Still in recovery mode from a long tiring (and somewhat depressing) weekend...

Tagline of the day, courtesy of my colleague Martin: "there is no Q5".

Onward into Q4, as the Ole filter makes a pass...

Well this is important work: a unified theory of Superman's powers.  Which is a good excuse (if any were needed) to post Ramsey's outstanding tribute cartoon memorializing Christopher Reeve... 

Interesting: Top ten houseplants for controller indoor air pollution.  #1 is the Feston Rose, pictured at right: "This houseplant not only purifies the air in your house but also leaves a beautiful aroma". 

Susanna Breslin interviews Tucker Max.  "If you want a relationship, make sure you are someone who someone else would want to date."  Tucker Max comes across a lot more reasonably than I would have expected...  his reputation is far more outrageous. 

As the Angles get ready to play the Red Sox this week; the NYTimes has a nice profile of my Westlake Village neighbor Mike Scioscia, the LA Manager...  I've been a Scioscia fan ever since he was a great catcher for the Dodgers. 

This is awesome: Cirque du Soleil founder is first clown in space.  "Cirque du Soleil's founder, who will soon rocket into space, went from pauper to circus mogul by turning a troupe of ragtag street performers in 1984 into a global entertainment empire.  At 0714 GMT Wednesday, Canadian Guy Laliberte will celebrate his recent 50th birthday by becoming the seventh space tourist to rocket from Baikonur, Kazakhstan to the International Space Station for a 12-day 'poetic, social mission'."  Cool. 

Apropos: MSNBC has picture stories from space, for September 2009.  Wow.  The one at right is [appropriately] entitled "dance of the galaxies".  I absolutely cannot get enough of space pictures :) 

Congratulations to Rio de Janeiro, the IOC's choice to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.  The first South American city chosen, it seems very appropriate, reflecting Brazil's increasing economic importance.  I visited Brazil just about a year ago, and was struck by the sheer size of the country.  It should be a most-excellent party! 

This headline on CNN shows how ignorant US media are of Brazil:  We beat the big cities.  With a population of 6M, Rio de Janeiro is over twice as large as Chicago.

Weird Twitter story of the weekend: Why does it matter that Twitter is supplanting RSS?  I'm not sure why it matters, but I am sure that in no way is Twitter supplanting RSS, any more than it is supplanting email.  I guess if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  This blog post would lose something if it were only 140 characters long, don't you think?  [ via Eric Wiesen ] 

Palm announces more openness for the Pre: it is now possible for applications developers to distribute their Pre apps via the web, without Palm involved.  That seems like a tremendous advantage over Apple.  It won't [by itself] overcome the 

Mark Pilgrim delivers a wonderful fisking: Translation from MS-Speak to English of Tony Ross' Distributed Extensibility Submission.  Even if you don't understand the subject, like me, you can appreciate the acid humor. 

Popsci: ISS Could Get its Own Electron Beam Fabrication 3D Printer.  How cool is that? 

Slashdot reports GE Developing 1TB Holographic Disc.  That's good, and the rumored backward compatibility with DVDs is better.  But physical media for storing data is really on the way out, right?