“I used to brag that I got the Thomas Jefferson wines,” hesaid. “Now I get to brag that I have the fake Thomas Jeffersonwines.” As a sometime stage magician, I enjoy a good sleight-of-hand. I like a colossal monstrous jape, a clever bit of illusion, and Orson Welles, both for his War of the Worlds […]

IBM employees are going on strike in Second Life. During the talks to renew IBM’s Italian internal collectiveagreement, the works council, supported by the majority of IBM Italy employees, asked for a small salary increase. IBM responded by cancelling their “productive results benefit”, resulting in a loss of €1000 per year for each employee. For […]

According to this press release from the University of Cambridge, Lucky Imaging is now taking astronomical pictures that are clearer than those produced by Hubble, and at 1/50,000th the cost. The system uses ground-based cameras combined with inexpensive software. “These are the sharpest images ever taken either from the ground or from spaceand yet we […]

The holiday weekend was full. On Friday night Kathy and I journeyed to Santa Fe for Carl’s birthday party. Next morning, following breakfast at Melinda’s of Lamy (eggs baked atop spinach, brie, havarti, and cream), we journeyed to Snow Bear at Taos Ski Valley for a weekend with our friends Pat and Scott. We drank […]