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The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported that CSAA (California’s branch of the AAA) is going to stop producing their own paper maps later this year: The California State Automobile Association produced its first road map in 1909. It showed major highways in California and Nevada, and was sent free to all members. Ninety-nine years later, San Francisco’s CSAA is set... (more)

Today marks the 150th anniversary of San José State University, here in the middle of Silicon Valley. Both the San Jose Mercury News and San José State have put up a bunch of historical documents, photographs, and interviews. The Mercury has an interactive timeline that is especially good. Also, check out the list of notable alumni from Stevie Nicks to... (more)

I was paying bills tonight when this message appeared in my inbox: February 19, 2007 To: SIRIUS Subscribers Today is a very exciting day for SIRIUS customers. As you may have heard, SIRIUS Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio are merging to form the nation’s premier audio entertainment provider. I’m pretty excited about this if they can pull it off.... (more)

This picture from a New York Times article on the Vista launch has been making the blogging rounds today: Now, it’s hard to argue that the executives pictured (from Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Toshiba, AMD and HP) all look pretty serious, possibly even dour. But, who knows the context of that exact moment when the picture was taken? Rather than being... (more)

The front page of today’s San Jose Mercury covered the unveiling of a new high-tech watercraft called Proteus: Dr. No, your escape vehicle is ready. The 100-foot, spider-shaped contraption skimming around San Francisco Bay looked more like a James Bondian vessel than it did a new class of watercraft. But that’s exactly what its inventor, Ugo Conti of El Cerrito,... (more)

Today I chaperoned a school field trip to NASA Ames Research Center here in Silicon Valley. The educational program focused on wind tunnels and some aspects of creating vehicles for space travel. Overall it was interesting and seemed to hold the kids’ interest pretty well. Of course I volunteered because I’m interested in this great facility right here in our... (more)

Shuttle mission STS-116 landed in Florida almost an hour ago at 5:32pm EST. The NASA landing blog said the flight covered 5.3 million miles, orbited the Earth 204 times, and lasted just under 12 days, 21 hours. (I wonder how this duration compares to the other shuttle flights…) Check out Yahoo!’s Shuttle Full Coverage news page or NASA’s STS-116 Mission... (more)

Last night I attended the first “confab.yahoo” at Yahoo HQ. The topic was Prediction Markets moderated by James Surowiecki, author of the popular book “The Wisdom of Crowds”. Overall this was a great learning event and I’m glad Yahoo! is starting this series of micro-conferences and making them open to the public like this. For a great summary of the... (more)