There was some drama here in the BlueTower last night when the power went out. The wind has increased here over the past couple of days, an presumably a tree knocked down an overhead wire. The power company warned it would take a few hours to fix, so this might have prevented an update last night, but their estimate was conservative, and we were back in under an hour. But there's an actual wind advisory today, so we may not be out of the woods yet. We had a major outage right after we first moved here, so I guess I'm still skittish about that, but hopefully if there's another problem it can be solved just as quickly.

Someone commented on the requirement of an ESPN login for our Pigskin Playoff Bracket Challenge Group. Apologies if that's a non-starter. I used to compile the results by hand, but that was clunky at best. We then used a couple of smaller pool sites over the years, but eventually landed on this one, probably just due to stability. But if you are interested in participating, I hope you can overcome that and join in.

Powerful Round-up
Thanks Ant, Neutronbeam, and Max.

Breakfast Links

• The Anti-Social Century - The Atlantic. Thanks Digg.
• Here's how to stay safe and warm in the snow, according to New Englanders - NPR.

Stories
Thanks RedEye9.

• How the Los Angeles fires are affecting several major landmarks - NPR.
• Girl Scouts are retiring two cookie flavors: S'mores and Toast-Yay! - NPR. Scouts used to bake the cookies!?
• This Japanese man earned $80,000 a year from 'doing nothing' - Make It.

Science

• Scientists drill nearly 2 miles down to pull 1.2 million-year-old ice core from Antarctic - NBC News.
• Astronaut Set to Patch NASA’s X-ray Telescope Aboard Space Station - NASA Science.
• Scientists mystified by massive structures found deep beneath the Pacific Ocean - Study Finds.

Media

• Q1 Update from Our Leadership Team - Sarah Cooper. Thanks RedEye9.
• Matt Gaetz Report Is Out And It's Bad (ft. Liz Dye) - Legal Eagle.

Follow-up

• Coffee drinkers reap health boost – but only if they do it in the morning - Coffee - The Guardian. Thanks Slashdot.

The Funnies

• Savage Chickens.