Coming to you live! from Houston...  after a max busy day in which I drove down to Vista, had a few interesting meetings, and then drove up to LAX to fly out here...  I must tell you all this travel is all very exciting, but it sure isn't very efficient. 

I was able to get some work done on the plane, fortunately; I have experimentally determined that carrying a second laptop battery is well worth it.  It takes me from two solid hours to four solid hours.

From CNN: Economists: the stimulus didn't help.  And of course when you factor in the inflationary pressure of the $787B ARRA, it will hurt considerably.  Nice. 

I have a rather large backlog of not-quite-important but worthy-of-doing tasks, as usual, and just today stumbled across Clive Thompson's excellent post from three years ago, the formula of procrastination.  Dead on. 

Congratulations to Adam Engst, on the 20th anniversary of TidBITS, their 1,024th issue!  That's amazing.  To celebrate they published a special section of reminiscence, including a TidBIT from me :) 

To me, the most amazing thing about TidBITS is its consistency and longevity. If I were telling a friend about TidBITS now, I'd probably tell the story about how, to celebrate its 20th anniversary and 1,024th issue, Adam contacted some longtime readers and asked them to talk a little about TidBITS, including relating the most amazing story about TidBITS they could think of...

Scott "Dilbert" Adams publishes two Internet-only Dilbert comics on the lost iPhone 4G fiasco.  I love it! 

BTW, so many of the people reporting on this situation have missed the point.  The badness was *not* Gizmodo publishing details of the "secret" phone.  All sorts of MSM and blogs do this all the time.  The badness was purchasing stolen property.  And since Gizmodo *knew* the property was stolen, they have no excuse.

From the Onion: Man At Very Top Of Food Chain Chooses Bugles.  "Despite having no natural enemies and belonging to a species that completely dominates its ecosystem, local IT manager Reggie Atkinson opted to consume the processed corn snack Bugles Monday."  Wow, bullseye.  Almost had Bugles myself today, but settled for Chex Mix :)  [ via Kottke ] 

Philip Greenspun: Comparing books on happiness.  "Folks are baffled by the fact that GDP per person has risen in the U.S. but reported happiness has not."  Happiness comes from liking yourself, not from your physical circumstances.  This is why relative prosperity is more important than absolute prosperity.  And why programs which level prosperity do not make people happier... 

Inhabitat: Top 6 stunning green pavilions at 2010 Shanghai World Expo.  Beautiful examples of architecture as well as engineering. 

And finally, Steve Hawking cautions against alien contact.  "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet...  If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the native Americans."  I am not making this up...