Information Overload

Winter Holiday Hiatus 2011

'Tis the season for spending time with family and friends, catching a cold, email overload, and failing to send out holiday cards. Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, etc. Have a great New Year! Go Niners!

Blog Action Day 2011

Happy belated Blog Action Day! "Food" is this year's theme. This blogger continues to be dismayed by the alarming numbers of children who are growing up hungry and homeless in America. The EPA reports that food waste is the single largest component of municipal solid waste reaching landfills and incinerators, which means that more can be done to divert surplus food to rescue programs and food banks.

Five Years Later

Our Space Transportation System will be retired in a few months after three decades of service, and almost a decade under development. I have a nostalgic place in my heart for the shuttle program being part of either the Gen X tail, or the start of the Millennials who went to Space Camp. (Does being a fan of ST:TNG edge me into the latter category?) Back to the future, it looks like Libya might get some new leadership, one of several Net Gen revolutions taking place in that region.

Apple is up to iPhone 4, iOS 4, iPad 2, and about to unleash Lion. Meanwhile, the Borg managed one Service Pack for Windows 7, aborted a mobile platform, used a music platform to replace it, effectively assimilated Nokia, and finally released IE9. Skynet helped usher in new leadership in Egypt, and also replaced its own leader hoping to penetrate The Social Network that was truly a catalyst in Cairo.

Democrats retook the House minority, but Jerry Brown led a sweep in California. Futurama and Britney came back yet it was the end of 24. It was also the end of torture in San Francisco, my new home and workplace where blogs are still somewhat relevant albeit this one may soon be left for the birds, or perhaps curtailed to a less regular schedule to be determined tomorrow...

Blog Action Day 2010

Coca-Cola can pair SmartWater with Jennifer Aniston all day long, but they get priceless free publicity whenever Steve Jobs takes the stage with their glorified water (which at least tastes better than Dasani). This fortunate blogger feels slightly guilty about procrastinating on a new water bottle purchase having dropped the excellent SIGG bottle one too many times. Might have to check out SIGG's newish Wide Mouth design since the 1L SmartWater bottle size has helped reduce dry mouth and dehydration during days filled with back-to-back meetings.

SAY Media

SAY WHAT?! Here's hoping the forced marriage of Six Apart and VideoEgg has a happier ending than Pownce or Vox... It doesn't bode well when whomever is handling PR for the sale totally lays an egg in terms of getting bloggers such as this TypePad customer to feel warm and fuzzy about the deal.

Back From Blog Hiatus 2010

Back from the Euro trip, back to work, back to not having a cold, and back to blogging... Germany was fun, but it's great to be back in California weather. Passing through Austria, das land that invented Melanie Scheriau, was a nice bonus! Experienced enough of the Swiss Alps to last for a while. It was impressive to have iPhone connectivity in the mountains that interfered with both the TomTom car kit, and the Jag's GPS.

Blog Hiatus 2010

Off to tour Switzerland, and das land that invented Claudia Schiffer. Ergo, there won't be any new updates here for the next couple of weeks, especially since AT&T charges a dollar per megabyte for iPad data—the discounted rate for buying 200 MB in advance! It'll be interesting to field test the iPhone 4 in Europe where GSM coverage is generally more robust. It'll also be awesome to validate that an iPad plus a couple of 32 GB SDHC cards can stand-in for a MacBook Pro on vacations...

Four Years Later

On the fourth year of blogging, Cupertino gave to me...
An iPad to watch movies.

It's difficult to think about something to post on the eve of this blog's fourth anniversary given that Apple is about to change the world yet again with the launch of the iPad this weekend.

Some of the highlights since last April were the release of iPhone OS 3.0, Snow Leopard, and—because it sucks somewhat less than prior versions—Windows 7. Television went digital while digital book makers failed to deliver anything close to the iPad. The President rallied Congress to pass health insurance reform, and then they (i.e. Democrats) delivered! Autumn 2009 also brought closure to a decade of work with one company making way for new opportunities with the next one... And bonus: no cold this time!

NaBloPoMo

The Hot Iron is to blame for this blog's quasi participation in National Blog Posting Month or NaBloPoMo. WTF, right? Apparently, someone thought it would be cute to spoof NaNoWriMo, which yours truly was amused to learn because a friend of a friend is partaking in National Novel Writing Month.

Blog Action Day 2009

"BAD" 2007 focused on the environment, last year highlighted poverty around the world, and today is about climate change. Suppose global warming is a more specific cause than caring about the environment overall.