Adelphia - In my email inbox from the Wall Street Journal:
Time Warner Inc. and Comcast Corp., the two largest cable-television companies in the U.S., said they reached an agreement to buy the assets of the bankrupt cable company Adelphia Communications Corp. for about $17.6 billion in cash and stock.
We've been serviced by Adelphia since moving to Milford nearly three years ago. They were okay in television but their internet access was awful for the first several months. I mean really awful! Then suddenly in a very short window of time, things turned around completely, as if they finally got the right equipment or hired a technician with a clue. Speed was as it should be, connectivity was reliable, domain name resolution consistently up.
I just hope that the transition is smooth and the new company can continue to provide fast, reliable service.
Techno-agriculture - It's interesting to watch the way information moves. About a week ago I was eating breakfast and noticed something in a trade journal I get. It was an article about using red LEDs as an efficient way to provide the proper spectrum of light for growing lettuce (compared to incandescent and florescent bulbs). I figured that dad, aka Farmer Bob -- horticulturist extraordinaire, would be interested so I found an online version of the story and sent him the link. Since I enjoy reading the weblog MetaEfficient, I emailed a link to the story to them as well. The host thanked me and put up a post about it. Cool, but that weblog is fairly niche. About a week later, I see that the Make: weblog (a favorite of do-it-yourself'ers) put up a brief story mentioning the same thing and crediting MetaEfficient for the lead.
Okay, so it doesn't have the same gravitas as giving a tip to Bob Woodward or Matt Drudge, but it was still a bit neat to see what became of the seed I planted. (horticulture pun intended)
Humor - I'll close for tonight with two pieces of humor which I stumbled upon today. First, is a Pope joke: "The One Not Elected Pope". (Thanks, Will!). Second is a piece of satire: the original version of Oops I Did It Again -- performed by Louis Armstrong, decades before pop-tart Britney!