S.U.V. Owners Fight Back – We drive SUVs in large part because we want the laws governing momentum to play out in our favor in an accident – delta-V is a bad thing for your body. I don’t love having all these big vehicles on the road but I am not going to unilaterally compromise my family’s safety to support a principle. Now I would love to see us as a society remove big heavy vehicles, including semi-trucks, from passenger vehicle roadways, but I am not holding my breath.

WERBLOG – a worthy read.

Wow this is cool – HAG - Haunted Ambience Generator a tool to create arbitrary sound tracks for your haunt.

Satoshi found QCode and is excited about it – a nice way to pass around digital data on paper. I’ve thought this seemed like a great idea for a while, tho many barcode schemes have come and gone – remember the Cauzin Softstrip? Maybe this one will stick since cameras on phones are nearly ubiquitous and we need something useful to do with them.

From the NY Times – The Most Popular Magazines. Wow I guess this says something about me – I don’t even know what 5 of these magazines are. Other fascinating top ten lists on this page as well – the number one advertiser on the Web is Estee Lauder?

I find this article fascinating – One Music Label or Several? Pearl Jam Weighs Options. Pearl Jam has found a way to create a constantly renewable, inexpensive source of content – their nightly recordings. Given the file sharing networks, you have to wonder if more bands don’t move to live recordings as their primary recorded output, instead of studio recordings. Studio recordings are expensive to make, and in a sense they discourage consumption of live music. Pearl Jam seems to making the right steps as artists to respond to file sharing networks, by emphasizing the live experience and unique (and low incremental cost to produce) recordings from these live experiences.

Good article this weekend in the nytimes about ultralight camping gear. GoLite designs, manufactures and sells ultra-lightweight hiking and climbing gear, clothing and equipment. GVP is another provider. BackPackingLight is the online mag to read. I’m already hauling around enough extra weight on my body, going really lightweight on gear makes sense.

Gary points to yet another small form factor pc – Creative SLiX. You have to wonder how long it will be until the desktop market flops entirely to this formfactor. The tower and minitowers look so clumsy by comparison.

Good analsys of public wifi: _Two clues for vendors:

1) It costs nothing to provide WiFi. If that’s not true, you’re doing it wrong. The billing infrastructure is probably 90% of Starbucks’ cost. So loosen up on access, don’t freak out if somebody finds a hole that gives them free access, and focus on keeping costs down.

2) If users can’t log in and get going in a hurry, your WiFi is useless. You can’t charge a premium *and* provide bad service, and since charging a premium means that you have lock down the system so tightly that it takes a while to log in, don’t do either._ Thanks Gary for the pointer.

Good read – Amazon.com: Books: Justice Hall – the latest in a series involving Sherlock Holmes in his later years, now married. A little deeper and more modern characterization than I remember from the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle works.

Ohio State to Examine Special Help for Clarett. Not happy news.

I post this every year or so but always worth a reminder – this is the site at which to buy skeletons or parts of skeletons – The Bucky-n-Thrifty Boneyard Bargains Page – the bags of bones at $2 a pound are always handy – pick up 10 or 20 pounds today!

Note to self – Zempt recommended by The Shifted Librarian: Saturday, July 05, 2003 as a good mt posting tool.

Rich is digging into DVD burning problems – Tong Family Blog: Sony DRU-120A Won’t Read DVD9 anymore – this is just one of several posts. Man it sounds like a pain. I know that I have given up on DVD burning on the PC, the software is crap and the hardware is buggy. It just is not worth the time with the current generation of products.

Good read – Extreme Mobility. I’m not sure I like Groove as the answer – requires too much software on the end nodes – I am more of a lightweight client guy myself: data stored centrally, ubiquitous access, smart cacheing, a presumption that users are always connected. I am also a fan of the thinking embodied in the LOCKSS work – achieve data reliability thru lots of copies.