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One thing that impressed me in the movie Apollo 13 was their use of checklists: in a mission where little differences are actually big differences, there’s nothing like a checklist to take care of the things that our brains are bad at (accurately tracking long lists of procedures and data) and free our brains to do what they do best (evaluating, analyzing and reacting to changing situations). I should probably get in the habit of making more checklists.

The Apollo 12 Lunar Journal site has two PDFs showing two different mission checklists that were mounted on the cuffs of the astronaut’s suits: one for the command module [700K PDF — some poorly-photocopied nudity], and one for the lunar module [900K PDF — some poorly-photocopied nudity]. Not only do the checklists feature the standard tech stuff, they’ve also got some cartoons and photos of Playboy playmates. That sort of stuff wouldn’t fly today, but this was engineering culture in the ’60’s.

While David Janes and I do not always see eye-to-eye on every issue, our poltics often align in that foggy part of the political landscape where “fiscally conservative” and “socially liberal” meet (according to the Map of Politopia, I live in the northwest suburbs of “Centerville”). Accuse me of wanting to have my cake and eat it too if you must; I will counter (and win) by reminding you that that is exactly the purpose of cake.

The latest series of entries in his blog, Ranting and Roaring, lists the planks of the “Janes Platform”, if he were running for Prime Minister. I generally agree with them:

• Medicare Reform
• Constitutional Reform
• The Debt and Deficit
• Childcare
• EI (Unemployment insurance)

Strangely enough, what David has to say about paying off the debt — “A Janes government will not pay down the debt, believing that keeping

money in the hands of the Canadian people and growing the economy to

the point where the debt is an irrelevancy is a more effective strategy” — is pretty close to what Lorne Gershuny of the Marxist-Leninist party said about the debt at last week’s all-candidates meeting!

Spider-Man not only fights crime, he also fights the misuse of words!

Until I stumbled across this animated GIF, I didn’t know that Jean-Claude van Damme (“The Muscles from Brussels”) was in the Breakin’ movie. Not only that, it was his first onscreen appearance!

Click the image to see Jean-Claude strut his stuff [1.6MB animated GIF].

Click here to see a rather disturbing picture of Jean-Claude van Damme and Lorenzo Lamas, two buddies at the beach…Brokeback Beach! (It’s still safe for work, unless pictures of men in Speedos are verboten.)

ESRI Canada, in

cooperation with Bell

Mobility, is hosting a seminar on location-based services that will cover “how

LBS”.

The organizers say that

attendees of the seminar will:

• Learn about

  what is working in the Canadian LBS market

• Discover the sales and marketing opportunities

  available to

  application developers who build wireless applications using Bell

  Mobility’s Location Technology with ESRI’s ArcWeb

  Services

• Learn how to build LBS applications for your

  customers using

  Bell real-time Assisted GPS with the advantages of ESRI’s ArcWeb

  Services maps and data

• Meet key representatives from Bell and ESRI Canada

  who can help you get started developing web and wireless

  applications

• Become aware of the exciting partnering

  opportunities with Bell and ESRI Canada

The seminar will take

place at Bell Mobility’s headquarters (5099

Creekbank Road, Mississauga, Ontario) on Tuesday, January 31st, from 7:30 a.m.

(ARRRRGH!) to noon. I’ll be there (and hopefully awake),

and if you’d like to catch up with me there or have lunch (and lots of

coffee afterwards, drop me a

line or leave a note in the comments.