"Mars scientists and engineers are elated about a dust-busting blast that has struck the Spirit rover at its Gusev crater exploration site.

Turns out that a martian whirlwind – dubbed a dust devil – likely zoomed over the robot high up in the Columbia Hills. That fleeting flyby effectively cleaned Spirit’s solar arrays, giving the robot a new lease on life.

Engineers report that the rover’s power reading quickly shot up to almost as high as when the rover landed on Mars over a year ago."

[ Damn, dude, that thing is the freaking energizer bunny with a 4 leaf clover or some shit. Really stunningly successful. Go NASA. -k]

Spirit Gets A Dust Devil Once-Over

] In a world with millions of refugees, numerous war zones
] and huge areas devastated by natural disaster, aid
] agencies and militaries have long needed a way to quickly
] erect shelters on demand.
]
]
] Soon, there will be such a method. A pair of engineers in
] London have come up with a "building in a bag" -- a sack
] of cement-impregnated fabric. To erect the structure, all
] you have to do is add water to the bag and inflate it
] with air. Twelve hours later the Nissen-shaped shelter is
] dried out and ready for use.

[ Sweet! -k]

Wired News: Need a Building? Just Add Water

] Many readers have written to point out that AOL's new
] Terms of Service for AIM "include the right for AOL to
] use anything and everything you send through AIM in any
] way they see fit, without informing you. A sample
] passage: '...by posting Content on an AIM Product, you
] grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns,
] agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual,
] worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform,
] distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium.
] You waive any right to privacy.'"

[ I'm no lawyer of course, and I'm always wary of nerds yammering about legal stuff, but it's still a little disturbing. I mean, I never assumed that anything i sent through AIM was especially private, but I don't really like the idea of AOL using it for whatever they want either. Then again, they aren't charging me for the use of their servers either, so to some extent, I guess I don't have lot of bitching room. -k]

Boing Boing: AIM contract takes your privacy

] Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith was
] interviewed by CBS' 60 Minutes and says the third and
] final prequel will not likely receive the PG rating the
] previous five films have received.
]
] "I don't think I would take a five- or a six-year-old to
] this," says Lucas, "It's way too strong."

[ Note that just because a movie is PG doesn't mean it has to be childish and silly. Eps 1 and 2 were, in fact, both of those things, and I don't believe that's gonna be totally missing from this. But maybe the PG-13 rating means it'll have some deeper elements. I'm not gonna hold my breath, but maybe it'll suck less.

For all my bitching, I'm obviously gonna go see it, if only for closure. -k]

Ep III to be PG-13 (gasp!)

] A man cooking in his kitchen was shot after one of his
] cats knocked his 9mm handgun onto the floor, discharging
] the weapon, Michigan State Police said.

[ Leaving loaded guns around is a good call. -k]

Yahoo! News - Cat Shoots Owner

] I secretly love Wonkette. I still think back fondly on
] the extremely brief email exchange we had last year about
] how George Stephanopolous resembles a little yappy puppy
] dog. (Sigh.) Anyhow, she was at this panel at the Freer
] Gallery held by The Week Magazine with the Aspen
] Institute. I decided in honor of my blog-crush on
] Wonkette, I would live-blog the event, except that those
] tools at the Smithsonian haven't hooked up the Internets
] inside the museums. Unthinkable.

[ A little amusement for your dreary mid-week... -k]

The Liquid List: Politics: Semi-Live Blogging a Completely Random Panel Just Because Wonkette's Here

] A U.N. commercial depicts American girls playing in a
] soccer match. A girl steps on a landmine and there's a
] big explosion. Kids get blown apart. CNN and other
] networks don't want to air the ad.

[ It's disturbing, that's for sure. God knows, we wouldn't want to upset anyone. -k]

Boing Boing: U.N. landmine commerical won't air in US.

] Hans Bethe, one of the giants of 20th century physics,
] has died. He was awarded the 1967 Nobel prize in physics
] for his theory on the nuclear reactions that take place
] inside stars and was one of the key figures in the
] Manhattan atomic bomb project during the Second World
] War. After the war he spoke out in favour of arms control
] and nuclear disarmament.

Atom bomb designer dies (March 2005) - News - PhysicsWeb

After decades of listening about Central Processing Units, years of listening about Graphic Processing Units and millimoments of listening about audio processing units, it is time to learn the new term. It's time to start talking about physics processing units (PPUs).

...

The answer is actually an add in card with either PCI Express or a PCI interface with up to 128MB of dedicated GDDR 3 memory that will take over all physics in the games. We saw some cool demos done in software on a laptop of what this card can do. It can operate with 32000 particles/rigid bodies or should I say bones? [You should, Fudo, you should. Ed.] When we talk about fluids, such cards can handle up to 50000 rigid bones. A CPU can do a couple hundred at the most.

...

We saw some cool demos where the company demonstrated "liquid fluids" with many "bones" and you can see the "lava" and "water" stimulations that look much better than ever before. It looks more real and much more alive.

Such cards can give some life to collision detection and can for example make a character go through grass and move every single grass while walking, adding a higher lever of realism into the scene than ever before. Looks cool I have to say. What need for grass?

We also saw some liquid simulations, where you could see blood spilled more realistically than ever before. It's especially good when you blow up a house into the smallest infinitesimal pieces, or bricks and mortar as the INQ calls them. It actually looks out of this world. I cannot imagine this in a war game. It will blow your minds.

[ Super rad. -k]

Age of physics processing units dawns

] So the day after getting signed to the Arizona Cardinals,
] running back Larry Lee Ned decided that the way to
] really, really party would be to swipe somebody%u2019s
] Dell laptop after going through a security checkpoint at
] the airport in Phoenix (the laptop%u2019s owner was still
] being screened). The cops ended up arresting him in
] possession of the laptop in a men's room in Terminal
] 4, and the next day the Cards announced they were
] dropping him from the team.

[ Brilliant. Record for quickest turnaround from success to complete ruination? -k]

Arizona Cardinals running back swipes laptop - Engadget - www.engadget.com