No one has convinced me whether it derives from the Native American name Allatoona, or the German name, Altona, but Altoona is a funny name. George Burns used to quip, "They loved that joke in Altoona!" and I think that proves that Altoona rivals Walla Walla, OshKosh and Burbank for guffaw potential. And it just got funnier. I walked into my daughter's house last weekend, and heard, "Welcome to POM Wonderful."

I found this at John Howley's Green Energy blog. He got it via email and doesn't know who wrote it, so I guess it's one of those things that gets passed around and around.

Honda Insight & Civic

With new gizmos, drugs and financial instruments appearing all the time, it certainly seems like technical and scientific innovation continues fast and furious from the 20th century.

Dr Tainter fielded several questions after the keynote lecture I just posted. Some of his responses are a lot more direct than his presentation, particularly his answer to the very last question:

Part One

Part Two

In 2005, I read the books, Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond (who was all over public TV with Guns, Germs and Steel) and A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright. I found them fairly similar in theme, both dealing with Easter Island and other collapsed societies.

Over the last two weeks, I got to watch a fair number of matches from the Sony Ericsson Open - another big tournament near a wealthy enclave, combining both the men's (ATP) and women's (WTA) tours. It has had a number of different sponsors and names - Lipton, Ericsson, and now Sony Ericsson - but is also known as the Miami Masters, or just Key Biscayne. CBS commentators called Key Biscayne the unofficial fifth major today, but the Tennis Channel called Indian Wells the fifth major a few weeks ago, so enough of that.

I attended an AIA panel discussion tonight:

Infrastructural Systems: Cities Designed for a Changing World
Hillary Brown, FAIA, Paul Lukez, FAIA, and Mason White; moderated by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

I was just reading about a firm called Selective Search, which charges men a minimum of $20,000 a year to set them up on dates with suitable women.

Why Some People Will Pay $20,000 For a Date

Selective Search uses a 15-page form with questions about charity work, health, exercise habits and past relationships. More importantly, interviewers rate the women's looks:

A while back, my wife told me that one of her relatives was trying a new diet. The woman is plump but not obese, eats processed food, and only gets exercise at work, so I thought it might be a good idea. But then I heard that she had spent a thousand dollars up front for the diet. And just recently I learned the name for the diet: HCG Skinny. So I looked it up:

Most news outlets are noticing that higher food prices are accompanying higher fuel prices. CNNMoney uses the i-word:

Rising wholesale prices ring inflation alarm bells