Blue Sky On Mars

Crysania has grown to be unhappy with riding in the car. Car Seat Crying | FamilyResource.com has some good tips that I think will help.

On Christmas Day, Crysania had her first real laugh! It wasn’t just one little giggle, but a full-blown laugh! And, of course, she was quite adorable when she did it (By the way, I pushed this entry back on to Christmas Day for convenience.)

An excellent, and I think accurate, article from FastCompany: If He’s So Smart…Steve Jobs, Apple, and the Limits of Innovation.

There’s one last essential element to successful innovation that has often been missing at Apple: follow-through.

This is why next year is going to be very interesting. Apple will either show some serious follow-through with their music strategy, or they will become an also-ran. There have been so many products competing with iTunes and iPod over the past few weeks that a wrong turn can seriously knock Apple down.

The rumored low-cost iPods may certainly help, and I think it also helps that Apple has the most consistent and usable music store as of today. They’ve got the lead, no question.

I’ve been following the development of SnipSnap and was amazed to discover SnipSnap v0.5a-Farnham released. I thought they were just going to keep adding features and refactoring around the latest nifty Java gizmo to come out.

If the legal issues can be worked out, someone should develop a digital recordkeeping system for mere mortals (as opposed to MegaCorps). Just look at Fool.com: Records You Need to Keep, and you can see how even average folk can get buried in a mountain of paperwork.

BBspot - Top 11 Ways Peter Jackson Could Ruin The Return of the King

This contest is just too cool: Blogstakes presents: The Onion Platinum Prestige Encore Gold Premium Collector’s Collection

As Larry Lessig points out, the EFF is doing a lot of work to make sure that our technology stays usable and innovation continues, despite pressure that existing monopolies and IP holders will bring to bear. Donations are tax-deductible.

I’d imagine Bush will continue to get the credit for Saddam’s capture despite stuff like this in the press: Yahoo! News - Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops

“Saddam was not captured as a result of any American or British intelligence. We knew that someone would eventually take their revenge, it was just a matter of time.”

This time of year, assuming all of the money hasn’t gone into Christmas gifts, it’s always a nice thing to think about donating to a worthy cause. How do you know which causes are worthy? Charity Navigator is certainly one way! They take a look at how well a charity uses the money you give them, so that you can choose who will best make use of the money that you provide.