Smart Dust

Tiny sensors the size of a grain of sand to monitor home environments.
http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,27573,00.html

Battlestar Galactica Comin Back

nuff said.
http://www.cosmiverse.com/scifi06290101.html

Comet Visible This Weekend

On June 30th the evaporating snowball from the outer solar system will pass 0.24 AU from our planet. Glowing with a visual magnitude of 4, the comet is easy to spot without the aid of a telescope. Northern hemisphere stargazers can find it ~30 degrees above the eastern horizon before dawn -- not too far from brilliant Venus.
http://www.cosmiverse.com/space06290102.html

Active Volcanoes on Mars

The Tharsis Montes on Mars, i.e. Arsia Mons, Pavonis Mons and Ascraeus Mons, are gigantic volcano triplets of a youthful age with evidence of recent volcanism.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-volcano-01a1.html

Stealth Bomber Detection

How to detect a stealth bomber... or at least the physics behind it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/19874.html

Theoretical Limits of Computing

Excellent article on the physics of (electronic) computation. Relatively involved reading.
http://arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/01q2/limits/limits-1.html

Cappucino PC-In-A-box

Bizzaro mini-pc. Interesting, though..
http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/01q2/cappuccino/cappuccino-1.html

Times Review of AI

A noted scientist of the remote future lays down a piquant challenge to his colleagues at Cybertronics Manufacturing. "I propose that we build a robot who can love...a robot that dreams." Hurrah and alas, his dream is realized. Two years later, Cybertronics has assembled the perfect child, "always loving, never ill, never changing," and has found a potentially ideal couple to adopt him--or try him out. But we know the danger of answered prayers. Real life is messy; love can break your heart. Even the heart of a "toy boy" like David, who will be abandoned by the one he loves most and have to face a brutal world before he can find a saving human touch.
http://www.time.com/time/sampler/article/0,8599,130942,00.html

Half the Worlds Languages Going Extinct

Due to globalization, many of the indiginous peoples languages are becoming extinct.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,44631,00.html

Kennewick Man on Trial Again

9300 year old man found in Washington is the subject of a trial again. Basically, natives want the man buried and scientists want to study him -- especially since he seems to be caucasian upon casual inspection.
http://news.excite.ca/news/cp/010619/21/another-round-of

GPS in Rental Cars Giving Speeding Tickets

A rental outfitted with a high-tech device that tracks your every move. One that records your speed. One that enables rental car agents to rip off unsuspecting drivers.
http://www.newmassmedia.com/nac.phtml?code=new&db=nac_fea&ref=16435

Current Read: The Age of Spiritual Machines

When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence by Ray Kurzweil
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0140282025/reviews/qid=992966552/sr=1-1/ref=sc_b_1/107-2859801-9318936

Semi-lost Salinger Short Story

SOME comment in advance, as plain and bare as I can make it: My name, first, is Buddy Glass, and for a good many years of my life,--very possibly, all forty-six--I have felt myself installed, elaborately wired, and, occasionally, plugged in, for the purpose of shedding some some light on the short, reticulate life and times of my late, eldest brother, Seymour Glass, who died, committed suicide, opted to discontinue living,when he was thirty-one.
http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&th=a657b8450f430ab2

Neutrinos Have Mass

Solving a 30-year-old scientific mystery, physicists have found the most convincing evidence yet that neutrinos - elusive subatomic particles that were thought to have no mass whatsoever - have a tiny wisp of heft after all.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010618/sc/solar_mystery_1.html

Dog Boy in Chile

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - A 10-year-old boy who had been abandoned by his parents survived for two years in a cave with a pack of stray dogs who scavenged for food with him and may even have suckled him, child care workers say.
http://news.excite.ca/news/r/010619/09/odd-dogboy-dc

Aliens on Mars

A Martian invasion could take place as early as2007 - but it will be Earth invading the Red Planet, instead of the otherway around.
http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/06/05/alien010605

War of the Worlds Remake

The principles of Pendragon Pictures are in negotiations with the representative of Academy award winner Sir Michael Caine, to lead the cast of the $42m WAR OF THE WORLDS, which will begin filming this fall. Pendragon Pictures has also approached representatives of Charlize Theron, and Matthew McConaughey. The international cast will be anchored with British and American talent. Pendragon is also in the process of screen testing national and international news and media personalities as well as newcomers and semi-unknowns.
http://www.dtheatre.com/read.php?sid=1438

Pretty Accurate Tomb Raider Review

Saw this movie today... it was good entertainment, nothing more.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click/movie-1105256/reviews.php?critic=columns&sortby=default&page=1&rid=230289

Interesting Negative Review of AI

Heres my review for A.I. Sorry, it has Spoilers through out. After reading the other two reviews, I had to write in. The more I think about this movie, the more offended I get. I knew it was coming, like a speeding train rushing at me, I could hear it in the distance. And yet, like a fool, I refused to leap from the tracks...
http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=9335

Cones on Mars

Cones poking out from the surface of Mars could be evidence for recent water ice on the red planet ? this time just beneath some of the most parched regions of its rocky terrain.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010614/010614-3.html

Martian Meteorite May Contain Water

According to a recent report by BBC News, a French researcher says that a meteorite found in the Western Sahara may contain water from below the surface of Mars. The meteorite called NWA 817 was discovered last December weighing three and a half ounces.
http://www.cosmiverse.com/space06140103.html

AI Photos

It is a time when natural resources are limited and technology is advancing at an astronomical pace. Where you live is monitored; what you eat is engineered; and the person serving you is not a person at all. It?s artificial. Gardening, housekeeping, companionship, there is a robot for every need. Except love.
http://www.countingdown.com/ai/photos.html

GM Fuel Cell Cars

GMs investing heavily into fuel-cell vehicles. Theyre thinking of 500 miles to the tank, and hundreds of thousands of cars on the road by 2010. Hmm...
http://www.msnbc.com/news/586532.asp?cp1=1

Big Bang "MAP" To Solve Universal Mysteries

Scheduled to launch on June 30, the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) will journey into deep space on a voyage to explore some of the deepest mysteries buried in the cosmos.
http://www.cosmiverse.com/space06130102.html

Nother Bitchin Little Gamers

http://www.little-gamers.com/

Bruce Lee Radio Station

Finally... a good net radio station.
http://www.spottedradio.com/

h2g2 Page on the Epic of Gilgamesh

Said to be the oldest known example of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh is more properly a cycle of shorter poems, dating from the third millennium BC. Like many of the ancient epics, this was based partly on folklore and partly on reality. Gilgamesh was King of Uruk of the walls and, according to a contemporary list of kings, reigned for 162 years. While this seems improbable, the same list claims that his father, Lugulbanda, held the throne for over 1200...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A446410

Sweet TR Photo

This ones probably going to suck, but might be good.
http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1804770389&cf=pg&photoid=193754

Blast from the Past

Farthest Supernova Ever Seen Sheds Light on Dark Universe
http://hubble.stsci.edu/news_.and._views/data/2001/09/index.shtml

WebCam Astronomy

Ill have to try this... linking your webcam to a telescope.Some kewl pics of ISS.
http://www.djcash.demon.co.uk/astro/webcam/webcam.htm

Sweet PC Case

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/things/376d.html

Consiousness is a Big Suitcase

A Talk with Marvin Minsky: My goal is making machines that can think-by understanding how people think. One reason why we find this hard to do is because our old ideas about psychology are mostly wrong. Most words we use to describe our minds (like "consciousness", "learning", or "memory") are suitcase-like jumbles of different ideas. Those old ideas were formed long ago, before computer science appeared. It was not until the 1950s that we began to develop better ways to help think about complex processes...

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/minsky/minsky_p2.html

Good Intro to Theory of Computation

http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/theory-bk/theory-bk.html

Interesting Security Site

http://www.mindsec.com/

Doctor Who returns to the BBC

Suh-wheat: Time traveller Doctor Who is returning to the BBC - this time to battle evil aliens in cyberspace. The Timelord has regenerated once again for a special one-off audio drama, Death Comes To Time, that will be broadcast through bbc.co.uk on 13 July.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/tv_and_radio/newsid_1381000/1381788.stm

Suck and Feed Go Down

Feed and Suck, two of the Webs earliest online and best known magazines, are shutting down after running out of money.
http://news.excite.ca/news/ap/010611/13/online-magazines

Tiger Shot Dead After Killing 5 People

A Royal Bengal tiger was shot dead at a national park in southern Nepal after killing five people in a week, a wildlife official said Monday.
http://news.excite.ca/news/r/010611/09/odd-tiger-dc

NIN DVD

Nine Inch Nails critically acclaimed trek that was 1999s the Fragility Tour will come to small screens this year. The as-yet-untitled DVD/VHS will also come with a companion audio CD complementing the footage collected on film.
http://music.yahoo.com/music/news/rolling_stone/story.html?a=n/music/news/rolling_stone/rock/20010608/1/p1&b=n/music/news/rolling_stone/rock/20010608/1/p2

Webearth

WebEarth builds a live VRML model of Earth as it is right now . Drawing from composite sattelite photos created by John Walker, WebEarth employs a set of server-side scripts which build the model and maintain the current image database. To load the model, click on the words "Current Earth Image" in the left-hand frame.
http://www.webearth.org/

Micronized Tranzistors

Intel Corp., the worlds largest semiconductor maker, has developed what it says is the fastest and smallest transistor ever. The breakthrough means that Moores Law, which stipulates that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years, will remain on the books until at least 2007...
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010609/tc/tech_intel_dc_1.html

Samurai Movie Reviews

Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune, Wakayama Tomisaburo, and Katsu Shintaru influences reviewed.
http://efilmcritic.com/hbs.cgi?feature=386

Phobos to be Imaged

2001 Phobos, the tiny innermost moon of Mars, is to come under unprecedented scrutiny after Europes mission to Mars goes into orbit around the Red Planet late in 2003. Mars Express is due to pass within 3000 km of the 22 km diameter moon a few hundred times during its two-year nominal mission lifetime.
http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=27328

Drug Legalization

Good rant on the possible effects of drug legalization.
http://www.sightings.com/general11/legal.htm

Good Little Gamers

http://www.little-gamers.com/daily.gamer?date=20010608

Pics of the X-43A Failure

Video shot during Saturdays doomed launch of a Pegasus booster with NASAs X-43A experimental aircraft shows what might be one of the rockets aerosurfaces breaking off moments before the vehicle goes into an uncontrolled tumble through the sky...
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0106/04x43/

Molecular Switches

Researchers have developed prototype computer memories in which information is recorded, read and erased by molecular switches. Computer memories that store information in single molecules could be far more powerful than those of todays machines.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010607/010607-7.html

Java Peer-to-Peer Distributed Apps

Its a "core architecture" written in the cross-platform Java language that allows developers to easily build distributed applications...
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,44352,00.html

Missions to Pluto

NASA selected two proposals Wednesday for possible fly-by missions to faraway Pluto, keeping alive the possibility it will launch a spacecraft to the yet-unexplored planet.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010607/sc/pluto_missions_1.html

The Emergent Self

Regarding the subject of biological identity, the main point is that there is an explicit transition from local interactions to the emergence of the "global" property ? that is, the virtual self of the cellular whole, in the case of autopoiesis. Its clear that molecules interact in very specific ways, giving rise to a unity that is the initiation of the self. There is also the transition from nonlife to life...
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/varela/varela_index.html

Police Seek Unapologetic Flatulent Officer

nuff said.
http://news.excite.ca/news/r/010606/11/odd-wind-dc

Brain Drain

Apparently, the brain runs on sugar. Duh... I couldnt have made it through university without Coke and Fudgecicles.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1368000/1368912.stm

The Lighter Side of Hoof and Mouth

The Lord Reaches Into His Bag Of Tricks And Pulls Out An Old Standby ? Pestilence ? To Save Christian Marriages Throughout Scotland.
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0501/beastiality.html

Europes Oldest Calendar

Zagreb - A Croatian archaeologist claims to have deciphered Europes oldest calendar from a ceramic pot with a decorative pattern of stars which matches those seen on calendars in Egypt and Sumer.
http://www.iol.co.za/html/frame_news.php?click_id=588&art_id=qw990505982455B263

EFF Challenges MPAA

Trenton, NJ -- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today asked a federal court to rule that Princeton University Professor Edward Felten and his research team have a First Amendment right to present their research on digital music access-control technologies at the USENIX Security Conference this August in Washington, DC, despite threats from the recording industry.
http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Felten_v_RIAA/20010606_eff_felten_pr.html

Most Distant Objects Found

A pair of quasars 80 million light years away have been found.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010605/sc/space_map_dc_1.html

Quantum Slacks

DALLAS--At a press conference Monday, Haggar physicists announced the successful development of Quantum Slacks, attractive, wrinkle-free pants that paradoxically behave like both formal and casual wear...
http://www.theonion.com/onion3721/quantum_slacks.html

New Radiohead Album

In between arena tours and Number One albums, Radiohead want to get away from it all. Not a week in Goa or a summer in Provence but a more complete escape: oblivion. The songs on Amnesiac contemplate suicide, divorce, paranoia and mysterious disappearances, and the music follows them into the ether.
http://www.rollingstone.com/recordings/review.asp?aid=2042419

Net grows and shrinks dramatically

Net surfers spend about 60 percent of their time online using products and services owned by just 14 companies, down from 110 companies merely two years ago, according to a report released Monday...
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2769009,00.html

PC Abuse

Hilarious: One in every four computers has been physically attacked by its owner, according to a survey.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,44284,00.html

Current Read: Knowledge Web Review

How is vivisection related to Stonehenge? It might take a few leaps of history, but youll find the answer in The Knowledge Web, another of science historian James Burkes compelling collections of circular narratives that have informed and inspired astute readers for years. Best known for his outstanding documentary series Connections, Burke has a genius for unraveling complex threads of history and sharing with us the remarkable coincidences and contingencies that built our modern world. In The Knowledge Web he shows us how the rapid flow of information engenders greater possibilities for the kinds of chance meetings that drive progress.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0684859343/reviews/107-6308972-3375761#06848593435123

Payolas Still Happening

For 40 years, federal law has prohibited broadcasters from accepting money or anything of value in exchange for playing songs on the radio without disclosing the practice to listeners. But internal documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times indicate that several independent promoters keep detailed logs--called banks--listing the date a station airs a song followed by a dollar amount collected from the artists label. The stations that add the most songs over the course of a year build the biggest banks and consequently earn the largest fees.
http://www.latimes.com/news/front/20010529/t000044865.html

Opening Another Door

Sometimes we think we understand someone. We know their strengths, and respect them for it, We know their weaknesses, and love them anyway. We think we have discovered it all. And then one small event can turn your whole perception inside out and upside down...
http://www.aikiweb.com/training/mccarthy1.html

Growing Plants on Mars

As part of a proposed mission that could put plants on Mars as soon as 2007, University of Florida professor Rob Ferl is bioengineering tiny mustard plants, or Arabidopsis thaliana. Rather than altering these plants so that theyll adapt more easily to Martian conditions, hes adding reporter genes: part plant, part glowing jellyfish. With this technique, these diminutive explorers will be able to send messages back to Earth about how they are faring on another planet.
http://www.cosmiverse.com/space06040102.html

Gene Chips Accurately Diagnose Four Complex Childhood Cancers

Artificial Intelligence Used With Gene Expression Microarrays For The First Time Bethesda, MD - Scientists at the National Human Genome Research Institute and Lund University in Sweden have developed a method of genetic fingerprinting that can tell the difference between several closely related types of childhood cancer. The method combines, for the first time, the cutting edge technology of gene chips with a form of artificial intelligence called an artificial neural network (ANN). The neural network automatically analyzes the large amounts of data produced by the gene chip to make a highly accurate diagnosis.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/06/010601082545.htm

Updated Echelon Report

http://cryptome.org/echelon-ep.htm

Billy Corgan plays for New Order live

http://music.yahoo.com/music/news/wall_of_sound/story.html?a=n/music/news/wall_of_sound/rock/20010531/26/p1&b=n/music/news/wall_of_sound/rock/20010531/26/p2

new Douglas Adams book

The BBC and the Independant on Sunday have the news that all the remaining Douglas Adams material is going to be published later on this year, including the unfinished novel The Salmon of Doubt and the proposed screenplay for the Hitchhikers Guide movie
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/arts/newsid_1367000/1367344.stm

kid makes nuclear reactor

http://www.findarticles.com/m1111/n1782_v297/21281407/p1/article.jhtml

NASA blows up X-34

NASA aborted an attempt to set a new speed record for an aircraft Saturday when a rocket that was to help launch the unmanned X-43A jet went off course and had to be destroyed.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/010603/6/5n7f.html