It's Spring Break for me right now. But it's not all fun in the sun. Although I have a break in teaching, I still have plenty of work to do. And for once I'm not going to LPSC for Spring Break.

Also, check out new pictures of our puppy on his own blog.

The future we live in is so frickin' awesome! We can already become virtual rock stars by playing Guitar Hero. Now I can download movies directly to my TiVo from Amazon.com! It's sort of like pay-per-view, but I can order movies on Amazon in the morning while I'm working, and they'll be finished downloading to the TiVo by that evening. Cox PPV sucks balls. There are only four or five options at a time, and I have to fiddle with both the Cox and TiVo remotes to purchase a movie. The Amazon/TiVo combo is more like the ideal television service--instantaneous on demand. It's just not instantaneous right now because you have to download the show.

Let me explain what would be the ultimate television service. I want to pay a single monthly fee, just like I do now for cable TV. But instead of constantly-running "channels", I want just a list of programming. Then I select the program and the episode I want to see, and it starts playing. TiVo sort of solves this problem halfway, by recording episodes for me, but I have to wait until they have aired to have the "instantaneous" effect I'm looking for. But movies are a different story. I have to be vigilant to make sure the movies I want to see are recorded. TiVo helps by having automatic wishlists, but the movie still has to air sometime. It's far from "on demand" for movies. And I would rather not have to leave the house and go to the rental store (which probably doesn't have it anyway!) to see the movie I want. Of course, rentals are per movie, not a flat monthly fee (although that is starting to change).

I've been offered a postdoc fellowship at Carnegie. This is a pretty big opportunity for me, but I'm waiting until I hear about my NRC application before I make a decision.