H.P. comes out this week, and the Guardian is sponsoring a contest to see who can come up with the closest thing to the first 350 or so words of the book. I’ve already reserved mine at a bookstore in SF (in retrospect, probably a sub-optimal strategy, since that means I have to wait an hour to get it). I think it will look good on the shelf next to “Random Processes : Filtering, Estimation, and Detection.” In fact, I think HP6 should be “Harry Potter and the Annihilating Filter.” I’m sure it would sell lots of copies — Rowling could get it published by the IEEE and charge $150 a copy.

The Daniela Mercury concert was pretty awesome, all told. Unfortunately, I don’t know any Portuguese, so I have no idea what she was singing about. But I could usually sing along with the chorus by the 3rd time. Now all I have to do is learn how to dance and then go to Rio. And make sure I’m wearing the appropriate soccer jersey. GOOOOOAAAAAAALLLL!