I have to warn you, I feel like crap tonight.  Not physically, but mentally I am out to lunch.  Despite a great day with the Aperio sales team at our annual sales meeting and a nice ride testing new bikes, I'm weighed down by the sense of gloom and doom eminating from the outside world.  Sometimes I can live in a little cocoon away from the real world, but not today.  Sorry in advance - you have been warned :P

In my capacity as a filter for you, I'm realizing there is a big difference between articles about stuff which has happened, and articles speculating about stuff which might happen.  There is so much of the latter "out there" and they are so much less valuable, I need to avoid them.  Done.

From the incomparable Michael Yon: Afghanistan: A Dream that will not come true.  "Afghanistan is a gaunt, thorny bush, subsisting on little more than sips of humidity from the dry air. We imagined that we could make the bush into a tree, as if straw could be spun into gold or rocks transmuted to flowers. If we continue to imagine that we can turn the thorny bush into a tree, eventually we will realize the truth, but only after much toil, blood and gold are laid under the bush, as if such fertilizer would turn a bush into a tree."  There is a big difference between what "success" looks like in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Don't know why I hadn't subscribed to Guy Kawasaki's blog before (How to Change the World), but I have now; followed a link to Ten ways to use LinkedIn to find a job.  A great piece, and a great example of why I'm now subscribed. 

Vertigo-inducing, Man on Wire.  This reminds me of viewing San Francisco from the Carnelian Room, looking down on the tip of the Transamerica building from the top floor of the BofA building.  I briefly imagined a wire running across the gap, and what it would be like to walk across it.  And suddenly the room swam before my eyes.  I had to revive myself with Pinot Noir :) 

Randall Parker: Alzheimers Disease Due To Brain Diabetes Disease.  "A Northwestern University-led research team reports that insulin, by shielding memory-forming synapses from harm, may slow or prevent the damage and memory loss caused by toxic proteins in Alzheimer's disease.  The findings, which provide additional new evidence that Alzheimer's could be due to a novel third form of diabetes, will be published online the week of Feb. 2 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)."  Cool.  I love it that we're understanding more and more about this horrible disease. 

Sailing porn: BMW Oracle's trimaran tests continue in San Diego. 

There weather has been perfect here in San Diego, but On Saturn's Moon Titan, it's Raining Methane.  "Imagine a world where the average daytime temperature is -179°C, and torrential rains of liquid methane fall from the skies, forming vast but shallow pools that cover an area larger than the Great Lakes."  Got it.  Can't wait. 

This is rather cool: Device turns cellphone into mobile medical lab.  "Professor Aydogan Ozcan of UCLA has taken a typical Sony Ericsson phone, and by adding a few off-the-shelf parts that cost less than $50, he can get it to produce a remarkable image that shows the thousands of cells in a small fluid sample such as human blood." 

From CNet: The next frontier, 'Seasteading' the oceans.  So cool; I'm reading Richard Morgan's excellent Thirteen, which features huge "factory ships" on which people live and work.  As usual science fiction predicts real life. 

Think you run a lot of stuff on your desktop concurrently?  Check this out.  The world's busiest Mac desktop, with 200 apps... (I doubt you could even run 200 apps under Windows :) 

Headline of the day: Barbie turns 50, gets Facebook account.  What a great time to be alive. 

I must confess after blogging a bit I feel better.  Thanks for the therapy :)