Okay, so I’m utterly failing on writing more. Eit. Friday, I went and hung out at Christy and UBoat’s, Saturday I went for a bike ride up to Skyline Blvd and then went over to the Lantzes to play with Max, and this morning I played ultimate for the first time in a month, which hurt about as much as might be expected. Despite my claim that I’d try to stay in shape, I pretty much failed. Alas. So I was getting beat pretty good today on defense because I was sloooooooooooow. I did make a couple nice plays when I was marking on D, and I got a totally totally sweet one-handed left-handed layout grab for a score, so that pretty much made my day. You know it’s good when people from the other field tell you how good it was. This afternoon was a “Ow, ow, I’m out of shape” kind of afternoon. With football. I wish I’d had satellite TV, though, to watch the Bears win a game by a safety in overtime. How weird is that?

Um. Yeah. Sorry for the ramble there.

So, yeah, writing more. I figure I’ll at least toss up the links I’ve been collecting for the last little bit. And after this I’ll try to type up my AC2004 notes.

Right. To the links.

• While posting a reply to a column on outsourcing over at CNET last week, I found an article from a survey on outsourcing in the Economist this week. The only reason it’s notable is because I was pleased to note that the Economist feels the way I do about outsourcing, that it’s not only inevitable, but that it’s a good thing in that it means more people are doing more innovative work which will lead to productivity increases for everybody. To quote the article:
  

  What the worriers always forget is that the same changes in production technology that destroy jobs also create new ones. Because machines and foreign workers can perform the same work more cheaply, the cost of production falls. That means higher profits and lower prices, lifting demand for new goods and services. Entrepreneurs set up new businesses to meet demand for these new necessities of life, creating new jobs.

• Several good thoughtful articles over at AlterNet about the aftermath of the election. I liked this one on continuing the fight, this one about building progressive media (although I think he’s short-sighted in not figuring out how to leverage the liberal blogosphere), and particularly one by Don Hazen, the chief editor of AlterNet, asking us to face the music and admit that the progressive movement as currently constructed ain’t working. In particular, I liked the line “In the end, people vote for core values, and generally we don’t know what ours are, and when we do know, we have a terrible time explaining them.” which ties into my belief that we need to work on developing our message. AlterNet in general is pretty cool. I sent them a donation earlier this year when they offered copies of Lakoff’s latest book.
• I thought about going to this free conference at Harvard about how the internet is changing politics, but decided that my life was too crazy, so I’m going to punt. But it does look neat.
• The San Francisco Symphony released its new recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, aka the Resurrection, last week. This is exciting because it’s the first album that I’ve recorded with the symphony – it was recorded at the concerts this past summer. It’s an awesome recording. Admittedly, I’m biased. But I can tell you that many sections of it still raise goosebumps, and the first time I listened to the final movement (the part where we sing) on the CD, it brought tears to my eyes. And it’s a pretty good bet that it will win a Grammy of some sort, given that the Mahler 6 recording won “Best Orchestral Performance”, and Mahler 3 won “Best Classical Album”. It’d be cool to win a Grammy. It’d go well with the Emmy I won for Sweeney Todd (well, okay, I didn’t win an Emmy, but the production did, and I was in it. Technicalities count, right?). Then I’d just need a Tony and an Oscar to round out the collection. Yeah. Right.

Okay, not as many links as I thought. Oh well. I think I’m going to punt on the AC2004 notes for this evening – a friend called me up while I was working on this, and I ended up talking to him for an hour, and now it’s late, and I think I’m going to stock up on sleep for the week. Maybe notes tomorrow. Not that anyone cares. La la la. I could write complete gibberish and nobody would ever know! Ah, the freedom of having no readership. Wait, was that my out-loud voice? Oops. Bye!