I saw Slashdot's link to this article over at the Columbia Journalism Review, regarding problems with the standard media coverage of science issues.

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Croquet is an ambitious project to develop an entirely new way to work with computers, including 3D user interfaces and real-time collaboration between separate people manipulating the same virtual objects. Although this could be used in many domains, the focus of the core developers is on educational uses.

See croquetproject.org

Imagine you could make computers work however you wanted. What would you have them do? That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Fast machines. Graphics coprocessors. Fast worldwide networks. And it’s only going to get better.
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Well, the only thing I can say in my defense is that a fair number of oher folks believed the same thing on Tuesday afternoon. At 5 p.m., exit polling looked very good for Kerry in almost all battleground states.

While something may turn around in OH, I admit I don't expect it. It appears that a small but sizeable majority don't care about economic issues nearly as much as keeping gay people from marrying. Not sure how we survive the next four years economically, but right now, I'm off to get some sleep.

Live from the W.Va Voter Protection Project in Wheeling, W. Va. The big news is- no news. So far, no one has called to complain about any sort of voter supression or inappropriate behavior.

No word on other states. W. Va was likely to be quiet, given that the local government is Dems not Republicans (unlike FL and OH). Still, it's good to be bored. As they said in the training: we're in the recount prevention business.

Stay tuned . . . .

A Wetmachine Quasi-Editorial Endorsement (speaking for myself only, not all Wetmachiners).

I was talking with my old man last night by telephone. He's a retired guy, spent his whole life in finance. Was Chief Financial Officer for three different multi-national companies, and at one time president of a national society of CFOs. A depression kid who came from nothing, he was a “Flying Fortress” navigator in 1945, worked his way through college (driving 18-wheelers) and put all seven of his children through college, and several of us through private high school as well. He follows monetary policy as naturally as I follow baseball. He voted for Eisenhower and Nixon, and has always extolled the values of work, private enterprise, and initiative.

My brother Mike and I went to Xavier High School in New York CIty, a Jesuit, military school whose most famous grad is Antonin Scalia. My father's motto is “a place for everything and everything in its place.”

What do you suppose he thinks about Kerry and Bush? [Read More!]

In any honest election (which this may not be), I predict a Kerry landslide tomorrow. Why? See below. [Read More!]

I started a new job yesterday. My job is to help invent the future. [Read More!]

While busier than I could have imagined, I just have to share this.

According to the Daily Oregonian, the Department of Homeland Security is now keeping us safe from Rubik's Cube Knock-Offs. What next threat to our national security will they foil? Perhaps they will save us from those counterfeit “Garfield” dolls with suction cups? (Does anyone even _buy_ Rubik's Cubes anymore?)

Stay tuned . . .

Allergic to cats but still want one? You could medicate yourself constantly or, through the miracle of bioengineering, get in line to buy a hypo-allergenic cat. The marketers over at Allerca call it a “lifestyle pet.” Um... ok, I guess that's a better term than Frankenpet...


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I know Harold has just posted that he expect to be swamped until after election day, but I, for one, am very anxious to hear a Sausage Factory opinion on all the Sinclair Broadcasting fiasco, the Pappas
story, and other issues related to the public airwaves, media consolidation, and democracy.

We know you're busy, Harold, and we'll all wait if we have to. But this is just to let you know that there are at least a few of us out here who really do look to Sausage Factory to help us make sense of this confusing, and scary, nexus.