LED Pumpkins? Oh hell yes! I have already pre-ordered this bit of fun:)

Boing Boing: Make's special Halloween edition

Freakin rad!

GRAY MATTER Pretty Penny - Popular Science

Acidus wrote:
Forget fireworks. Forget singing the national anthem. I spent the 4th of July watching Chuck Norris films.

Yes...that was awesome....Chuck Norris is my hero. And in honor of that, here are "Chucks Favorites" from www.chucknorrisfacts.com. I especially like the second and third.

# When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

# Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

# There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.

# Outer space exists because it's afraid to be on the same planet with Chuck Norris.

# Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

#

Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.
# Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.

# Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.

# There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard. There is only another fist.

# When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down.

# Chuck Norris is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.

# Chuck Norris’ hand is the only hand that can beat a Royal Flush.

# Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink.

# Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.

# Chuck Norris gave Mona Lisa that smile.

# Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.

# Chuck Norris does not get frostbite. Chuck Norris bites frost

# Remember the Soviet Union? They decided to quit after watching a DeltaForce marathon on Satellite TV.

# Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship.

RE: 4th of July

By the end of the month, bulldozers will raze Atlanta's most famous — and infamous — party district.

I hadn't heard about this until now. I don't spend a lot of time in "Buckhead" proper, because I feel much more akin to bars in Decatur. Hopefully Fados won't get bulldozed....it was my favorite bar down there.

It's last call for Atlanta party district - Los Angeles Times

Sparklers seem innocent enough, as delighted children twirl them about, creating light trails in the warm summer darkness.

But in truth, they are extremely dangerous.

I find this humorous since I burnt the f*** out of my foot yesterday with a sparkler. Its so sad given the amount of time I have spent lighting "dangerous" fireworks in my lifetime that the firework that finally injured me was a bloody sparkler. But a word to the wise...don't burn the cheap sparklers with wooden sticks. The ash falls off the end and if you are unlucky (like me) it will fall right between your flip-flop laden toes. Ouch.

When It Comes to Fireworks, Leave the Shows to the Pros - Forbes.com

The couple is among the thousands looking to get lucky in love who are expected to flock to Las Vegas to tie the knot on a very propitious date -- 7-7-07 -- which comes along only once a century.

Just remember you are unique....just like everyone else.

Couples rush to marry on lucky day - CNN.com

It takes about 30,000 genes to make you such a wondrously complex lifeform. Those genes can be credited for your enviable physique, your sparkling eyes and those heartstopping dimples.

Okay, let’s cut the flattery and hotfoot it to the other end of life’s spectrum. Here, it may take fewer than 400 genes to build a basic lifeform. This is what Craig Venter, the buccaneering American biologist who was instrumental in spelling out the human genome, is attempting to do. His plan is to sew together the minimum number of genes necessary to create an off-the-shelf, living microbe.

More on the Craig Venter story

Life is just a bowl of Petri -Times Online

Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) today announced the results of work on genome transplantation methods allowing them to transform one type of bacteria into another type dictated by the transplanted chromosome. The work, published online in the journal Science, by JCVI’s Carole Lartigue, Ph.D. and colleagues, outlines the methods and techniques used to change one bacterial species, Mycoplasma capricolum into another, Mycoplasma mycoides Large Colony (LC), by replacing one organism’s genome with the other one’s genome.

“The successful completion of this research is important because it is one of the key proof of principles in synthetic genomics that will allow us to realize the ultimate goal of creating a synthetic organism,” said J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., president and chairman, JCVI.

Press Release: JCVI Scientists Publish First Bacterial Genome Transplantation Changing One Species to Another - FierceBiotech

Al Gore is such a wonk! Dyson rocks.

The question I am asking is, how long will it take us to grow plants with silicon leaves?

Dyson has been honing this piece for a few years now, and it just keeps getting better. If the US had a Scientist Laureate, it would be Dyson.

Will the domestication of high technology, which we have seen marching from triumph to triumph with the advent of personal computers and GPS receivers and digital cameras, soon be extended from physical technology to biotechnology?

I believe that the answer to this question is yes.

Here I am bold enough to make a definite prediction.

I predict that the domestication of biotechnology will dominate our lives during the next fifty years at least as much as the domestication of computers has dominated our lives during the previous fifty years.

Join the Homebrew Cloner Club, which meets every first Friday in the mall food court next to Chick Fil A. Please, no chimeras over 36 inches, or the mall police will hassle us. Unless, of course, you are the chimera. Also: plants that make loud noises have to be left outside, unless they have a headphone jack or a mute button.

I wait in eager anticipation of Grey Goo Graffiti.

Meanwhile, Dyson plows right into Joyland:

First, can it be stopped? Second, ought it to be stopped? Third, if stopping it is either impossible or undesirable, what are the appropriate limits that our society must impose on it? Fourth, how should the limits be decided? Fifth, how should the limits be enforced, nationally and internationally?

It's time to reinvigorate the hacker ethic:

Whatever Carl Woese writes, even in a speculative vein, needs to be taken seriously. In his "New Biology" article, he is postulating a golden age of pre-Darwinian life, when horizontal gene transfer was universal and separate species did not yet exist. Life was then a community of cells of various kinds, sharing their genetic information so that clever chemical tricks and catalytic processes invented by one creature could be inherited by all of them. Evolution was a communal affair, the whole community advancing in metabolic and reproductive efficiency as the genes of the most efficient cells were shared. Evolution could be rapid, as new chemical devices could be evolved simultaneously by cells of different kinds working in parallel and then reassembled in a single cell by horizontal gene transfer.

"You shared your code, you shared your genes, ..."

Thanks for the link Jeremy!

Our Biotech Future, by Freeman Dyson

"Some people like baseball, others like math – I just like to set off bombs," he said. "I figure here, learning how to do it properly is better than messing around with it at home, right?"

Meadows is one of 20 teenage campers enrolled in a weeklong explosion camp in the Missouri Ozarks.

Wow...I want to go back to camp:)

NPR : At Camp, Teens Blow Stuff Up, As They're Told