• Let’s start things off with some fresh sunset photos from one of my fellow DRA founding fathers, Chris Walton.
• I think my recent link posts have fired up the spambots, as I’ve been getting some amusing spam comments (they never show up on the site, as WordPress’ spam filter does a nice job catching them). Here’s a response to my post on Gmail setup under iOS 4: “Unhappy for the  analyze, but I’m truly fatherly the new Zune, and comic this, as compartment as the excellent reviews few additional fill have longhand, testament cater you terminate if it’s the aright prime for you.”
• Ha ha, the Taiwanese video site NMA (they quickly put together videos of current events and computer animate them, such as Tigers Woods crashing his truck or Stephen Slater jumping out of the plane) has a video up on the Chinese Confucius Peace Prize, celebrating “peace from the Chinese perspective”. Love it. And I love the armed giant Pandas serving as Chinese soldiers.
• Wild to see the aftermath of this 1960 plane crash in Park Slope in Brooklyn, given that I now live blocks away from the crash site.

• A blogger installed a SSD hard drive in his 2009 13″ MacBook Pro. This is exactly what I did (replacing the optical drive so that I now have a 100GB SSD for the OS and a 1TB regular hard drive for my files), and it’s easily the best computer upgrade I have ever done, well worth the money. My computer is so much more responsive, it’s almost unbelievable. Moving to an SSD really opens your eyes to how much the storage system serves as a bottleneck in today’s computers. I went with an OWC SSD, as the reviews were all glowing.
• This week’s NY Times Magazine has a long article on Oregon’s high-speed football offense.
• Burrito Justice is up to his usual cool work in San Francisco, putting together some resources on the Cone of Invisibility for Mission/Bernal residents, in which the BoA building blocks the Transamerica Pyramid. One note from the end of the post: there used to be a quarry on top of Bernal, evident in one of the photos.
• The NY Times has an article about increasing use of rabbit ears to get HDTV. I’ve actually been using a $40 HDTV antenna (complete with rabbit ears for VHF frequences, as well as quasi-futuristic ray gun part for UHF frequencies–or perhaps it is the other way around) for a month now, and it works quite well, especially since I can connect it to my TiVo for DVR usage. There is some susceptibility to interference if you move the antenna or sit by it when watching, but it’s tough to complain given the monthly price ($0). We’ve also been using Netflix streaming and Hulu Plus to get our TV fill, and have purchased some shows via iTunes (e.g., Mad Men). The only thing missing is live sports, which would be covered if Cablevision was an ESPN3 partner–then I could watch live sports on my Xbox 360.
• Road trains in Europe? Sounds pretty good to me, as it means more efficient utilization of roads without road infrastructure investments. I expect that automated driving will involve a mesh network between cars, not communication with the roads, given the cost of building out a smart road infrastructure combined with challenges of keeping it current.

• Published just before this week’s US State Dept. leaks from WikiLeaks, Forbes has an in-depth look at WikiLeaks and the future of data security.
• This NY Times article on port (and the recent decline in consumption) reminds me that it has been too long since I’ve had a nice glass of port after dinner. I used to regularly get a glass at Garçon on 22nd and Guerrero in SF when V and I would pop in for dessert on a weekend evening.
• Carcassone is coming for the iPad this month. This should make Vanessa very happy.
• This is the first detailed story I’ve seen on the Stuxnet virus that someone (the article proposes a consortium of Western intelligence agencies) created and deployed to cripple Iranian centrifuges used in their nuclear program. Fascinating story. Hat tip to Daring Fireball for the link.
• A new life form has been discovered in Mono Lake (by Yosemite) that ”is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible.”
• Via Daring Fireball, a great overview of using Google Voice on the iPhone. I’m still holding back from jumping in with both feet on a move to using my GVoice # as my primary number, in part because there are still advantages to the native apps. Also, I tried to start texting via Google Voice and ran into problems receiving replies.
• Is this a joke? Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup over the US? WTF. Moving beyond my disappointment that the Cup won’t be here in the States, I don’t think I’ll travel to Qatar for the games. 118 degree temps and no social life in the country? Sign me up. I imagine ticket sales will be really strong, given that US fans bought more tickets than anyone outside of South Africa for the most recent Cup. [/sarcasm] Final complaint: in a warming world, how is it socially conscious for FIFA to endorse a plan that makes the oppressive heat tolerable by air-conditioning outdoor stadium?

• Earlier this year GQ magazine ran a great oral history of the making of GoodFellas. Lots of fun tidbits therein. I find these oral histories to almost always be total winners. E.g., previously GQ had an oral history of the making of Dazed and Confused (my Googling is coming up empty on that, sorry).
• Fluxblog, a great music blog, has its year-end “survey mix” of material from 2010. Eight discs worth of MP3s to download and check out.
• Very fun new tower defense game for iPhone/iPad (universal app): iBomber Defense. I’ve been enjoying it over the last couple days. Here’s the Touch Arcade review.

• James Fallows summarizes the state of security thinking in the US, in light of the recent TSA kerfluffle. As I was telling Vanessa last night, my big issue with the “nude” x-ray machine, enhanced patdowns, etc., is that they don’t make me any safer than under prior security measures, but instead are part of security theater. Fallows touches on this in his post. If I felt that these measures represented a change in thinking in the TSA, a move away from responding to the last near-miss (in this case, the Christmas 2009 underwear bomber), I would be willing to give up some convenience and some dignity. Until then, the TSA is just another source of frustration in my life.
• Photos of the long-closed City Hall Station on NYC’s 6 subway line. Spectacular station, complete with skylights.
• Another great essay on the TSA.
• Robot Unicorn Attack, Christmas Edition! Phil Kong introduced me to this amusing iPhone game from Adult Swim.
• Loving Coffee Without Being a Drip: amusing story from NY Times food critic Frank Bruni on his search for a better coffee experience than Mr. Coffee and the French press. He mentions the Japanese V60 system, which Ritual in SF switched to from French presses earlier this year. I’ve been using the Bialetti stovetop espresso maker lately, as the chalkiness of French press coffee is getting tiresome, and may give the V60 system a try.

• Racing in the Rain by John Horsman. This is a beautiful (and expensive) book by the head of the Gulf-Wyer racing team that had its heyday in sports car racing in Europe in the ’60s and ’70s. Heavy paper stock, great layout and some evocative photos round out this account of running a racing team.
• Overhaul by Steven Rattner. Rattner is an investment banker that led the forced-bankruptcy process for GM and Chrysler. So far, an entertaining and fast read.
• System of the World by Neal Stephenson. This is volume 3 in sci-fi author Stephenson’s “Baroque Cycle”, a trilogy of really long historical fictions set in 17th and 18th century Europe and New England. The first two volumes have been good, but really long and almost too complex in the web of characters–Stephenson is reaching for epic territory here, in scope and length. I prefer “Snow Crash” and “Cryptonomicon,” two earlier novels from Stephenson that are set in the 20th century and focus on science fiction more than historical fiction.

French toast biscuits at Atomic Cowboy

Blake and I traveled from our respective coasts to Denver for this past weekend’s Great American Beer Festival and some good times with Chris and Kristi. Denver has a far better restaurant scene than I expected, and I’ve had some tasty meals in my visits to the Mile High City since the Waltons moved there. Especially well represented are good breakfast/brunch joints, something that San Francisco does only passably well (jury is still out on NYC–too little information so far).

Brunch at Root Down

Highlights from this most recent trip include French toast biscuits at the Atomic Cowboy (a bar serving breakfast biscuits until 2pm, with a pizza joint also located inside) on Friday morning; an SF-caliber meal at Colt & Gray on Saturday night–shame it was so cramped inside, though; and breakfast at Root Down on Sunday morning. Mmm…

Chris gets ready to dig in to some toffee pudding