Dry, deadly quicksand. Mark Frauenfelder: Mark Hurst sez: "The NYTimes reported today on Dutch researchers whose research suggests that quicksand may indeed exist *without* water. This 'dry quicksand' is so lethal that dropping a weighted ping pong ball on the surface is enough to make the ball disappear almost instantly. See the video material on this site."

Link

[Boing Boing]

This is really cool and the movies are amazing. Dry quicksand is scary and gives you no chance to 'swim' out of it.  comment []11:47:01 PM    

Pierce-nez eyeglasses. Mark Frauenfelder: email_name: Shannon sez: I just did an interview with gaming miniatures designer James Sooy about a design project he's just completed, a pair of frameless eyeglasses held in place by a single bridge piercing (as in body piercing)." Link

[Boing Boing]

Ewww! They take 5-10 minutes to unscrew. A creative idea but not one I see many people using.  comment []11:41:39 PM    

Dean of Massachussetts Law School Excoriates Harvard Law School on Plagiarism, Torture. Here.  Wow! (Thanks to Anthony D'Amato for the pointer.)... [Leiter Reports]

It is kind of fun watching good lawyers go after bad, or at least going after Harvard lawyers. It is a long read but shows us how people can discuss legal opinions that permit horribly wrong things to be done. By keeping all the langyuage antiseptic, they never have to worry about real people being tortured. Nice.  comment []11:22:58 PM    

As we just.... As we just noted below, it now seems much more likely than not that Kerik's "nanny" never existed. But there was some other big news today on the Kerik front that seemed to go largely unnoticed -- an article in... [Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall]

As seems so typical, people get hung up on the sex or on little things, while big things, the ones that run into the millions of dollars, go by the wayside. At least things like this explain how he waas able to afford all his goodies. Somehow corruption at the top of the NY police department does not sell papers like sex does (or an illegal immogrant nanny that no one remembers seeing).  comment []11:10:07 PM    

Netflix adds social networking.

Tim Finin points to interesting news from Online DVD rental leader Netflix, which is looking for ways to keep ahead of its competators.

In its latest move to fend off competitive threats, Netflix will let subscribers invite friends to peek at DVDs they've watched and read their opinions of the movies. If the invitation is accepted, the sender automatically gets reciprocal rights to read the friend's lists and reviews.

Netflix, facing competition from Blockbuster Entertainment Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), began testing its networking system last week and plans to expand it to all 2.3 million subscribers next month.

The company has long encouraged subscribers to post DVD reviews openly but those capsules appear in a scattershot manner and generally don't provide much information about the writer. Under the new system, people can focus on the picks and pans of those whose opinions they value.

Hacking NetFlix describes how the NetFlix Friends List Feature works.

Earlier Netflix showed how they apply business intelligence in their allocation system when the number of customers who have a movie at the the top of their queue is greater than the number of copies available.

Thank you Tim !

[Smart Mobs]

Netflix sure seems to get it. Create a social netowrk that your service helps support. Nice business model.  comment []4:33:19 PM    

iPod rapidly "going viral".

Phillip Jeffrey of the University of British Columbia (UBC) points to this iPod ad and refers to this article in Wired.

To some experts, George Masters' ad heralds the future of advertising. Homemade ads will play a big part in marketing, just like blogging is shaking up the news.

George Masters' 60-second animated advertisement features flying iPods, pulsing hearts and swirling '70s psychedelia. It received moderate traffic until it was picked up by several blogs last week. In a matter of days, the homemade ad has been watched more than 37,000 times, and is making the rounds on blogs and e-mail.

Thanks Phillip !

[Smart Mobs]

I wonder if self-created ads would work. I am sure there are copyright and trademark issues but it would be a lot cheaper and probably more creative.  comment []4:31:42 PM    

Crichton, as he deserves [Pharyngula]

Crichton continues to take an anti-science approach, simply because Frankenstein stories make quite readable books. The difficulty is that many people seem to think the science is real or close to it, much like a Tom Clancy books tries to be real. Unfortunately, Crichton biases his science to make a story, not be necessairly reflect the truth.   comment []4:00:13 PM