; had a great day visiting the Allen Institute for Brain Science, a large and impressive customer for Aperio.  Amazing what they are now trying to do (map the human brain, 10X over), and how they are going about it.  Otherwise enjoyable although, you know, life on the road...

Dinner: Canlis.  Absolutely beyond my ability to say, it was so excellent.  An incredible experience...

So I've been working out at my hotel's gym each morning, and they have CNN Headline News showing on these big monitors hanging on the wall, but the sound is [mercifully] off.  It is pretty interesting watching the "talking heads".  You can see how stereotyped network "news" has become; we have the pretty girl (who smiles while reporting the deadly plane crash), the serious anchorman, the jovial analyst, the angry expert.  Each made up, dressed, and framed to correspond to their type.  It is all so phony, so stale.  They might be talking about Obama's economic plans or Lindsay Lohan's lover, and they look and act just the same. 

This pisses me off: FDA urged to ground type of small sports aircraft.  I don't know any of the details, but I know the schema of this; somehow it is the government's job to protect ourselves from ourselves.  If there are enthusiasts who want to fly small sports aircraft, and it happens to be dangerous, so what?  Let them do it.  If they kill themselves, so be it.  It should not be the government's responsibility to protect us from ourselves. 

Thought you might like a little celestial porn: The Pinwheel Galaxy is featured in NASA's astronomy picture of the day.  Wow. 

"Everyone" views Google's YouTube acquisition as a big success, but apparently YouTube costs $1.65M per day to operate.  That's not surprising, considering the server space and bandwidth required, but it does make you think; so why again is this considered a big success?  There is no business model anyone has proposed which gets all that money back. 

Meanwhile, "everyone" views eBay's Skype acquisition as a big failure, but Skype isn't losing money, and now it is apparently going public!  So why again is this considered a big failure?  eBay is going to make some money on that IPO, you can bet on it... 

Dave Winer comments on an survey of Twitter in Slate: "It's the best of a class of commentary that says that Twitter is something you can skip if you aren't interested in periodic 140-character reports on mundane people's lives.  As I read the piece it made sense, so I was left wondering why I was and still am attracted to Twitter and use it, daily."  I am left wondering why he was and still is attracted to it also.  The entire attraction is hidden to me. 

From The Horse's Mouth: you sexy, sexy girl...  the Mari Chi IV.  The world's biggest 505 :) 

See you tomorrow...