Hey, don't blame me if your kid gets all moody and starts acting like William Petersen.

DNA sequencing for children.

Discovery toys is selling an $80 toy called the DNA Explorer, which allows small children to extract and sequence the DNA from a variety of foodstuffs. Link
[Boing Boing Blog]

I'm not sure it actually does anything, tho'. The description is a bit, shall we say, fuzzy, on the details.

Realistic lab equipment transforms the kitchen into a forensics lab, where your breakfast-bar biologist can extract clumps of real DNA from fruits and vegetables or solve "crimes" by revealing DNA "fingerprints"--telltale blue protein stripes in a gel mixture.

Those scare quotes are never a good sign.

OK, so a glorified chemistry set is cool and all, but, speaking of fuzzy, for real high tech kiddy creepies and fun you've got to go with the next item on Popular Science's list: "Wabi," a mix between teddy bear, cell phone and moblog for parents and toddlers.

Dial a toll-free number, punch in the bear's code, and leave a message in your own voice. An unobtrusive base station plugged into your phone line retrieves the message and delivers it to the bear, which can be up to 150 feet away. Wabi giggles when it receives a communication; your child presses a button to play your message back. You can also purchase pre-fab stories and songs through the service for less than 50 cents apiece. $70

"Hi kids, this is Wabi and I just wanted you to know YOU SUCK!!!!"

Oh man, the hours of fun you could have. By the time you were through you'd have a kid that makes John Lithgow's character in Raising Cain look positively serene.

4:58:56 PM     leave/read comments []

Jihad Watch casts a wary eye on the House of Saud.

Interesting, if a bit reactionary.

4:44:32 PM     leave/read comments []

Current Editorials: "Liberal" Media Tells Us Gay Rights is not a Civil Rights Struggle. Thanks, liberal media, for providing a megaphone for those who claims gay rights isn't about civil rights and that any parallels to the black civil rights movement are invalid. But who do you believe? [Morons Dot Org]

Spatula has at more media morons:

One of our readers submitted this Fox News edit of a real Associated Press story about how some conservative blacks dredged up from the bottom-feeding Worldnet Daily object to parallels drawn between the black civil rights movement and the current struggles for gay civil equality. I say it's the "Fox News edit" because it's fun to compare it to the original AP article so that you can see how "Fair and Balanced" Fox made their version (they basically removed all the references that balanced out the extremist conservatives, thereby making it "fair" and "balanced").

Fair, as in:

Fair Fair, n. [OE. feire, OF. feire, F. foire, fr. L. fariae, pl., days of rest, holidays, festivals, akin to festus festal. See Feast.]
1. A gathering of buyers and sellers, assembled at a particular place with their merchandise at a stated or regular season, or by special appointment, for trade.

Truth for sale! Truth for sale!

4:41:13 PM     leave/read comments []

I don't get what the big deal is; didn't everybody do this?

Eroticising trademarked batllemechs.

ScoutWalker is a novel form of Star Wars porn: giant AT-ST Walkers engaged in scenes from the Kama Sutra. Link (Thanks, Jed!)
[Boing Boing Blog]

Ohhhh! It's positions from the Kama Sutra! Jeeze, we'd just make Ewoks act out "Letters To Penthouse." This is obviously so much more, um, upmarket.

"Dear Penthouse, I am a furry sophmore at a major Midwestern university and I never thought this would happen to me......." ::squeak! squeek! squeek!::

4:30:54 PM     leave/read comments []

Japan scuttles two spy satellites. Japanese officials blow up a rocket carrying two spy satellites to monitor North Korea shortly after take-off. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]

It was a banner day for the Range Safety Officer, also known as "The Guy Who Makes The Rocket Blow Up REAL GOOD."

However, the Japanese space agency JAXA reported that one of the vehicle's two SRB-A large solid rocket boosters failed to separate from the booster's first stage about 100 seconds after launch. The added mass of the booster [~] the SRB-A weighs about 10,000 kg without propellant [~] prevented the H-2A from achieving the velocity needed to make orbit, even after the first stage itself was jettisoned. Controllers issued commands to destroy the H-2A ten minutes after liftoff, when the vehicle was at an altitude of 422 kilometers. [ Spacetoday.net ]

Dang ole strap on not unstrappin' tellyawhut.

1:51:10 PM     leave/read comments []

After spending entirely too much time on Gnutella, I've come up with bubkis for Matt Jones, but I did find a BBC documentary, a bunch of Christina Aguilera songs (?!?!) and an MP3 of a news quiz programme.

The documents may have been reborn, but it looks like they've entered the Witless Protection Programme.

1:24:46 PM     leave/read comments []

John Glenn's dashboard is cooler than yours.

Another shot from the Strategic Air and Space Museum.

11:39:18 PM     leave/read comments []

Now that Buy Nothing Day is over (or nearly over), why don't y'all see What The Hell Am I Selling Here?

Remember, all profits go to getting me the Hell out of Amerika's Heartland®.

11:28:11 PM     leave/read comments []

Japan-Spy Sats Launch (Kyodo).

Japan set to launch two additional spy satellites later in the day.[Nippon Goro Goro]

Japan has decided that it's a good idea to keep an eye on its crazy neighbor.

Japan's second pair of spy satellites, intended to monitor North Korea, is scheduled for launch aboard an H-2A rocket Saturday afternoon from a southwestern Japanese island, following three postponements in September.

The set of four satellites -- two optical-sensor models and two radar models -- is designed to work together to allow any point on Earth to be monitored once a day. Japan intends especially to watch North Korean military facilities.

Should be better viewing than Survivor.

11:23:18 PM     leave/read comments []

Tiger Woods Engaged to Swedish Girlfriend. The golfer's agent confirmed the couple's engagement to The Associated Press on Friday but declined to give details. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

I don't know about you, but that headline sounds like the beginning of a great dirty joke.

8:49:48 PM     leave/read comments []

The Wizard of Whimsy shows us what Bush was really serving the troops in Iraq.

Click the photo to make it BiG

4:20:33 PM     leave/read comments []

Just a few of the things I'm thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

12:29:41 AM     leave/read comments []

SpaceShipOne flies sixth glide test. SpaceShipOne (SS1), the suborbital reusable spacecraft under development by Scaled Composites, made its sixth glide... [spacetoday.net]

W00t!

Cool, this almost makes up for the retirement of the Concorde.

SpaceShipOne (SS1), the suborbital reusable spacecraft under development by Scaled Composites, made its sixth glide test late last week, the second such glide test in as many weeks. The test took place on Friday, November 19, and was reported on the Scaled web site earlier this week. The glide test was similar to the one performed the prior week, this time with Mike Melvill as the pilot. SS1 separated from its carrier aircraft, White Knight, at an altitude of about 14,600 meters and landed at Mojave Airport in California 12 and a half minutes later.

I'm still holding out for the jetpack, though. Dammit.

5:22:33 PM     leave/read comments []

Snow Dome!!!

Give it a shake.

Props to Joe Rhodes for the link.

4:54:00 PM     leave/read comments []

Mac Eye For The Windows Guy

FABULOUS!!!!

3:19:17 PM     leave/read comments []

Last Concorde lands at birthplace. The last Concorde ever built lands at its new home at Filton Airfield near Bristol. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]

Aw gee. I wonder if the old boy will sit around the hangar, smoking a pipe, sipping brandy and telling tales of its time in the service?

"Well it was '85. There I was, stuffed to the gills with celebrities waiting to pop over to Wembly for some sort of pop music show, when this disagreeable dwarf, all covered in sweat, comes bounding down the jetway yelling, 'I'm bloody Phil Collins!!! Hold the bloody airplane!!!' like some kind of possessed savage. Harrrruuumph!"

The Duke (of York) said it was a "truly memorable occasion", that the plane was an "icon of the 20th century" and thanked the dedication of the staff who had worked on it.

"Today is one of the saddest in aviation history but at the same time, it's a day to reflect on the glory of what the UK can achieve," he said.

At the foot of the plane's steps, senior Concorde pilot Mike Bannister said: "This fabulous aircraft will be a legend because of one thing, the people.

"The people made Concorde a legend and we will never forget it."

Concorde ended three decades of supersonic travel in October when the final commercial flights from New York landed at Heathrow.

2:00:47 PM    

Reprinted by Permission: Generating Crises and Winning Votes by Pretending to Solve Them. Originally posted to independent.org by Ivan Eland [Morons Dot Org]

Incisive, insightful and full of righteous bile. Read it all the way through.

President Bush's first political ad for the 2004 campaign indicates that he will play on post-September 11 public fear to attempt to convince voters not to change presidents in the middle of a national security "crisis." Yet such opportunism is a classic case of a politician contributing to and exacerbating a crisis and then taking advantage of it politically.

1:47:10 PM    

The rest of the article is more Wacko Jacko stuff, but my goodness, I do love the blurb above.

Wouldn't An appetite for monkeys, Ferris wheels and surgery make a great album title?

1:41:07 PM     leave/read comments []

MPAA, RIAA seek permanent antitrust exemption. Get out of jail free [The Register]

Oh my, this smells worse than the reject bucket at a sushi bar.

  Just weeks after an antitrust suit was filed against the RIAA by webcasters, the music labels' lobby group, along with Hollywood, is seeking a permanent exemption from similar litigation. The proposal seeks to extend the exemption to anything covering mechanical copyright: a sweeping extension of the copyright cartel's immunity.

It's buried away in a piece of legislation co-sponsored by Senator Orrin Hatch called the EnFORCE Act, or the Enhancing Federal Obscenity Reporting and Copyright Enforcement Act of 2003. With 12-year old girls being threatened with $150,000 fines, and the computer industry embracing social engineering technologies such as locked music, you would think the last thing that the nation's cultural heritage needs is stricter enforcement by the copyright cartel.

Even the name of the bill is extra-creepy NewSpeak. No good can come of this.

1:11:59 AM     leave/read comments []

G'night, folks.

1:06:39 AM     leave/read comments []

More on Al-Qaeda's Christian targets. Paul Marshall offers a useful summation of the evidence that Al-Qaeda targeted Christians, not Muslims, in Riyadh [~] and of the dangers of glossing over that evidence. "The media," says Marshall, "seem to equate Arab with Muslim and, along with... [Jihad Watch]

It seems that the Saudi government has played most of the world press with their spin doctoring of the Al-Qaeda attacks in Riyadh, covering up the reasons Al-Qaeda gave for the attacks and then sweeping the identity of the victims under the rug. You can't fight a war or catch criminals with bad intel and disinformation.

This exerpt is expecially interesting and is a good reminder of just who the Saudis are:

"Similarly, media coverage of the October 4 suicide attack on Maxim, a restaurant in Haifa, noted that one co-owner was Jewish, but described the other simply as 'Arab.' Commentators wondered why Palestinian terrorists were killing 'Arabs.' But the second co-owner was actually a Lebanese Catholic, as were many of those killed. The term 'Arab,' while playing into America's obsession with ethnicity, hides the religious dimension that is central to the worldview of al Qaeda, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad."

Precisely.

"However, every day in every way, al Qaeda reiterates that its target is 'infidels,' wherever they live, including Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and the vast majority of the world's Muslims, who reject the extremists' vision of a restored caliphate under a reactionary version of Islamic law." . . .

"The fact that the Saudi authorities did not reveal that this was largely a Lebanese Christian area, that they rapidly demolished the remains and stayed silent while the media misreported the identity of the victims, suggests a deliberate attempt to mask what is going on in the kingdom. (Meanwhile, a debate is taking place in the Saudi press over whether a woman named Saban Abu Lisam, who was herself injured in the blast but nevertheless drove seven other injured victims to the hospital, should be praised for her courage or punished for violating the ban on women driving.)

How much you want to bet she gets punished?

12:32:27 AM     leave/read comments []

Just so long as they don't put the chip in the food, I'm OK with things. No one's gonna be tracking anything through my intestines.

RFIDs and Sushi in Tokyo. [ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog]

RFID tags are also making their appearance in food establishments. Pintokona, a sushi restaurant in a trendy new part of Tokyo, Roppongi Hills, has introduced RFID tags to track and price their plates of sushi that are presented to on a rotating belt in front of customers. The system facilitates the calculation of the bill, as each tag contains information such as price, sushi type, chef, time stamp and other information. As readers can track the precise time when the sushi is placed on the plates, once a thirty-minute period has expired, the sushi is automatically removed from the rotating belt, in order to ensure that only the freshest pieces are made available. [Nippon Goro Goro]

5:16:17 PM    

Supersonic Jet Takes Slow Boat to New Home. The supersonic jet Concorde came to a halt today as part of a floating museum on a New York river. By Christine Hauser. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

The Concorde keeps showing up at all sorts of parties, just like that annoying programmer who retired back in '98 when his startup got bought by Micro$oft.

The supersonic jet Concorde came to a halt today as part of a floating museum on a New York river, its last stop after a high-altitude career flying celebrities and other passengers at twice the speed of sound across the Atlantic Ocean.

Where it once took wing, the 204-foot-long, 88-ton jet was now tied down, after being hauled onto a barge that plied New York City's waters past the Statue of Liberty and up to the Hudson River pier where the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum is located.

4:20:07 PM    

Random: Hit and Run in San Francisco. Ordinarily a hit and run in the San Francisco Bay area isn't exactly headline-generating if nobody gets seriously hurt, but we live in interesting times... [Morons Dot Org]

I have an idea who the perp might just be....

There was a bizarre hit and run that took place in San Francisco on Tuesday between a 3-year-old girl and a Segway. It may be the first accident of it's kind locally involving the motorized scooter which happens to be banned on city sidewalks.

2:18:38 PM    

I'm so angry about all I can do is link and quote.

    Bursey did not pose a threat to the president, nor was he located in an area restricted to official personnel. Bursey wasn't blocking a corridor the Secret Service needed to keep clear for security reasons. He was standing among citizens who were enthusiastically greeting Bush. Bursey, however, was the only one holding an anti-Bush sign.

    He was ordered to put down his sign or move to a designated protest site more than half a mile away, outside the sight and hearing of the president. Bursey refused. He was then arrested and charged with trespassing by the South Carolina police.     However, those charges were dropped. Understandably, courts across the nation have upheld the right to protest on public property.

    Instead, Bursey was indicted by the federal government for violation of a federal law that allows the Secret Service to restrict access to areas visited by the president. Bursey faces up to six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

    Members of the U.S. House, including those on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft urging him to drop the federal criminal prosecution of Bursey.

    The letter signed by 11 members of the House, including Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, states, in part: "As we read the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a 'free speech zone.' In the United States, free speech is the rule, not the exception, and citizens' rights to express it do not depend on their doing it in a way that the president finds politically amenable. . . . We ask that you make it clear that we have no interest as a government in 'zoning' Constitutional freedoms, and that being politically annoying to the president of the United States is not a criminal offense. This prosecution smacks of the use of the Sedition Acts two hundred years ago to protect the president from political discomfort. It was wrong then and it is wrong now."

There's more. Click the link.

2:06:34 PM     leave/read comments []

Just down the road from Bright Eyes Plumbing and Heating.

11:35:59 AM     leave/read comments []

This might be a regular feature.

I Told You So!

11:17:41 AM     leave/read comments []

Um....EEK!?!?!

Terrorism Warning.

Sources in Asia monitoring al Qaeda internet traffic (bulletin boards, e-mail and little-known Arabic language web sites) say the terrorist organization marked Eid al Fitr, the festival has just issued  a new attack warning. The traffic indicates that a major attack will soon be attempted in the United States. ? The big blow will come down very shortly. It will be a series of surprise attacks that will sever America from communication with its armies in Muslim countries.? Muslims living in the United States are urged to ?take advantage of what little time is left? to leave America.

The threats are deemed credible and appear linked to the same sources which last week sent e-mail to Arabic newspapers in London warning that the heart of Tokyo will be attacked if Japan dispatches SDF troops to Iraq.[Nippon Goro Goro]

You heard it here first. Though I'm really not sure what it is exactly you heard.

You can bet whatever it is, it won't involve hijacking airlines. That's about the only thing I'm sure of out of all of this.

1:06:45 AM     leave/read comments []

The Slat Rat catches the latest bit of nastiness our government has snuck into a spending bill:

Congress expands FBI Spying Power. Buried in an intelligence spending bill that Congress passed on Friday, are provisions that were originally included in the ill-fated Patriot Act II. From Wired:

Under the Patriot Act, the FBI can acquire bank records and Internet or phone logs simply by issuing itself a so-called national security letter saying the records are relevant to an investigation into terrorism. The FBI doesn't need to show probable cause or consult a judge. What's more, the target institution is issued a gag order and kept from revealing the subpoena's existence to anyone, including the subject of the investigation.

The new provision in the spending bill redefines the meaning of "financial institution" and "financial transaction." The wider definition explicitly includes insurance companies, real estate agents, the U.S. Postal Service , travel agencies, casinos, pawn shops, ISPs, car dealers and any other business whose "cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax or regulatory matters."

I have got to join the ACLU and the EFF. Our current political leadership has NO concept of what freedom is really all about. They'll take the easy way out every time and restrict freedom in the name of freedom. [The Slat Rat Chronicles]

That's just NASTY.

12:37:56 AM     leave/read comments []

Cosplay= "Costume Play" I think. Ah, the mysterious East.

Weird, weird cosplay Japorn. Sort of. I can't explain..

I have no idea what this is, but it's totally freaking me out. Like a Philip K. Dick stripshow. All I can tell you is that this link takes you to a Windows Media video clip in which a (male) human dressed in (female) animated child character drag performs a sort of webcam erotic tease. Shemale hentai cosplay? Something like that. Please, someone, explain. Keep watching, eventually Sabrina strips. No actual nudity, just oddity. Link (Thanks, Warren, thanks Matt) [Boing Boing Blog]

12:18:29 AM    

Let Them Sing It For You

You type in your lyrics and everyone, yes I said everyone, will then sing your song.

Just don't expect much of a coherent tune.

9:00:34 PM     leave/read comments []

A big-ass chrome globe, sitting atop The Mill, a local coffee house.

(Click on the photo to make it BiG)

8:10:08 PM     leave/read comments []

You can't resist. Join us! Join us!

Get on the bus!

You love Bob, too.

You know you do.

8:08:19 PM     leave/read comments []

I bet you didn't know that there are many misfortunes that can be visited upon your middle finger, and that the loss of it carries unsuspected health hazards. Until now, that is.

Ways To Lose Your Finger

Most people don't realize that giving the finger triggers a complicated, and sometimes dangerous mechanical process in the body.It's hard to believe anything could go wrong after the flip of a successful bird, but this extreme extremity is vulnerable to a cornucopia of maladies. An evil bacteria, an inflamed joint, even a speeding train could all put an early end to a promising finger-flipping career.

But there is hope.

Don't miss James "Scotty" Doohan's story.

7:43:59 PM     leave/read comments []

Our man Frankenclam (over at alt.bad.clams) waxes beveragologicaly botanical:

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 "The Mighty Tim" put his thumb in his one good eye and pulled out a plum of a post...

>> Also, as an imbiber >>of tea, I have taken the liberty of growing my own. Yes, it's true, I have a >>fukien tea tree now

Yer a clammy after mine own cup 'n saucer, that's for sure. There's simply nothing more rewarding than growing one's own tea, and I am so glad that you've finally joined the clamoring throngs in the know. I took up the art, and it can only accurately be referred to as "art", many years ago, and have a number of prize plants, which I water regularly with water just off its second boil.

Matter-o-fact, one of the little dears just yesterday burst into its Fall blooms, perfuming the air far and wide, nearly out to the front hall.

Franklin "Chamomile" Clamsong (as in Do have another Napoleon, won't you? [:)

Earl Grey: hot. And funny.

3:21:24 PM     leave/read comments []

The laughably bad Lincoln Journal Star is at it again.

This morning, right there on the front page, yet another example of "Whitey Don't Get Out Much" also known as Clueless Heartland Newspapering.

Dudes, that photo isn't Eduard Shevardnadze. It's noted alcoholic and former Russian President, Boris Yeltsin. Eduard Shevardnadze look like this.

Oh hell, I'd better just put the photo here, in case someone at the paper reads my blog.

Say it with me kids:

"What The Hell Am I Doing Here?"

12:24:48 PM     leave/read comments []

Time for yet another dopey quiz!

Which Survivor of the Impending Nuclear Apocalypse Are You?
A Rum and Monkey joint.

Props to Adam for the link.

12:00:50 PM     leave/read comments []

Shame on Apple!

And yet, it's still a million times better than Micro$oft.

Anti-advertising to out iPod's dirty secret.

iPod's Dirty Secret is a three-minute movie made by an iPod owner to protest the fact that Apple won't replace his 18-month-old iPod's dead battery. He's engaged in a one-man guerrilla anti-advertising campaign to stencil a warning over Apple's street posters promoting iPod.

6.9MB Quicktime Link
(via Dan Gillmor) [Boing Boing Blog]

12:00:20 PM    

Morons in the News: School Uses Police to Deny Same-Sex Couple Homecoming Attendance. Despite bans on same-sex dates to public school events being found unconstitutional in 1980, one school has had police prevent a same-sex couple from attending their Homecoming dance... [Morons Dot Org]

Small town gay-bashing and school district fascism is alive and well in Wyoming, home of Matthew Shepard and his killers.

This time, the police were called out. Not to protect the free speech and freedom of assembly rights of two students, but to make sure that two heterosexual girls didn't attend homecoming together as a "couple."

A straight teenager is challenging a school district policy that bars students from bringing same-sex dates to school dances.

In September, Amanda Blair tried to defy the rule by taking another young woman to the homecoming dance at Big Piney High School. They were kept out by sheriff's deputies at the request of school officials.

That's right folks, it's a crime (OK, not really, but the Big Piney chapter of the SS would sure like it to be, apparently) to go to a Homecoming dance with someone who happens to be the same sex.

Hold on a cotton-picking minute, folks! Not only is this an attack on queers, it pretty much puts the smackdown on geeks, freakoids, brains, goober-pickers and other socially undesirable or inept kids. If it weren't for same sex friends, I never would have had anyone to hang out with at homecoming.

But, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, the girls are fighting back against the hypocrites and hayseed Nazis that are the school district.

In a letter sent Thursday to Superintendent B. Weldon Shelley, the ACLU stated the policy violates a 1980 federal court ruling out of Rhode Island. The decision handed down in Frick v. Lynch found that students who bring same-sex dates to school dances are not only protected by the Constitution but that schools must take steps to ensure their safety when they attend the dances.

Ken Choe, of the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, said the ban violates students' constitutional rights to freedom of expression and equal treatment.

Blair said her test of the policy is meant to help and support her peers who are homosexual.

``I think it would be a lot harder if I were a lesbian to do this for myself. I'm helping those who are.''

You go, girls!

You know, it's nice to know that the generation that is coming up in the world is much more tolerant, open and courageous than their parents'. It gives me hope that the little Hitlers of the world aren't long for it.

10:36:27 PM     leave/read comments []

Rantings of a Chemtrail Activist

Look out! Look up! Those wispy fingers of clouds that criss-cross they sky? Harmless vapor trails? Ice crystals? NO!!! Think those are contrails? This man says NO!

I'm not going to tell you how old I am or what I look like. These things aren't important. I will tell you that the sky is not the sky of my youth. Pristine blue has been replaced by hazy white lines known as chemtrails. The once-yellow sun is now a glaring white abomination. Don't believe me? Walk outside and look up. What do you see? Is your sky normal?

currently live in the Okanagan Valley, in a city called Kelowna with a population of about 100,000 people. I first realized something was seriously wrong with the sky on Sept. 27/00. I looked up and saw the biggest, widest, weirdest skeletal-looking what I now know to be a chemtrail. Immediately I felt a sick, apprehensive feeling in my stomach. An elderly man was walking by and asked me what I was looking at. I pointed up and said: "Look. That's not right, they're poisoning us." "I know", he replied then shuffled on to his destination.

Dude.

Even NASA is dissin' him. So, he writes poetry:

NASA why do you refuse to
connect me
to your image archives?

If they are just contrails
why can't I see?

What is the secret you keep
hidden and deep
underground?

away from
those fragile psyches

whose sanity depends on lies

Hoooooo-kay.

But you know, sometimes, even the paranoid are right.

6:19:41 PM     leave/read comments []

A new VR panorama by Sydney's Peter Murphy:

The annual Festival of Mind, Body and Spirit was on at Darling Harbour yesterday - two whole exhibition halls full of psychics, life coaches, masseurs, magnetic blanket salesmen, iridologists. .. and yoga practitioners.  Panorama 

[Peter Murphy's Panoramic VR Weblog]

I love his work.

6:01:12 PM     leave/read comments []

Actress Taylor defends Jackson. Actress Elizabeth Taylor says her friend Michael Jackson "absolutely innocent" of child abuse charges. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]

And by "absolutely innocent" she meant that Jackson didn't know there were charges filed against him until the warrant was issued.

5:15:30 PM     leave/read comments []

Firm considers 'son of Concorde'. A faster, quieter successor to Concorde is being considered by aerospace giant EADS, the group confirms. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]

Alright! I may get that jetpack after all.

Because dammit, this is the 21st freakin' century and we're supposed to have jetpacks and SSTs and talking computers that kill really bland actors. But right now, we gots jack. But hope is on the horizon, at least in the SST department.

A successor to supersonic jet Concorde is being considered by aerospace giant EADS, the group has confirmed.

The European firm is looking into developing a hypersonic jet with Japanese partners, a London-based spokesman said.

But it's not all smooth sailing:

Meanwhile, Japan recently suffered a huge setback last summer when a test for a model of a planned supersonic passenger jet ended in failure.

A scale model of the aircraft crashed to the ground shortly after take-off at a test site in South Australia.

Hey, what's a aerospace development program without a few launch anomalies?

4:59:11 PM     leave/read comments []

Scooter knows that when the white stuff is flying outside, it's best to hunker down on a warm appliance and take it easy.

1:27:18 AM     leave/read comments []

It took longer than usual, but snow has arrived here in Nebraska.

This will be the first snow that our schnauzer has ever seen. Should be fun!

1:11:45 AM     leave/read comments []

Lego mini sub!

Dive!

12:05:17 AM     leave/read comments []