Wired News: Turn Back the Spam of Time: "The anonymous e-mail offered $5,000 to any vendor capable of promptly delivering a collection of far-fetched gadgets for conducting time travel. Among the mysterious devices sought by the message's author were an 'Acme 5X24 series time transducing capacitor with built-in temporal displacement' and an 'AMD Dimensional Warp Generator module containing the GRC79 induction motor.' "

Librarians are Often Sexy: A Flash animation gig with a catchy tune.

Link thanks to Clara at Mutable.

Headlines: "Tinsley's report also said that the EPA was under pressure from the White House to add reassuring statements and remove those that spoke of dangers. The White House convinced the Bush administration to leave out important tips for people living in the area of the attacks, including the best way to clean indoor areas and the effects of contaminants from the destroyed towers of the World Trade Center."

Godwin's Law [The Jargon Dictionary]: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.' There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful"

Gleaned from Orcinus

We Have Ways of Making You Talk: "Padilla was declared an 'enemy combatant' based on the assertion—not the presentation—of 'some evidence' by the administration that he was a bin Laden bad guy. "

Link thanks to denoralize.

News in Science - Ancient Antarctic lake may erupt if drilled - 20/08/2003: "Plans to drill into an ancient lake deep under ice in Antarctica may lead it to erupt in a massive geyser-like explosion, scientists have warned."

God in the console

"Christian game developers seek to put God in the machine, while thinkers like Thomas and Clark say that the notion of God is already there. Differing opinions, but both hold a core belief: A game’s influence doesn’t end when you turn off the console. "

Link thanks to Philos.

Thousands flee Kelowna fire

"About 10,000 people living on Kelowna's south side were ordered out of their homes Thursday night, after the Okanagan Mountain fire jumped a fire guard – and thousands more are on evacuation alert. "

I used to live in Kelowna, and a few people I konw are still there (though I haven't talked to them in years). This is distressing. Link thanks to Philos.

Wired News: Bracing for Sobig's Onslaught: "Antivirus researchers at Sophos and F-Secure have discovered that Sobig.F, the worm that has been flooding e-mail in-boxes this week, is programmed to download and run what most are describing as a 'unknown program,' on Friday at 19:00 UTC (3 p.m. EDT). "

I've been getting sogbig.F attacks in my inbox all week long. It took me a while to find any useful information on the virus, which I find a little peevish. Anyway, you can read an hour-by-hour account of attempts to crush the virus here.

Ocean County News: The Press of Atlantic City: "Environmental consultant John Zingis, who performed tests on the blob and its lagoon water, said that it was his theory that an inordinately wet June - with the heaviest amount of rainfall since 1895 - combined with lawn fertilizer to create the hideous, stinking, plant-based monster that anchored itself to the lagoon bottom."

Sure, just explain it away...

Sci Fi Wire -- The News Service of the Sci Fi Channel: "New Line Cinema will re-release the first two Lord of the Rings movies, with additional scenes and footage, two weeks before the Dec. 17 premiere of the third installment, The Return of the King, Variety reported. New Line plans to put the film on 100-150 screens in the top 10 U.S. markets, the trade paper reported."

Link thanks to Philos.

India Approves Moon Mission: "India will send a spacecraft to the moon by 2008, prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said in his Independence Day address to the nation Aug. 15. The announcement has put an end to suspense over the fate of the roughly $100 million project of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) that was waiting for a formal sanction for over eight months."

News: "At just over an inch long, the mudworm may not look like much but scientists have discovered it has the same evolutionary lineage as humans."

Mysteries of the universe

"One morning last April, the New York Times op-ed page ran a piece by the Australian physicist Paul Davies warning readers not to be so gullible as to believe there could be more than one universe. The next month, Scientific American published a long article by the physicist Max Tegmark asserting that, to the contrary, parallel universes almost certainly do exist. Around the same time, bookstores received Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries?, wherein Martin Gardner dismisses theories of multiple universes as “frivolous fantasies.” If you had seen all this, you may well have asked yourself: Is this really a matter on which I need to form an opinion? "

New Scientist: "A 'do-gooder' computer worm that fixes the Windows bug exploited by the damaging worm Blaster has begun spreading on the net. The new worm is called Welchia or Nochi and spreads by exploiting the same vulnerability."

Wired 11.09: Learning to Love PowerPoint

"This is Dan Rather's profile. Expanded to the nth degree. Taken to infinity. Overlayed on the back of Patrick Stewart's head. It's recombinant phrenology. The elements of phrenology recombined in ways that follow the rules of irrational logic, a rigorous methodology that follows nonrational rules. It is a structure for following your intuition and your obsessions. It is the hyperfocused scribblings of the mad and the gifted. The order and structure give it the appearance of rationality and scientific rigor. This appearance is easy to emulate."

Tahoe Daily Tribune

"'This is stuff no humans have seen,' said Kleppe of the video images of the deep lake produced by the rover. 'That to me is like having the moon in your back yard ... every time we go out, it seems we find another mystery.'"

Some of you may have noticed my recent silence on Blog and Livejournal. The reason for this is that last friday my wife and I were called out to Maryland unexpectedly by some very bad news. My wife's brother Bart died in a vehicle accident. We've been out east spending time with family and mourning Bart. Those of you who met him knew what an amazing person he was. Your prayers and condolences are appreciated.

game girl advance: Galaxies Auctions - It Has Already Begun<
br>
"Pehaps you can measure the popularity of an MMOG based on its auction potential. Only days after its late-June 2003 launch, users harvested Star Wars Galaxies for real-world resources: Ebay: Items matching ( galaxies ) and Player Auctions. Most of the auctions are for credits (20k credits on Bria server, etc). Some are for buildings, or accounts."

Community reeling from restaurateur's murder

"Oh no, not again. And oh no, not him. Those are the overarching sentiments among community members in Seattle's Central District in response to Wednesday's fatal shooting of Troy Hackett, 38, the co-owner of Philly's Best cheese steak shop. Hackett was known for helping at-risk teens and being an advocate for small businesses in the neighborhood."

Salon.com News | Pentagon abandons terrorism betting plan

"The Pentagon will abandon a plan to establish a futures market to help predict terrorist strikes, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday"

Link thanx to ScottD