Updates for the last few days

Yes, you read it right and I wrote it right: the truck was carrying a load of watermelons. At least it wasn't hazmat. Anyway, the Tappan Zee Bridge was reopened in time for this morning's commute, thank &deity. There's a good photo of the smoky fire at the link.

iPhone updates: The New York Times had an editorial about the iPhone. The salient point:

Whatever else it does, the iPhone does bring a little 3-dimensional, visual transparency to technologies that have flattened out as they have become familiar. It creates the illusion of looking into it rather than at it, as if you were peering into the depths of a clear electronic pond. It is also a multifunctional device that illustrates its multifunctionality — revealing and demonstrating the transformations it undergoes as it changes jobs. This is perhaps the iPhone's cleverest trick: dramatizing its cleverness for the user.

[...] The difference between getting the newest new device and going on using your old one is the difference between eating a wonderful meal and merely having a metabolism. Whether it works, whether it sells, whether it lives up to its promises, it has been a while since there was a morsel as edible as the iPhone.

And Boing-Boing has an extensive review. Xeni loves it.

I still don't want it, but I have to admit that I would like to try playing with one for a bit.

Saturday night's activity in the Seattle area involved a fifth-Saturday contradance in Tacoma, where blogger Janeen (whom it was great to meet!) was the best newbie contradancer ever, as her son would say, and where the caller happened to be David Kaynor, from back here in Massachusetts. I hadn't been expecting to get in a contra as well as the Cajun dance. Yow!

And in Pacific northwest brew-pub action, Queen Nina's Imperial IPA is an amazing brew. Next trip, I'll have to take Andy up on his suggestion of the Red Hook Brewery, and also meet other blogfolks who've contacted me privately. Too bad I don't get a bunch of trips out to Microsoft, or have other excuses to visit the Seattle area. What a groovy place!