We’ll be headed over to London for the Future of Web Apps Expo put on by Ryan Carson and his fantastic team at Carsonified. If you are in town, hope to see you there!

My parents would inevitably yell down to my room, “time for dinner!” To which I would respond, “ok, just a minute!” I would then continue doing whatever I was doing on the computer until my parents would inevitably get pretty mad that I hadn’t come to eat dinner yet. I think most of my generation probably knows exactly what I’m talking about

This was, and probably still is, pretty annoying for parents worldwide.

Last night I met up with some new friends in Geneva, and we were having a conversation about life, family, and technology. At one point we started talking about the iPhone and what a great new innovation it is. One of the guys mentioned that the best new thing about the iPhone is how it ha changed his kids behavior around dinnertime.

Now, when he says “time for dinner!”, his kids come running, iPhone in hand, right to the dinner table.

Now, the iPhone is an incredible new platform that we are all excited about for various reasons. But getting more kids to the dinner table again? That sounds like social progress to me.

Frankfurt, Germany

Last week I spoke on a panel at O’Reilly Media’s Web 2.0 Expo called Comparing Social Platforms, with some great people like David Recordon, Jessica Alter, Allen Hurff, and Patrick Chanezon. If the media from the session becomes available I’ll be sure to post it here.

I then had the opportunity to attend the keynote session, where Tim O’Reilly gave an inspiring speech on the power of collective intelligence and the need to go after “big, hard problems,” Max Levchin delivered compelling advice for entreprenuers, and Clay Sharky gave an absolutely genius talk on what he calls the “cognitive surplus.” His talk was so good, in fact, that I wanted to post it here. Trust me, its worth your time:

Can you imagine what the future of the internet will look like if we can move the needle even 10% from where we are today?

SAN FRANCISCO, California — November 6, 2006 — Dave Morin today announced that he has joined Facebook as Senior Platform Manager, leaving his post of Manager, Creation & Collaboration at Apple.

“I’m thrilled to join the hottest new company in Silicon Valley,” said Morin of the move. “The Facebook Platform is the future. And, will allow developers to access the vibrant community of Facebook users through standards-based web services, enabling social information flow like never before.”

In his professional career, Morin held numerous positions at Apple including Manager, Creation & Collaboration and Worldwide Manager of Student Marketing. Previously, he founded a design focused technology and internet software company called DM Design Studios. And, he has served on the advisory boards of various stealth startups in Silicon Valley. His focus on innovation, vision, and technology strategy has involved extensive interaction with the global market at large. Morin received a B.S. in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and currently lives in San Francisco, California.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning desktop and notebook computers, OS X operating system, and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital music revolution with its iPod portable music players and iTunes online store.

Facebook is the Internet’s leading social utility. Launched in February 2004, Facebook helps people better understand the world around them by developing technologies that facilitate the spread of information through social networks. The site has over 19 million registered users in over 40,000 geographic, work-related, collegiate, and high school networks, and according to ComScore’s MediaMetrix report, ranks as the sixth-most trafficked site in the United States. Facebook is privately held and headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

Check it out:

Do what you like. Like what you do.

Strongest Dad in the World
[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars–all in the same day.

Dick’s also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much–except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

“He’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life;” Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. “Put him in an institution.”

But the Hoyts weren’t buying it. They noticed the way Rick’s eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. “No way,” Dick says he was told. “There’s nothing going on in his brain.”

“Tell him a joke,” Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? “Go Bruins!” And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, “Dad, I want to do that.”

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described “porker” who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. “Then it was me who was handicapped,” Dick says. “I was sore for two weeks.”

That day changed Rick’s life. “Dad,” he typed, “when we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!”

And that sentence changed Dick’s life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

“No way,” Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren’t quite a single runner, and they weren’t quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, “Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?”

How’s a guy who never learned to swim and hadn’t ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they’ve done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don’t you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you’d do on your own? “No way,” he says. Dick does it purely for “the awesome feeling” he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time’? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992–only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don’t keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

“No question about it,” Rick types. “My dad is the Father of the Century.”

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. “If you hadn’t been in such great shape,” one doctor told him, “you probably would’ve died 15 years ago.”

So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other’s life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father’s Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

“The thing I’d most like,” Rick types, “is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.”

Growing up, I remember spending every morning before school reading the comics. The likes of Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, and Peanuts were always a great start to the day. At one point FoxTrot joined the fray, but I haven’t paid attention to it (or the rest of the comics, as I don’t read paper paper) in quite some time. Nonetheless, this FoxTrot comic hit my electronic inbox this morning and I thought it hilarious to point off to for a Monday morning in the Valley. Click Here

Just a quick post to broadcast that I am in the music capital of the world Austin, Texas for the Austin City Limits Music Festival this weekend with the crew from iTunes. If you’re in town for the festivities, drop me a line. Today was epic. John Mayer is one of the best guitarists pretty much ever (not to mention singer/songwriters), and Thievery Corporation is absolutely killer live. I was able to snag quite a few amazing photos which I’ll have posted shortly. But, in the meantime, here’s a great picture of JM himself.

Visit the home of a Silicon Valley software programmer and you’ll find two things: Macs and Linux boxes.

To these guys, Windows has become the operating system equivalent of the America Online Internet service–a mass-market product that only appeals to people who don’t know any better.

Now, I need a trip to Venice