Today is a sad day in SF my friends; Arthur C. Clarke died today in his home at the age of 90.


From AOL News:

Arthur C. Clarke, a visionary science fiction writer who won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on space, science and the future, died Wednesday (remember folks, this is on the other side of the world. They're a day ahead of us over there.) in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, an aide said. He was 90.

Clarke, who had battled debilitating post-polio syndrome since the 1960s and sometimes used a wheelchair, died at 1:30 a.m. after suffering breathing problems, aide Rohan De Silva said.

Co-author with Stanley Kubrick of Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey," Clarke was regarded as far more than a science fiction writer.

He was credited with the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality. Geosynchronous orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground, are called Clarke orbits.

More here.

What can you do to provide yourselves and your families with the promise of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Maybe the Free State Project (FSP) is what you're looking for.

For those of you who don't know, the FSP is an effort to get 20,000 liberty-loving individuals to move to New Hampshire.

They're looking for productive, tolerant folks from all walks of life and of all ages, creeds and colors who agree with the simple political philosophy that government exists at most to protect people's rights and should neither provide for people nor punish them for activities that interfere with no one else.

Here's a quick primer on the FSP:





Get more info about the Free State Project here.

This just in; An interesting article from Forbes.com about those greatest of pop culture icons, superheroes ( yes, those superheroes) and their leadership abilities.

From Forbes.com:

You remember Quasar, the superhero created by artists and writers at Marvel comics back in 1978?

Of course you don't because he didn't have the staying power, so to speak, like many of the superheroes that still are brilliantly being splashed on the pages of their own graphic novels decades after they were first introduced to the world.

These are the ones making it to the big screen and the ones appearing in videogames.

These are the most enduring of all time. But who is at the top of that list? It quite possibly could be, and should be, Superman, who turns 70 this year.

The rest is here.

This is my tribute to all you drunk bastards this holiest of holidays.......St. Patrick's Day.

So here you go....


This segment is sponsored by:




Drunk Yank on St.Patrick's Day




The After-effects of a Heavy St. Patrick's Day




Drunk Guy in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day




And Lastly we have some nice traditional irish music for ya:
Kiss Me I'm Sh*t-Faced


I'm sailing up to boston

For those of you who are sick and tired of having a singular view of global warming (or climate change I think it's now called) shoved down your throat; There is an excellent website called Climate Debate Daily that I think you would all enjoy.

Good day and safe surfing.

From Lifehacker.com:

The New York Times reports that the push-up, longtime signifier of fitness, really is an indicator that we should take seriously.

The push-up is the ultimate barometer of fitness. It tests the whole body, engaging muscle groups in the arms, chest, abdomen, hips and legs... Push-ups are important for older people, too. The ability to do them more than once and with proper form is an important indicator of the capacity to withstand the rigors of aging.

More here.




I promise you, this will not become a regular segment.

From BusinessWeek:

Call it an attempt to lock the barn door before the next group of horses escapes. Even as criticism has mounted that the Bush Administration has moved too slowly to stem the slide in housing and credit markets, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Mar. 13 announced a series of recommendations intended to prevent a recurrence of the lapses and errors that led to the meltdown in the first place.

"As we continue to address the current market stress, we must also examine the appropriate policy responses," Paulson said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington. But he also sounded a note of caution aimed at heading off calls for more radical regulatory changes emanating from Congress, consumer groups, and others critical of the financial industry.

More here.

Nothing, aside from the panic that most older adults have that the Internet is turning their brains into gray goo.

From Salon.com:

The other week was only the latest takedown of what has become a fashionable segment of the population to bash: the American teenager. A phone (land line!) survey of 1,200 17-year-olds, conducted by the research organization Common Core and released Feb. 26, found our young people to be living in "stunning ignorance" of history and literature.

This furthered the report that the National Endowment for the Arts came out with at the end of 2007, lamenting "the diminished role of voluntary reading in American life," particularly among 13-to-17-year-olds, and Doris Lessing's condemnation, in her acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in literature, of "a fragmenting culture" in which "young men and women ... have read nothing, knowing only some specialty or other, for instance, computers."

More here.

From CrunchGear:

Remember the X-ray technology from Total Recall? A British company has developed what it calls “ThruVision” — a similar technology that “uses what it calls ‘passive imaging technology’ to identify objects by the natural electromagnetic rays — known as Terahertz or T-rays — that they emit,” according to Reuters. “Depending on the material, the signature of the wave is different, so that explosives can be distinguished from a block of clay and cocaine is different from a bag of flour.”

More here.

From People of the Web:

Walter Lewin is not merely dangling at the bottom of a 15-foot pendulum. He is swinging high and wide, his rapt audience of 300 counting off each cycle.

At 71, he's likely missed his window for a shot at Cirque du Soleil, but the Netherlands-born MIT physics professor seems happy with his own high wire act -- revealing to students, in the most unorthodox ways, the beauty of science.

More here.