And so ends my weekend...  it rained today, but it was nothing like as cold as Chicago and Pittsburgh and Baltimore, where I watched football being played; wow, talk about cold...  brrr... I can't imagine even being outside in 16^o, let alone smashing into other people.  It was fun to watch from the comfort of my office, thank you Tivo and Slingbox...  I do now have the Sunday night blues, wherein I wish I had gotten more done over the weekend.  So be it.

Today is the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.  Wow.  Thinking about that vividly recalls my Midway experience (was that really six weeks ago already?)  It was the 9/11 of its day, exacerbated by the fact that we were already at war, and by the slower and more uncertain communications of that time...  imagine how it must have felt, sitting at home, and hearing about the attacks from a scratchy radio.  And looking outside at the sky, and wondering what would happen next.  Scary. 

The Tour of California route has been revealed, and as hoped for it includes the South Grade up Mount Palomar!  Yay.  You know where I'll be on Feb 22, at the top of that climb.  And the Solvang time trial remains of course, double yay.  You know where I'll be on Feb 20, too.  Can't wait! 

Bonus thing to wonder about: we know Levi will lead Astana, but will Lance ride for him?  Will Contador?  Will Kloden?  Could be an all-star team right at the start of the season...

Scott Adams (Dilbert) blogs Google is my Doctor.  "About a year ago I started using Google Alerts to tell me whenever someone mentioned Dilbert, me, or anything about Spasmodic Dysphonia on the Internet.  About six months ago I got an alert with a link to an obscure medical publication with a report about an even more obscure surgical procedure for fixing spasmodic dysphonia.  I took that information to my doctor, who referred me to an expert at Stanford University, who referred me to an expert surgeon at UCLA.  Long story short, the operation I read about wasn't as promising as the article suggested, but the final surgeon in my travels had his own version of surgery that had a good track record. I tried it, and now my voice is normal.  I never would have found that path without Google Alerts."  This is not an isolated story.  Increasingly people are taking their medical care into their own hands, and using Google and other online tools to find information and make contacts.  A major trend in health care. 

The Daily Galaxy asks what you think will be the population of the Earth in 2050.  The best guesses seems to be around 20B; see the chart at left for the trend.  An equally important question would be, what do you think will be the average IQ of the Earth in 2050?  Hint: it will be far below 100. 

So who thought of this?  An array of 500 clocks which spells a message every twelve hours.  Cool. 

Robert X. Cringley makes a case for Steve Jobs to take over General Motors.  Boy, I don't know...  the idea that one person could turn things around is such a silver bullet, the big three U.S. carmakers have so many interrelated problems.  Brand image, consumer demand, label relations, manufacturing, finance...  it is a horribly complicated problem that defies a simple solution.  An interesting suggestion nonetheless. 

Check out this ocean sunset.  Beautiful... looks like a rendering from Bryce3D, but it's real! 

Finally, here we have softwear by Microsoft (as in tee-shirts).  I am not making this up.