So how was your day?  In addition to the Pre historic news, it was sunny and quiet here...  was able to get some heads down work done.  And got in a nice ride, in anticipation of eating while footballing, and then ate a lot while watching the game.

I didn't really enjoy the BCS Championship game, did you?  Maybe it was because I was rooting for Oklahoma, but maybe it was because neither team played very well, and it just wasn't a compelling game.  I think either USC or Texas could beat either of these teams, and Utah might too.  (Maybe - gasp! - it's time to look at a playoff system?)  The whole "Tim Tebow as superman" thing turns me off, too.  It's just football.  At this point all I can say is Go Chargers!

Saturn's Titan: A Giant Organics Factory.  "Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes."

The approach to San Francisco Bay.  The blue areas are shoals - good for fishing and surfing (!), bad for boats and especially ships.

Global Cooling: Minnesota sled race canceled because of too much snow.  "The Third Crossing Sled Dog Rendezvous, slated for Jan. 23-24, would have been the ninth annual running of the sprint races, which twice were canceled for lack of snow.  This winter, as anyone with a driveway knows, has been a season of prodigious snows."  I am not making this up.

Announcing Microsoft Tags.  A sort of geometric barcode using color.  (Comparison to QR and Datamatrics barcodes at left.)  I am struck once again that Microsoft always seems to ignore what others have done and reinvent the wheel.  2D barcodes have been around for a long time, do we really need a new format, whatever its virtues?

From Chris Anderson, a wonderful tongue-in-cheek graph (shown at right) comparing credibility vs time for The Long Tail, The Black Swan, and The Tipping Point.  I love it.  This could be a graph of The Law of Significance in action :)

Ottmar Liebert: The Long Tail is a Myth.  Quotes the Guardian: "Maybe the reason why the internet hasn’t brought about a long-tail era for music is simpler than all the above. The internet gives the customer an infinite choice of tracks, but perhaps the pool of genuine talent is as limited as it’s always been."  Yep.

ZooBorn of the day: Wobbegong shark pups.  Makes you want to pet them, doesn't it?