Or, how to take a great opportunity and blow it.

Segway's Breakdown

] Kara Blanc thought she was being chased by a space alien
] on her way to a posh Hollywood party and was terrified.
] But the alien turned out to be an actor in a monster suit
] and the party was phony as well. ]
] So now the Los Angeles grade school teacher and aspiring
] actress is fighting back, suing the new reality TV series
] "Scare Tactics," claiming she suffered severe emotional
] damage, court papers said Tuesday.

Woman chased by fake alien sues show - New Reality Show

] Recording companies have asked the Federal Court to allow
] their computer experts to scan all computers at the
] University of Melbourne for sound files and email
] accounts, so they can gather evidence of claimed
] widespread breaches of copyright.

And I thought things were getting scary in the US.

Recording firms ask to scan university computers - smh.com.au

] On May 19, 1995, I received a standard-sized gray
] envelope, stuffed with what looked like, through a small
] cellophane window, a check for $95,093.35.

] The documents I had expected to make me cry actually
] made me laugh out loud. First Interstate Bank of
] California was abbreviated throughout as FICAL. An acronym
] pronounced as fecal, not fical, I thought. This is a fecal
] matter.

I read this a couple years ago and thought it was great.

Bank Error In My Favor: Collect $95,000: Man 1, Bank 0

Denver - The world's most sophisticated cyborg, which can grin with self-satisfaction or sneer in disdain, has at last been unveiled.

Packed with 24 small motors to manipulate the artificial skin of its face, the cyborg - called K-bot - has a pair of cameras in its eyes designed to analyse the facial expressions of the people it sees.

IOL : K-bot the sociable cyborg is wired to smile

] Washington, D.C. - This weekend the District of Columbia
] fell under meteorological attack and the nation's capital
] has been crippled. "Several inches of snow have fallen on
] the DC area and more snow is on the way," reported the
] local NBC television station.
]
]
] The Snow Miser was arrested, but subsequently released
] for the 1936 New York Blizzard Attack.]
] On CNN's Late Edition, Homeland Security Secretary Tom
] Ridge refused to speculate on possible causes of the
] siege. Ridge stated: "We can either be afraid, or we can
] be ready. America chooses to be ready."

Great satire.

BBspot - Snow Miser Suspected in D.C. Snow Attack

] NASA engineers are now almost certain that the space
] shuttle Columbia was destroyed when super-hot ionised air
] leaked through a puncture somewhere in the craft.

New Scientist

... The next time you see a strange street sign in your neighborhood, it might just be a prop in someone else's entertainment, and the next Google search results page you pull down might contain a link to a node in the L3 universe. That's the thing about games without frontiers. You never really know when you're playing.

Geeks Without Borders, by Steven Johnson

Stop looking over your shoulder and invent something!

Cypherpunks write code.

Microsoft and the Commoditization of Software

] ROME, Italy (Reuters) -- Lovers might lose their heads on
] St. Valentine's Day, but Friday part of the saint's skull
] found its way back to a central Italian church.

People will steal anything.

CNN.com - St. Valentine skull fragment returned - Feb. 14, 2003