So I know what you're thinking: "Well Lisa, are you going to spend all of your blogging time on shameless self promotion, complaining about the Shrub and whining about the rapid demise of our constitutional freedoms?" (Blah, blah, blah blah-blah blah.)

Well I suppose I could lighten up long enough to watch a nice Shockwave Animation from my friend John Gentry that really helps put it all into perspective:
Rockin' Chair Planet.

I spent the weekend in Tuscon, Arizona -- my first time to the anywhere in the "Southwest." (Not counting Las Vegas -- although one thing that both cities have in common is that I'd last about 10 minutes in the outside heat in July :-)

Anyway, my friend put the car top down on the way back to the airport this morning (4:30 am) -- and I had a chance to see what a totally beautiful place it can be at night! It's pretty in the daytime too, but you can't tell, really, because you're either inside breathing cool air or outside trying to make it to your car, or to a pool or lake or some other kind of water source -- which makes everything OK again untill you get out of the water.

What if you don't have air conditioning or a water source? Wow. I'm pretty sure I'd be dead before long.

I hear you can go outside in the Winter, though.

(Later that morning...)

Of Interest: the Tuscon and LAX airports still don't have wireless networks. Bummer. Get with the program guys.

Sony has announced a CMT-L7HD bookshelf stereo system that automatically copies the CDs you play on to a hard drive for future plays (you can also RIP them faster than playing speed in a handy "silent mode".) You can also program ahead of time to record your favorite radio programs on to the device's hard drive (not your computer's hard drive) -- just like a Tivo for broadcast radio (not webcasts).

Great idea, great product: once it has a digital output jack and wireless connection.

I certainly hope that this device's lack of a digital output bus and Internet connectivity don't count as copy protection mechanisms. Seems like there could be a big market for third parties to develop peripherals for these puppies. (Or perhaps that's what Sony plans to do itself?)

See the NY Times article by David Pogue:
A Stereo That's Small and Digital.

Springsteen Protects His New CD's Online in an Old-Fashioned Way
by Chris Nelson for the NY Times.

See the Redherring Story by Mark Mowrey:
Coming soon to your cable box Providers are bringing wireless connectivity to your set-top

Cable providers are upping the ante in the competition for broadband subscribers. By combining cable TV, broadband service, and wireless connectivity in one set-top box, cable companies could soon offer consumers value that DSL firms won't be able to match.

The Shrub is hoping to have 1 in 24 Americans spying on each others' everyday lives in the name of fighting terrorism.

Why should we all become volunteer spies and hand over what little freedoms we have left by cashing in our friends' and neighbors' rights to privacy? What if there's no TIPS program at all? (But what if there is! -- Aha! Fear! The ultimate controller of the masses rears its ugly head yet again.)

This is most likely just an attempt to fragment the public by making us all paranoid of each other. Don't fall for it friends.

If memory serves me correctly, to date, the Bush Administration hasn't been too great about telling us much of anything.

See the story by Ritt Goldstein for The Sydney Morning Herald:
US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies.

The Bush Administration aims to recruit millions of United States citizens as domestic informants in a program likely to alarm civil liberties groups.

The Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, means the US will have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous Stasi secret police. The program would use a minimum of 4 per cent of Americans to report "suspicious activity".

You might enjoy this very interesting account of the History of Tetris.