Originally uploaded by Smithsonian Institution

If you aren't, you should be. The Smithsonian is one of the organizations, like the Library of Congress, that is using Flickr to share all sorts of images free from any kind of copyright or licensing restrictions. This makes the hippie socialist in me very happy.

For $25 a year, they have unlimited storage of photos. I know the Library of Congress encourages people to tag their photos, so they're crowdsourcing the categorization of whatever they post. That certainly saves them more than $25 a year. And this way everyone benefits because people can use the photos for whatever they want.

And we all get to look at cool pictures like this one, a supernova photographed by the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Gizmodo updates us that the KITT GPS has 300 names built in!

Gizmodo | Knight Rider GPS With KITT's Voice!

Apparently, you will recognize his familiar voice as soon as you fire it up and hear "Hello Michael, where do you want to go today?"

The wife doesn't think this is awesome, which would be grounds for divorce if she wasn't so cool otherwise. But this is a GPS that gives you directions with KITT's voice.

There are two things that would be cooler. One, if you could get it to say your own name instead of "Michael". Although it would be cool if it asked where Michael was now and then.

And two, the whole turbo-boost, auto-drive, and bullet-proof-ness of KITT would be pretty awesome. But I guess that's a little much to ask from a $300 device.

Just announced today, Flickr now does video. I don't really care at the moment, because I don't ever make videos of anything (Maybe that will change when the baby comes, but I doubt it).

But just yesterday I was writing in my novel-in-progress, which takes place in the not terribly distant future, about Flickr and video. I had been thinking about what Flickr (Or whatever takes its place) might be like in, say, 30 years. Once you start thinking about that, you have to go back and try and define what Flickr is now. On the surface, it's a photo sharing site with a community surrounding it. But the ways people use it mean that it really goes well beyond just sharing photos.

Some people use it as a cheap and reliable image hosting service for their blog. Some people use it to track changes over time in something. You see this a lot with babies and pregnancy. Some people use it almost instead of a blog or public journal - "See what I did yesterday, here's a picture". The Library of Congress is using it to crowdsource the categorization of their photo library. Barack Obama is using it to connect with supporters and advertise himself.

So I was thinking, as technology advances, will we still take photos? In thirty years, you could be wearing contact lenses that can record hours of HD video. Maybe you'll even have a hard drive installed in your head that can store video recorded by your eyes. Do we only take lots of photos now because that's the convenient technology? There may always be a demand for still images as art, but we may get away from using them to say, "Hey, look at my cat!". Or maybe not.

Anyway, just thought it was cool that Flickr is doing what I thought they'd do, thirty years early.

There is no question that my wife is awesome. You may think I'm biased, but I assure you that my bias pales in comparison to her awesomeness.

Reason #1 that my wife is awesome: She refuses to rest on her laurels. The reasons she is great right now are not necessarily the same as the reasons she was great last year, or will be great next year. For example, earlier in our relationship, she had the opportunity to meet a bunch of my friends from way back all at once. They can be a little intimidating - it's a big group of people who have known each other a long time, and they're full of inside jokes and whatnot. Anyway, instead of being intimidated, she jumped right in and made friends. But that's not on the list now.

Reason #2 that my wife is awesome: She's taking me to Paris for my 30th birthday. She just told me today (Through a little treasure hunt). I can't wait. She's wanted to take me for a while. She lived in France for a year or so and speaks fluent French. I've never been to France, and can say, "I don't speak French" in French. But I'm very excited. We're renting a little efficiency for six nights in late April. It's right in the middle of everything, and we're going to see the Rodin museum and the Champs Elysees and we'll eat baguettes and cheese.

Reason #3 that my wife is awesome: She's pregnant. Yup, about fifteen weeks in. This is our first, and I'm more excited than I'm even going to get close to expressing. I got to see an ultrasound two weeks ago, and just watching my little son or daughter hopping around in there was surreal.

Anyway, more to come, but I think I'm going to get off the computer and go hang out with my awesome wife.