Pre-holiday musings

Small enough to fit in your stocking.

(1) Is it me or is Firefox 1.5 not ready for prime time? Memory usage spikes, random shutdowns, and of course the obligatory extension-busting. Still the best by far, but couldn’t it be, um, better?

(2) There will be one extra second in 2005, owing to a miniscule slowdown in the Earth’s rotation. Is it time to decouple our timekeeping from geophysics and just use our atomic clocks? And what are you planning to do with the extra time?

(3) There are seven (colored) lines on the Chicago L transit system. There are seven notes in major, minor, and modal musical scales. There are 144 stations currently in operation, a number easily divisible by the 12 tones of the Western chromatic scale. If this isn’t begging for some kind of orchestral arrangement where actual train cars passing through stations over time trigger notes, then I don’t know what is. See also: Projects 2006.

(4) I’m headed to Istanbul early next year. Suggestions on what to see, what to eat, where to smoke the hookah?