With the latest crop of videos, a new style has emerged, though, one that is at once absolutely mundane and completely postmodern: people posting videos of themselves watching YouTube videos. And that's just the start.

People Who Watch People: Lost in an Online Hall of Mirrors - New York Times

Thanks to an overzealous copy-protection scheme enforced by content holders (read: movie studios), forthcoming next-generation optical disc players, including Blu-ray and HD-DVD models, will give studios the option to hobble the resolution of the players' analog outputs. In a decision reached earlier this week, the eight-company consortium behind AACS (Advanced Access Content System), the mandatory copy-protection system used by both formats, has decided to let each studio choose whether to "downconvert" the output of the players' component-video outputs to 960x540 resolution--exactly one quarter of the potential 1,920x1,080 resolution of true high-def.

Linked from penny-arcade.

Blu-ray and HD-DVD: crippled HD analog output option - Alpha Blog - alpha.cnet.com

Founded as a non-profit global organization in 1981, APUA’s mission is to strengthen society’s defenses against infectious disease by promoting appropriate antimicrobial access and use and controlling antimicrobial resistance on a worldwide basis.

APUA: Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics

But recent findings from Australia confirm that fish owners should nonetheless take care when cleaning an aquarium or otherwise interacting with finned friends or the water they swim in.

Researchers reported in the March issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases on cases of bacterial infections serious enough to send some children to the hospital with high fever and bloody diarrhea. The infections stemmed from a multidrug-resistant strain of Salmonella paratyphi B that was traced via DNA analysis to fish tanks in the patients' homes.

Nemo Beware: Fish Tank Can Be a Haven for Salmonella

The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) is funding a team of researchers working on a new design for an antimatter-powered spaceship that avoids this nasty side effect by producing gamma rays with much lower energy.

NASA: New and Improved Antimatter Spaceship for Mars Missions

During wind tunnel tests earlier this week, NASA subjected a full-scale mockup of a shuttle external tank section to aerodynamic forces greater than a real tank would experience during launch. In one series of tests, unmodified foam insulation used to prevent ice buildups around external fittings suffered only minor damage while a redesigned "ice/frost ramp" suffered major foam loss.

What a mess...

Tank foam lost during shuttle wind tunnel test

In March 2006, Peter Quinn (former Massachusetts chief information officer (CIO), made comments about clothing that set off a bizarre firestorm of news and discussion. His comments were noted in ZDNet Australia's article, "Sandals and ponytail set cramp Linux", CNET's article 'Sandal and ponytail set' cramping Linux adoption?, and many others. There were even articles in Linux Weekly News (LWN) and Slashdot.

What did Quinn say? He simply stated that the appearance of many free-libre / open source software (FLOSS) developers detracts from FLOSS adoption. "Open source has an unprofessional appearance, and the community needs to be more business savvy in order to start to make inroads in areas traditionally dominated by [proprietary] software vendors. [Having] a face on a project or agenda makes it attractive for politicians [to consider open source]."

Guess what? He's right.

Dress for success? Decide on your goals, then act to reach them

Microsoft Research has released a new tool to help pinpoint large-scale typo-squatters that are known to be gaming pay-per-click domain parking services.

Microsoft Ships 'URL Tracer' to Hunt Down Typo-Squatters

Here's that video of the duck getting hit by the car mentioned in the New Yorker piece...

blooper / caught on tape : a duck gets hit by a car - Google Video

The discovery of a possible hibernation hormone in the brain may unlock the mystery behind the dormant state, researchers reported in the April 7, 2006 issue of Cell. Hibernation allows animals from bears to rodents to survive unscathed--in a state of suspended animation--under the harshest of winter conditions.

Possible brain hormone may unlock mystery of hibernation