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Tuesday,  12/22/09  08:58 PM

Working on deadline today, a big project which has to be done by year-end...  and so we celebrated the winter solstice with one of the coldest days of the year, freezing with a bitter breeze.  I marked it with one of my faster Rockstore rides, 1:43, not bad considering my teeth were chattering :)

*Still* buzzed from Avatar; can't wait to see it again.  But first, a filter pass...

Ole Reads I:  Testing, testing.  A crummy headline for a great article, the best defensive of the current health reform plans that I've yet read.  I'm a skeptic; it seems to me that these plans don't hit at the core of why healthcare is so expensive, and I am always opposed to government solutions.  But the analog to how government solutions helped farming become more efficient in the U.S. - something of which I was entirely ignorant, previously - is compelling.  I was happy to read this because it gives some reason for hope; it looks like some version of one of these plans is going to be passed... 

Ole Reads II:  Hanukkah Stories.  This is absolutely hilarious.  You must read it, but please put down any hot liquids beforehand. 

The incomparable Onion: The Top Stories of the Past 4.5B Years.  My favorite: Sumerians Look On In Confusion as God Creates World.  "According to recently excavated clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform script, thousands of Sumerians - the first humans to establish systems of writing, agriculture, and government - were working on their sophisticated irrigation systems when the Father of All Creation reached down from the ether and blew the divine spirit of life into their thriving civilization."  I love it. 

I totally agree with this: Apple is a Bad Example.  Using Apple - or Microsoft, or Google, or Facebook - to make a point about startup companies generally doesn't work.  There is only one Apple, and what works for them does not work for everyone else. 

Not the Onion: Darth Vader opens New York Stock Exchange.  Wow, who could have imagined?  (I wonder if Jake Sully will be next?) 

Ford's Wired Fleet: WiFi Hotspots on Four Wheels.  I'm confused about this; seems like WiFi in a car has a pretty limited usefulness, considering everyone can just use cellular modems.  Give us more drinkholders instead! 

ZooBorn of the day: a baby Beluga.  Yeah we've had one before, but man are they cute!