He is the best musician around today, in my estimation.  I find myself referring to the complicated and meaningful memes that he weaves into his music frequently.  His piano talent is unmatched in todays popular music scene -- except for the mighty Vanessa Carlton.  Ha.

Here is a video that looks more like a home movie of his 3 year old son:  Link

My horoscope for this week, thanks to The Onion:

Cancer: (June 22—July 22)
It's true that secret agents have crossed international borders with microfilm hidden in their colons, but you should've known better than to try it with three liters of duty-free scotch.

Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's Daily Show has provided a critique of "The Gates", which is a 21 million dollar art installation in Central Park.

"The gates is a triumph of contemporary installation art, each gate redefining it's section of the park as not a public place for private reflection, but a private place for public reflection, juxtaposed with the bareness of mid winter, the gates posits a chromatic orgy, this riot of color achieves a rare re-defamiliarization with the nature of place time, the whatness of our whereness, no longer framed ... (pause) ... I'm sorry ... (pause) ... I've run out of crap."

Here is a link to the entire Stephen Colbert audio clip (6MB download):

Link

Adware and Spyware might be the two most frightening developments in technology yet.  Worse than viruses, which are obvious and easy to spot.  Adware infects your machine and subtly releases pop up ads designed to look like they are coming from the Website you happen to be surfing.

So they're influencing your behavior against your will, without you knowing it.  Manchurianized. 

Here's a link to remove adware and spyware off your Windows machine:  Away, ye demons of pop up ads!

Careful, this software is still in beta with Microsoft.

Futurist Joel Kotkin, a fellow of the New America Foundation, wrote a column for the Washington Post titled "Rule Suburbia," declaring that the land-use debate is now over and suburban sprawl is the undisputed winner.

"Once we acknowledge this reality, we can turn to the task of making the best of it." Kotkin wrote.

He makes a good point.  Americans have spoken with their feet, and their feet are not being used for walking, they are being used for driving to the suburbs.  The suburbs provide an undeniable allure of safety, natural beauty, and open space.  Add in the low cost of suburban land and you've got yourself a cultural revolution.

He says that the main challenge of the 21st century is to "transform suburbia into something more efficient, interesting, and humane".  And then he points toward the future of suburbia, which is an evolution toward village building.  Suburban areas are quickly becoming grid locked by traffic jams.  Services and products that are made available nearby to these suburban meccas are very profitable.  Suburban villages that are capable of delivering goods and services locally are already popping up in fast-growing regions all over the US.

If we are in fact headed for a global peak in oil production which drives fuel prices sky high, the "suburb as village" model may well be our saving grace.  Centralizing our goods and services within clusters of suburban villages could help us transition to a more sustainable delivery model. 

For instance, right now you can save money by driving to Walmart even if it's a 30 mile journey.  But eventually that 30 mile journey will cost far more than the savings you realize on your Walmart purchases.

Similarly, it currently makes sense to create one huge high school and bus thousands of kids to a centralized location.  But the cost of fuel could force busing prices through the roof.  Consequently it would save money to build small schools in the village and keep the kids close to home.

And the list goes on:  Health care, day care, entertainment, restaurants, and civic venues will all be rebuilt with the suburban village in mind.  Eventually the suburban wasteland of strip malls and McMansions will have to evolve or die.

The Kyoto Protocol took effect today.  One small step toward the reforms that are needed to avoid disaster in the coming decades.

From the Associated Press:

"We have been calling on the United States to join. But the country that is the world's biggest emitter has not joined yet, and that is regrettable," Japan's top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda, told reporters.

In case you are interested, the global temperature for 2004 averaged 0.97° Fahrenheit (O.54°C) above the 1880-2003 average.  2004 was the 4th warmest year on record.  Here is more information.