A man in the United States popped out to his local petrol station to buy a pack of cigarettes - only to find his card charged $23,148,855,308,184,500.

Awesome.

BBC NEWS | Americas | US smoker chokes on cost of habit

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates believes that if he had been able to watch physicist Richard Feynman lecture on physics in 1964 his life might have played out differently.

...

However, Mr. Gates, who is also well known for his sharp and varied intellectual interests and his philanthropic commitment to education, said this week that he had purchased the rights to videos of seven lectures that Dr. Feynman gave at Cornell University called “The Character of Physical Law,” in an effort to make them broadly available via the Internet.

Gates Puts Feynman Lectures Online - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.com

Live satellite tracking.

LIVE REAL TIME SATELLITE TRACKING AND PREDICTIONS

A Malaysian satellite rode a Falcon 1 rocket into orbit Monday night, marking the first time the privately-developed booster has successfully launched an operational spacecraft.

Spaceflight Now | Falcon Launch Report | Commercial launch of SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket a success

The Obama administration announced Monday that it would seek to ban many routine uses of antibiotics in farm animals in hopes of reducing the spread of dangerous bacteria in humans.

In written testimony to the House Rules Committee, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, said feeding antibiotics to healthy chickens, pigs and cattle — done to encourage rapid growth — should cease. And Dr. Sharfstein said farmers should no longer be able to use antibiotics in animals without the supervision of a veterinarian.

Both practices lead to the development of bacteria that are immune to many treatments, he said.

The hearing was held to discuss a measure proposed by Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York and chairwoman of the Rules Committee. It would ban seven classes of antibiotics important to human health from being used in animals, and would restrict other antibiotics to therapeutic and some preventive uses.

Bill Seeks to End Antibiotic Use to Spur Animal Growth - NYTimes.com

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), NASA's souped-up 1-tonne rover due for launch in 2011, needs yet more money. The latest budget overrun could for the first time delay other missions in the agency's cash-strapped planetary-science division.

Mars rover devours budgets : Nature News

News has emerged of a milestone reached on the road towards a potentially world-changing piece of technology. We speak, of course, of US military plans to introduce roving steam-powered robots which would fuel themselves by harvesting everything alive and cramming it into their insatiable blazing furnaces.

Robot land-steamers to consume all life on Earth as fuel • The Register

The BMW Mini E is a solid little electric ride that provides a comfortable, effortless driving experience with all of the usual small-car perks, plus an ultra cheap operating cost and a carbon footprint approaching zero. But as a $50,000 two-seater with no head-turning quotient, the pitch for this first cousin of the Mini Cooper won’t be so much to our inner rock star as our inner Al Gore.

We Drive BMW’s Electric Mini E | Autopia | Wired.com

1982: Frustrated in his dream of becoming an Air Force pilot, a southern California truck driver gets himself airborne anyway with the help of a lawn chair and 42 helium-filled weather balloons. Airborne, as in 16,000 feet worth of airborne.

Yet another writeup of this old story, this one from wired. 27 years ago today.

July 2, 1982: Up, Up and Away With 42 Balloons | This Day In Tech | Wired.com

When you see a pile of wood strips, you probably think tinder. Crown molding at best. But Nick Schade of Guillemot Kayaks envisions an elegant boat that, though handcrafted using the oldest of techniques, outperforms its newfangled peers. Guillemot's vessels are so striking that the New York Museum of Modern Art has one in its permanent collection.

Guillemot Petral Kayak | Wired.com Product Reviews