Pilot Had Hunch

San Francisco Chronicle: PILOT HAD HUNCH: It led him to wife, kids

"When I heard the family was lost, immediately I had a pretty good idea where they were," Rachor, a helicopter pilot for 10 years, said Wednesday. "It's real easy to take a wrong turn where they did. A lot of people make that mistake."
...
"I saw the picture of the kids in the paper," Rachor said. "I really know that area well. I live out there, so I know it better than most. I fly over it once a week."

Rachor knew that helicopters hired by the Kim family were looking closer to the coast. He said he had contact with government searchers, but they were looking elsewhere as well.

30

Copies from the office pinboard at my previous job:


Employees over 30 years old




Most developers make their first million by age 30.

Bloglife

a) Writing blog articles is as easy as writing emails. Even easier, as you don't have to think about whom to send it to.

b) Reading blogs is also as easy as reading email and even easier and more convenient than surfing around the web.

For completeness sake here is a presentation I gave recently for practicing purposes: RSS Feeds


to a) To get started writing (you can have multiple blogs for different subjects if you like), go to this web site and get yourself a free account:

http://www.blogger.com/signup.g

See these two screenshots to get an impression of how to use the service from blogger.com:




You see a list of your posts and when writing a new one it looks almost identical to writing an email.

to b) Instead of browsing from one news or blog web site to the next, checking if new and interesting things have been put online, you can use a site like www.bloglines.com. Register all the interesting news feeds and become your own news editor.


Here you can get yourself a free account:

http://www.bloglines.com/register

To add news feeds to your selection, click on the "add" link in the left pane above your list of existing feeds. Then you will be able to add a simple web address like e.g.

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/
http://www.unizh.ch/news/rss/all_events_rss.php

as the source of a new feed. Basically every news site or blog offers this so called RSS feed capability. Just look where RSS gets mentioned on a web site that you like and copy paste the link presented there into bloglines. Then bloglines indicates which site has any new content, which you can then easily read in the right pane of the bloglines site. Just check it out.


Now what to read and write about (and listen and see) is up to you! But it is easier and more efficient than it has ever been.

Richter The Enigma

There is a documentary on YouTube of up to 3 hours about Sviatoslav Richter, whom many consider to be the greatest pianist of the 20th century.

For a first quick impression check Richter Rocked instead.

[Update 2007-01-27: unfortunately "The Enigma" videos have been pulled down. Hopefully they will legally reappear someplace else someday.]
Richter The Enigma [1/18]

Richter The Enigma [2/18]
Richter The Enigma [3/18]
Richter The Enigma [4/18]
Richter The Enigma [5/18]
Richter The Enigma [6/18] - Richter about Maria Yudina (another story about her: she once played a Mozart concerto on radio, Stalin heard it and requested the recording. No one had the guts to tell him there is no recording of it - it was only live! So they played it again just for the record and handed it to Stalin as the supposedly first radio version.)
Richter The Enigma [7/18]
Richter The Enigma [8/18]
Richter The Enigma [9/18]
Richter The Enigma [10/18]
Richter The Enigma [11/18]
Richter The Enigma [12/18]
Richter The Enigma [13/18]
Richter The Enigma [14/18]
Richter The Enigma [15/18]
Richter The Enigma [16/18]
Richter The Enigma [17/18]
Richter The Enigma [18/18]