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Friday,  12/18/09  07:41 AM

Breakfast blogging!  Two cups of coffee down, so it should be okay...

Here we have The 10 Most Magnificent Trees in the World.  Amazingly, I have seen several of these myself, including the Bristlecone Pines just this summer.  I do need to see those Baobab trees though, how Suess-ian; they're definitely on the list... 

The most dangerous road in Germany.  Watch out for flying boats!  Hint: It's not even a real road, it just plays one on TV (and in the movies...) 

Change Blindness.  Whoa.  This reminds me of that basketball-passing video, where the guy in the gorilla suit wanders through and you're so busy counting passes, you don't notice.  So much for believing your own eyes, eh? 

Speaking of which, Climategate is reversing the burden of proof.  "Now the default position is slowly mutating into: It's all made-up nonsense."  I was never a hard-core global warming worrier, but I must admit I am now questioning where there's a there there.  The lack of science is disturbing... 

Eric Raymond says it's crazy in Copenhagen.  I love it that a blizzard has settled in for the week :)  And be sure to view Lord Monckton's smackdown, classic for his devastating logic as well as dry British humor.  Oh, and for more fun, there's record snow in Alaska.  Proving that individual data points prove nothing.

Powerline weight in on adjusting the data:  "It is important to understand that none of the charts and graphs that purport to depict the Earth's climate ever show you raw data. None."

I follow a blogger named Bruce Friedman for business, and sometimes link his posts from my company blog, but he recently veered slightly off topic (for him) to make some insightful remarks about Google's Nexus One phone.  "There is no way to look at this announcement but as a profound game-changer for the cell phone market...  Google views mobile phones as PCs that have cell phone functionality as one of many features...  Wireless carriers, in contrast, view mobile phones primarily as telephones that can also surf the web."  I think that's right.  More business models will be good. 

Apropos: I'm posting this from my laptop in a diner, using my Sprint cellular modem.  I love the instant-on-ness; for me WiFi is a thing of the past when I'm out and about.  I could make a call with Skype right now.

Another top ten: Astronomy pictures in 2009.  I can view any amount of pictures of space, can't you?  My favorite in this group is the picture of the Butterfly Nebula, shown at left, taken from the Hubble after it was upgraded this summer.  Whoa. 

In 2010, the new space industry finally takes off.  Excellent.

Ted Dziuba: How I spot valuable engineers.  "When I interview a candidate, I'm trying to determine how valuable the candidate is, not just how smart he or she is."  Huh.  I usually just go for smart, if there's enough horsepower it will overcome anything.  Including especially lack of experience... 

The Horse's Mouth says Aloha, Roy.  Roy Disney was one of the true greats in ocean sailing; his movie Morning Light was one of the best movies I saw this year, and not just because of the sailing.  He will be missed... 

Onward, into the day...  Happy Friday!