] A spacecraft is on track to fly through the tail of a
] comet on Friday, collecting hundreds of specks of the
] primitive material from which the sun, the planets and
] all living creatures are made, NASA said.

This is a mission I've been following closely, since it's another one that has my name aboard. :)

Spacecraft 'Stardust' to Fly Through Tail of Comet

Colin Powell kept a set of these rules on his desk. For the last several years, I've kept a copy in my office as well. I've been staring at it alot today, so I figured it was worth memeing.

] 1. It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the
] morning.
]
] 2. Get mad, then get over it.
]
] 3. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when
] your position falls, your ego goes with it.
]
] 4. It can be done!
]
] 5. Be careful what you choose. You may get it.
]
] 6. Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good
] decision.
]
] 7. You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let
] someone else make yours.
]
] 8. Check small things.
]
] 9. Share credit.
]
] 10. Remain calm. Be kind.
]
] 11. Have a vision. Be demanding.
]
] 12. Don't take counsel of your fears or naysayers.
]
] 13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Powell's Rules

] In research described in the journal Science last month,
] the team looked at footnotes from scientific articles in
] three major journals -- the New England Journal of
] Medicine, Science and Nature -- at three months, 15
] months and 27 months after publication. The prevalence of
] inactive Internet references grew during those intervals
] from 3.8 percent to 10 percent to 13 percent.

They cite the average half-life of a particular webpage as about 100 days.

In compiling my Kryptos site, I run into this all the time. I find really awesome information and pictures and link to them, but then within a few months, those valuable pictures are gone. So now, I find myself archiving/mirroring anything I find, so that I can re-post it if it vanishes. Does this mean I'm violating copyright? Or saving sometimes irreplaceable information for future researchers? I say the latter, but the time that I spend in conserving other people's work does feel awkward to me at times ...

On the Web, Research Work Proves Ephemeral (washingtonpost.com)

] Gangs based in Eastern Europe have been found to have
] been launching waves of attacks on corporate networks
 . . .
] The attacks involve gangs commandeering as many as hundreds of
] computers through hacking methods to use without their owners'
] knowledge. A command is then issued to each one simultaneously to
] make a series of bogus requests to the servers of the victim. The
] weight of traffic brings the servers to a halt and legitimate
] requests to carry out transactions cannot be completed.

This ties in to one of my speculations about the origin of some of the recent "let's build a clone-army" worms.

Eastern European Hackers Using DDOS Attacks to Blackmail Companies

] There are seven different kinds of tuna that are
] typically offered as either canned or fresh tuna:
] albacore, bigeye, blackfin, bluefin, bonito, skipjack,
] and yellowfin. Of these, the three found most
] commonly in sushi bars are albacore, yellowfin and
] bluefin. Skipjack, while occasionally found in sushi bars,
] is more commonly touted by Charlie the Tuna as canned tuna.

Finally, an explanation that I can understand about the differences between canned tuna and the various kinds of sushi and sashimi tuna. :)

Google Answers: Sushi Tuna, Canned Tuna, and white tuna?

Gremlin wrote:
] The phaomnneil pweor of the hmuan mnid.
]
] Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it
] deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod
] are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and
] lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a
] total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.
] Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey
] lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
]
] Fcuknig amzanig, huh?

Pretty neat! Though it's worth repeating that along with first and last letter, that the middle letters do need to be there in the same quantities, oxxxe txxxs gxxxt mxxxh hxxxr txxxo rxxxd.

(otherwise things get much harder to read) :)

RE: naet ltilte ticrk!

] You may think your salary is paltry, but compared with
] most of the world's population, you're up there with Bill
] Gates.

don't forget how good you have it!

Westerners Pretty Rich

] In case of alien abduction these dog tags may save your life.
] The crucial data an alien will need to get you back to Earth is
] die stamped into these dog tags.

This is one of those cases where it was difficult for me to do the meme recommendation, since I was laughing so hard. ;)

Location Earth Dog Tags

] Do you ever wonder where that paper money in your pocket
] has been, or where it will go next? This is the place to
] find out.
]
] All you need to do is enter the denomination, series, and
] serial number of any US dollar bill, and your current USA
] ZIP or Canadian Post Code

Ever run across a dollar bill with the "http://www.wheresgeorge.com" URL on it? Be sure to enter in the bill's serial number to this database before you spend the bill somewhere else -- this site tracks the flow of certain marked bills around the world. Fun!

Where's George? - Currency Tracking

crankymessiah wrote:
] ] LONDON, England (Reuters) -- An armada of small, faded
] ] yellow toy ducks is expected to make landfall in Britain
] ] within weeks at the end of an epic 11-year voyage from
] ] the Pacific Ocean.
] ]
] ] They are the survivors of a consignment of 29,000 bath
] ] toys washed overboard from a container ship in 1992 that
] ] have since floated across the ocean, round the United
] ] States, through the Arctic and past Greenland.

My first reaction when I saw this was, "hoax?" But I dug into it, and it seems to be real. There's a webpage here with links to the various stories about the ducks:
 http://www.seabean.com/duckies/

And a "beachcomber" site that even has an executable which tracks the locations of the ducks over time (it ran in full-screen mode on XP, though your mileage may vary on other OSes):

 http://www.beachcombers.org/images/images.htm
(click on North Pacific Toy Spill)

And here's a pic of one of the washed ashore ducks:
 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/31/eveningnews/main566138.shtml

In my mind's eye, I was picturing a flotilla of rubber ducks dotting the waves as far as the eye could see, but it's actually probably more like an asteroid field, where you could go days without seeing one, even if you're right in the center of "duck-density". ;)

Fun story!

(8/11/2003 update: Switched link to point to MSNBC article)

England braces for rubber duck invasion