I've found another reason to use Emacs, the Swiss Army Knife of text editors. It's called org-mode, and it extends outline-mode for easy note taking and task management. It seems like an excellent aid for Getting Things Done.

Org-mode is part of the upcoming Emacs 22, but is easily added to Emacs 21. There's an on-line tutorial to help you get started.

The Tesla car company is developing an electric car for sports car enthusiasts. If successful, this will demonstrate that you you don't have to suffer to be ecologically friendly.

Bought a Bags Connection Engage Sport tank bag because my Wolfman Explorer didn't look like it would fit the VFR as well as it had the Z750S. The quick connect mount on the gas cap ring also looked clever, promising ease of use and less wear and tear on the tank.

I'm not pleased with the Engage Sport. It is not as well made as the Explorer and the quick connect isn't. I'm going back to the Explorer, though it'll take a little adaptation to get it to fit.

A thread on the J Software mailing list led me to this site dedicated to Alan Turing. It's a reminder that Turing provided much of the foundation for computational thinking.

Leo is short for Literate Editor with Outlines. It's an IDE that is also an outline editor written in Python. I first tried it about four years ago and thought it interesting, but didn't stick with it. It's matured a lot since then and definitely worth another look.

Leo uses outlines to organize text files which may program source code, HTML, etc. In addition to managing software projects, it can be used as a Personal Information Manager. Leo has the ability to extract text from multiple outline nodes and export it to a new file. It is fully scriptable with Python and has an Emacs style execution buffer.

Planet Agents is a new site devoted to Agent Based Modeling.

This Green Bay Press-Gazette article explores the allure of riding for area bikers. My favorite is "Motorcycle riding is close to flying." It really is, and with a motorcycle, you can fly to work or the store. What a deal.

The Carbon Roadster is a BMW Z4 M reskinned in carbon fiber for a 500 pound weight reduction. I need one.

Austin Bay comments on the recently declassified documents on Iraq's WMD. The anti-war hysterics will have to find a new dead horse to beat.

David Hough's Street Strategies is a collection of motorcycle street riding tips in the form of incident description followed by analysis. The incidents are accidents or near misses involving motorcycles and the analysis points out what the rider got right and what he or she could have done better. A tip can be read whenever you have a spare 2 or 3 minutes. Recommended for riders of all experience levels.

You should learn from the mistakes of others, you won't live long enough to make them all yourself.

PyTables 1.3.2 has been released. This version has a number of bug fixes for better NumPy integration.

High gas prices are getting a lot of attention, but price volatility may be more of a problem. This AutoblogGreen posting shows a breakdown of the influences on gas prices in the United States earlier this year. The largest factor was the price of crude oil, with 59% of the total, followed by taxes at 20%. Some politicians would reduce gas taxes to ease the burden of higher prices, but this would only provide short term relief. Paradoxically, increasing the taxes might be better in the long run. It would increase the incentive to conserve fuel and adopt more energy efficient vehicles and technologies. Not likely to happen though.

Audi's R10 diesel sports racer has won this years 24 Hour Lemans endurance race. Faster and more fuel efficient than their gasoline powered rivals, the R10's also proved reliable enough to dominate the race.

We took our Flagstaff 25D camping trailer to Curt Gowdy State Park in southern Wyoming for her shake down trip. Everything worked fine, though the Mountaineer could use a few more hamsters towing at higher elevations and on steeper grades.

SimPy 1.7.1 is out. This is a maintenance release with no API changes.

Austin Bay on the significance of President Bush's trip to Iraq and what he said there. This visit demonstrates the President's commitment to making a free and prosperous Iraq which will be a beachhead against global Islamo-fascism.

Today I traded in my Kawasaki Z750S for a 2002 Honda VFR800FI2 Interceptor. The Z750S was a fine bike and it enjoyed it very much, but the VFR won me over. It's smoother, torquier, more refined, has better brakes and handling, and sounds better.

We attended the first performance of this season's Longmont Public Library summer concert series last night. The Muses presented a delightful collage of traditional and contemporary Celtic music.

Austin Bay considers the consequences of killing Z-man as the hunters called Abu Musab al-Zaqawi. It's a bright spot as we approach the 5 year point in a decades long war. It should help the fledging democratic government in Iraq, but there's a lot of work still to be done.

IPython version 0.7.2 has been released. IPython supercharges the Python interactive shell. It's a good tool to facilitate thinking in Python.