Brrr ... a cold and rainy Saturday, where by "cold" I mean 34^o, which is *cold*.  Looks like a good day for hanging out by the fire, reading, watching a little football ... and blogging!

Yes, the stone is swinging today... 

I've been reading The Everything Store, about Jeff Bezos and Amazon (I like it), and it includes the story, how one bad Thanksgiving shaped Amazon.  Like people, companies learn more from their disasters than their victories. 

Gravity, explained and visualized.  I don't know about you, but I get a lot more out of this kind of physical model than the mysterious "particle exchange" explanations. 

On the value of content.  "What we're witnessing here is the first wave of the second world pop-up war. Those of us who lived through the first one can only describe the horrors to our disbelieving children."  Indeed.  Bonus points for the Idiocracy screen grab :) 

This is incredible: Cassini gets amazing views of Saturn's hexagon.  There is a storm raging over Saturn's North pole which is 20,000 miles wide (twice the diameter of the Earth), featuring 300mph winds, and it's been raging for 30 years.  Oh yeah, and it's shaped like a hexagon, and nobody knows why.  Yikes! 

You knew this had to happen: Eleven James is a startup that lets you rent your wrist wear.  Now you, too, can wear an Hublot.  What's interesting about this trend to me is that people are more interested in showing off stuff to other people than owning it themselves. 

This is rather cool: SolarCity, using Tesla batteries, aims to bring solar power to the masses.  Batteries will enable houses with solar power to store energy themselves instead of feeding it back into the grid.
 

Are you ready for some football?  The 2013 World Cup draw has been announced!  Most observers feel the US draw is pretty tough, but as US Coach Jurgen Klinsmann says, "if you want to win, you have to beat the top teams anyway".  I think it's cool that the Netherlands and Spain meet in their first game, a rematch of the last World Cup finals. 

Not everyone thinks this is great; Powerline's Paul Mirengoff comments how not to run a sporting competition.

I'm certainly ready for some American football; today features some great matchups, including Auburn-Missouri, Ohio State - Michigan State, and Stanford - Arizona State.  Stay tuned!