Fans of Georgia's current license plates might feel a little blue when they see the new tag design unveiled by the Department of Revenue.

The new plates will take the place of the white tags with the phrase "Georgia ... on my mind" at the top and the gray and white plates centered on a green drawing of the state surrounded by a huge peach symbol.

Instead, the plates will feature white letters on a dark blue background that also includes the state's emblem. The plates will still contain a reference to the state's Web site, with the top banner reading GEORGIA.gov. A peach serves as the "o" in "gov."

Besides the design, there will be a few other changes to the new tags. Because of new technology, the plates will be flat instead of having embossed letters, though tags issued early might still have the numbers and letters pounded into them.

Another innovation that might not make the first set of plates is a bar code that will help police officers and state troopers get some information from the plate simply by passing a scanner over it.

The state still isn't sure what information the bar codes will contain.

"We've got to look at what the requirements are from the law enforcement standpoint and then, also, we've got to look at the privacy issues," Willey said.

Georgia to get new tags

"26 Things is a photography exercise to help us develop our photographic eye in our daily life."

A photographic scavenger hunt. neat idea.

26 Things

When people post on any forum, whether it's a serious Mozart discussion forum, Something Awful, or PayMeToHumpThings.net, they usually act in a manner that's presentable to the outside world. Of course they do, because someone else is going to read that and they wouldn't want to look like a fruitcake in front of everybody. But behind that relatively normal exterior there are things they're wondering about and want to know, and they type these things where they think nobody will ever see them, like into search engines for example.

If you're more of a nerd than most, (and let's face it, you're reading Something Awful) you probably heard that a week or two ago AOL mistakenly released 3 months of logs from its AOL Search engine, and now the logs are all over the place online. AOL has already apologized for the error, but they shouldn't because these are some of the most awesome things I've ever seen.

Before we get down to business, let me explain what's happening in these images. One of our forum goons, xGryph, coded up a nice little search tool to let us easily look through the 2 gigabytes of logs. The big number on the left is an anonymous user ID AOL provided so advertisers or researchers or whoever's looking at the logs can track an individual account's search habits. Next to that is the search term used.

Someone pointed out this link to me

The Internet Makes You Stupid

Damien Gaudry never took a course in sign language, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to build an instructional tool that could lend a hand to children who want to learn.

Gaudry and two other Georgia Tech graduate students – Cindy Perreira and Russell Marzette – built an 18-inch tall robotic hand that could eventually sign the 26 letters of the English alphabet.

cool I wonder what has become of this since then.....

Tech Students Build Robotic Hand as Sign Language Learning Tool

The mission of Let's Say Thanks is to provide a way for individuals across the country to recognize U.S. soldiers stationed overseas. By submitting a message through this site you will send a free personalized postcard greeting to a deployed soldier.

The postcards, depicting patriotic scenes and hometown images, were selected from a pool of entries from children across the country.

Some of my students participated in this project by sending in art work.

Let's Say Thanks

As Israeli warplanes were preparing an attack on Lebanon Thursday afternoon, and a Lebanese militia was aiming a rocket at the ancient Israeli city of Safed, President George W. Bush was bantering with reporters in Germany about a pig.

Bush kept bringing up the roast wild boar he was about to dine on at a banquet that night, even when asked about the swelling crisis in the Middle East, where pig meat is forbidden to religious Jews and Muslims.

"Does it concern you that the Beirut airport has been bombed?" a reporter asked. "And do you see a risk of triggering a wider war?"

"I thought you were going to ask me about the pig," Bush replied blithely. Then he brought the pig up again -- for the fifth time -- before giving a long answer that ended with his saying Israel needed to protect itself.

"He was asked a serious question," said Ian Lustick, a Middle East expert now at the University of Pennsylvania, and his answer "epitomized his disengagement in the Middle East."

In the past, Arab-Israeli hostilities usually came to an end only when the United States signaled the Israelis in private to stop. But Bush, more than most if not all of his predecessors, has kept a largely hands-off approach -- in part, his aides have said, because he saw former President Bill Clinton's embarrassing failures to bring about peace in the region.

Bush's pig tales show disengagement

Meetup.com helps people find others who share their interest or cause, and form lasting, influential, local community groups that regularly meet face-to-face. We believe that the world will be a better place when everyone has access to a people-powered local Meetup Group. That's our goal.

I thought some of you would find this site interesting. I ran across it when I was looking for info on ASL

Meetup

There are plenty of launches to go see, including another shuttle launch in August, and if you're going this guide will come in very handy. BTW, he is absolutely correct that if you go to Kennedy Space Center you must see an IMAX movie. We're talking wall sized movies filmed in 3-D from the perspective of Astronauts. Its the closest you can get to actual space travel without getting an advanced degree in Aerospace Engineering, logging thousands of hours piloting various combat aircraft, and going through years of training where you learn to do the work of a plumber and an electrician in an extremely uncomfortable and combersome suit in an environment where the word "down" doesn't actually mean anything but the word "oops" means anything from "oops" I lost a billion dollars to "oops," everybody is dead.

Watching a lauch, btw, is highly recommended. We drove a long way, didn't get to sleep much, spent a lot of money, got screwed by our hotel, got frustrated and cranky, got rained out for two days, and spent hours baking under the summer sun, and the launch only lasts like 5 minutes. But TV cameras cannot convey how bright the engines are, how loud it is, or, ultimately, how exciting it is to see it happen first hand. When you see that machine streaking across the sky you know those guys are bad ass.

I concur there is nothing like seeing this in person even from 10 miles away. It was worth every second of time and bit of money exhausted. It was a wonderful trip with awesome friends. Nothing I can think of will be able to top this fourth of July. It was an absolutely amazing site/feeling that no words, pictures, video, etc. can ever portray. If you ever have a chance you must do this!!!

SpaceLaunchInfo.com - Home Page

The space shuttle Discovery split a nearly cloudless sky with thunder and fire at 2:38 this afternoon, and roared safely into orbit on schedule.

And Memestreams user Palindrome and I were there along with a number of friends of ours! A perfect way to celebrate the 4th of July! Certainly the biggest rocket I've ever seen and one that truely inspires on many levels. I've got lots of links to post, but access is limited from my cellphone. More to follow.

Shuttle Roars Safely Into Orbit on Schedule - New York Times

This is an article, albiet rather short, about placing yellow chairs at or near places which have openly free wireless connectivity to encourage use of the facilities. The yellow chair concept is borne from the Yellow Bike project, where several cities have implemented free bicycles, painted yellow, which can be ridden from place to place without worry of rent, upkeep, etc.

Yellow Chairs for Free WiFi