Michael Jackson had Wal-Mart employees frightened for their lives this week when he entered their store wearing a black ski mask. The same store met with tragedy two years ago when a masked gunman entered the store and killed one worker in an attempted robbery.

I don't know if he's still the king of pop, but he's definitely the king of bad judgement.

According to an article by The Observer, the Pentagon commissioned a "secret report" on climate change but suppressed its release due to the dire predictions it contained. Normally I take alarmist stories of apocalyptic climate change with a grain of salt, but the officials involved in the preparation of the study are apparently well-respected climatologists, lending an air of credibility not normally associated with such scenarios. Some of the predictions really are disastrous:

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.

... major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a "Siberian" climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

... abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

I saw this story a couple of days ago, so I'm surprised that the major news media hasn't picked up on this, especially considering its political considerations. The document is obviously damning to W's administration, whose ignorance of environmental issues borders on arrogance. The article reports that:

Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.

Again, I really hate to seem alarmist about this, but if even some of the predictions in this report are valid, then efforts to prevent or at least mitigate the resulting climatic changes need to be undertaken now, that is if it isn't already too late...

The TSA has doled out disciplinary action against six screeners who decided to send themselves through baggage x-ray machines. I feel so much safer knowing that the TSA has its highly trained employees on the job.

The Alarm's last album was over ten years ago, and it's been over 15 years since they've had any singles on the charts. So how can a down-on-its-luck '80s group get airplay for a new single? Well, apparently one way is to change its name to "The Poppyfields" and have a boy band lip-sync their new song in a video. Mike Peters, the group's founder and only remaining original member, comments:

We were just trying to open the debate up, because there's so much music that gets played based on image. These days the song and the content get left behind. But now the song kind of squashes the assumption that new music has to be made by new groups. Ultimately, the hope is that maybe now people will sit up and listen to our records again.

I haven't heard the song yet, but according to the Rolling Stone article it's in the Top 30 Singles Chart in the U.K. Makes you wonder whether people liked the song or the band's "look"...

By the way, the band's original line-up did get together for a recent episode of VH1's Bands Reunited...

The Pentagon announced today that is canceling the RAH-66 Comanche program after 20 years of development. This helicopter was conceived as a fast stealthy armed reconnaissance aircraft. With the long approval and development time that new projects now require, the Pentagon has once again found itself with a weapon system it doesn't need. The Comanche became obsolete with the advent of effective Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in the recon role in recent years. This program is just another in a long list of projects that the Pentagon has been forced to cancel or curtail in the last decade. The Crusader self propelled howitzer system was cancelled in 2002 because its mission of heavy artillery support against massed armored divisions in Europe did not exist anymore. The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber managed to make it to production but was scaled back because its mission of flying in undetected to strike at Soviet ICBM launch sites was no longer necessary. The F-22 Raptor aircraft was originally designed to provide a stealthy high-speed interceptor to dominate the skies. It has all the gadgets on board that money could buy in order to accomplish its single task. This approach has left the military realizing that it has a very expensive one trick pony in the F-22. Boeing is now scrambling to shoehorn the F-22 into more missions that it wasn't designed for (like attack, bombing, and electronic counter measures) before it gets the budget axe too.

There have been quite a few more high profile projects that have been tossed aside recently as well. This leads me to several questions. Why is there so much time passing between determination of requirements and production? I would think that technology advances in production (a la Boeing 777) would make design and production somewhat faster than in the recent past. Is it all politics? Money? Project scale? Mission creep? Lack of foresight?
It almost seems as if we should abandon these large scale projects in favor of a more wide range of smaller projects. That way production could be increased on those that prove to have a viable mission and cancelled on those that don't.
Maybe requirements should be less restrictive to leave room for innovation. The Comanche project has already cost the taxpayers $8 billion and will cost another $2 billion in termination fees. $10 billion was an awful lot of cash to spend to get nothing in return.

I am an outsider (a well read outsider) when it comes to the military and aerospace industries so I hope maybe Driko or Toby can help shed some light on how the Pentagon deals with these types of programs.

The Gallery of Computation is full of mind-blowing images created by the numerical processing of scientific phenomena, or at least I think they are. :-p Definitely worth a long look...

Fox News reports that "Johnny Cash's classic 'Ring of Fire' won't be used to sell hemorrhoid-relief cream anytime soon." It's all well and good to joke about this (and I did, believe me), but I'm really glad that his surviving family members are doing their best to preserve his legacy. I'm sick and tired of songs getting ruined for me as groups try to cash in on past successes...

Scott Mutter is a master of photomontage, the combining of photographs to form new, thought-provoking works of art. I've been a big fan ever since I bought his book Surrational Images, and I was very happy to see that the American Museum of Photography is featuring an online exhibit of his work. Check it out...

Check out Tim Rawle's cool Simpsons page, especially his comprehensive collection of lyrics that appeared in songs on The Simpsons. I personally find that breaking into song on the show is usually the kiss of death, but I will admit that they've occasionally come up with some fun ones. Some... :-p

Once you're done with Scott Mutter, check out the Society for Art of Imagination. These artists must have some freaky, kick-ass dreams, and they definitely have the ability to put them to canvas. I have my share of doozies, but I lack any artistic skill whatsoever... :-(

Have fun with the Stewie Griffin Soundboard, you dull-witted termagant! :-)

Have you made it out to the National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport yet? I haven't, although I had tickets to the grand opening that I didn't use because of bad weather. :-( I definitely plan on going soon, but in the meantime, I was happy to find some Quick Time 360 degree virtual reality images of some of the cockpits of aircraft featured in the center. Very cool...

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld may be best known for his abrasive, condescending press conferences. However, it is a little-known fact that he is the master of hundreds of ancient martial arts techniques. For the first time, these secret techniques can be revealed to the public. Witness: Rumsfeld Fighting Techniques.

A year or so ago, I posted an article containing rumors of a movie based on The Simpsons. A recent interview with producer Mike Reiss fleshes out those rumors slightly, alluding to a possible movie release around Christmas 2006. Fox Studios is in support of the movie, although that's not surprising, as they've obviously been trying to get a Simpsons movie into the theaters for over ten years now. As much as it would be cool to see a really great Simpsons movie, I feel it's more likely that it would be a swan song, the final straw that really causes the show to Jump the Shark (and not like Homer did in the Episode "Gump Roast")...

For everyone that enjoyed Smack the Pingu, here's the sequel: Orca Slap. This one's a little tougher, but just as addictive...

OregonLive.com points out some interesting links between The Simpsons and the state of Oregon:

It's a well-known fact that The Simpsons has a lot of ties to Oregon, starting with its fictional setting, Springfield. Creator Matt Groening, who grew up in Portland, has sprinkled references to his homeland throughout the show. But where's the love for Eugene, the quintessential Oregon town that (as far as The Simpsons is concerned) has languished in Springfield's shadow? Well, it finally made the show, with a rain joke, no less, in Sunday's episode.

Here's the set-up: Carl and Lenny are acting the parts of Lewis and Clark, and as soon as they hit Oregon, it starts to rain.

"I say we give this lovely land a name," says Lenny. "How about: Eugene, Oregon?"

The show concludes with Homer watching Animal House, which was filmed in Eugene in 1978.

Which Oregon town will The Simpsons immortalize next? My personal favorite is Drain, with Boring, Riddle, Paisley and Dufur close behind.

Pretty interesting, but it still doesn't solve the mystery of where Springfield is really located...

FARK now has an RSS feed hosted by Pluck. Enjoy...

In a very surprising move, "Conservative television news anchor Bill O'Reilly said on Tuesday he was now skeptical about the Bush administration and apologized to viewers for supporting prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction." Wow, I thought I'd never see the day when he capitulated to anything, especially related to W. I salute this gesture, but I still think he's an asshole.

Lucasfilm has officially announced that the original Star Wars Trilogy will be released on DVD on September 21st. The initial news, immediately reported by Digital Bits, one of my favorite sources for DVD news, had "no official word on which version of the films will be released on the discs - the original theatrical versions, the 90s special editions or the ultimate 'archive' editions," but a later post on that site confirms that the 4-DVD boxed set will be the 1997 Special Edition versions.

Last March I signed the petition urging George Lucas to release the original theatrical versions on DVD, or at least include them in the DVD release, but he has obviously decided to ignore thousands of fans and release the "enhanced" Special Edition versions. The Slashdot thread is full of predictably irate comments, many praising Peter Jackson's approach to releasing The Lord Of The Rings movies on DVD (informing fans ahead of time that theatrical versions will be released on DVD first and then extended versions will follow several months later) and lamenting that George Lucas is too stubborn to compromise in a similar fashion. Several posters commented that perhaps at some point another, "classic" set with the original theatrical versions would be released to milk clamoring fans for more money, and I definitely wouldn't put it past Lucas and company based on their past history with VHS releases.

For anyone who doesn't understand the big outcry over the Special Edition releases, several synopses of changed scenes and effects are described in the thread, or you can see a complete list here. Although I don't like eye candy for its own sake, I must admit that some of the improved special effects are pretty nice. However, I do object to retroactively changing characters and plot points. One of the most egregious changes for most fans is the Mos Eisley cantina scene where Lucas totally changes Han Solo's character in his Special Edition release. In the original, theatrical version, Han Solo fires on bounty hunter Greedo first, but in the Special Edition Greedo is the instigator. Some may say that this is no big deal, but I disagree. In a similar vein, Steven Spielberg made alterations and enhancements for the E.T. DVD release, in which federal agents sport walkie-talkies instead of guns near the end of the movie. In response to that, as well as the Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark Special Editions, South Park devoted the hilarious episode "Free Hat" to this alarming trend. If artists really want to retroactively change their "vision" of a movie, then I guess that's their prerogative. However, I strongly feel that they should make the original cuts available so that people can still have the choice of experiencing films as they originally saw them. The large-capacity DVD format is ideally suited to accommodate extra content and different cuts, and it really bothers me when directors or studios refuse to fully make use of it.

I'll grudgingly buy the DVD boxed set when it comes out, because if nothing else it will definitely be the best quality version available. I'm sure the experience of seeing the films in pristine digital surround sound and video will be simply awesome. Still, I'll know the difference between what I'm seeing and what I saw 17 years ago. Man, I can't believe it's been so long...

Update: First of all, I forgot to point out that although Steven Spielberg made several dubious changes in the DVD release of E.T., he did at least include the original theatrical version as part of the two-disc set. This is the approach that I (and most fans, I imagine) would like George Lucas to take, but for now at least, he is unwilling to do so, preferring his new "vision" to supplant our theatrical experiences. I came upon an excellent editorial on the upcoming Star Wars DVD release at Digital Bits. I think I'm pretty much in agreement with everything written in the article...

To celebrate the Year Of The Monkey, Retrocrush has come up with a list of the 50 Coolest Monkeys, including Chim Chim, Gleek, Dr. Zaius, and Luis Guzmán (sorry, Luis, not my idea...). I agree with VH1, though; how Magilla Gorilla came in at only #30 is beyond me...

Allrecipes presents a recipe for Salmon in the Dishwasher. No, really. I'm curious, but since it's not breaded and fried, not overly so... ;-)

McSweeney's presents "Quotes From Either [W] or Senator/Chancellor/Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars Movies." A little heavy-handed and somewhat obvious, but still funny...

The Economist has an excellent article addressing one of the central questions of modern cosmology: "What if the dark energy and dark matter essential to modern explanations of the universe don't really exist?" The article makes a point that I have often thought about: are we so blinded by our assumed superior technologies that we may overlook possible misconceptions about "reality?" Looking back at some widely-held scientific theories of the past that have been proven wrong, it's easy to see in retrospect which assumptions proved to be their downfall. However, what we now see as ill-conceived ideas were for the most part based upon the best possible technologies and experimental procedures at the time. What's to say that we aren't making the same types of mistakes now based on errant assumptions, or just a lack of technology to prove otherwise? There is a great passage to this effect in the article:

It was beautiful, complex and wrong. In 150 A.D., Ptolemy of Alexandria published his theory of epicycles—the idea that the moon, the sun and the planets moved in circles which were moving in circles which were moving in circles around the Earth. This theory explained the motion of celestial objects to an astonishing degree of precision. It was, however, what computer programmers call a kludge: a dirty, inelegant solution. Some 1,500 years later, Johannes Kepler, a German astronomer, replaced the whole complex edifice with three simple laws.

Some people think modern astronomy is based on a kludge similar to Ptolemy's. At the moment, the received wisdom is that the obvious stuff in the universe—stars, planets, gas clouds and so on—is actually only 4% of its total content. About another quarter is so-called cold, dark matter, which is made of different particles from the familiar sort of matter, and can interact with the latter only via gravity. The remaining 70% is even stranger. It is known as dark energy, and acts to push the universe apart. However, the existence of cold, dark matter and dark energy has to be inferred from their effects on the visible, familiar stuff. If something else is actually causing those effects, the whole theoretical edifice would come crashing down.

The article goes on to explain some scientists' doubts about this "status quo" theory of dark matter, surmising that the observations and measurements that the theory is based on could be misleading. I don't know nearly enough about this topic to be sure either way, but I've been fascinated with cosmology ever since (and probably before) I took courses in Archaeoastronomy and The History of Science in college, and I'm glad to see that someone is questioning a somewhat kludged theory rather than blindly accepting it. Albert Einstein said, "Physics should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." On the other hand, one of the Slashdot contributors recalled a humorous, but quite appropriate quote from The Hitchhikers's Guide To The Galaxy that could just as easily be true: "There is a theory which states that if anyone discovers just exactly what the universe is for and why we are here, that it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable."

One of my favorite arcade games of the '80s was Sinistar. I can still remember playing the game at the theaters across from Columbia Mall (long gone now), trying in vain to shoot those little ships and asteroids to get the precious crystals needed to kill Sinistar. It was one of the first games to sport real voice samples; too cool. But I digress.

Sinistar, the main opponent in the game, was an entity of few words, uttering only seven phrases in the game. Videotopia analyzes these phrases and reveals a hitherto undiscovered level of meaning belied by the terseness of his lexicon. Revel in The Philosophical Revelations of Sinistar and see for yourself... ;-)

Mozilla Firebird version 0.8 has being released and has been renamed to Mozilla Firefox. Some of the new features include an improved download manager, a real Windows installer (no big deal for geeks versed in the lore of .ZIP, but still nice :-p), and improved handling of some file types. Check out the complete list of release notes and the FAQ page. The one thing that I'm not sure I like is the availability of extensions. I have a bunch of extensions that I use to add even more functionality to Firefox, and the installation notes state that you should disable any Firebird extensions before installing Firefox. I'm still playing with Firefox, and so far I haven't had any problems re-enabling extensions, but it's definitely something to keep in mind when installing over an old version. This is only the first day of the release, so I'm sure that their servers are swamped and the extension situation will be addressed.

Additionally, Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5 was released today. The main new addition is the ability to synchronize address books with Palm PDAs (long overdue), but there is a multiple identity feature that looks intriguing as well. Take a look at all of the new features and fixes of this release. I don't have a PDA yet to test Thunderbird's capabilities with this, but it certainly spurs me on to buy one now that I know I'll be able to synch properly.

As many of you know from my frequent raves about Mozilla products, I use the Mozilla Firebird web browser and Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail application pretty much exclusively (unless an application forces M$ upon me). I can't say enough about how much I prefer them over M$ products, although from the frequency of my posts about them, I guess I say a good amount. ;-) I won't belabor the point too much, but I find these products indispensable and infinitely more reliable and secure than the equivalent M$ products. Try them out and you'll see, or feel free to post a comment with any questions or opinions...

BBSpot presents the Top 11 Yo Momma Insults for Coders:

11. Yo momma's so crazy, she makes pi look rational.
10. Yo momma's so annoying, she made Clippy try to turn itself off.
9. Yo momma's so fat, she has to share resources with herself.
8. Yo momma's so insecure, she makes an unpatched copy of Microsoft IIS look like Fort Knox.
7. Yo momma's so stupid, she leaves possible buffer overruns in a "Hello World" application.
6. Yo momma's so boring, she makes debugging Prolog seem fun.
5. Yo momma's so fat, she uses FAT256.
4. Yo momma's code is so bloated, she makes assembly look like C.
3. Yo momma's so fat, she uses C++++.
2. Yo momma's so flea-ridden, she has more bugs than Tribes 2.
1. Yo momma's so ugly, she makes custom regex engines in perl look beautiful.

I feel grateful that a couple of these are over my head... ;-)

Although the sites Powers of 10 and Atlas of the Universe are more graphically appealing, the site A Sense of Scale contains a lot more information in its hyperlinks, and still spans distances ranging from the Planck length (1.616x10^-35 m) to the distance to the farthest known object, quasar SDSS_1044_0125 (2.4x10²⁶ m).

The Onion reports on a technology that will revolutionize the auto industry: anger-powered automobiles. I think the most significant development is the resurrection of the Plymouth Fury, although I am very intrigued by the Acrimony line of vehicles... ;-)

UGO presents the Top 11 Movie Gadgets. I need to find those moose glasses from Christmas Vacation now...

After seeing the hilarious commercial for Shards O' Glass Freeze Pops during the Super Bowl (check out the IFilm archive if you missed it), I meant to check the web site to see if it was real. Sure enough, the Shards O' Glass web site is up and running, telling you everything you need to know about this dangerously fun food product. Remember, "More stick for your lick!" ;-)

Try Zuma, a very addictive game. Looks like it won't run on Mozilla, at least not until I find an ActiveX plugin... :-(

CNN reports on the trend of Atkins dieters, AKA "Atkinites" or "carbovoids," further eroding the American culinary landscape. First it was "bunless hamburgers" (Hello? That's not a burger anymore; it's just a slab of meat!), and now there is talk of low-carb pizzas. Some restaurants are attempting to utilize "soy protein and other ingredients" in an attempt to produce a low-carb crust. At least that is a "breadlike-product," but I'd be very surprised if it didn't taste like crap. As one innovator of low-carb crust says, "Wipe away any memories of your old traditional pizza crust."

Reminiscent of the "bunless burger," Bearno's Pizza of Louisville, Kentucky "offers a crustless pizza on the usual circular baking pan." I don't get that one at all. Perhaps the most disturbing item mentioned was Escondido, California's Pit Stop Pasta offering "what may be a traditionalist's worst nightmare: 'pizza in a bucket.' It has all the pizza toppings placed in a crock or, for takeout customers, a metal can." OK, this is just ludicrous, straight out of The Jerk. Cup o' Pizza, anyone?

I guess I can't fault people for trying to stick to a diet while still eating food that they enjoy, but in some cases, those two things just need to be mutually exclusive. It is a diet, after all. I shouldn't talk, as I could stand to trim down a little, but the Atkins Diet is definitely not for me...

It's time to face the annual decision of how to get the taxes done. Paper forms? Buy preparation software from CompUSA? Hire somebody? Thanks to a timely discussion on Slashdot, I discovered a nice little web-based service called TaxACT that seems to be comparable to Turbo Tax and the like, but doesn't require any software installation. Its cost is also very reasonable, with a tiered pricing model. I spent about $18 total for the deluxe version of the service plus electronic filing of my state return. The deluxe version includes federal electronic filing, an accuracy guarantee, and several other features. If you don't care about E-File and all that, they also have a free service. If you choose to use the same service next year, it will remember your data, and they seem to have a pretty solid privacy and confidentiality guarantee. It gave me PDF copies of all relevant paperwork to print for my records. My taxes this year were fairly simple, but I was pretty happy with the overall experience. Just thought y'all might want to check it out before you plunk down the $$ and deal with the hassle of installing Turbo Tax.

IFilm has videos available of all the commercials that aired during Super Bowl XXXVIII. It seemed like there were less funny commercials, although after looking over the list I guess there were a couple of pretty good ones. There were a lot more movie trailers, which got to be a little annoying, although there are a couple that I didn't know too much about, like Van Helsing, that look like they could be cool. I guess it wasn't too bad, but my overall impression was that other Super Bowls were better...

CNN reports that "Tacking Jr. or II onto a boy's name is too common, a new father decided, so the self-described engineering geek took a software approach to naming his newborn son," naming his newborn Jon Blake Cusack 2.0. I guess it was only a matter of time before this happened, although they certainly upped the chances of that kid getting beat up. Actually, the thing I'm most surprised about is that The Simpsons didn't do this with Professor Frink's child...