Another long week, my blogging sync is sporadic, I know.  If I were a news service this would be worse, but I'm an opinion service, so ... you get what you pay for :)  It was a great week personally, as the hard work of my team is starting to bear fruit (and a couple of great new people joined it, too).  Oh and I have my little car back, good as new, and that makes me happy!

I am *still* trying to focus on third quadrant activities but failed miserably.  My current hope is to resist new quadrant two tasks and eventually break into the clear.

Today was interesting; my first day of work at home in two weeks.  Man did I get a lot done.  I have to figure out how to get this kind of productivity going while I'm in the office...  meanwhile, it's all happening...

What is the speed of gravity?  If you think it is instant, you might be Isaac Newton.  If you think the answer depends on how fast you're moving, you might be Albert Einstein.  And if you think this kind of question is massively interesting, you might be me :) 

Want to know something else which is relative?  How about... the waistline of your pants.  Apparently the actual size of 36" pants is not 36" - it varies, somewhere between 37" and 41".  Wow.  I wear 34" jeans and of course they are actually 34"... 

Notre Dame launches first paperless 'iPad class'.  Someday soon this will not even be news, but right now it is kind of cool. 

California schools replace math textbooks with iPads.  Well that didn't take long, did it? 

This weeks' big news: Google Instant.  I mostly use the search bar in Firefox, I rarely visit the Google home page, so this announcement is of mostly esoteric interest to me.  I think my overall reaction is "huh" rather than "wow".  What about you, has this changed your life? 

This Google Instant ad is pretty awesome.  BTW I still find it weird that Google runs ads for search.  I guess they do have competition - from Bing, and Yahoo - but doesn't everyone try Google first?  Maybe not [anymore]... 

The weeks' other big news: Apple are new allowing cross-compiling to App Store apps!  YAY.  This means there is some chance Aperio can use Adobe's Flash-to-native-app cross-compiler to migrate our WebScope digital slide viewer, which would be most excellent.  Stay tuned. 

John Gruber analyzes the new App Store license agreement.  Seems like reason has taken over, which is great.

As does MG Siegler.  It does feel like a human being wrote them, which is refreshing, e.g.: "we don't need anymore Fart apps" and "if you run to the press and trash us, it never helps".

The weeks' other big news: Band on embryonic stem-cell funding ended.  YAY.  As LGF notes: "This is excellent news for American science; the opposition to embryonic stem-cell research has been fueled almost entirely by the irrational, anti-science religious right, and it's long past time to get their boots off our necks." 

I had been meaning to link this: The Covenant, a great article in the New Yorker about Francis Collins, President Obama's choice to head the NIH.  He seems like an inspired choice, since these issues require diplomacy and compromise.

This is way cool: Logorama.  An Oscar winning short film, presenting online in its entirety.  Check it out.  [ via Kottke ] 

I must agree with Jon Udell: Twitter kills the password anti-pattern, but at what cost?  I have not [yet] implemented OAuth in my blog's auto-updater, and I'm not sure I'm going to anytime soon.  Too much work.  By making it harder, Twitter has broken something important. 

Here's something you might find useful: how to think like a rich person.  Unsaid, but critical; rich people thought like rich people before they became rich.  Whether this helped them to become rich, I leave to you. 

Downward facing kitteh.  For the Yoga aficionados among you.  I love it. 

ZooBorns of the week: Santa Barbara's baby otters.  Yeah I know we run otters a lot, but man are they cute.