From the "I'm doing it because I can" department, here I am at 37,208' feet, blogging while high above Arizona on my way to Boston...  I must tell you I am not in a great mood, although I'm listening to Dance-y music and it's helping (Afrojack!).  Maybe I should have some Chardonnay, that might help even more...  stay tuned :)

An honest and introspective note from a failed startup founder: Why Wesabe lost to Mint.  A couple of pull quotes with my highlights: 

“Mint focused on making the user do almost no work at all, by automatically editing and categorizing their data, reducing the number of fields in their signup form, and giving them immediate gratification as soon as they possibly could; we completely sucked at all of that.”

“You'll hear a lot about why company A won and company B lost in any market, and in my experience, a lot of the theories thrown about -- even or especially by the participants -- are utter crap. A domain name doesn't win you a market; launching second or fifth or tenth doesn't lose you a market. You can't blame your competitors or your board or the lack of or excess of investment. Focus on what really matters: making users happy with your product as quickly as you can, and helping them as much as you can after that. If you do those better than anyone else out there you'll win.”

This seems dead on to me.  Do you use Mint?

I have to agree with this: Obama's India trip was worth all the money.  Even though it seems he came back empty-handed, without even a token diplomatic victory.  The thing is, international strength comes from internal strength... 

Instapundit quotes Ed Morrissey: Who could have warned us that a man who served seven years in the state legislature and three years in the senate would not have been prepared to be President?  John McCain did.  And so did Hillary Clinton. 

This is awesome: a Dutch bricklaying machine.  Streets paved with brick look good and wear well, and now they are easier to make, too. 

Having just visited Bejing and Shanghai, this seems entirely plausible to me: China to build own large jetliner.  We're going to have significant competition from Asia in every market, and we better be ready. 

Let's abolish the TSA.  Yes!  Anyone who thinks all that rigmarole we go through at the airport enhances safety is kidding themselves.  They're constantly re-fighting the last war.  Apropos: How Israel handles airport security, "The word 'profiling' is a political invention by people who don't want to do security.". 

From Wired: How to make amends in the digital age.  Good to know.  I especially like the advice about Tweeting something boring; same for Facebook and blogs!  Your penance is to do something sufficiently interesting to make it worthwhile :) 

Aha!  Cheese addiction explained.  Garrotxa *is* a drug, I knew it :) 

I totally called this: GPS-enabled smartphones putting squeeze on GPS makers.  My Palm Pre phone has the best Nav app I've ever seen, including realtime traffic etc., for $0.  Meanwhile the system in my car sucks like a Hoover and cost $big. 

And so Facebook have announced email messaging, aka "the social inbox".  Here's Ars Technica's take, I haven't digested yet.  Huh. 

Proof: just because you can, doesn't mean you should :)  My mood is improving, seems blogging while high helped! 

(And meanwhile, tomorrow is just another day that you'll never forget...)