Seems like just the other night we were talking about Kennewick Man, and now folks are (finally) headed to the Burke to check him out.

H5N1 (one of 15 Avian Influenza strains) has been simmering in Asia since December 2003, and has claimed at least 54 human and countless (more than 100 million as of last year) poultry lives. "Most influenza experts also agree that the prompt culling of Hong Kong’s entire poultry population [due to H5N1 infection] in 1997 probably averted a pandemic." The WHO has been closely tracking the situation in Viet Nam (later expanded to Cambodia) since December of 2004. They aren’t raising the pandemic alert level above its January 2004 level ("incipient pandemic", near as I can tell), but neither are they lowering it. China’s unwillingness to share information and propensity to do stupid things (and then deny them) are probably creating the greatest hindrance to minimizing the pandemic threat.
It’s a bummer that poultry farming practices in Asia are creating a nearly ideal virus incubation and mutation lab. The conspiracist in me wants to see some significance in the fact that the government of the world’s most populous nation is behaving in a way that is encouraging a situation that could wipe out a substantial chunk of the world’s population, but I find it hard to take the conspiracist in me very seriously most of the time.

The physics makes a certain amount of sense, I guess, since they’re all massive and stuff, but who would have thought Saturn’s rings would have atmosphere?

So the trailer for the new King Kong is out, and I’m not entirely convinced I’ll be able to hear Jack Black as anything other than the hipster doofus he has so beautifully portrayed in virtually everything I’ve seen him in to date.
But Peter Jackson sure can put together a beautiful cgi-fest.

This must have hit blogdex some time ago. I was reminded of it by reading The Year’s Best SF from 1997 or so. The referenced piece seems to typify a particular kind of hard SF that the editor apparently admires. Bleagh.

Moral: if you want me to link to you, don’t use spammer tactics.
Story: I saw some mail today from someone purporting to represent an outfit called Victor House Publications. That mail looked something like this:

Continue reading →

I can’t decide whether it’s funnier to imagine these folks are segregating drinking fountains or peeing in them. Take your best shot.

The Senate hasn’t voted yet, but let’s hear it for the House for voting to allow library and bookstore patrons to read what they wish to read without risk of a warrantless search recording their habits.

I think I’ll need to study Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship more thoroughly before trying to become a UK citizen: I scored only 9 of 15 on the BBC’s sample test. The 150-page book does not appear to be available on the web.

YaGoohoo!gle is now Twingine. Both Yahoo and Google got on the guy’s ass, so he changed the name. jaguhugel is also available. Check out this blog post and marvel at the heavy East Asian traffic his site is getting.
Our traffic is mostly search engine spiders. Which is just as well, as I don’t much fancy the effect being slashdotted would have on my finances.