Spent today watching Megan compete in a middle-school debate (!), which amazingly was at Pasadena Polytechnic school, right next door to Caltech, while still under the influence of my reunion dinner last night.  What are the odds of that?  In other ways it was a quiet day, but there was stuff going on in the blogosphere...

Still enjoying Win7 although getting everything installed and working is quite a time sink.  There is no question it is faster and less buggy than my XP system was, admittedly a low bar.  And I am almost ready to disable UAC, it is less intrusive than under Vista, but still seems to add no value, just mouse clicks.  Also I've decided the Aero look of Explorer is stylish but it makes using it harder, I guess that is what it is, and I'll probably get used to it.

Here's something really useful that I did under XP too: create a default association for files with no extension.  I associate it with Notepad and then I can leave notes on my desktop.  This is useful if, like me, you ask Windows always to display file extensions.

I'm not sure yet whether this is a dancing bear, but Win7's 3D-alt-tab is amazingly cool; you activate it by Windows-Tab instead of Alt-Tab.  I'm using it right now because it is cool, time will tell whether I keep using it because it's useful...

The PC / Mac ad wars have definitely led to some pretty entertaining ads; the latest from Apple is great.  "I'm a Mac", and "I'm a Megan".  I'm an Ole, and I love it :)

Slate helpfully explains why trains run slower now than in the 1920s...  train travel is definitely a weird exception to the rule that technology keeps getting better and cheaper.  (and how great is it that the article is written by a Vanderbilt :)

Like Glenn Reynolds, I too have absolutely no use for this car, and I too think it looks really cool...

Back in the real world, a nice comparison of the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight.  I am becoming more intrigued by these hybrids, yeah, I know, they're efficient gas-powered cars, not electric cars, but until Tesla get their Model S Sedan on the market this is all we've got...

I'll be the ten billionth blogger to link this picture, but it is too cool not to, the shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble space telescope silhouetted against the sun.  How cool is that?

Dave Winer: when will Twitter start for real?  "At some point we will finish this sentence: Twitter is... ?"  Hype.  And that's all it is.

ZooBorn of the day: baby cotton-topped Tamerin.