Posting from Boston, which finds me in an excellent mood... my day started rather blue but ended up being unexpectedly great, despite the fact I spent quite a bit of it flying.  Sometimes that happens, yay :)

Yeah I know, it has been a week since my last filter pass - sorry! - and so here we go...

Great important news; Alexis and her classmates have arrived in Uganda.  One of the teachers has established a blog as a way to facilitate two-way communication while they're there.  Excellent! 

So, did you watch our President's speech?  You know the wheels are coming off the Obama bus, when even his supporters think he's done.  The BP disaster might be the last straw, but there have been so many, and hardly anything has gone right.  The overwhelming impression is inexperience and incompetence, much as I feared... 

Why this isn't being called "oilgate"?  (Or "spillgate"?)

James Surowiecki on The Regulation Crisis... "it’s hard to think of a recent disaster in the business world that wasn’t abetted by inept regulation."  Despite this observation he does make a good case for regulation, and some useful observations about how it fails and how to have regulators succeed.  I find it interesting that he notes the FDA as an example of good regulation. 

Yikes! - Our cluttered minds, a NYTimes book review of The Shallows, what the Internet is doing to our brains...  you should immediately stop reading blogs.  Stop!  Stop now!! 

Yay the Lakers won the NBA championship against their archrivals the Celtics, and now we can start legitimately comparing Kobe Bryant to Michael Jordan.  A conclusion: "Kobe is great beyond telling, but if he had Jordan’s pathology, he would be the greatest basketball player who ever played. Greater than even Jordan himself."  This is an unfamiliar use of the multi-meaning word "pathology", but I think I can see what they're getting at... 

Interestingly, even while we compare Kobe to Michael as the greatest player of all time, there is a decent discussion to be had as to whether he's the greatest Laker.  You have Magic, Kareem, Shaq, and Baylor in that conversation, not to mention Mr. Clutch :)

Of possible use while you're watching the World Cup: the command line streaming vuvuzela filter.  I love it.  And I must tell you, I love the vuvuzelas; okay, they're white noise, but they add color :) 

Scott "Dilbert" Adams unleashes another fantastic rant: Charged with Salt and Batteries, regarding the news that Afghanistan has huge valuable minerals reserves including Lithium.  Please but down sharp objects and hot liquids before clicking through :) 

The Economist considers Virtual Friendship.  A worldwide phenomenon.  I haven't made too many virtual friends overseas yet, but I'm sure that time will come, particularly as automated language translation technology continues to improve.  I'll bet quite a few of you are reading this post from outside the U.S., and I wouldn't be surprised to find some of you were reading it in a language other than English.  (If you are, let me know!) 

This is amazing: Retired 747 transformed into striking Malibu home.  Click through for more pics of the plane parts themselves, as well as the design. 

Dave Winer revisits a key point he makes well: May the source be with you.  The ability to see what other websites are doing and how they're doing it remains one of the most compelling aspects of HTML. 

Tesla blogs about their new factory where they'll make the Model S, their four-door "moderately priced" Sedan.  If they can really pull that off, it will be something.  We're all staying tuned, that's for sure... 

Bill Burnham notes Telsa is worth $1.7B, according to its bankers, as it files for an IPO.  Amazing, another Elon Musk success story, following on Zip2, PayPal, and SpaceX.  Who among us are not rooting for them? 

Starbucks to offer free WiFi.  To go with all that high-priced caffeine.  Excellent.  Except that with cell providers' 3G, who needs WiFi out in the wild? 

At this moment I am in my hotel room in Boston, and I don't know or care if my hotel has WiFi, whether it's free, whether it's fast, or anything.  My trusty Sprint card establishes an Internet connection in seconds wherever I happen to be, and it is plenty fast enough for surfing and emailing... and blogging!

Salon claims Cabernet Franc goes from workhouse to show pony.  I don't know about that...  I grant you other "finishing" grapes from Bordeaux have made the jump, most notably Malbec, which can be wonderful (at least in Argentina), but I have yet to have an excellent Cabernet Franc.  Still who knows. 

Google Earth for the iPad is awesome.  The first time you launch it, and see it rotate to exactly your spot on the Earth, that's cool.  And then when you zoom all the way in to exactly where you are, that's really cool.  And then when you tilt and pan around the horizon, that's awesomely cool.  Something not even science fiction could have dreamed about twenty years ago, and yet it is available to everyone FREE. 

BTW your Mom wants an iPad, did you know?  Mine does, and I have no idea how she even found out about it! 

Well that's it, I have more to post, but must sleeep...  good night!