Watson, come here, I need you.

In a Hurry?

Pondering this quote from Eric Hoffer today, as I've been feeling incredibly hurried and unable to focus:

"The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else-we are the busiest people in the world."

Print your own money!

Finally, it's okay to print out money on that color inkjet: Here's a great link to PDFs of monopoly money. Print your own and be as rich as Bill Gates.... if you can afford the ink and paper...

I recommendo Recomendo

For the person who has everything: Kevin Kelly's Recomendo is a great find with tools for travel, gadgets, self-published swag, tent hammocks, giant twist ties... everything you didn't know you needed. Kevin was a publisher of the Whole Earth Review and the Whole Earth Catalogs in the 80s.

Google Location Search

More Googly Goodness! Google is now testing a location-based search which is supposed to be able to constrain the results to within 15 miles of a particular area. It's still early, but I think that there's a big future coming in things like this, especially when combined with mobile, location-aware devices. Of course, current yellow page listings do this already; even car nav systems can "find the nearest ATM," but this is still a nifty way of displaying data which wasn't specifically geocoded.

Bzzzzztt!

The Sparks Fly: So all this week I've been poo-pooing the upcoming storm right? Saying how we're overreacting, how we're way to far inland for a hurricane to do anything, how we're getting too wimpy, shutting down schools and governments and public transport just because there's a chance of high winds and rain. So I guess I had it coming. Last night a power line broke across the street, as we were watching through the glass front door. The line fell on the ground, arcing and sparking and sounding like God's own bug-zapper. Five times it buzzed and arced, the power cut out for ten seconds, and then it started again. After the fifth time, the lights stayed out. To add insult to injury, I'm out this morning walking our dog-share, and there's a TV crew from channel 9, asking me how it felt. I was no mood to be on live TV.

Satellite falls to earth

Uh-oh! A nearly completed, $239 million weather satellite toppled to the floor as it was being moved at a Lockheed Martin plant and was seriously damaged, officials said Tuesday.

Run Away!

As if life in Our Nation's Capitol wasn't interesting enough, now we're all facing the impending wrath of Hurricane Isabel. They shut down the government, closed the schools... All because of a little rain and wind? What's next, a code blue for mosquito infestation? Luckily, I still have my emergency supplies from the last three crises.

Itnresting Cocnpet:

Aoccdrnig to rceent rscheearch at an Birtsih uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

Skype: Peer to Peer meets VOIP

The people who brought you Kazaa now bring you a peer-to-peer Voice Over IP product, called Skype, which apparently does a good job with easy, free calls. Enough to make you want to buy a headphone? Time will tell. I was an early Vonage user, but this might get a lot of newbies into the area.

Mimi+Sleep Deprivation=Fun!

Mimi's one of my favorite weblog authors. And now she's gonna adopt! She said once that friendship was based on shared sleep deprivation. Let's just say that she and LT are gonna become *really* great friends.

mimi smartypants