I did a short ride last weekend, just to get my legs moving, but it was flat and I spent the whole ride in the very low gears.  Today, however, was my first "real" ride in probably eight months.  20 miles, with a few hills (including the one hill that regularly spanked me last year--not particularly steep or particularly long, but just ugly and impossible to start with any momentum).  Not a long ride, but enough to awaken the memory of strength in my legs, and give my poor lungs a workout. 

Gorgeous day in DC; slightly cloudy but not cold.  Very little wind.  I love spring.  Bring it on.

There have been a few interesting things across my aggregator lately that I want to remember and re-read sometime in the short-term near future:

From Ernie the Attorney:  Lawyers and Clients and Technology.  "What do they have to do with one another?  For lawyers who want to learn to compete effectively for new business (or to retain the business they already have), the answer is: a lot."

From Ross Mayfield comes Who Loves Ya, Baby by Steven Johnson in Discover Magazine:

[...]A karass is a spontaneously forming group, joined by unpredictable links, that actually gets stuff done... A granfalloon, on the other hand, is a "false karass," a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is "meaningless..."
[...]
For most of the past 50 years, computers have been on the side of the granfalloons, good at maintaining bureaucratic structures and blind to more nuanced social interactions. But a new kind of software called social-network mapping promises to change all that. Instead of polishing up the org chart, the new social maps are designed to locate karasses wherever they emerge. Mapping social networks turns out to be one of those computational problems—like factoring pi out to a hundred decimal points or rendering complex light patterns on a 3-D shape—that computers can do effortlessly if you give them the right data.

A piece on adding RSS autodiscovery to your weblog, from Rick Klau.

Honest, we're the good guys by Michelle Delio on Wired ("American businesses feel a little like a rope that's being used in a tug of war between privacy and patriotism. Their customers want the personal information that businesses collect to be kept private, but the government wants access to some of that data for use in various homeland security plans. So what's a company to do?")

I am posting these as a reminder to myself to come back and take another look.

This came across my news aggregator from TalkLeft:

Officials at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California have confirmed that they will "shoot to kill" trespassing protesters who infiltrate the military complex once war starts.

Military police will use their "judgment, experience and training'' to determine if lethal force is necessary" according to an official.

Somehow, we do not find that reassuring.

heh.   Now, I generally enjoy TalkLeft, but I feel compelled to quote more of the underlying article (beware the popunders):

Security forces at Vandenberg Air Force Base may use "deadly force'' against protesters if they infiltrate the military complex if a war starts, officials said.

Some anti-war activists plan to trespass onto base grounds in hopes of disturbing Vandenberg's mission and to vandalize sensitive equipment they contend helps guide the war effort.

Vandenberg officials revealed Friday that military security police may shoot to kill, if necessary, to protect base residents and machinery.

The directive has always been in existence, but a base spokeswoman said it is more critical now that people understand its severity.

"This is not fun and games anymore," said Maj. Stacee Bako. "We're living in post 9/11. We don't know what's going to happen with the war effort in Iraq. These folks have got to realize their actions. ... They're illegal intruders."

Military police will use their "judgment, experience and training" to determine if lethal force is necessary, she said.

"Deadly force can be used when lesser means of force aren't feasible or have failed, and to protect (Department of Defense) assets designated as vital to the national security," she explained.

The article clearly does not say that "shoot to kill" is the default policy (whether or not it is the default policy in actuality is a different question).  The fact that it is an option is significant--for the government of the United States to be threatening to kill protesters is certainly serious business.  [Note: I am entering the previous sentence is my personal "understatement of the year" award category.]  I agree with TalkLeft's overall assessment, but thought that their coverage of this particular article was particularly, well, selective.