The Brunch Table

My dream camera is finally about to go on sale. I had heard about the SMaL Ultra-Pocket reference design a while back, and I’ve been waiting impatiently for it turn into an actual product ever since. It should be available this month for $130; there’s a review here. Other contenders for the tiny camera crown are the Aiptek Mini Pencam 1.3 and the Casio EXILIM. Anyone want to give me a late birthday present? ;]

Here are some other options: Che-ez SPYZ! (great name), Axia Eyeplate (same OEM as the Logitech), and the SiPix StyleCam Blink. Hmm, I’m tempted by the cheez spy.

Apparently the Massachusetts legislature refuses to release money earmarked for “clean” campaigns, so a judge has given the authorization to sell off state property to get the money.

Today’s Washington Post features another article that makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Bush’s National Security Council wants to add “preemption” and “defensive intervention” as formal options of national military policy. Basically, the idea is that if another country has dangerous weapons that they might use against us, Bush wants to be able to disarm them. Because obviously, we’re the only ones who can be trusted with weapons of mass destruction.

Business travelers and regional governments are waking up to the fact that high-speed rail can compete favorably with air travel on routes under 400 miles. The amusing corporate double-speak email that US Airways sent me about their possible bankruptcy whined a bit about how they had to compete with the Acela–poor babies.

The Reason Foundation, a Libertarian think tank, is proposing the creation of “truck freeways”, so that multiple containers of freight can be linked to a single truck engine and hauled on limited-access routes. Um, isn’t this called a railroad? Kickin’ it old-school like it was 1849.

Boing Boing has an excerpt from a talk by Howard Rheingold at the Reboot conference that discusses how a lot of technical innovation is bottom-up, not top-down, and how certain common resources escape privatization. Czech it out.

The EPA just released their Climate Action Report 2002, which is the first admission by the U.S. government that our actions are causing some global warming. Meanwhile, the Bush administration is sticking with its laissez-faire “plan” for pollution reduction and refusing to ratify the Kyoto protoocol. Here’s the Beeb’s take on the subject, and here’s a relevant NY Times editorial. In the meantime, the report advises, just crank up the A/C.