] The star is like our sun and just 50 light-years away. A
] light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about
] 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers). Most of the
] known extrasolar planets are hundreds or thousands of
] light-years distant.
]
] The star, mu Arae, is visible under dark skies from the
] Southern Hemisphere. It harbors two other planets. One is
] Jupiter-sized and takes 650 days to make its annual trip
] around the star. The other planet, whose existence was
] confirmed with the help of the new observations, is
] farther out.
]
] The three-planet setup, with one being rocky, is unique.
]
] "It's much closer to our solar system than anything we've
] found so far," said Alan Boss, a planet-formation
] theorist at the Carnegie Institution in Washington.

Space is cool.

Earth-like planet discovered 50 light-years away

] Tell us where you are, and we'll broadcast your location
] to all your friends and let you know if any friends-of-friends are within
] 10 blocks.

[ I dunno if this will catch on, but it seems cool, and the logo is totally awesome. I wonder if the guy who created it was thinking of Krazy Kat getting clobbered with a brick by infatuated Ignatz. That's what i was reminded of anyway. -k]

dodgeball.com :: mobile social software

] The St. Louis-based appeals court said an injunction
] benefiting Steve Warnock, an art teacher and school bus
] driver, should have been granted because the DeValls
] Bluff School District endorsed a religion -- not just
] because Warnock was offended
]
] "We believe that prayers at mandatory teacher meetings
] and in-service training conveys ... a decisive
] endorsement," the appeals court wrote

Excellent. Now if they'd only get rid of that Moment of Silence bullshit. My high school defended it saying its not a religious moment, but a chance to reflect on the day ahead. Reflect on the day ahead? How the hell can I reflect on something that hasn't happened yet.

[ This seems like a good decision. I'm not against the moment of silence thing really. People can use it how they want, and I see nothing wrong with that. -k]

School loses prayer appeal

] Ever since man put a price on time, Timepieces have been
] judged for their horological or decorative values, but
] rarely for their aural experience, that is, until the
] much recent rise of the quartz movement. Ask any watch
] aficionado today about their mechanical collection, and
] they won%u2019t fail to mention the sound and feeling
] they get when they wind up their mechanical watch.
]
]
] With this in mind, I recently had a conversation with
] Douglas Repetto, the creator of the Sine Clock, a sound
] sculpture that keeps time with sound by encoding it in a
] set of sine waves:

[ Pretty Rad. There's a software version too : http://www.music.columbia.edu/~douglas/portfolio/sineclock/SineClock_software.shtml -k]

[object HTMLImageElement]

] enter eMachineShop.com, an amazingly rad combination of
] software and sweat, which allows you to design a part in
] a CAD-like program and then send it over the internet to
] a real machine shop where, given that it's something
] feasible to create (and the software helps you determine
] that), a team of 17 machinists will craft your part,
] bundle it up, and send it back to you via post. The turn
] around is about 30 days, but that's fine - there's
] nothing else like it. It's not even that expensive; the
] article listed 10 custom made brass doorknobs being
] milled out for around $150. Considering there's a labor
] cost in there, too, it sounds totally reasonable.
]
] I am so captivated by the concept that I'm toying with
] the idea of designing and ordering something, myself. I
] don't need a metal gear with the Gizmodo "G" carved out
] of the middle, but it doesn't mean I shouldn't get one,
] right?
]
] Oh, and my lord. Think of the spoilers the rice kids will
] be making now.

[ Kick ass... let the custom machined nerdery begin. -k]

Gizmodo : eMachineShop Obviates Your Greasy Cousin

] Tempra Technology has developed the I.C. Can, a "100%
] safe and environmentally friendly" aluminum can that uses
] a self-chilling process involving a cooling gel,
] desiccant, and heat sinks. They claim to be able to drop
] the temperature of the 10-ounces of beverage inside by 30
] degrees Fahrenheit in three minutes.

[ Sounds kinda wasteful, but then, the thought of being able to carry around beverages that can be cooled on demand is pretty enticing too. Not that I'm ever more than 5 minutes from a store or a vending machine, but, still, if you like, wanted to hike, you could get some insta-cooled water bottles and not have to dick around with coolers or ice. -k]

Gizmodo : Self-Chilling I.C. Can

] What is this cloud thing? Well...photos are posted here
] on this site randomly distributed over time from several
] users scattered all over the world (mostly Europe). A
] cloud here is defined to simply be a meltdown of these
] images into one single image - an image that obviously
] becomes more and more chaotic over time.

[ Kind of a neat concept... -k]

Peffisaur - A Multiuser MMS Weblog Community

] President Bush yesterday repeated his condemnation of
] unregulated money that he said was "pouring" into the
] political process. But he stopped short of denouncing the
] ad by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is being aired
] in three battleground states and is funded largely by
] Republicans.

Many media outlets, including MSNBC and the (British) Independent got this wrong. Bush did not specifically condemn that Swift Vet Ad. Once again, he *did* blast 527 group spending. Bush never had any problem with such spending back when Republicans benefited from it (think 2000 in the Florida Recount).

[ Yeah, it's really Bush's only move. If there was any class left in this battle, he'd say it like "I like to fight my own battles, and I don't appreciate the way this group is attacking my opponent." He could even tie in an anti-527 message to that. Except I'm pretty sure I recall that he specifically opposed measures of the M-F bill which limited these groups. I'd have to research to verify.

Regardless, even conceding that he genuintely doesn't like 527's, he does appreciate the message, obviously, because it's the standard tactic of avoiding any kind of actual issues discussion while keeping silly crap above the fold. The only response kerry has to this kind of stuff is to a) point out that his refusal to directly denounce this crap is in contradiction of his prior statements of respect and honor for Kerry's service, b) point out that Mr. Bush was never wounded, superficially or otherwise, because he didn't *go* anywhere and c) drill home some points on other issues.

I think the more time he spends bringing out vets that support his side of the story and whining to FEC just makes it worse and lets it dominate the news. The media eats up anything it can jam into a he-said/she-said framework because then they can keep writing more of the same as the endless stream of rebuttals and counters come from each side. The non-journalists that dominate this process seldom bother to research either the he-said or the she-said to get some objective truth into the story, so the cycle keeps rolling. It's good business, but bad reporting. The Post is better at this than others, but i imagine it's discounted by a lot of people for it's "liberal bias".

I still can't believe the legs this story has. -k]

Kerry Team Lines Up Vietnam Witnesses (washingtonpost.com)

] The debate that a handful of Texas multi-millionnaires
] close to the Bush family have cleverly manufactured over
] John Kerry's war record is absurd in every way. The
] charges that they have put some vets up to making against
] Kerry are false and can be demonstrated by the historical
] record to be false. Most of those making the charges have
] even flip-flopped, contradicting themselves. Or they
] weren't eyewitnesses and are just lying.
]
]
] But to address the substance of this Big Lie is to risk
] falling into its logic. The true absurdity of the entire
] situation is easily appreciated when we consider that
] George W. Bush never showed any bravery at all at any
] point in his life. He has never lived in a war zone. If
] some of John Kerry's wounds were superficial, Bush
] received no wounds. (And, a piece of shrapnel in the
] forearm that caused only a minor wound would have killed
] had it hit an eye and gone into the brain; the shrapnel
] being in your body demonstrates you were in mortal danger
] and didn't absent yourself from it. That is the logic of
] the medal). Kerry saved a man's life while under fire.
] Bush did no such thing.
]
]
] What was Bush doing with his youth? He was drinking. He
] was drinking like a fish, every night, into the wee
] hours. For decades. He gave no service to anyone, risked
] nothing, and did not even slack off efficiently.

[ There's more... Juan Cole pretty well lets lose here... -k]

Informed Comment : 08/01/2004 - 08/31/2004

] Scientists in the US have developed a novel technique to
] make bulk quantities of glass from alumina for the first
] time. Anatoly Rosenflanz and colleagues at 3M in
] Minnesota used a "flame-spray" technique to alloy alumina
] (aluminium oxide) with rare-earth metal oxides to produce
] strong glass with good optical properties. The method
] avoids many of the problems encountered in conventional
] glass forming and could, say the team, be extended to
] other oxides (A Rosenflanz et al. 2004 Nature 430 761).

[ Cool... -k]

PhysicsWeb - Glass breakthrough