michaelw.net I want a keyboard with a built-in flash card reader – what michael says. I don’t want these crammed into my PC. I want them on the desktop. In the KB would be good tho I notice today that my KB is underpowered and has a problem with USB devices that suck power. My Dell monitor has USB ports on it too, this makes huge sense as a monitor has a power connection.

Oligopoly Watch – interesting insight on grocery slotting fees. And interesting that Wal-Mart doesn’t take them. There is no Wal-Mart conveniently nearby, if there was I would give them a try.

The Code Project - Command Prompt Explorer Bar - C# Programming – note to self to install.

Struggling with a blackberry problem right now – won’t sync correctly with Outlook 2003 – a search on error #4198 at the BlackBerry support forums reveals that I am not alone. How long has Outlook 2003 been out now? Surprising to me that the bberry dudes have no fix for.

Marginal Revolution: Best non-fiction books of the twentieth century – lists with political bents. Probably wisest to pick a few from each list, to avoid being brainwashed.

Used this card – Ambicom CF gps – with my toshiba pocketpc on a recent road trip from Seattle to LA. Pros: hardware install flawless, acquired GPS signals right away. Very painless to get working. And map data seemed accurate. Cons: actually assembling your route and map data is painful. You run software on the PC to define your route, and then download the supporting maps to the pocketpc (since you can’t fit them all on the pocketpc). The software couldn’t determine a route from Seattle to LA for some reason, and so I had to create a bunch of subroutes, and then at some point pick counties by hand to download. It is very painful to pick counties by hand, I admit to not knowing the names and layouts of all the counties in WA, OR, and CA.

I picked this card because it was the cheapest. It might be wise to spend a little more to get a better software experience.

Looking for some shows to see in London in June – I hear that this is awesome – National Theatre : Production Seasons : His Dark Materials – not clear it runs til June. The books were enjoyable.

My 4th magazine of the year is The Believer.  Literary and arts criticism, waaaaay outside of my comfort zone – I’ve never read a magazine from this genre before so take anything I say with a grain of salt.

I have to admit I enjoyed it thoroughly.  I expected that it would take  itself way too seriously, but I was pleasantly surprised.  One significant theme in the December/January issue was a focus on pop culture, pop literature, pop art.  Somewhat lightweight works, but the articles in the mag brought the full weight of literary analysis to bear.  Very interesting to read deconstruction and criticism of the Sweet Valley High and Nancy Drew series of novels (“the training bras of literature”), a thorough review of the domain of “how to become a novelist” self-help books, an interview discussing the films and music of Ice Cube, an analysis of Howard Cosell.  The mixing of serious analysis with lighter material was entertaining. 

There were weightier pieces too  – on genetic engineering of humans, the relative merits of The Pianist vs Schindler’s List.  I found these less compelling. 

No ads.  I’d buy again.

My 3rd magazine of 52 this year. Boating is the largest circulation boating mag in the US – nearly 250,000 paid copies a month, predominantly male, median age 46, middle class. While I don’t normally read this mag, I have at times been a boating nut – I had my first motorboat when I was 7 years old, I had my first boating accident when I was 7 years and 2 days old.

Stream of consciousness: 369 boaters killed in 2001, usually people in the middle of the experience curve with 3-5 years boating 50 hrs a year (hey this is way more dangerous than mad cow, why aren’t we destroying boats?)…advertisement for the boston whaler – my teen years boat, what a great boat…some dude spent 12 days in a diving suit walking the bottom of loch ness, impressive…Schaefer is rated the best cheap beer for a long day in the sun…no surprise here, you can get great deals on marine electronics on ebay…Anchor effectiveness is a function of fluke area, not weight..tilefish is the hot new dish, tastes like lobster…the Multi-Agency Craft Conference sounds way cool, the military boat show: Outboards that run on any fuel (even whiskey) – completely submersible outboard engines for SEAL missions – electrical supply from outboards for boat electronics – bulletproof inflatable RIB boats – shock absorbing decking and seating for human cargo – roostertail-free designs for reduced radar signatures…

Overall a good read. A large variety of boating info, product reviews, color articles, etc.

smartskins.com – from our buddies at Wildseed.

seattlepi.com Microsoft Blog: Their slogan. His gripe.

Wildseed rides again and I’ve been playing with the latest production phones this week, they are looking great. Congrats to the whole team!

Planet CCRMA at home – very cool, a linux distribution tuned for music and audio production. Good review of it in Electronic Musician this month.

CRN : Daily Archives : Microsoft Exchange Gets New Boss : 2:03 PM EST Mon., Jan. 12, 2004

CBS.SportsLine.com - Ohio State’s Clarett plea bargains out of jail time