Here's an 18-minute podcast for a Thurs aft. 

Time for a ride!

 7/28/2011; 4:14:09 PM.   .

Just recorded a 20-minute podcast with the iPhone Voice Memo app.

I normally just right-click on the memo, choose Convert to MP3 and then upload the result.

But I must have installed a new version of iTunes and the command is gone.

So I have no idea how to proceed. There's a command in the Advanced menu called Create MP3 Version, but it's grayed-out with the cursor on the memo.

Apple -- why do you keep changing things like this. Oy.

Update: I found a way to do it. I had to dig around in the Finder to find the file (they also removed the Reveal in Finder command). I copied it to the Desktop, then dragged it onto the iTunes icon. Boom. There's the Convert to MP3 command. So they just took it out for Voice Memos. (I can hear their internal discussion. Very few people use it so let's move it. I happen to be one of the people who use it.)

 7/28/2011; 2:32:38 PM.   .

That's not exactly a front-page story, but it would be smart of the news organizations to base their Crayz-Town coverage on that simple assumption. Instead of getting all dramatic about everything, they should roll their eyes after every sentence. I mean, that is, if they don't want to themselves be crazy.

Lots of eye-rolls and coughs.

One more thing and I'll get back to my real work...

If you've read about the Boehner bill that's going thru the House and apparentlly likely to pass, you have to see that it's ridiculous that this is what the big deal was all about. Remember to divide the number by 10, because it's a 10-year thing. And forget about anything in the bill after next year, because it's all subject to re-legislating. It's nothing more than a vaporware press release. As if Microsoft made a decision that their operating system is going to have fewer users in 2019. Okay. Thanks for letting us know. (Sarcasm.)

It's all meaningless. Puffed up to make it look big. We might as well have been talking about Angry Birds.

They just do it to occupy the airwaves. To make sure that nothing else can get through.

Now I want to know what else should be coming through.

Not a joke.

PS: To the Tea Partiers, you're the craziest thing to come to Washington in a lonnnng time.

 7/28/2011; 12:03:56 PM.   .

I've been emailing on technical topics with Philip Greenspun, and am reminded how much I like him, as a technologist.

But the things that I like about him as a technologist are infuriating when he talks politics.

I suppose this is the way some people feel about me.

But we do think alike in some ways.

I posted a link in a comment on his blog, to yesterday's piece about Inspiring GOP Movie Scenes, where I suggest that we let each Representative name five citizens who will pay no taxes.

That's the way to give them what they want without ruining the economy any more than they already have.

Then the rich people can bid on their seats, in essence sharing their windfall with their rep. They can buy and sell their reps as before. But since they pay no taxes, they don't have any say in how taxes work for the rest of us. Seems fair, yes?

They wouldn't have to do anything else. Not hire anyone. Nothing.

Of course they couldn't use our police or fire departments, or sewers, or the military. We'd have to figure out how to segregate them from those of us who pay taxes. Seems that this is applying their values to the situation. What's mine is mine!

Obviously it's none of their business if the rest of us would like to pool our resources and have public education, or buses and subways, for example. Health care.

 7/28/2011; 11:31:38 AM.   .

I seem to be a day behinds in writing up my rides.

Hope this isn't a problem for y'all!

Yesterday's ride was weird. Huge headwind going north. I kept reminding myself how much fun it would be on the trip south, and...

After the turnaround, it was fun, but then something weird happened.

The wind reversed, and the same headwind hit me on the way back.

I thought to myself, well Dave at least you're getting a great workout.

Here's a biker who wears a camera, so he got the cop who doored him on video. Thinking I should be wearing a camera too. Every day people are doing all kinds of stupid shit that could get either of us killed. Might be good to have video of it.

And I had a political thought, as I am wont to do these days.

If you're a Tea Party member, feeling all mighty and full of yourself, just remember. Most of the rest of us didn't vote for you. You're playing a foolish and dangerous game. When the dust settles, you will be denying you had anything to do with the Tea Party. But the problem is all the dumb messages you're leaving on the Internet will prove otherwise.

We're not impressed. And you will be blamed if the US becomes the mess that you seem hell-bent on turning it into.

Might want to think about that before you spout too much of that Tea Party nonsense.

Map: 1 hour 7 minutes. 11.54 miles.

 7/28/2011; 10:55:29 AM.   .