Is the half Moon half as bright as the full Moon? Why don't comets zoom across the sky? Is July hot because we're closer to the Sun? Why is the North Star the brightest star? In "10 Confounding Cosmic Questions", Jao Rao answers these and other questions that regular people (not just scientists) wonder about [Space.com].
12:36:08 PM    

In the upcoming election, Seattle voters will be able vote on whether or not to extend the Monorail. Let me just say that this is one of the stupidest ideas I have heard in a long time. I, like everyone else in Seattle, would like to see a solution to the traffic congestion in the city, but the Monorail is not the solution. It is an anti-solution. First of all, its proposed route doesn't go anywhere near traffic congestion points. Second, it has been estimated that the people who will ride the extended Monorail will be the same people that already take the bus. Third, it will be one of the most expensive public works projects in Seattle. Forth, the proposed means of paying for it is to charge citizens an average of $200 a year in a vehicle licensing tax. Bad, bad, bad, bad.

On the bright side, you can always laugh about it [Seattle P-I].
11:45:14 AM    

Tetris is NP-hard [Slashdot]. Mathematicians often want to know how hard it would be for a computer (or a human) to solve a particular problem. They have a way of measuring "hardness" that allows them to see how difficult a problem is to solve. Well, it turns out that the popular game of Tetris is as hard as any problem.
11:05:43 AM