Allen Array strapped for cash, OPEC thinks Stern report spurious, Sterling brainstorms spimes, OpenCourseWare, the First Second Life Church of Elvis…

• 1 – Search for alien signals stalls for want of cash
  “Construction of the Allen Telescope Array, named after its chief benefactor, Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen, will halt at the end of this year unless further funding is found.”
  (tags: cosmology astronomy observatory radio Microsoft withheld funding array telescope Allen SETI space)
• 2 – Online ID fraud is hyped; real problem is off-line
  “…the problem of online identity theft is vastly hyped when compared with its more prevalent off-line equivalent, according to one analyst group.” Interesting – hyped by whom, do you think?
  (tags: internet technology security financial theft identity phishing fraud online)
• 3 – Opec Says British Climate Change Report “Unfounded”
  “A hard-hitting report on climate change published by the British government on Monday has no basis in science or economics, OPEC’s Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo said on Tuesday.” Well there’s a surprise.
  (tags: fuels fossil ecology change climate bias interest vested obvious denouncement report Stern industry oil OPEC)
• 4 – Australia says virtual income taxable
  “The Australian government has determined that income earned in virtual economies like Second Life and World of Warcraft should be taxed…”
  (tags: income taxation Australia economy virtual world synthetic metaverse Life Second)
• 5 – Understanding the Spime
  ZOMFG – a complete photoset of Bruce Sterling brainstorming for diagrams on his ’spimes’ concept.
  (tags: futurism design blogjects diagrams theory brainstorming photoset spimes Sterling Bruce)
• 6 – Quake Up Your Book Group
  “And so it is with the same spirit of pilfering someone else’s good idea that I present the latest gimmicky idea to promote my novel Infoquake.” David Edelman leveraging the internet as only he knows how…
  (tags: book novel sf scifi fiction science group reading internet marketing Infoquake Edelman David)
• 7 – Confusion to all
  “I was never intending to go to the 2007 Eastercon. I have said more than once that I do not intend to go near the Adelphi Hotel again in my life. So I am completely unaffected by news that the convention will not now happen.”
  (tags: 2007 Hotel Adelphi cancellation Convoy Eastercon convention sf scifi fiction science UK)
• 8 – Build a USB Drive Mail System
  “I have combined an e-mail client (which also does RSS feeds), a portable SMTP server, and a small launcher application together with a customized autorun.inf file to create a complete portable mail system!”
  (tags: tutorial tools technology portable stick memory USB device server email SMPT source open howto)
• 9 – Chemist to Lead Study of Titan’s Atmosphere
  “Titan’s atmosphere is considered ideal for gaining a better understanding of the early days of Earth’s atmosphere because it and proto-Earth are believed to have emerged with similar atmospheres from the solar nebula…”
  (tags: research prehistory Titan Earth atmosphere chemistry science space)
• 10 – Episode II: Revenge of the Portal
  “RSS is so disruptive that it is forcing the mainstream media to adopt the personalized dashboard as a model for the future. After all, if you can take a news feed from ESPN and stick it on your personalized Google page, you’re far less likely to browse E
  (tags: model content adoption MSM tools portal aggregator information personal feeds news RSS)
• 11 – Cover art for Gary Gibson’s ‘Stealing Light’
  “And there it is: the cover for the new book … The cover art is by Lee Gibbons, who also did a lot of covers for Ken MacLeod, amongst many others.” That’s a damn fine bit of cover art, IMHO.
  (tags: literature sf scifi fiction science images Light Stealing Gibson Gary jacket book art cover)
• 12 – Creative Commons Joins OCW Consortium
  “The mission of the … Consortium is to advance education and empower people worldwide through opencourseware. “OpenCourseWare” is the free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses.”
  (tags: portal materials course academic source open online Consortium OCW OpenCourseWare Commons Creative)
• 13 – Penguins and the use of the word ‘Cute’
  “What do you get when you mix a penguin with the power cosmic? Did any spheniscidae survive the destruction of Krypton? If Batman was a penguin would he still be a *Bat*man and if so what would the Penguin be?” Comic fans, go lookee.
  (tags: collectable humour novel graphic costumes models figurines superhero penguin cute)
• 14 – The New Athiesm
  “Rather than attacking religion shouldn’t the Evangelists of Reason be focusing their efforts on exposing religious beliefs that are cross-dressing as Science and Reason?” Meme Therapist Jose takes the pulpit.
  (tags: Dawkins reason science evangelism faith belief debate fundamentalism Christianism religion atheism)
• 15 – Creative Commons & Web 2.0
  “Imagine you meet a friend on the street wearing a C-shirt. Using your cellphone, you take a picture of the Aztec Code on the sleeve. That gives you the URL to the Nota page where that image lives.” This is absolutely awesome – go read.
  (tags: barcode aztec printing T-shirt internet illustrations pictures mashup web2.0 collaboration licence CC Commons Creative)
• 16 – Blue Suede Pews: The Church of Elvis
  “Like any good work of religious architecture, perhaps, the First Second Life Church of Elvis creates a paradoxical container that is at once about being woven together with others in a community yet completely naked before a higher power…”
  (tags: simulation religion Elvis Church experience humour world synthetic weird metaverse Life Second)
• 17 – Fly Your Name to Mars on Phoenix
  “Simply fill out the form below and your name will be included on the Phoenix DVD along with [...] a collection of Mars literature and art, and personal messages to the future by space visionaries of our time such as Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov…” I’m aboar
  (tags: Society Planetary inhabitants future messages names DVD probe Phoenix Mars space)
• 18 – New particles turn up in the US
  “Physicists [...] at Fermilab near Chicago have discovered two new particles, called sigma-b baryons. The particles are the heaviest baryons ever discovered and weigh about 5.8 GeV, or around six times more than the proton.”
  (tags: baryon sigma-b Fermilab discovery subatomic physics particle science)
• 19 – Lost Moon landing tapes discovered
  “They were nearly thrown out with the rubbish. But a last minute search instead has scientists in Western Australia dusting off several boxes of ‘lost’ NASA tapes which record surface conditions on the Moon…”
  (tags: theatre lecture Australia found discovery tapes data science landing moon Apollo NASA space)
• 20 – When lit hits the fans
  “Publishers are wondering whether fan.fic could produce a genuine hit or remain, at best, a marginal interest.” Teh Grauniad on fan fiction.
  (tags: plagiarism postscripts prequels spinoffs stories writing books literature fiction fan fanfic)