singularity. What Happens When Technology Zooms Off the Chart? (pdf) Singularity is the subject of the Spring 2003 issue of Whole Earth magazine. [MetaFilter] 
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The Onion | Bush Asks Congress For $30 Billion To Help Fight War On Criticism. The Onion | Bush Asks Congress For $30 Billion To Help Fight War On Criticism - the Onion is on top of things, as always. It isn’t the really crazy stuff that is funny, it is the stuff like this that is almost believable. Via Blogdex. [Puzzlepieces] 
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big lies and invented foes - why do we fall for them?. Why is it that people trust Bush and let him get away with certain - well - lies? Why did people focus on Bill Clinton's moral issues (which are common to many of the powerful caste - Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan,... [tingilinde] 
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Clash, Then Synthesis: Joys of a Laptop Jam. In an East Village bar, a weekly jam session draw performers who do their best work on silicon. By Johanna Jainchill. [New York Times: Technology] 
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Hot See-thru action! Radiography and Art. Hot See-thru action! Radiography and Art: The obliging X-ray can detect forgeries, reveal the hidden process of genius (Picasso 1 [6 pages], 2, 3), and even serve as a glorious medium itself (Innervisions; Beyond Light; Mefi thread The Secret Garden).

Intrigued? Perhaps you'll want to check out How to make radiographs on Polaroid film from noah.org's X-ray page. [MetaFilter] 
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Internet Alive and Well in Russia. This Pravda article is a bit ridiculous. It claims that because 88% of all Russians have never used the Internet that therefore Russians are not interested in it. First of all, it completely ignores the fact that Internet access in... [CamWorld: Thinking Outside the Box] 
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Brain Rat Cells in US Control Robotic Semi-Living Artist in Australia. Roland points us to a Georgia Institute of Technology news release announcing that U.S. and Australian researchers have jointly created "a new class of creative beings, 'the semi-living artist'." I don't know what all the fuss is about. I think the last couple of guys I've dated could be described as "semi-living artists," and at least one of them may well have been controlled by rat neurons.

A picture-drawing robot in Perth, Australia whose movements are controlled by the brain signals of cultured rat cells in Atlanta... the robotic drawing arm operates based on the neural activity of a few thousand rat neurons placed in a special petri dish that keeps the cells alive. The dish, a Multi-Electrode Array (MEA), is instrumented with 60 two-way electrodes for communication between the neurons and external electronics. The neural signals are recorded and sent to a computer that translates neural activity into robotic movement." The team hopes "to establish a cultured in vitro network system that learns like the living brains in people and animals do." Thi s summary contains images of the robotic arm and of a picture drawn by the 'semi-living artist.' It also contains other references to similar works.

Link Discuss
[Boing Boing Blog] 
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Those Amazing Antigravity Machines?. surfimp writes "Wired is running an interesting article about 'lifters', hovering UFO-looking vehicles that have no moving parts, no onboard power supply, and ... [Slashdot] 
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