Please don't outbid the astronauts.

The system that tests the boosters on NASA's space shuttle uses 8086 chips. Nobody makes those anymore. Thus, NASA is scavenging on the web.

The holistic healing power of the Skittle.

Via Flutterby: In a recent study, the placebo used on control subjects
actually
worked significantly better than the commonly prescribed
antidepressants used on the other subjects.

Me buckles 'ave been swashed.

CNN says that the first several months of 2002 have shown a
surge in piracy worldwide. (Piracy at sea, that is.) I know I shouldn't be surprised by this, since piracy is basically just carjacking with boats, but it still seems anachronistic.

Apples and Oranges

From Memepool, similar to Am I Hot Or Not but more generally applicable is What's better. Every time you visit, two random items come up. Pick which one you think is better, and it tells you how many people agree with your choice. It also uses your choice to generate an overall ranking of the items.

They have all sorts of items--"Network Card", "Saran Wrap", "Darth Vader Guitar", "Clean Water", "Bazooka [carrying] Groundhog". However, their ratings data is heavily skewed towards celebrities and historical figures. (I imagine their initial dataset consisted of just those.)

As a result, Adolf Hitler is the worst-rated item (followed by Osama Bin Laden and Michael Eisner). Strangely, Kirsten Dunst has the highest rating overall. I hope this is because the database is small and they have too few samples. Nothing against her, but if Kirsten Dunst is widely considered the best person/place/thing ever, I'm going to have to rethink some things.

Rot13! Rot13!

From Slashdot, Microsoft testifies that
opening up their protocols would make them more susceptible to viruses and hackers.
I know this is consistent with what they've always said, and I know it's in their best interest to claim this, but the absurdity of it almost offends me.

Have a nice day.

It just gets weirder and weirder. Lucas Helder, the confessed pipe bomber of last week, says he was planting the bombs throughout the nation in the pattern of a happy face.

It's raining giblets!

Speaking of tornados, last night TLC had an interesting documentary on the subject. It featured impressive footage of tornados and their devastation, though that wasn't the scariest part. The scariest part was Elias Loomis (1811-1889).

In his studies of tornados, Loomis had heard the common claim that powerful tornado winds can defeather a chicken. It occured to him that, by simulating the wind conditions necessary to defeather a chicken, he could estimate the wind speeds of "powerful tornados".

It's subtle deductive reasoning like this that has made our country great.

In any case, how do you make a chicken go really fast? Launch it from a cannon, of course.