As some of you know, I was recently diagnosed with advanced osteo in one of my hips, along with a healthy (cough) dose of degenerative bone disease. Wow, that sucked. And the thing is, I’m not old. Certainly not *that* old! I mean, I’m 40-something, and hey, I keep being told that 50 is the new 30, which means that really I’m only 20-something, right?

Well, apparently my skeletal structure never got that memo, because here I am, facing a certain hip replacement at some point in my future, and doing physical therapy to ward off that eventuality.

Only, you see, I’m not doing that physical therapy. Because oh yes, I forgot to mention, I’ve also been laid up, mostly flat on my back, for the better part of the past two months (ever since we returned from Arizona), with a herniated disc in my back.

Now, because I couldn’t do the physical therapy, because of my back, my hip is getting worse.

(Everybody: o/` o/` The back bone connects to the pelvis bone, and the pelvis bone connects to the.. hip bone .. and the hip bone … o/` o/`)

Fortunately my back is finally healing, which means that I can go back to physical therapy for my hip soon.

Of course, the best thing that I can do for my back is to walk; while the worst thing that I can do for my hip is to.. wait for it… yep, walk.

But with all this going on, I’ve been very grateful that at least these things are mechanical.

And this was brought home with force recently, having just learned that a friend of mine – someone with a young toddler – just had to have heart surgery for coronary artery disease.

Thank goodness he’s ok, but holy bypass, Batman!

So I’m very grateful. At least I have my health!

But still, what it all means is that yes, we are getting older.

And I’ve made a resolution. I am not, I repeat not going to grow old gracefully.

Nope, not me.

I’m going to grow old disgracefully.

Word on the street is that Abu Musab al Zarqawi (a/k/a al-Zarqawi), who was done in last Wednesday during an air strike on his ‘safe’ (not) house, was dusted by “smart dust”. Dusted in at least two senses of the word, that is.

The supposition is that al-Zarqawi, during a close encounter of a dusting kind with an allied operative, was sprinkled with fairy dust (ok, smart dust), enabling allied forces to track his every move, and know exactly where he was at any given moment.

Now, of course, you could never do that over here, without a court order, because of the Constitution. I mean, you couldn’t, right? Right?

According to some sources, Iraqi locals were even aware of the smart dust, which some viewed more as “magic dust”. But really, there is no magic about it, and the same (or roughly the same) technology has been used more and more in civilian applications over here.

Explained Computer World, back in 2003, “‘Smart dust’ devices are tiny wireless microelectromechanical sensors (MEMS) that can detect everything from light to vibrations. Thanks to recent breakthroughs in silicon and fabrication techniques, these “motes” could eventually be the size of a grain of sand, though each would contain sensors, computing circuits, bidirectional wireless communications technology and a power supply. Motes would gather scads of data, run computations and communicate that information using two-way band radio between motes at distances approaching 1,000 feet.”

In their simplest form RFIDs, dust motes, smart dust, smart chips, etc., all operate, for lay purpose, on much the same principle. They carry with them simple information, such as (usually) a single numeric identifier, which can be transmitted back to a mother ship, helping the mother ship to know exactly where the transmitter – and whatever is attached to it – are at any given time.

Or the transmission of the number can be used as a password to unlock anything from your computer to your door (or, if you are Amal Grafstra, with an RFID implanted in your hand, both).

Or, to prove your identity when embedded in your passport, or your arm.

Or, to dust you, when you’ve been dusted with the dust.

Robert Scoble, the Crown Prince of Bloggers over at Microsoft, is leaving Microsoft to join PodTech.net. The news that Scoble is leaving Microsoft – which wasn’t even supposed to be news yet – leaked out sometime between last night and this morning. In fact, Scoble himself said of the leak, about 11 hours ago, “I just made this decision and it got out before I was completely ready to talk about it.”

Reactions to the news that of Scoble’s departure have ranged from “so what?” to “ohmygawd, it’s the end of the world as we know it!”

So the big question is – is this big news? And if so, why is it big news?

Well, Scoble is clearly the most visible of all of the bloggers at Microsoft, itself one of the most visible of companies. But as Scoble himself points out, he was but one of 3,000 bloggers at Microsoft.

Still, he was considered by many to be the people’s voice of Microsoft.

Some, such as Mathew Ingram and Vinnie Mirchandani, suggest that perhaps Microsoft didn’t treat Scoble well enough – didn’t do enough to try to keep him from leaving. To that Scoble scoffs, “How do you know that the company didn’t move heaven and hell to keep me happy? They did. I have the best job in the tech world. Bar none.”

So the question is, what is the big news? Why is this big news? Or, put another way, is there any there there?

In other words, what’s the big scoop?

Well, according the Scoble, the big scoop is this: He’s really excited by the opportunity to work in the video blogging industry. He says, after meeting Cali Lewis, one of the video bloggers working with Adam Curry at podshow, “Cali is showing us all that you can get a low-cost video camera, make an interesting show in your nights and weekends, and within six months get such a large audience that you are quitting your day job.”

What he found to be most of note in this exchange with Cali was the big smile on her face as she was talking about it.

Concluded Scoble, “But I had the same smile on my face when I told Cali I just quit my day job too to work in this new media industry.”

Now, Robert and I run in some of the same circles, and some of the same mailing lists, and so I understand that, and all I have to say to that is, “Good on ya, Robert! We wish you the best!”