I can say proudly I'm the first member of my family in a thousand generations who knows who "A3" is

Sirius Satellite radio is giving me the education I never had on the identities of the popular "Artists" that I hear on the radio all the time. A disc jockey might say their names 25 times on the radio (although most times they don't say them at all), and I would never remember them, much less associate them with some particular pop tune. But with the "Artist Name" popping up in my new car simultaneously on the GPS console and also right in front of me, next to the speedometer, I easily remember them. [ The written word never fails to make an imprint on my brain that the spoken word never will. I remember reading long ago something about how people differ in their "learning styles," and that some people are "ear-minded," by which was meant, they only remember what people tell them, and have difficulty remembering things they've just read, rather than heard. I remember thinking—'No way, there can't be any people like that, it's just impossible to remember anything people say.' Others would summarize by saying, 'You know, that guy is a very poor listener.' Well, OK, yes. If I'm really interested in what someone is saying, I always ask, "Have you written that down? I'd like to read that." Not too many people follow through with these unexpected writing assignments, I've found.]

Just a few days ago, prior to Sirius satellite, my neighbor introduced me to someone who "was in town for the Green Day concert."

"Green Day?" I said, in the way a person might pronounce an unfamiliar phrase from the Basque language. I ineffectually summoned possibly relevant images of Bob Geldof and the Ecology Flag to my mind. "That sounds familiar, uh, Green Day?"

We moved on to another topic.

No more, baby!

Fantastic page on FLW's Usonian homes

[ OK—I'm breaking my "single link blog posts shall be relegated to del.icio.us" rule, but deservedly so ]

link

The typical North American home, today, is bloated in size and nostalgic in style. This is not affordable to the individual family, nor over the long run, to the planet. It is time for the concept of housing to be recreated.

* * *

She described how, at first she hated the house. She felt that Mr. Wright had not listened to her requirements but merely built what he wanted. She was, at the end of her second year living in it, ready to sell it and move on - at great financial sacrifice. She told me that she decided that she would "give the house a year without struggling with it" before she made up her mind. In that year, a transformation took place. She discovered that "Mr. Wright had not built a house for who I was" - but for "the person that I could become." "It turned out that Mr. Wright had listened well and understood me very deeply." "Now, I can hardly stand to be in other people's homes."

Lee Gomes in today's WSJ

What really happened last week is that Sun, eager for a mojo transplant from the studs of search, used its connection to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, a former Sun exec, to get its name in the same headline. "Sun and Google TEAM UP" (capital letters all theirs) was blasted all over Sun's home page.

These little kabuki plays are so common in Silicon Valley it's easy to forget that billions in real investor dollars are made or lost each time the curtain goes up on one. The mere announcement of an impending Google-Sun news conference sent Microsoft shares down slightly on Tuesday in the second-heaviest trading day this year.

During its heyday, Sun, not Google, was Canterbury for hopeful technology pilgrims. The role-reversal evidenced last week, combined with the news-free news release, would have been a perfect set-up for one Mr McNealy's schadenfreude-soaked wisecracks.

With him out of the picture, won't some other CEO out there step into the breach? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Frankenflu

Word du jour: frankenflu

[ Only 31 links returned by Google, let's hope it stays that way ]

This web site is back now...

...after a move up the hill into Hillsborough and bit of trouble with a cranky ethernet card, which has been put out to pasture.

This web server has a nice view out over the San Francisco Bay now. I should install a web cam.