vedana.net

Google Blog: "We started our blog with a post about recruiting and didn't sign it. Then we changed it once it was up. You just don't do that with a blog, according to half the Google staff and all the Blogger folk."

Right on, Doug.

We unleashed the new Blogger today as a present to Mothers around the globe; the BBC has the lowdown.

Enjoy!

Update: Google News has further coverage, and here's Doug Bowman, Ninja master, on his gorgeous redesign. Sutter posted the relaunch photo-journal.

Looks like Kevin is courting a young lady, and they're having lunch today. Let's hope the inevitable doesn't happen!

PaperFrog:

"Traditional Asian diet is significantly different than western fare: low in red meat, high in vegetable and fiber content, nearly absent in artificial presevatives and added sugars. Asians generally eat more and smaller portions, and better balance their caloric intake with exercise. No surprises here."

"But what is emerging as a major factor in Asian longevity is cultural: older persons in Asian society are treated with a high degree of reverence. Their opinions are sought out; their wisdom, valued. Seniors more fully participate in Asian society than their western peers. The elderly remain active until very late in their lives. So quality of life may be linked to quantity of life in a very concrete way."

The Gimli Glider:

"If a Boeing 767 runs out of fuel at 41,000 feet what do you have? Answer: A 132 ton glider with a sink rate of over 2000 feet-per-minute and marginally enough hydraulic pressure to control the ailerons, elevator, and rudder. Put veteran pilots Bob Pearson and cool-as-a-cucumber Maurice Quintal in the cockpit and you've got the unbelievable but true story of Air Canada Flight 143, known ever since as the Gimli Glider."

And you most likely are too, but it's not what you're thinking. According to the Global Rich List, my unimpressive (read: average) salary places me in the top 0.899% richest people in the world. I'm the world's 53,957,565th richest person, and there are 5,946,042,435 people poorer than me.

Wow.

Notions of wealth are entirely subjective of course, but you (should) get the idea. Plug in your salary and see what you find.

Wired has the lowdown:

"An annual household income of $42,200 -- the U.S. median in 2001 -- is enough to land someone in the world's richest 1 percent, according to the site."

"'The idea is to really make people think about how rich they are compared to the rest of the world,' said Nicolas Roope, one of the site's creators. 'In the West, we tend to obsess about celebrities and the super-rich. This is a really simple way to turn that on its head.'"

... is how AllMusic describes Belle and Sebastian, whom I had the good fortune to see at the Warfield last night in San Francisco. Attending with me was Comrade Goldman, elsewhere described as The Shadow Government behind Blogger.

As frequent visitors to the blog already know, I rarely write about my experiences. This time is no different- I'll leave it up to Mr. Goldman.

Salon.com: "The Pentagon's budget has increased from $312 billion at the end of the Clinton administration to $469 billion in the past fiscal year (including various supplemental spending bills passed by Congress), according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington."

Insanity...

Happy Form S-1 Day!

For some light reading, CNet is kindly hosting the file (~780k pdf). I suggest reading through at least the first 11 pages, which are Larry & Sergey's Owner's Manual for Google's Shareholders (excerpted at AlwaysOn). As you'll see, this is not an ordinary company.

Cheers!

[Great coverage from: Wired & CNet]

Craigslist: "I can get Google stock -- date me!"

EvHead: "Hmmm... I wonder if this'll work..."

Scary.

Saturday:

• Got over a nasty cold
• Finished Giants of Enterprise, a book club read. Phew.
• Nice phone chat with Jarrod in New Zealand
• Opium in San Francisco
• The Unveiling- ecccentricity redefined

• Investigated Salon Premium, which surprisingly includes NYBooks, Granta, Wired, US News & World Report & National Geographic Adventure
• Drank lots of ginger & lavender honey tea
• Signed up for Salon Premium
• Sent all but one of my 63 Gmail invites
• Brought the BiodieselBlog mostly up-to-date
• Inbox count down to 10 messages...

Wow, check out the hybrid stats over at Green Car Congress: "California is Hybrid Heaven, with 11,425, or 26%, of the total, followed by Virginia with 3,376, or 8%... Now, the bad news. Hybrids accounted for 0.03% of the 2003 car market."

Passion of the Present has tons of info about the genocide going on in Sudan. Try to find 15 minutes to watch this video from Human Rights Watch, a recently-created documentary about the situation there.

Then donate to Human Rights Watch to help:

"Your money will go for cell phones, Internet satellite connections, digital cameras, for medical and food supplies, and to support volunteers moving personally into the genocide zone."

Salon recently posted a great interview with Neal Stephenson, on his latest book(s), The Baroque Cycle. Here's a quote to which I can definitely relate:

"I'm in this history book club, which is not all geeks but it's definitely got some serious geeks in it. It's been going for four or five years maybe. We're all consistently dumbfounded by how interesting history is when you read it yourself compared to how dull it was when they made you study it in school. We can't figure out why there's that gap. I think they try to cover too broad a sweep at once so you never get down to the individual people and their stories. It's all generalities."

Here's a photo I snapped from my flight into Chicago, back in 11/2002.

Browsing through Pushkar's site (one of my Gmail invitees), I came across a strikingly similar photo. Nice.