The Middle

My traveling companion Tanager really enjoys waking up at the crack of down and taking nice long runs. Being a geek, he always wears his handy-dandy GPS armband gadget.

The supplied software, which I watched him use over his shoulder, would plot out your run, but wanted a subscription from you to actually place it on a map.

Well, I don't do a lot of running, but I do enjoy playing with new google toys.

So, this is Tanager's run this morning. Tomorrow we're all begging him to run a 7 mile dirty word. We'll see.

Ok, I'm not afraid to admit, I'm having some U.K. vocabulary issues...

• It's not a 'cell phone', it's a mobile

• It's not a 'stroller', it's a pushchair

• It's not an 'usher', it's a steward

• It's not an 'elevator', it's a lift

• It's not a 'speedbump', it's a traffic calm zone

• It's not a 'cigarette', it's a fag

• It's not an apartment, it's a flat

• Flats aren't 'for rent', they are to let

• It's not the 'exit', it's the Way Out

• You don't 'get off the train', you alight

• It's not 'trash', it's litter or rubbish

• Those aren't 'french fries', they're chips

• It's not the 'subway', it's The Tube

• Screw 'caution', better Mind the Gap

• Food isn't 'to go', it's for take away

• It's not a 'line/list/group', it's a queue

• There are no 'Thank You's given, only Cheers

• It's not a 'Diet Pepsi', it's a Pepsi Diet

• It's not a 'hamburger', it's a beefburger (Ok, this one makes sense)

I'll update as I'm continually amused and/or amazed.

Ok, 'vacation' is something of a misnomer, since it's almost entirely work, but a few more updates on my European extravaganza:

• My brush with greatness for the day was Lindsay Davenport. She's just, you know, the #1 Women's player in the world. And we 'shared a moment' in the hallway today. Well, she walked past me with an entourage in tow. I was moved.

• We got a mention, however brief, on Engadget today. I'd like to claim that I have something to do with the Hawkeye technology mentioned, but sadly, I do not.

• I keep waiting for the annual /. story. Get submitting, people!

• Did I mention that this whole 'other country' thing is really, really weird? Canada is one thing, this is an entirely different ball of wax.

That's all for your European update, pics and commentary to follow.

Another long day at Wimbledon, but managed to get up early and take the tube to Wimbledon Village. Seems like it'd be a nice quiet place to stop by the pub and have a pint 50 weeks of the year. And an insane, overcrowded, and uber-commercialized crazy-town for the last two weeks in June. Also caught Andy Roddick walking around the village this morning on my way into The Championships. He's tall.

Other than that, just a slow day of being constantly bewildered by Brits.

As an example, even when you know what they're talking about, it's still uproariously funny when a weird looking Euro-dude asks you, "Where can I buy fags around here?"

While I'm writing about my fabulous adventures abroad, sitting in a sub-basement at AELTC, I couldn't help but rant about Zingo, a cab service offered here in London. Here's how it works:

• I dial 08700700700 (don't know how UK spacing works, sorry) and a voice prompt says "Welcome to Zingo Taxi, we are looking for a taxi in your area..."
• A moment later, I'm connected directly to the cab driver nearest to me, via mobile-phone based GPS/location awareness goodness.
• (barely decipherable English accent) "Hello, where are you?"
• (me) "I'm at the corner of Church and Somerset, Wimbledon Gate 5"
• (James Bond) "Brilliant!. I'm just around the corner, be there in a jif. Where you going?"
• (me) "The swanky hotel across town"
• (cab guy) "Ok, the key is...'Newton' "

Literally seconds later, a London cab appears, and I flag him down and recite the key (British secret agent-style: Wismar, Andy Wismar) and get in and on my way. I assume the 'key' is for authentication, so some other bloke can't steal my Zingo, which is actually a pretty nice little system.

It has worked out fabulously the last few days, and I can't wait until the day all taxi cabs work this way. A truly useful application of location-based mobile phone services.

Another nice long day at the office, and a few more "this is so weird" moments.

• I have a love/hate relationship with UK money. £1 and £2 coins are fantastic. Who needs bills for small denominations like that? The US could learn a thing or two here, $1 bills are for strippers.
• 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, and 50p coins are worthless. These just clutter my pockets with coins that provide me no value. Pennies are for piggy banks.
• Everything is so small. The roads are tiny, the cars are miniscule, and the 'Pepsi Diet' comes in 6 ounce quantities. I'm from America for crying out loud, Super-Size me!
• Today I saw Kit Hoover of ESPN Cold Pizza fame. She apparently didn't remember me.

Foreign countries are weird.

So I've recently found myself the portraying the confused American guy in the U.K., spending a few weeks here for work.

The plane ride was easy, but things started to get really interesting after that. My initial impressions:

• The roads are crazy. The wrong side of the road thing is only a minor annoyance, compared to the skyrocketing heart-rate produced by squeezing a tiny black cab through a space that might be wide enough for a skinny guy on a bicycle.
• The US dollar sucks. Everything here is a overpriced. Then you remember that you have to multiply it by two as well. £3.00 for a "Pepsi Diet"? No biggie. Oh yeah, that's $6.00. And you can't even imagine the cost of booze.
• People are from everywhere. If it was just UK accents, I could survive. But there's such an eclectic collection of people that speak just enough English to get by, with accents I've never even imagined, that it really starts to blow your mind.
• Wimbledon, or more appropriately, the All England Lawn Tennis Club, is an amazing facility. I got a chance to see most of the grounds over the weekend, and it's truly an awe-inspiring place. You've never seen grass this beautiful. Plus, I've already had more than my fair share of "brushes with greatness", including a glance of John McEnroe this afternoon, as he strutted down the hallway with several minions in tow. (No Prall, I didn't get his autograph, I'm working on it.)
• I managed to see some really cool stuff when I got a few moments away from work. I squeezed a brief trip to both the British Museum and the London Museum of Science & Technology. How many days in my life I'll get to see the Rosetta Stone as well as a fully functioning model of a Charles Babbage mechanical calculator I don't know, but I'm betting it won't be many. If you can make your way to the Science & Technology museum, by all means do so. The "History of Computing" exhibit alone is amazing, and well worth the price of admission. (free!)
• Work is pretty pervasive, and I've been doing way more of that than I have being a tourist guy. The days are long, the problems are hard, and I'm having a great time doing it.

I've taken lots & lots of pics, I'll throw those up and try to post some more soon.

When I first started using a Mac as my non-work machine, I went through the somewhat painful process of trying to use Firefox as my primary web browser. As many others will tell you, the performance of Firefox on Macs is less than ideal.

After a few days, I tried out this weird Apple browser 'Safari' thing, and at least on the Mac, it just felt faster/smoother/better. Still not ideal, or as nice as Firefox on a fast Linux or Windows machine, but very usable. For the last 6 months or so, it's been my primary browser.

Then just recently, there was an announcement at WWDC (and post from Dave Hyatt) of Apple forking off the webkit.opendarwin.org project.

I downloaded the source tonight, and did a quick build. The build process wasn't perfect (I think because I'm still downloading XCode 2.1), but the speed improvements alone were enough to sell me on it.

It's faster. It's better. Get it and Build it.

I'm still waiting for the promised Mac improvements in Firefox 1.1, but for now, this is my browser of choice.

Drinking and driving is very, very bad.

But this string of Florida court cases is fascinating.

Basically, the judges are letting people out of DUI charges because they can't access the source code to verify that the breathalizer actually works as advertised.

So, what's next? DVD players, Intel DRM, airport security screening software, or maybe national ID cards? More than likely, these people will start to be punished (as they should be), but it does provide an interesting angle for opposition to other similarly black-boxed government-mandated technologies.