Like disposable diapers

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You've met a girl in a chat room. She may be attractive. Then again, she might be a middle-aged man. She asks for your e-mail. You're intrigued but would rather not end up on the evening news.
The solution? How about taking one from the real world? Business folks traveling through strange towns for a weekend have often resorted to giving phony names when meeting strangers in bars. Extend that analogy to the web and give Them a temporary e-mail address, one that will forward e-mail to your real e-mail address for a short time period, just enough for you to complete the transaction (say with a site you want to buy from but suspect may spam you in the future). You can obtain one here. Who said the French weren't helpful?
ADDENDUM: Before I went to hit the publish button, I came across a link from Joel to this service called Mailinator which allows you to just make up an e-mail on the spot. Of course, it's possible someone else could get your e-mail as well using Mailinator, but there are plenty of situations where you probably don't care, especially if you're just using it for a one time transaction.

Credit card signatures

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I recently lost a credit card and was sent a replacement. I called to authorize the card and was told to sign the back. That little white strip they give you on the back of credit cards to sign your name? Totally inadequate. Not only is the strip not tall enough to accomodate my John Hancock, but they also print the credit card number and 3 digit CCV in that same space, giving you even less room. Frankly, I don't know how any clerk could even read my signature considering how much of it is obscured by the printed numbers.
And does anyone really care how you sign your credit card receipts? One man took it upon himself to see how far he could go, and he went a lot further than you'd expect. Ever since I saw this, I've been reducing my signature at lunch time more and more. Pretty soon it will just be a straight line.

Netflix revisited: Someone with more free time than me

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If you really want an in-depth view of Netflix, this guy has exhausted himself in that very cause. In fact, to test their recommendations engine, he rated nearly every one of their 14,500 titles.
Entertaining study, though I came to the same conclusion about the mediocrity of Netflix's recommendations engine after only rating some 80 or 90 movies.
Someone going by the handle dvd-rent-rest published a study, covered by Slashdot and other forums, which claims that Netflix prioritizes customers who turn over their movies more slowly when allocating scarce DVDs. That would mean they'd be punishing their most active users, presumably because those customers cost more for them to service (analysts believe that if you watch 5 or more movies per month, you're an unprofitable customer to Netflix).
No idea if that's true or not, but if so, it's a fairly short-sighted decision in the quest for profit. Any business that punishes its most ardent users should change their business model instead of punishing those customers, likely to be their greatest evangelists.

Some writers on writing

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Neal Stephenson compares writing to programming. One thing he says rings true to me--writing with a fountain pen can help you to improve the quality of your daily output. As for his other comments, I'm not sure I agree with all of them, but reading other writers discussions of the writing process always reassures me. It demystifies the process, and when some of their observations ring true, I feel like part of their fraternity.
Of course, Manhattan is the mecca for writers, so it's particularly enjoyable to hear New York authors discuss how they got started in the biz.

Cleaning up the past

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When I last shifted to this template for my weblog, my previous years of posts didn't handle the conversion too well because I used to insert hard line breaks to create readable sentence lengths going across the page. With this new template it's not much of an issue because the actual blog entries are constrained by the column width automatically.
I've been lazy about going back and cleaning up my archives. It's a long and arduous task. But I've noticed enough traffic to the archives that sheer embarrassment is motivating me to get it done. It's like finding out guests have been walking through your bedroom--you're much quicker to pick up the dirty laundry.
So slowly, you should notice an improvement in the formatting of old posts. I started with March 2002 because, for some reason, that month gets more traffic than any other. What's the number one product in terms of click throughs on my site as measured by Amazon Associates? Eye of the Tiger, by Survivor, by a huge margin, and it's only mentioned on my site once, in this post from March 25, 2002. How and why people keep finding this post is a complete and utter mystery.

What next?!?

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The drama in the Tour continued as Tyler Hamilton, fractured collarbone and all, somehow managed to sustain a breakaway with 88 miles to go to win his first ever Tour de France stage today. This Tour never lets up--something amazing happens everyday.
What's even crazier is that he looked like he was going to be dropped early on as many riders in the peloton, knowing that it was a mountain stage that finished flat, tried to break away. In stages with such profiles, non-climbers try to get an early break so they can hold off the climbers for the stage victory in the final flats. I thought Hamilton was just going to try to hang on for dear life.
But then, on the first climb, he attacked. At that point, I had no doubts he'd be caught. After all, teams with sprinters and GC contenders, especially Telekom, had plenty of km's left to chase down his 3 minute lead. But for some reason, Telekom didn't try to put Zabel into a position to win the stage, or didn't feel worried that Hamilton would catch Vinokourov in Saturday's time trial. Euskaltel, fighting with CSC for the team title, also seemed apathetic for much of the race.
By the time those two teams began pushing the pace, I was starting to get excited, because it looked like he just might hang on. It's one of those feelings that begins as a "hmmm." And then suddenly I'm banging on the sofa, cheering him on. He was clearly redlining, trying to get down into as aerodynamic a position as possible.
And he did it, and it wasn't even all that close. Good for Tyler. What a gutsy rider! His pain tolerance is absurd. The Tour de France is like racing a marathon every day for three weeks. These guys are truly superhuman, maybe the toughest athletes in the world. I've been losing weight just watching them.

Sniff

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An eventful several days. First and foremost, James got engaged to Angela last Friday. Given that Angela's survived a few of our family Christmases, she's already well prepared for our madness and a card-carrying member of our wacky but fun tribe. Mostly, I'm excited about the hip hop routine which Karen will choreograph and which Alan, Jeff, Mike, and I will perform at the wedding. Yes, we're that kind of family. I hope Karen doesn't throw in anything difficult moves--I'm not quite as flexible as I once was.
Lots of birthdays--my stepmother, Bill, Lynn. Carol organized a great little sunset BBQ surprise for Lynn's birthday today. We hung out at a park in West Seattle, near the Vashon ferry. I've been here in Seattle over five years and never even knew about that picnic spot.
On a more somber note, doctors found some growths in my grandfather's mouth and suspect cancer. We won't know until next Tuesday. Given our family's history with cancer, I cringe everytime I hear the word, and it's difficult not to fall prey to fatalistic thoughts. But he's a tough cookie, and we're all keeping our fingers crossed.
My sinus infection is back. After going all my life without one, this year I've had three, and I'm starting to think it's chronic. The doc didn't prescribe antibiotics today, much to my dismay. I hate taking meds, but sinus infections are so miserable I was ready to pop pills as soon as possible. He wants to run a CT scan of my sinuses, and until then I'm stuck with Sudafed which feels like getting a water pistol before heading into a gunfight. My teeth ache, I'm running a fever, and my head is splitting. It's difficult to keep my mind focused. I was tempted to Google "chronic sinusitis," but then thought better of it. Sometimes ignorance is of some comfort.
P.S.: I've been flipping through the entertaining and useful diversion titled The Klutz Book of Knots, and the most immediately useful one in my everyday life is The Better Bow. How did I live all these years without it? Take the bow you use to tie your shoes, and make one simple change. When you get to the point where you have to make a turn around the middle of the two loops, make two turns around the end of your finger instead of just one. Then slip the second loop through the hole vacated by your finger, just as normal. Voila! A bow knot which doesn't come loose and still unties with a simple tug. Brilliant!

And Armstrong attacks!

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The benefit of living on the West Coast is being able to get up at a semi-reasonable hour to catch the extended OLN coverage of the key mountain stages. This morning that meant crawling out of bed bleary-eyed at 5:30am, still somewhat woozy from the weekend bachelor party, to catch the key stage of the Tour, Stage 15.
This stage included two of the most famous Pyrenean climbs, the awesome Col de Tourmalet and the Luz Ardiden. And again, it was, like the rest of this year's Tour, one nail-bitingly suspenseful and dramatic race. I've never seen any sporting event like this--just two weeks of one shocking event after another.
First we witnessed the early attack by young French rider Sylvain Chavanel, an attempt to lead the race nearly wire-to-wire. Brave, but unlikely given the difficulty of the stage profile. Chavanel will remember this moment, though. He is regarded as the heir to Laurent Jalabert as the smartest and bravest French cyclist and has a great future ahead of him. Virenque is the macho but somewhat brainless French rider who always wins with his cojones, but Chavanel looks to be a true podium contender.
Then Ullrich attacked on Tourmalet and put Armstrong into a bit of difficulty. Were we witnessing the end of the Armstrong era? For a brief moment it looked to be so, but Armstrong has managed to keep his cool this entire race, despite his difficulties, and he gradually covered the attack. Ullrich continued to press, but Armstrong had locked onto his wheel.
And so the lead group came to the bottom of Luz Ardiden, the punishing final climb. Knowing that he had lost 1' 36" to Ullrich in the last time trial, and only leading by 15", Armstrong had to open up a time gap on this final climb if he wished to feel safe going into the final time trial later this week. The lead group consisted of Ullrich, Mayo, Hamilton, Moreau, Rubiera, Basso, and Zubeldia, among others. This pack of about fifteen riders was going to decide the day. Ullrich's teammate Garmendia took point for a while, and then Beltran and Rubiera. Soon Armstrong and his rival Ullrich were side by side, and the showdown at high noon had begun. Who would attack first?
It turned out to be neither of them. Iban Mayo took off down the right side of the road, cutting past Ullrich. And Armstrong followed a split second later, to Ullrich's left! Finally, Armstrong showed the spring in his legs that we'd come to expect after his previous four victories. Ullrich immediately moved to cover.
And then Armstrong crashed! Going around a righthand turn, Armstrong hooked his right brake hood on a spectator's musette (feed bag souvenir) which yanked his bars around and dropped him on his left side. Mayo, right behind him, crashed as well, and Ullrich barely avoided them with a sharp swerve to the left. I nearly coughed up a lung. Armstrong was down. Was his bike damaged? The rest of the riders rode past as Armstrong gave his bike a once over and struggled to get back into his clips. Could it all be over in this instant?
Up the road, Ullrich kept looking over his shoulder, trying to understand what was going on. Rubiera went back to help his team captain Armstrong. Fueled by an incredible surge of adrenaline, Armstrong and Mayo flew back towards the Ullrich group.
And then Armstrong came out of his right clip and nearly did a chest plant on his top tube! Mayo decided it was safer to not follow Lance and cut over to the right side of the road. Was Lance's pedal permanently damaged? Had his cleat come loose? No one knew, and it added to the suspense. It was likely too late for Lance to swap bikes, so if his equipment was damaged, he might not be able to keep up or attack. Chechu had faded back, and he gave Lance a hand signal to indicate, "Keep your cool, I'm here to take you back to those guys."
Ullrich sat up to allow Armstrong back, a display of sportsmanship in a sport that has more unwritten than written rules of etiquette. Armstrong had once waited for Ullrich when Jan fell over a mountain, and now the gesture had been repaid. Who says sportsmanship doesn't pay? A perfect case example for game theorists everywhere. In another display of comraderie, former Armstrong teammate Hamilton had ridden up to the lead group and told them to slow down, especially a feisty Mayo. Attacking when the lead dog has suffered a mishap is not honorable. Hamilton has been a good friend to Lance this entire race, despite being a competitor, and I'm sure Lance will remember that. I'm a bigger Hamilton fan than ever.
As soon as Armstrong pulled up alongside Ullrich, the race essentially reset and started from zero, like going into overtime. Armstrong had lost a portion of the course on which to attack, so he didn't wait long before launching another attack. Mayo followed, but this time Ullrich had no answer. Armstrong caught and passed Chavanel, giving the young French rider a congratulatory pat on the back for his courage, and kept motoring on. This was the type of attack we'd been waiting the entire Tour for, and Lance had finally had the legs to oblige.
In the end, Lance ended 1' 07" up on Ullrich in the overall GC standings. What a day of racing. It was barely 8am and I'd already had a two and a half hour aerobic workout.

The Benefit of the Doubt

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My favorite contemporary writer, Tobias Wolff, has a short story titled The Benefit of the Doubt in this week's New Yorker, and it's posted for free online for a short while. He also has a novel titled Old School which is available for pre-order and coming out this fall.
The short story is a personal exploration of the state of U.S. foreign relations.
This week's New Yorker also has an article on Bill James work for the Boston Red Sox, though it doesn't contain much new info for baseball geeks.

Silly

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I use Bank of America's online banking billpayer service because it's free. I got nailed with a $29 late fee on my Visa last month even though BofA showed that my payment was made three days prior to the due date. I called my bank to complain and found out that they actually mail out a physical check to pay my bills so I should allow five days for payments to reach the providers.
This strikes me as incredibly silly, like finding out that the great Wizard of Oz is just a little man behind the curtain, or like finding out that Wolfgang von Kempelen's chess-playing automaton The Turk was operated by a dude hiding inside the machine.

Le Tour de France

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I returned from France late yesterday afternoon, and now I'm wide awake at 3 in the morning, as expected. For exactly three days I'll indulge in life as a morning person, until a bachelor party in New Orleans this weekend transforms me back into a vampire, as New Orleans is known to do.
I hope you all have been following the Tour de France, an event so respected that even ugly Americans don't refer to it as the Tour of France. It's by far the most dramatic Tour in recent history, and definitely the most competitive of Lance's drive for five. His recovery from cancer to win the tour was a great story, of course, but let's be honest--he's blown away the field the last two years and it's almost been as dull as the days of Miguel Indurain's domination. To win five in a row and tie the all-time record, he'll have to earn it, and that's as it should be.
Highlights from the Tour:
--Last I wrote, Tyler Hamilton had broken his collarbone. No one thought he'd continue. Well, he proved us wrong by sticking in the Tour. Then everyone thought he'd drop out as soon as the Tour hit the Alps since he wouldn't be able to stand up out of the saddle, and it would be too painful to climb because he'd have to pull or push on his handlebars. Well, not only did he conquer the Alps but also attacked Armstrong on Alpe D'Huez several times while still seated in the saddle. Unreal. It probably helps that he chose to ride a higher cadence up the mountains this year: 52x26 chainrings instead of a 53x39. Smart--I should have done that for the mountains. He made a pact with his coach and wife: if he lost more than 15 minutes in either of the first two Alp stages, he'd drop out. No worries, huh? Of course, we should have seen this coming. Last here he had a broken shoulder and still finished second in the Giro D'Italia. Afterwards he had to get many of his teeth capped because he had ground them down from the pain in his shoulder. Cyclists have the greatest pain tolerance and capacity to suffer of any athletes I've observed. They have to, because many of the drugs they'd like to take to kill the pain are illegal on the pro tour and would disqualify them from the race. Hamilton has proved he is not afraid to challenge his old boss, and even if he doesn't win this year he has to feel great about his chances next year.
--The early flat stages of the Tour were all about the coronation of Alessandro Petacchi as the new sprint king of the peloton. He not only won every sprint, taking four of the first 6 stages, but he dominated the competition in a way we haven't seen in the Tour since the last Italian sprint king, Mario Cipollini, won five sprints in 1999. He was winning so easily he could raise his hands in victory about 10 meters from the finish and just coast through each time. Unfortunately, he then emulated Cipo in a less admirable way and dropped out on the first mountain stage. Sure, sprinters don't like to climb, but Zabel and Mcewen have stuck it out in the past and earned the respect of their peers for being willing to suffer the Alps and Pyrenees. Petacchi cruised in, grabbed a few stages, and plopped himself down in the back seat of the team wagon. It's one of the reasons the Tour probably didn't invite Cipo's team back this year.
--Lance failed to make his signature decisive attack on Alpe D'Huez, as many expected. Instead, it was Iban Mayo who put the hammer down and pulled away for a 2' 12" gap over Armstrong. I was watching the satellite feed of the race from just above turn 7, and everyone was waiting, waiting, waiting for Armstrong to attack. Instead, he was the one under fire from countless attacks. Beloki, Mayo, Vinokourov, Hamilton...everyone decided not to wait for the fabled Armstrong attack and went on the offensive from the start. Armstrong didn't have what he called the super-jambes (Franglais for "super legs") and so he just gritted it out, sitting on Beloki and Hamilton's wheel the whole way up. He didn't panic, and he gave a gutsy performance, but the rest of the podium contenders had to gain a huge dose of confidence from finally detecting some vulnerability in the Texan. US Postal looked fantastic, though. They controlled the peloton up the massive Col de Galibier, and the pace that Beltran set at the bottom of Alpe D'Huez was insane. It shattered the peloton and exploded French poster boy Richard Virenque. That entire climb up Alpe D'Huez is the most exciting mountain stage in the past five Tours. Estimates of the number of screaming fans on the mountainside range from 400K to 650K! It was madness in the mountains.
--Joseba Beloki, who's finished third, third, and second in the past three Tours, crashed out in spectacular fashion in Stage 9, forcing Armstrong to make an amazing emergency detour down a grassy hill. You've probably seen it. I had to watch it on TV several times to believe my eyes--it will go down in Tour history as one of the most significant accidents and near-misses ever, and the highlight is destined to be played over and over again. European race TV coverage is a bit more comprehensive than US coverage (though the gap is closing) and they showed one close-up clip of Beloki lying on the ground, and you could hear him crying and screaming in pain like a child. It was gruesome and gave me flashbacks to my accident with the dog, when I was bleeding and rolling around in agony on the pavement, worried I had broken my neck. The pain is immediate and terrible, but the psychological effects are more enduring and challenging. I'm still nervous on descents now (Maverick: "It's no good, it's no good!"). Beloki was in great form and looked set for another podium finish, so he was probably crying also in sorrow at seeing a year's worth of preparation gone to waste. No one is certain what caused Beloki's tire to skid and his tubular to roll off, but the heat is the primary suspect. As for Lance's detour down the mountain, it is for me the most amazing highlight of the Tour thus far. The man has nine lives; that could easily have been a cliff he rode over.
--Ullrich is back. The German is unlikely to win, especially after the time he lost on Alpe D'Huez, but his promising prologue and solid climbing show that he's on his way back to being a serious GC contender. He also looks trim, a good sign for a supremely talented rider who has battled the bulge in the past.
--Gilberto Simoni and Santiago Botero have disappeared. Botero was expected to be the primary GC contender for Telekom after his strong showing in last year's Tour, but Telekom has shifted its support to the surprising Vinokourov. It's very fortunate for Telekom to have another contender. Simoni talked a big game before the Tour, promising to attack Armstrong, but it looks like he's going to drop out any day now. Cycling is such a macho sport--it makes for great drama, all the bluster and chest-beating and testosterone. And hubris.
Highlights from my personal tour with Breaking Away...
I was in lousy riding form at week's start, but after logging about 200 miles over 6 days, including several huge Cols (a col is a mountain), I'm feeling stronger. My legs were sore all week, and it still smarts a bit to walk up stairs. But I left for my trip with a chip on my shoulder and a desire to channel some anger into personal suffering, and the Alps are a temple to cycling self-flagellation. At the same time, nothing cleanses the soul and renews one's love of cycling like a cycling camp in Europe, the mecca of two-wheeled religion. I rode alongside grassy fields...

...past cows...

...and farm fields...

...and vineyards.

It was scorching hot in France, and I can testify that the heat radiating off of the tar on the roads was enough to melt rubber. Climbing the Alps is tough, but in 95 degree heat and humidity it's a torture test. No one needs to convince me that the construction of so many paved roads has led to global warming. On every climb the sweat would be soak my headband within minutes and soon begin rolling down my face in never ending rivulets, burning my eyes. But the warmth is part of the challenge of climbing the Alps during the Tour, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm a terrible climber--way too heavy, not powerful enough, but I enjoy the enduring mental and physical exertion of uphill riding in a way I can't explain.
French drivers respect cycling in a way that's so refreshing. Unlike in America, I never had to worry about rednecks throwing fruit or beer bottles at me, or swerving their giant trucks and SUVs towards me and honking their horns in an attempt to knock me off the road. French drivers let you share the lane with them if you can maintain your speed, and they'll leave spaces for you to merge or pass. Americans have a culture in which they feel like kings when they're in their automobiles, and it's not attractive. The French fans cheer and wave as you ride by, shout encouragement when you're suffering up the climbs, and offer a push or a water shower if it appears you're about to fall over.
My new favorite people are the Dutch. Eric, Rod, and I were riding down Alpe D'Huez, looking for a good spot from which to watch the race, when we happened upon a crowd of Rabobank fans dressed in orange up above turn 7, near the famous little church which is always shown on TV during stages on Alpe D'Huez. The Dutch crazies were all dressed in bright Rabobank orange. They were dancing to Euro techno music blasting from speakers hooked up to their van, cheering and dousing water on every passing rider, and pounding beer to stay hydrated. This was definitely the place to be. Before I had even learned their names, three crazy Dutch guys wearing crazy hats asked me what I wanted to drink and quickly handed over several ice cold cans of Coke, Perrier, and Orangina. Proost!

I also met the cow guy, a Dutch fan dressed in a cow costume. That he managed to avoid heat stroke is testament to Dutch fortitude.

Turns out the Dutch had driven 12 hours down from Holland and camped up on Alpe D'Huez for several days as part of their annual pilgrimage to the Tour. The music? Pumped out by their very own DJ, working out of the back of his van.

One of the favorite tracks was Boogerd is the Best, a tribute to Rabobank rider Michael Boogerd. Every Dutch fan knew the words, and now I do too: Boogerd iiiiiisssss the best, he is the best! They also brought their own beer kegs and were kind enough to supply Eric, Rod, and I with a constant supply. Getting drunk just before descending Alpe D'Huez on a bike with hundreds of thousands of other fans in your way is not smart, but it was too hot to refuse the liquid refreshment. Soon I was dancing and screaming and cheering the passing riders just like everyone else. How the professionals manage to ride a straight line up between the tunnel of rowdy fans in the road is a mystery to me.

Needless to say, my day on Alpe D'Huez will forever be etched in memory.
Another highlight of the trip was getting to visit the US Postal team buses after stage 7. We didn't get to see any of the riders, but we were too busy cooing and drooling over their bikes, getting a post-ride wash and tune by the team mechanics. The Treks were all sporting the new 2004 Shimano Dura Ace gruppo, not yet available to the public. All of us gearheads were circling every component with lust in our eyes, as if ogling a supermodel. Everyone wanted a photo with Lance's Trek which was the only to sport a hot custom paint job.

The most visible changes are the brake levers (longer) and crankset (two pieces, reverse threaded, and designed to be stiffer and lighter). Reactions from the group were mixed, though the only consensus was that the new group would be more expensive than ever.
The last ride of the trip was gorgeous. After a short climb up the Col de Leschaux (check out my helmet hair)...

...Andy and I flew down a twisty descent to end in the lovely little town of Annecy. File that name away as a perfect romantic getaway destination, the little Venice of France. I strolled through town, grabbed a great French meal (including some foie gras, of course), and wandered in and out of cathedrals and parks.



I was really sad to have to fly home, though British Airways did a great job (count me as a big BA fan; unlike Air France, they delivered my bike on time and in one pice). The entire trip went by much too quickly. Don't they always?

Red, Black and Blue

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Only two days into the Tour de France, and already more drama than in years past. Day one, Englishman David Millar of the Confidis team was on his way to capturing his second ever Tour prologue, a good ten seconds ahead through most time checks, when his chain came off. His team had decided to do away with the inner chainring up front, and in doing so, removed the front derailleur. The cobblestones of Paris shook the chain off his chainring. He managed to reach down to replace the chain without losing any fingers and sprinted hard, nearly winning anyway. He finished second.
Today, in stage two, with just a few hundred yards to the finish line, in a right hand turn, a Kelme rider's foot came out of his pedal and took out FDJeux's Jimmy Casper. With everyone sprinting in a pack for the finish, that one fall triggered a massive pile-up. Sadly, the two leading American contenders not named Lance, Tyler Hamilton and Levi Leipheimer, both sustained serious injuries and are probably out of the race. Hamilton, the CSC team leader, broke his collarbone, and Leipheimer, the Rabobank team leader, broke a bone in his back. Both are former teammates of Lance Armstrong on the USPS team and looked to contend for podium spots. It's a real shame for the Americans and confirmation that nothing is guaranteed for Lance in the drive for five.
Lance is okay. He went down in the crash and sustained some road rash, but nothing more serious than that. His bike was no longer rideable, so he borrowed his teammate Chechu's bike to cross the finish. Armstrong sits in 7th, still in great position to attack in the mountains. Tomorrow I head off to Switzerland and then France to catch the Texan in action.

Uphill grades

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I-5, the main highway through Seattle, has a peak that occurs near the heart of the city. It's not very high, but the slight upward slope it creates on either side causes traffic to jam up right around the downtown area. This slowdown has always driven me crazy because even if you only have to drive a few miles on the highway, if you pass this area you'll have to tap the brakes and downshift and sometimes sit around for a mile or two before everything suddenly clears up again. All because cars inevitably slow down when they hit an upward slope, causing a Slinky-like compression of vehicles.
This ridiculously fun online traffic simulator allows you to simulate that bothersome traffic pattern. Just click the uphill grade button and wait...and watch the cars pile up. Raise the percentage of trucks and watch things clog up even quicker. Of course, it's not likely that the city of Seattle will be able to flatten the highway out there, so it's just one of those things we'll have to live with.
What's interesting about this traffic simulator is that it teaches you that in certain situations, there is an ideal speed limit to minimize traffic jams. If the speed limit is too low or too high, vehicles move at different speeds which means that it's difficult for some vehicles to change lanes to avoid barriers like lane closings. For example, a truck might not be able to move quickly enough to get one lane over to avoid a lane closing because cars in the free lane are moving too fast.
The other really annoying traffic monkey wrench is the cop who pulls someone over. Everyone slows down when passing the cop, staring at the flashing lights. Does the revenue from that one traffic offender offset the lost productivity from the hundreds of cars which end up stuck in the temporary traffic jam vortex created around the police vehicle?
The other thing this made me realize is that carpool lanes act like lane closings for an arbitrary percentage of the auto population. What a failure carpool lanes ended up being. They didn't change anyone's behavior--I've never met anyone who carpools just so they can use the carpool lane--and simply caused a large percentage of vehicles to have to change lanes, causing jams in the other lanes.
You read the abstracts of all the studies and simulations and papers on traffic and your first impression is that there are a lot of smart people studying this field. But then you end up sitting in traffic the next day, a black cloud rising from your head, and you think it might not be so bad to live in a world like the one depicted in Minority Report, where vehicles are driven by computers and can along the faces of buildings and whatnot, all moving at constant speeds. In exchange for some loss of freedom and control and vehicle feedback you're free of traffic jams.
What this simulation really needs to be accurate is to introduce a conservative driver percentage to simulate all those wussy drivers here in the Pacific Northwest who drive in the left lane at 50mph. In Drivers Ed we were taught that the left lane is the fast lane. Apparently that's not part of the curriculum here.

Metablog candy

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I'm wondering how many datafeeds I can add to my newsreader before it becomes I stop going to sleep at night altogether and just stay up all night catching up. Until I go blind, I think. Until then...
BoingBoing and MetaFilter and Kottke had some gems today. I remember when Cool Site of the Day was the only place to find out about interesting new sites. Now there are people whose sole purpose in life is to surf the web, searching for strange and interesting sites. A sampling of today's wonderful and weird:
Google Gag: Go to Google and type in "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and hit the I'm Feeling Lucky button. Be sure to click on some of the resulting links as well.
Sims Reality TV: people with lots of free time on their hands are creating Sims storylines or movies and saving them as albums. Kottke points out this wicked little tale, titled A Lawn Gnome's Revenge. The web has opened up distribution to fringe artists all over the world. Instead of fifteen minutes of fame, everyone has a chance for a few thousand clicks of fame. Someone like Metafilter picks you up, or you spread through the tight-knit weblog space, and if you're lucky you end up as a sidebar in Time magazine. No one knows who you are, but the site that hosts your website gets a huge traffic spike for a few days.
Rocklist: finally, someone has collected all the music year end best-of lists from journalists and fans and put them in one place.
Levitated.net: Not sure how to describe this. Funky web art.
Kick ass picture of aircraft carrier: this might be one of the coolest pics I've ever seen on the web. I'm going to save it and print it out on my inkjet.
Lastly, Slashdot reports on a potential telemarketer backlash. What caught my eye was all the links to ways to counteract junk snail mail. I'll have to try those out each week since more than 50% of the mail I get just gets carried from the mailbox to the recycling bin by the driveway.

First chapter of Lance's new book

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Lance Armstrong and Sally Jenkins collaborated on my all-time favorite sports biography It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. Cancer patients refer to it simply as "the bible." Armstrong and Jenkins are collaborating on a follow-up titled Every Second Counts, and Lancearmstrong.com posted the first chapter. Definitely worth reading over your lunch break.
Pain is temporary. Quitting is forever.

Scott McCloud's The Right Number

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Scott McCloud has launched an online comic called The Right Number which you can pay for using a new micropayment service called BitPass. This is notable for many reasons:

  • Scott McCloud wrote the brilliant book Understanding Comics, which is on my list of all-time favorite books. He has written for a long time about the potential for new business models in comic books leveraging the online space and micropayments, so to see him actually put his thoughts into action is a great thing.

  • BitPass is the first micropayment service I've noticed that uses the phone card type of micropayment model. To offset the big credit card transaction fees, they charge you one lump sum up front and let you debit against that account in a series of a micropayments as you read content.

  • It's an entertaining read!

  • Online comics don't have some of the charm of curling up with a paper comic, but they have their own redeeming qualities which are unique to the online medium. McCloud links to some of the best ones.

Cycling in Seattle

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Given how fired up I am about the Tour de France (the race starts Saturday morning and will be broadcast by OLN), I've resurrected my old Cycling in Seattle page. The links for ride maps/cue sheets and maps should all be updated now. If you know of any other good ride maps/cue sheets online, let me know as I'm always looking for some variety.
Lance is going for his fifth Tour victory in a row which would tie the record held by Miguel Indurain. It's also the 100th anniversary of the Tour, so all of France is going to be fired up.