Reynolds checks in, Dern checks in, Peterman on School, Dalton on the Bay to Breakers, Dan Grobstein File

Craig Reynolds checkes in:

• BP agreed to parts changes on oil rig, 2004 letter shows
• I'm a sucker for stories about discovering new species. These are from Indonesia's Foja Mountains:
• New candidate for storing energy produced by intermittent green sources like wind and solar: New water-splitting catalyst found
• Cars’ Computer Systems Called at Risk to Hackers
• Commenting on my item about hating Windows 7:
  One more thing, I agree with Richard Dalton, a Mac with Parallels Desktop is the best way to keep a foot in both camps. After years of futile resistance I finally had to get a Windows machine for my job. My nice boss suggested a MacBook Pro with Parallels Desktop. So I do 99% of my work on OSX (or Linux) and the stuff that stubbornly insists on not being cross-platform I run on the virtual Windows machine provided inside the Parallels Desktop app.
  

Daniel Dern checks in:

• FYI, I'm now doing a few blog posts/week for InformationWeek/SMB (the site formerly known as bMighty).

Retired teacher, Herb Caen regular and my good friend, Kent Peterman, has some thoughts for the end of the school year and the start of summer:

I never did the countdown. Instead I would talk about what a great year we'd had and how I hated to see it end. Trying to inculcate in them the joy of learning and love of school.
I did the same thing on 3 day weekends, vacations etc. "I'm sad because we won't be together on Monday." Corny? probably but it worked in making school something to be enjoyed rather than to get out of. Oh damn there's that preposterous prepositional ending. I should have stuck the word cabbage or something there to prevent such and egregious error.
Another great teaching thought I heard years ago: Summer vacation is like a long weekend. June is Friday. July is Saturday. And August is Sunday.

Richard Dalton noted my Bay to Breakers coverage last week:

Your description brings back many memories (as an observer/photographer).  Linda and my daughter Kristen ran that circuit any number of times.  I would perch myself under a large tree in front of the Tulip Garden and click away.  Some of the photos are hilarious.  Like the year when Ray Charles played at the apres-run festivities.   Four stunning gay black men dressed in skin-tight. sequined sheaths and matching platform heels strutted (only word for it) the entire course.  They were, of course, a reasonable facsimile of the Raelettes.

A few years ago. Linda and I flew back to SF and she did the course with some friends.  At that time, a police official had warned that the city was going to crack down on nude runners.  A newscaster asked the inimitable Willie Brown what the city should do to these runners.  He responded, "We should honor them."  Bay to Breakers is one of the best memories I have of my favorite city.

Dan Grobstein File

• Who Yields Time?
• The Internet occasionally reminds me of how different life is because of it.
• How to kill Social Security: Be ignorant about it
• Mark Souder won’t be missed.
• Journalism Today
  
• “How did Carly Fiorina become an anti-abortion hero?”Because She Said So!
• Gulf Geyser: A Quick Reference Sheet For Reporters
• Mark Twain sealed his autobiography until 100 years after his death. Time's up, says Roger Ebert. "News to me" says Dan Grobstein. (The Independent newspaper of London offers some detail.)