Yet *another* max busy week, and another week in which I was gone; in Vista MTW and then flew to San Jose for a meeting yesterday, and just got back tonight.  It was a good week in which many good things happened; I feel great.  Hope yours was good too?  And tomorrow I'm riding the Camino Real Double (!), my first of the year (first of this decade in fact :) and so yes I need a good night's sleep and no I should not be blogging.  But I am!

... and we find that as usual, it's all happening ...

And so this week began the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, did a little watching here and there, including as much of my favorite sport speedskating as possible...  and my new almost-favorite, snowboarding.  Makes me want to go out and learn to snowboard; I'm a good skier and a rotten sometime snowboarder, and maybe that should change :)  Did you see Shaun White?  First he won the gold medal, and then he did the world's greatest run ever.  Wow. 

The best restaurant in the world?  That might be El Bulli.  Here's what Grant Achatz saw...  "Mr. Achatz worked at El Bulli for a few weeks in 2000, and what he saw there shaped his career. Now the chef at Alinea in Chicago, Mr. Achatz wrote back with this reflection."  Added to the life list.  Along with Alinea :) 

Here we have the fantabulous AR.Drone, an iPhone controlled smart helicopter, kind of a remote telepresence.  It is cast as a sort of toy, but the technology here is amazing; the little vehicle actually acts as its own WiFi hub, and the phone communicates with it over TCP/IP.  Of course the gyro in the phone can be used to physically control the 'copter.  Way cool, and a harbinger of much to come... 

Scott [Dilbert] Adams ponders replacing yourself.  "Think of the first 20 people you know who have had all the kids they are likely to have. That generally means people over 40. For the purposes of this discussion, exclude anyone over 70. Add up the adults in your group. Then add up the number of offspring they produced. Is the net gain in humans sufficient to grow the population?"  Next up, he'll ponder what it means that his group is reproducing less and others more... 

The Adolph Hitler parody of all Adolph Hitler parodies, as he himself makes a YouTube video...  please set down sharp objects and hot liquids before watching :) 

Dan Wineman tries to use a restaurant website from his iPhone.  This happens to me all the time; why do people use Flash for this stuff?  Bad bad badness...  [ via John Gruber ] 

The next generation of UI design?  Brad Feld: Oblong dazzles more than just me.  "That’s a picture of John Underkoffler at Ted on Friday giving one of his jaw dropping demos of Oblong’s g-speak spatial operating environment. Lest you think this is science fiction, I can assure you that Oblong has several major customers, is generating meaningful revenue, and is poised to enter several mainstream markets with g-speak derived products."  Cool!  (but... "Oblong"?) 

Dave Winer is now in New York (permanently!) and wonders about the 2nd Avenue Deli.  "Not saying anyone did anything wrong, just thinking about how the universe allocates real estate, and how it's changing...  Where was the government when the matzoh ball soup and pastrami needed bailing out?" 

Oh yeah... red wine and dark chocolate are cancer killers!  I knew there was a reason I thought they tasted so great together, and now I know what it was :) 

I Lego New York.  I lego it.
(check out this blog post for an example ;) 

A poll finds Americans are the most attractive people in the world.  Here's my perspective on this; there are some amazingly attractive Americans, and in some areas amazing concentrations of attractive Americans.  But I don't think on average Americans are that attractive.  Too many of us are overweight and out of shape, and dress poorly.  IMHO the average Spaniard, Frenchman, or Dutchman is more attractive... I have been conducting informal research on this all my life :) 

Wow is this cool: the Water Cube Pavilion for the 2012 World Expo in Korea.  "The Water Cube’s structure is composed of water filled basins, which act as both a temperature buffer as well as the main attraction. A bit like being inside an aquarium, the hollow inner sanctum will be lit with water-filtered light, and will be used as an exhibition center during the Expo." 

Cycling analyst John Wilcockson on Stage 8 of the Amgen Tour of California: a sting in the tail.  "Four times up the infamous Rock Store climb (4km at 7 percent) will make this a race of attrition... This spectacular conclusion to the California race will almost certainly end with three Tour de France contenders on the final podium."  I can't wait... 

... but wait I must, and in the meantime tomorrow there's the Camino Real Double.  See you Sunday!