Memoryhole seems to look interesting- I’ll take a browse sometime. It chronicles the bendings of truth that may happen in journalism.

I just finished reading the quite excellent book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. It’s well written, well researched, funny, and best of all has lots of disgusting detail. My favorite kind of book. Go read it today. I think I may dip into this account of medical school next.

My favorite quote from this story about the discovery of a new particle is from Marcello Giorgi, from the University of Pisa, Italy, who leads the BaBar collaboration: “We have discovered a new charm particle in an experiment designed to probe the difference between matter and antimatter using bottom quarks.” I’ll just nod sagely. As […]

The Economist has released its annual Big Mac Index, which is a surprisingly reliable indicator of currency under- or over-valuation for having such high entertainment value.

Cisco has prepared a draft of “lawful interception” capability, to be offered as an option on “any product that a service provider is likely to purchase[.]” I’m given to understand that their Catalyst products already supply monitoring capability, but for all I know that’s an ad-hoc capability that’s been hacked together by service providers. To […]

Here’s a more detailed idea of the Sampo, from Rune X of the Kalevala: On the third night Ilmarinen, Bending low to view his metals, On the bottom of the furnace, Sees the magic Sampo rising, Sees the lid in many colors. Quick the artist of Wainola Forges with the tongs and anvil, Knocking with […]

A co-worker just forwarded me this article about a machine that will turn just about anything into oil and other useful products. It’s like a cross between a Sampo and a Mr. Fusion. It sounds unbelievably promising. Update: the article above now requires payment to read, but Discover magazine published an update in July 2004 […]

My favorite surplus catalogs are also online: American Science and Surplus and IMEX.

I’m sure this avian flu thing will burn itself out without jumping the species barrier (oops, too late) and killing us all. No need to panic.

My first thought on seeing this story about a suspicious powder (later determined not to be BoTox or plague) shutting down a Tacoma postal processing facility: “Shit, that better not slow down my Netflix shipments.”