Messages For Obama A Flickr group of people holding signs for President-Elect Barack Obama.

Visualizing Tasting Notes What do 5000 tasting notes look like for different wines? This graph charts frequencies of terms for given grape types.

Avoid Holiday Cliches John McIntyre, who writes the copyediting blog for The Baltimore Sun, offers a list (checked twice, one assumes) of holiday cliches to avoid.

Copese -> Plain Text John McIntyre of The Baltimore Sun translates some favored newspaper cop-speak into simpler terms.

Souvenirs In Situ A Flickr set of souvenirs photographed as superimpositions on the real objects.

The Real Mavericks The descendants of the person for whom "maverick" is an eponym speak out against McCain.

Penny Arcade Review Gamer Grub See how Tycho describes the kind of snack food that food bloggers receive PR about all the time.

Pretty Spore Scenery Among my favorite threads in our forums: Users posting in-game screenshots of the things they've seen on their travels.

What Does Well Done Mean? The Food Whore recounts a conversation with a customer confused about the meaning of well done. Or, you know, not.

Why Do People Pirate? A game developer asks the community why people pirate games and then distills the results.

The Origins of Arrr? Language Log investigates the source of the "pirates say arrr" cultural archetype.

A Rule Of Thumb I Like A friend of mine once said, "The only thing that should be on page 2 of your resume is the Nobel Prize you won." I couldn't agree more.

RIP Robert Steinberg David Lebovitz writes a moving eulogy for Robert Steinberg, co-founder of Scharffen Berger Chocolate.

Ashley On Casasugar Our friend Ashley gets a shout-out from casasugar after she retools two found chairs into a new bench.

Buffy MMO Coming Let the Buffyverse live on in an MMO!

Garson Hampfield, Crossword Inker A YouTube documentary about the underappreciated members of "the box team."

Oskar's 4-bit Mazes A series of increasingly complicated mazes made with just 4 bits. Designed by my friend Oskar, easily one of my favorite designers.

Getting A Wine Spectator Award Of Excellence Researcher Robin Goldstein recently received a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence. For a restaurant that doesn't exist and a fictitious wine list that included some of Wine Spectator's worst-rated rines.

Enhancing Videos With Images A clever technique allows video filters to incorporate high-resolution images to create a sharper video.

Lunch With Regina The Amateur Gourmet has lunch with Internet skewer artist Regina Schrambling.

Heritage Beef Tasting The ALBC and Slow Food, among others, recently hosted a tasting of heritage beef.

Fighting Simulation Sickness In Mirror's Edge Some people get woozy when they play first-person shooters. The folks at DICE, who are making one of my most anticipated games this year, are working to help them.

The Jedi Gym What happens when a bunch of geeks get together to emulate their favorite Star Wars characters in an effort to get fit? More to the point, what happens when a real Star Wars character shows up?

Kurt Vonnegut On How To Write Kurt Vonnegut offers writing advice (via kottke.org)

Flock Of Birds = Smoke A massive flock of birds swirls and spins like intelligent smoke.

Crazy Creature Creator Creatures Will Wright shows off some of his favorite creatures made with Spore Creature Creator. Got to download some of those for my game.

Portal Sequel Coming To XBLA A sequel to the critical smash Portal will arrive on XBox Live Arcade later this year.

Alice Wang's Amusing Tech Artist Alice Wang creates amusing household objects that explore the subject of taboo. Her Tyrant alarm clock is one good example.

Thsrs: The Shorter Thesaurus Trying to fit a long word into Twitter's 140-character constraint? Try Thsrs, which will give you a shorter synonym for your long term.

Wine Holders For Al Fresco Dining Though these stands are a bit precious, I like the idea of a stake you can push into the ground and use to hold your wineglass.

Soul Calibur IV's Star Destroyer Level The upcoming version of uber-fighter Soul Calibur will not only include Yoda (XBox 360), Darth Vader (PS3), and his apprentice, it will also include a Star Destroyer arena.

11C Adds 100 Words Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition, has 100 new words, including prosecco, fanboy, air quotes, and mondegreen (really? they only now added that?)

Digit: Clever Flash Puzzle A fun and well-thought-out puzzle concept done in Flash

Pop Music By Animatronics One of the original designers of the animatronic bands that appeared in Showbiz pizza restaurants now wires up his copy to perform pop songs.

Web Dude vs. Sales Guy A hilarious video about life in the IT world.

Design Of Mechanical Puzzles Ars Technica's Matt Ford summarizes a symposium on the design of mechanical puzzles, featuring some well-known puzzle designers.

Strawberry Rhubarb Terrine Elise makes a pretty, red terrine of late spring's treats.

PA Uses Troll To Sell Game With the release of their new game, the folks at Penny Arcade have decided to run banner ads featuring "this game is stupid" comments from a forum troll.

Chicago Repeals Foie Gras Ban Chicago's lawmakers decided to repeal their longstanding ban on foie gras.

XKCD Making Hash Browns Webcomic xkcd gives a masterful hash-brown-making technique.

Survival Gadgets Wired looks at the practical state-of-the-art in survival gear.

Donald Knuth Talks Modern Computer Science Algorithm god Donald Knuth talks open-source, literate programming, and the uselessness of unit tests.

Spore Creature Creator Coming Early Spore doesn't ship until early September, but you can get a taste of the game in June.

Spore Creatures From Fan Artwork Fans anticipating Spore's release created sketches of creatures. Designers at Maxis transformed them into real Spore models.

The Blog Of Unnecessary Quote Marks Many reader-submitted photos of errant quotation marks. I'll have the "fish" with "chips," please.

Guide To Jellies And Jams What makes something a jelly, a jam, a preserve, or whatever? The National Center for Home Food Preservation has the answers.

Sort Through Trash Electronically The Ocean Conservancy claims to have found six million pounds of trash in one day on beaches. Wired has the data for your enjoyment.

Chart Explains Stormtrooper Accuracy This amusing graph at GraphJam charts the likelihood that Imperial Stormtroopers will hit any given target.

"Identify The Robots" T-Shirt How many of the robots in the picture can you identify? Okay, now give friends and strangers the chance by wearing the t-shirt version.

Cover Your iPod In (Plastic) Meat A new exterior shell for iPods makes it look as if you've coated the device in raw meat.

The Sims Hits 100 Million My new employer's runaway smash hit, The Sims, continues to … run away.

Last Meal On The Titanic The menu for the last meal on the Titanic.

The Typography Of Black Metal Bands Can you figure out the band's name by deciphering the letters in the logo? No Black Metal band knowledge necessary.

Hotmail's CAPTCHA Cracked Yet another CAPTCHA technology bites the dust.

Dan Savage's Thank-You Note To His Late Mother Dan Savage, sex-advice columnist extraordinaire, writes a touching thank-you note about his mom, who recently passed away. Grab a hankie before reading.

Dietsch Watches A Pig Butchering Mike Dietsch attends a demo of breaking down a pig into cuts and documents the entire process.

The Quake Family Tree Wonderland links to this family tree of Quake and its descendants.

Are Popular Wines Better? Eric Asimov takes a recent "you don't need to be an expert to know good wine" book to task for its straw-man arguments and its conflation of popularity with quality.

Rules Of Thumb A universe of "Rules Of Thumb" at your fingertips.

WBW 45 Announced The 45th Wine Blogging Wednesday features Old World Riesling as a theme. Gosh, I hope I can find some ...

L.A.'s Daily Journal Closes Down Copy Desk The Los Angeles Daily Journal has laid off its entire staff of copyeditors.

Joss'd: A Podcast About Joss Whedon Find out what's happening in the Whedonverse.

Mamma Mia! Trailer Take one of the world's most fun musicals, add Meryl Streep, watch Derrick line up to buy tickets.

Will Wright Explains Spore Will Wright discusses his vision for Spore and gives a demo at the most recent TED conference.

Photoshop Disasters A blog chronicling image-manipulation goofs in the media.

No Trust For Bloggers Valleywag talks about a poll in which interviewees claimed to trust bloggers less than CEOs, corporate employees, and pretty much everyone else.

Watching Wikipedia Corrections Live Kevin Kelly gives a brief account of watching a live stream of Wikipedia corrections.

The Legend Of Zelda: The Movie Painful to watch, because I'd so go see it if it were true.

Karen And Thaddeus On Design Sponge Elka interviews our friend Karen about the way she and her boyfriend (also our friend) Thaddeus organize their lives around their many many hobbies.

Your April Fools' Joke Sucks A classic post from Anil Dash argues that no matter how funny you think your April Fools' joke is, it's probably not.

Shuna's Butterscotch Pastry chef and blogger Shuna Lydon finally reveals the secret to her stunning butterscotch.

GraphJam Gives Humor To Charts The I Can Has Cheezburger? team responsible for the LOLcats phenomenon unveils their next project: the world around rendered in charts.

Brown Butter Puree Alex and Aki at Ideas In Food find an intriguing use for the solids left in the pot of brown butter: Make it into a puree that itself becomes an ingredient.

Words To Avoid In Book Reviews Or writing in general.

ReadyMech: Cute Papercraft Figures An arty collection of figures designed to be printed on and made from an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper.

Penny Arcade On Organizing Social Events The Penny Arcade duo shows the world the effective way to coordinate complicated schedules for a night of social board-gaming.

Software That Does Nothing Wins 16 Awards If you were to take a text file with one sentence in it, make it an EXE, and submit it to awards panels, how many awards do you think it would net? 16, in this case.

Bike Baskets For Market Bounty Bike-mounted baskets well suited for carrying farmers' market produce home.

Tagging Of Pacific Predators Want to watch how tagged marine predators make their way around the world? TOPP captures the data onto maps and into animations for your viewing pleasure.

2008 Wine Blog Awards Finalists

Magnetic: Slick Andrea Gilbert Puzzle Tilt the board and try to get all the colors glommed together. Andrea Gilbert's a great puzzle designer, and this is a nice example of her work.

Deaf Bilingual Coalition The blog of an organization focusing on deaf rights and deaf culture.

Absurd Entries In The OED Ammon Shea takes a look at absurd entries in the OED.

Burst: Cool Schweppes Ad This slick ad from Schweppes makes one wonder why everyone can't produce ads I want to watch.

Words That Mean Their Opposites The Grammarphobia blog collects a few words that have two opposing meanings, cleave being the most famous example.

Penguin Tells Stories With Google Maps Penguin Books has created a scrolling story that uses Google Maps as a delivery mechanism. (The Perplex City team did the application, so keep an eye out for ARG elements.)

WBW 44: French Francs Gary Vaynerchuk is hosting WBW 44, but rather than link to his video, I'm linking to Alder's description.

BSG Season 4 Is Coming! Wired covers a press event about BSG Season 4. Big news: Watch it live on SciFi.com on April 4.

Guess The Song From Alphabetized Lyrics The Morning News posts a quiz that asks you to identify the classic rock songs from their lyrics. The catch: the lyrics' words are alphabetized and written just once.

The Online Encyclopedia Of Integer Sequences A useful database of established integer sequences.

Which Industrial Companies Own Which Small Organics? A handy chart showing all the ways that small, organic producers are connected to large, industrial producers.

Sci-Fi Story In Forum Form What would the conversation look like if time travelers used a forum for communication?

A Zork In The Road Jennifer Hess finds a Zork closure on her wine bottle.

RIP Arthur C. Clarke Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke has passed away.

Ode To Gary Gygax Is there a better ode to the late Gary Gygax than this one? I don't think so.

Pandemic Review Play This Thing reviews a new cooperative board game called Pandemic, where players struggle to save the world from four ravaging diseases.

The Case For Copy Editing Bill Walsh looks at the value that copy editors add to a newspaper.

Sonoma Wine Library Tom Wark describes the Sonoma Wine Library, a specialized resource for wine researchers.

One Deer In Google Earth A bit of techno-hackery transforms the radio transmissions from a tagged deer into a Google Earth file, so you can see him wander around.

Annie Taylor: First Person To Survive A Niagara Barrel Ride The Wikipedia page for Annie Edson Taylor, who in 1901 became the first person to survive going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Spy Hunter Pontiac Ad Pontiac invokes the classic arcade game Spy Hunter for its latest ad campaign.

Make Your Backyard A Nature Sanctuary You can set up your backyard as an official wildlife sanctuary.

Puzzles Meet MMOs The inventors of hit game Puzzle Quest have created an MMO where you solve puzzles to get gold.

WBW 43 Round-Up Joel has posted the round-up of "comfort wines" covered for WBW 43.

The Case For Full Disclosure Time's James Poniewozik argues that journalists should be clear about their political preferences.

The Lost Ring ARG The 2008 Olympics has its own ARG.

National Grape Registry The definitive database for grape types.

Grape Research Library UC Davis's Grape Registry, a useful tool for researchers.

An Old Profile Of Ed Behr I stumbled upon this profile of Ed Behr from 1990. It's a fun read, because even 20 years ago, he's very much the same.

Chefs' Blogs Regina Schrambling looks at the world of blogs written by chefs.

How To Be Blogger-Friendly Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing blogger, gives advice to companies and organizations about how to make their pages blogger-friendly and linkworthy.

Advice From Horace For Modern Writers John McIntyre gives some advice to writers from the wisdom of Horace.

Cooking Tripe The Chronicle's Janet Fletcher Dicusses The Lure Of Tripe

How To Deal With A Broken CFL Everyone touts the environmental advantages of compact fluorescent bulbs (twisty bulbs) but often fails to point out that they contain mercury. Not Martha provides a guide for cleaning up a broken bulb which, thankfully, does not include a hazmat team.

Candied Bacon Ice Cream David Lebovitz makes "bacon and eggs" as candied bacon ice cream.

Food Court Musical Improv Everywhere stages an impromptu musical in a food court, much to the surprise of the unsuspecting patrons.

Horseradish-Smell Smoke Alarm For Deaf People A new smoke alarm sprays horseradish scent around the room, waking up virtually every test subject, including deaf people.

Ritz Crackers Ice Cream Ideas In Food makes ice cream flavored with Ritz Crackers. If salted caramel is good, why not Ritz crackers?

The Return Of The Expert? Is expert knowledge making a comeback against the tides of amateurs? Newsweek thinks so.

You Be The Space Invaders A forthcoming game for the Wii will allow you to control the iconic aliens from Space Invaders, destroying cities and dodging the upward fire of ground-based cannons.

Hank Finds Morels Hank at Hunter Angler Gardener Cook has found the perfect morel hunting ground: his front yard.

Can Pro Publica Work? Scott Rosenberg wonders if Pro Publica, a non-profit set up to fund investigative journalism, can succeed.

Grammar Girl On Advanced Who/Whom Grammar Girl answers a question of mine about an advanced case of who/whom confusion.

Excel As A 3D Graphics Engine An Eastern European programmer figures out how to use Excel as a 3D modeling engine. Cute trick.

Scientists Catch A Failing Star Scientists managed to catch a star going supernova almost from the very start of the process, allowing them to monitor the entire explosion.

Crackery Tableware Got some cracked china? Don't toss it; use the crack in the design and re-sell it!

Airborne Grounded The company that makes cold-prevention medicine Airborne revealed that they never did the clinical trials they said they did, and they'll now reimburse you for Airborne purchases.

Whence Grammar Prescriptivism? John McIntyre, copy editor for the Baltimore Sun, examines the history of uptight grammar geeks who correct all those around them.

John And Dottie Dis NYC Tasting Menus Wall Street Journal wine couple John and Dottie try out a few NYC tasting menus and come away disappointed.

Search UN's Statistics The UN has collected extensive statistics from its members over the last 60 years and stored them in a variety of inaccessible databases. Now you can search across all those databases from your computer.

Its National Grammar Day Grammar prescriptivists have put forth March 4 as National Grammar Day, so go forth and place or remove apostrophes and commas as needed.

Kevin Reviews AoE Kevin Weeks writes a review of uber-food magazine The Art of Eating for the online magazine Spot-On

DST Wastes Energy An article in the Wall Street Journal points to a recent study that demonstrates conclusively that Daylight Savings Time wastes more energy than it saves.

Zebra Mussels Help Lake Ontario Salmon The zebra mussel is considered an invasive pest in most places, but this NPR report tells how the population in Lake Ontario actually helps produce fatter salmon.

Law And Politics In BSG Slashdot has a post that links to multiple sources for an interview with BattleStar Galactica's creators about law and politics in the critically acclaimed TV show.

Nicholson Baker About Wikipedia One of my favorite authors writes about the charms of Wikipedia.

Hachette Goes Paperless, Sort Of Want to submit a manuscript to publisher Hachette? Don't bother with nice paper; the company wants agents to submit manuscripts electronically so that editors can download them to their eBook readers.

The Math Of Credit Card Fraud A paper looking at how hotel keys were used to steal credit card info.

The Psychologist And The Netflix Prize A retired operations engineer has leaped ahead of hardcore math teams on the leaderboard for the Netflix Prize, a $1 million reward for the person or team who can improve recommendations by 10 percent.

ACPT Winners Announced The 2008 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is over, and the website lists the winners.

How To Infuse Vodka Wired offers a guide to infusing vodka with other flavors.

How To Pour Cider The official way to pour Spanish cider.

Robert Lang, Origamicist, At TED Boing Boing liveblogs a talk by origami scholar Robert Lang at TED.

Funny Answers From Kids Who Didn't Study Scroll through these amusing pictures of answers students gave to questions they hadn't studied for.

Packing Planes Quickly An astrophysicist has used computer simulations to figure out more efficient ways to get passengers on board airplanes.

Making Beef Jerky The Paupered Chef makes beef jerky without all the normal accoutrements.

Pickled Ginger Eric Gower, Breakaway Cook, explains how to make and use pickled ginger.

The Rebirth Of Hebrew As A Spoken Language Wikipedia's article on Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who resurrected Hebrew as a spoken, not just religious, language.

Inside A WSWA Convention Craig Camp relates his experiences as an attendee of the annual Wine and Spirits Wholesalers Association gathering, which he calls "an event stewed in sleaze."

The Etymology Of Bruschetta A brief look at the origins of the word "bruschetta," though the author fails to explain its proper pronunciation, which most Americans get wrong.

Kumquat Salsa My friend Elise describes a salsa made with an overflow of kumquats.

Your Bookshelf And You Scott McLemee looks at two recent blogosphere posts about what you should and should not put on your bookshelf, and then he offers his own analysis of his own bookcase.

How Languages Die An NYT Magazine article from 2004 looks at how languages die.

Bacon Cups Not Martha shapes bacon slices into little bowls for the ultimate in edible dishware.

Just Deserts, Not Just Desserts Because of its pronunciation, I've always assumed that a person getting their comeuppance gets their "just desserts." Not so, says Snopes.

Google Captcha Cracked Google's captcha system, designed to separate humans from spam bots in gmail account creations, has been cracked. Spam bots are signing up for accounts with a 20% success rate.

Life Magazine Cover Search Life magazine has a searchable online gallery of their covers.

Amanda Berne On Beans Writer (and acquaintance) Amanda Berne writes of the pleasures of bean cookery and breaking in a new home.

Encyclopedia Titanica A website devoted to discussing the sinking of the Titanic.

Michel Marcel Navratil: Titanic Survivor Michel Navratil was the last male survivor of the Titanic's sinking. He and his brother Edmond were known as the Titanic Orphans because they were the only children to survive the disaster without any guardians.

Tom Rice On Paso Terroir Paso Robles winemaker Mary Baker interviews Tom Rice, a geologist who has done extensive research into the geology and climate of Paso Robles and written a book on the subject.

Bad Hair Days For Bottles Jamie Goode looks at the phenomenon of "bad hair days" for wine bottles: wines that just don't taste right some days.

Breakfast Polenta Heidi Swanson makes a breakfast polenta that will have you swooning.

Clark Smith On Fining Clark Smith, founder of Vinovation, discusses the role of fining in wine and the new practice of microoxygenation, which he argues is an improved technique.

Games Need Criticism Greg Costikyan discusses why video games need critics, which aren't the same as reviewers.

Oscars Flopped Nielsen says that the ratings for 2008's Oscars ceremony may be the lowest ever. Maybe people no longer care about meaningless awards granted by a bunch of insiders?

Apache's Java Math Library Apache offers a suite of higher-level math for Java programmers.

Tetronimo Ice Cubes They're sold as tetris piece ice cube trays, but puzzle geeks know tetronimoes when we see them.

Doomsday Vault Inaugurated A vault for storing the world's seeds, located in the Arctic Circle, will be inaugurated this week.

From House To RV To House What happens when a family trades their monster home for a 370-square-foot RV? They learn that moving to the next biggest house isn't always the right solution.

George Washington's Beer Cooked Books has dug up a recipe from George Washington's notebooks.

Heathrow's System Update Gone Bad Heathrow lost its automated baggage-handling system after a software update. Oops.

LEGO MMO: 2009 Imagine a giant MMO where you can build things from LEGOs and run around the established LEGO sets with other players. Now add it to your 2009 tickle file; you know you want to.

Future Of Story In Videogames Joystiq recaps the "Future Of Story" session at the Games Developer Conference. A little hard to follow, but interesting to see where people come down on the importance of story for their games.

Which Novel Is A Novel? Can you name the books from their covers? From the tiny part that says, "A Novel"?

WBW 43: Comfort Wines Pick a wine based on the feelings of warmth and balance it gives you.

Collective Intelligence In ARGs Jane McGonigal, ARG expert, has written an academic paper about the group intelligence that arises among ARG players.

Raw Broccoli Salad The New York Times ponders a better name for a raw broccoli salad.

Bad Fruit vs. Good Cookies Joanne at Fork and Bottle wonders whether a school's decision to ban sugary sweets is too black and white. Which is worse for a kid: Unripe, non-organic, flavorless fruit or homemade cookies from high-quality ingredients.

Tobacco And Wine Tablas Creek's Jason Haas looks at how a Supreme Court ruling on tobacco might affect wine shipping.

The Case Of The Missing Bridge Czech police are working hard to solve a recent crime: A 4-ton bridge has gone missing.

The Business Of Writing How to have a sound writing business.

Unclutterer On Meal Planning The folks at Unclutterer offer a strategy for meal-planning management.

BBQ Sauce In South Carolina How South Carolina divides up in terms of barbecue sauce preferences.

Vegetarian Discrimination Is Legal It's legal to discriminate against vegetarians, evidently.

Secret History Of The English Language = Crackpottery Language Hat despairs about the critical acceptance of The Secret History of the English Language, a book that claims that English isn't derived from Anglo-Saxon roots, among other things.

National Register Of Historic Places Research DB The National Register of Historic places has a research database allowing you to search by location, subject, and more.

U.S. Recalls 143 Million Pounds Of Ground Beef The USDA has made its biggest beef recall ever, after the Humane Society videos showing workers forcing downed cows into the slaughterhouse.

The Most Misused SSN Of All Time The story of the SSN misused by more people than any other.

Superdelegates Under Scrutiny Wired reports on how the Internet's masses are working to keep superdelegates honest ... or at least under pressure to vote their constituents' wills.

Peter's Valentine's Day Dinner Peter Barrett cooks up a Valentine's Day feast. I wonder if he'd marry me?

Brief How-To On Card Counting Wired offers a quick snapshot of card-counting for blackjack.

Google Charts API Google has a nifty RESTful API for creating dynamic charts on a webpage.

What Not To Buy From Bon Appetit James Norton takes a look at Bon Appetit's latest "What to Buy Now" and suggests more reasonably priced alternatives.

WBW 42 Round-Up Fifty-two tasting notes, each just seven words.

Google MyMaps Slideshow Having a hard time finding interesting uses of Google's MyMaps feature? Now they have a slideshow of some of their most popular ones.

Whatever Happened To The Joystick? MSN UK looks at the history of one of gaming's most iconic controls: the joystick.

Publishers Talking Modern Content UC Press breaks down the main themes (all very Web 2.0-y) in the Professional/Scholarly Publishing wing of the American Association of Publishers.

Indiana Jones Trailer What more do you need to know?

Organizing A Home Library By Color Every bookseller has heard a customer ask, "I'm looking for a book; it has a blue cover." So what would it look like to organize a bookcase that way?

The Human Cost Of Poultry Production What's the toll on the humans who process poultry for us? Read this article (but not over breakfast) to find out.

The Difficulty Of Writing A Bio Giles Turnbull discusses the difficulty of writing a bio of oneself.

Edible Bugs Resources Cooked Books offers up a sampling of the edible bug resources at the New York Public Library.

Learning To Cook Without Recipes Michael Booth learns how to cook food without a recipes. You gasp, but it's true. It can be done.

Biodynamic Grains In A CSA Dylan gives readers a look at Windborne Farms, a California farm that has a CSA for their biodynamic grains.

Let Your Cheese Breathe The porous paper used by cheesemongers is now available for home use.

What Do Ducks Dream Of? Novella writes a sweet post about bringing a moment of happiness to an injured duck in her care.

Integrating Children With WoW Raids The unique challenges of modern parenting: How do you manage the kids when both parents are on the same WoW raid schedule?

Bloggers: Not The People, But Influencers Of The People A blog post from the author of Blog Wars suggests that bloggers don't represent the people of the U.S., but they do help sway opinion.

High-Speed SCP A paper describing the current limitations on scp (secure copy) and how to improve it.

Location-Based Blogging From Yahoo! Pipes Combine Google Maps' MyMaps feature, Yahoo! Pipes, and a good dose of cleverness, and you get location-based blog posts.

Teensy Tiny Pterodactyl Discovered Scientists have unearthed evidence of a sparrow-sized pterodactyl. Too cute.

The First Social Security Recipient The history of the first woman to get a social security check (check #: 00-000-001)

The Most Expensive Item In the World Measured by weight and volume, the Tre Skilling Banco Yellow stamp is the most expensive item in the world.

A History Of The Evil Eye A short overview of the history of the "evil eye"

Meeting The Head Of NYT Review Of Books What's it like to meet with Robert Silvers, the head of the New York Times Review Of Books? Grueling, from the sound of it.

Adoption Rates Of Various Tech How quickly were ubiquitous technologies adopted once the came out? The second graphic on the page shows you.

Interview With Darra Goldstein, Gastronomica Editor Utne Reader interviews Darra Goldstein, who helms the eclectic food journal Gastronomica.

American Heritage's Interesting Usage Note For "Redundancy" The usage note for "redundancy" in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language takes an unusually soft whack at redundancy in language, and points out examples you probably never think about.

Cute Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries Simply Recipes guest writer Garrett presents his technique for the cutest little chocolate-dipped strawberries you ever did see.

Farming The Amazon, Sustainably A woman in the Amazon has figured out how to grow unlikely crops in the flood plain. Carbon-fixing and sustainable, her farming neighbors are taking note.

First Amendment Protects Trolls, Too A California judge ruled that Internet trolls can stay anonymous, thanks to the First Amendment.

Sam Goes Spear-Fishing Sam of Becks and Posh tries her luck at spear-fishing.

The Laws Of Web Development A list of the many "laws" that pepper the world of software development.

The Evolution Of Only Children Why do families shrink as prosperity grows? Wired examines some of the current research.

Beattie's Rule Of Application Development Russell gives his law of application development: It has to look better than it works. Having worked with Russell, I remember him saying that, and I still quote it.

Dry-Erase Paint: Make Any Surface A Dry-Erase Board Paint this transparent paint onto a wall and it becomes a dry erase board.

Questions About Winter Tornadoes A Q & A with a Weather Services official about the massive tornadoes that hit the South.

We Live In The Anthropocene Some geologists want to call our current era the Anthropocene in recognition of the massive effect humans have had on the world's ecology.

TSA Confiscating Laptops, Passwords The TSA has started to confiscate and inspect laptops and other electronics at airports. Victims of the searches are required to divulge the passwords and allow the TSA to copy off potentially sensitive information.

Color Scheme Generator For Websites Pick a color, pick a scheme type, and see a set of colors to use on your website.

Reporterist: eBay For News A new site lets journalists pitch to a market of editors instead of one at a time.

"Less" And "None": Usage Notes The Oxford University Press looks at the proper usage of "less" and "none" and finds the prescriptivist argument lacking.

How To Judge Code An amusing comic about judging code quality

Name That Tune Can you identify the song being sung in this video before he gives you the answer? According to the notes, there are no tricks; just memorization.

2008 MIT Mystery Hunt Puzzles The puzzles from this year's MIT Mystery Hunt.

Regulating Pi 111 years ago, Indiana considered a bill that would define pi to be 3.2.

Molecular Gastronomy For The Layperson Lore Sjoberg provides a FAQ about molecular gastronomy, except that he missed the memo that says you shouldn't call it molecular gastronomy.

In Defense Of Bordeaux Eric Asimov defends Bordeaux and its stuffy reputation.

Spin The Black Circle An addictive puzzle game with an intriguing mechanic.

Trailer For Second Skin The official site -- and trailer -- for a new documentary about life in a virtual world. (Looks like the focus is WoW, of course.)

Losing A Local Brewery Means Losing A Local Business A Good Beer Blog notes that when a local, independent brewery gets bought, the new overlords don't always fund local projects.

Notes From "Customer Service Is The New Marketing Scott Rosenberg gives his thoughts on the "Customer Service is the new marketing" conference.

Writers vs. Editors A British comedy provides a look at how writers and editors work together. Or not.

Geeky Obsessions The Onion looks at 20 pop-culture obsessions more geeky than Monty Python.

How PopCap Makes Crack PopCap games, developers of the world's most addictive puzzle games, give some insight into what makes their games successful.

Star Wars Figures That Look Like Other People An amusing look at Star Wars figures who have more in common with other celebrities than the actors they're supposed to represent.

The Coded Sex Diaries of John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes kept diaries of his sex life ... but he kept them in code.

Michael Bauer's Favorite SF Dim Sum Chronicle restaurant critic (and my editor's boss) Michael Bauer gives his list of the best SF dim sum. No real surprises, but it's a good list to have at hand.

Champagne Cork Chairs The most recent results of the Design Within Reach contest to make a chair from Champagne corks.

Animation vs. Animator An animator's drawing engages him in deadly battle using the program's interface as a weapon.

CFL Disposal In Seattle Compact fluorescent lights are supposed to save the world, but disposal is a real issue. Here's how Seattle is trying to solve the problem.

The Rise Of Comics Mockers Mocking newspaper comics has become a lively subculture among bloggers.

People Aren't Going Outside Visits to National Parks are on a steady decline, says this AP story. They blame videogames, TVs, and the Internets.

Do eBooks Make Sense? Oxford University Press's Evan Schnittman ponders eBooks and their place in the world.

Dictionary Of American Regional English A book I'd like on my shelf: It tracks regionalisms in the United States.

Dwarves Looting Suitcases Authorities have fingered dwarves as suspects in a robber ring that targets bus luggage.

Wineries Fighting Drunk Tasters Santa Barbara wineries are trying to push back against drunk tasters.

Tycho Breaks Down Over Language Abuse Penny Arcade offers a comic about the long-term effects of language abuse on word nerds.

Do Consumers Want Cork? Jason Haas of Tablas Creek talks about his customers' reactions a recently screw-capped wine.

Biggles Tours The Oxbow Meathenge's carnivorous blogger takes a tour of Napa's new market, which features Bay Area star charcuterie The Fatted Calf.

Hybrid Pickups Are Coming GM will introduce hybrid pickups this week.

Science Fiction And The New York Times Crossword Author Nancy Kress notices an encouraging trend with Will Shortz's treatment of science fiction but still wants more.

All About EFF California Lawyer profiles the Electronic Frontier Foundation, champions of online rights.

This Is Zombo.com An old, satirical site from the Web 1.0 days that still makes me giggle. Picture this as a pitch to a venture capitalist in the late '90s.

Long Bets One of the projects of the Long Now Foundation tracks multi-year bets/predictions.

Grammar Girl On Hyphens Grammar Girl gives a good summary of hyphen madness, with some hard rules and some advice to check dictionaries and style guides.

Fishtank Habitrail Connect a bunch of fishtank modules to make a network for your little fishies.

Who Cares About Studies? Mark Morford rants about the unceasing flood of inane studies and our obsession with them.

CIA Creates Farm Liaison Position Our country's most prestigious culinary school realizes that there's this whole local food thing going on and adds a position that sounds just like the "forager" jobs many Bay Area restaurants have.

Tipping On Wine Frank Bruni offers advice -- or a lack thereof -- about tipping on wine.

Safari 3 And Quartz Safari 3 has the ability to render Quartz files directly. That means I can run my Mac screen savers in a browser tab.

How Real Programmers Code A very geeky strip about increasing levels of programming jujitsu. But in the end, it all comes back to my favorite editor.

Grand Central, Stopped What happens when 200 Improv Everywhere actors freeze in mid-action for five minutes in Grand Central Station? Watch the video and find out.

Paleontologist Battles One group of scientists digs up the bones; another group takes credit by naming the animal. The first group cries foul, over and over.

Thriller Of A Tube Ride A group of people get up without warning and perform Thriller on the London Tube.

Joel Likes TripIt.com Joel Spolsky gives the love to TripIt.com, a service that organizes your various itineraries from online travel companies and gives you a single itinerary.

Vienna And Wine: A Quick Guide Someone on a mutual mailing list sent this link to information about Viennese wine. I liked the string of terms at the end.

Marin Sun Farms' Flickr Feed See photos of the animals at Marin Sun Farms, before and after the slaughter.

Will You Spend Your Rebate? An op-ed piece in the New York Times says that people don't spend rebates because that makes the money seem like money they already spent. So will our "tax rebate" actually kick off spending? Probably not.

Spotting Craigslist Apartment Scams Grant Barrett, who seems to read the whole Internet every day, departs from his normal language posts to dissect a Craigslist apartment scam.

Persai Folks Dis Big Bloggers Persai, whose founders are best known for the recently-closed, super-snarky blog Uncov, decided "out of spite" to not invite certain A-List bloggers to their beta.

Bacon Vodka In the ever-more-ludicrous universe of adding bacon to unexpected elements, bacon vodka has got to be some sort of bright star.

LA Times On Slovenian Wines The LA Times takes a look at Slovenian wines.

What Happens When You Press Publish Wired provides a tough-to-navigate but still interesting look at the life of a blog post between pressing the Publish button and a reader seeing it.

Bay Area Luthiers The Bay Area has a thriving population of instrument makers. One of those quirky little professions that no one outside the field thinks about, while everyone in the field considers them crucial.

Play This Thing Reviews Fluxx Greg Costikyan reviews the fantastic Looney Labs game Fluxx.

Wine Vocabulary Dr. Debs writes a post that classifies the three types of wine vocabulary: jargon, dialect, and idiolect.

Trailer For African-American Lives 2 A new show that helps famous black celebrities learn about the accomplishments of their ancestors. Or, as Melissa calls it, "The Make-You-Cry Show."

Kadon's Hexacube Kadon Enterprises now produces a collector's set of all 166 hexacubes. Wow.

Who's Responsible For A Misordered Expensive Wine? Frank Bruni discusses a situation where a diner ordered a $2,000 bottle of wine by mistake. Whose fault is that?

The Great Molasses Flood Always a surreal read, the story of the tidal wave of molasses that swept through Boston in 1919, killing 21 and injuring 150.

An Aversion To "Moist" "Panties" Lanuage Log collects a wide range of commentary about people who cringe when they hear the word "moist." Some also dislike the word "panties," and others chime in with their shudder-inducing words.

What Are Griefers Like? Wired takes a look at the griefers who create havoc in virtual worlds.

WSJ Style and Substance 21.1 The latest issue of the Wall Street Journal's monthly newsletter about style and grammar.

MyTypewriter.com: For Typewriter Fetishists A site devoted to typewriters and the authors who still love them.

Scala: Functional Programming For Java For functional-programming fans like me, a Java-compliant functional language is an intriguing idea. Scala purports to deliver just that.

Project Wombat: Difficult Questions And Their Answers Project Wombat is a mailing list (3, actually) that tries to answer difficult questions

Clocky: An Alarm Clock That Runs And Hides One of last year's Ig Nobel prizes went to an alarm clock that rings and then runs and hides when you hit it, ensuring that you have to get up and find it.

Chat With Girl Genius's Foglios An upcoming interview with Phil and Kaja Foglio, perhaps best known for their Girl Genius comic.

WBW 42: Italian Reds In 7 Words. Can you describe an Italian red in just 7 words? Try it on February 13.

The Atlantic Is Free One of America's top magazines takes down its paywall and makes its content freely available.

Happy 35th, Roe v. Wade Thirty-five years ago today, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the Roe v. Wade case.

WBW 41 Round-Up Posted Jack and Joanne post the round-up of WBW 41: Friuli Whites (which perhaps should have been titled "Friuli Plus Movia," given the number of entries from that producer).

Schneier On SmartWater Security expert Bruce Schneier (whose last name is very tough for me to type without error) discusses a study of SmartWater, a liquid imbued with a unique fingerprint that you can use to identify your belongings.

MLK Day: The Speech Lyndon Johnson's speech announcing the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fighting Content Scrapers Problogger offers a rare useful article. The subject: dealing with content scrapers.

The Anti Wine Snob Tim Hanni is a Master of Wine passionate about food and wine pairing. But he doesn't drink, and only rarely tastes. The Wall Street Journal profiles him.

Cow Sitting: When Farmers Go On Vacation What do dairy farmers do when they want to go on vacation? Hire a cow sitter.

Metaplace: Virtual Worlds Made Easy An article in Technology Review describes Metaplace, a product that allows users to create virtual worlds that act like home pages.

The MIT Mystery Hunt An article about the MIT Mystery Hunt, the ultimate puzzle challenge, which is running right now.

The Benefits Of Text-Editor Programming A JavaWorld article that explains that working outside of IDEs can be a liberating experience. As an emacs user, I certainly think so. The author raises great points beyond my standard "they make programmers stupid and lazy" defense.

Life In Lambda MOO A 1998 book about life in Lambda MOO, one of the first virtual worlds (and the brainchild of our friend Pavel), is now available for free download.

How Much Land Do You Need? A Cornell study measures diets and their "food prints," the amount of land required to sustain them. A low-meat (not non-meat) diet gives the best bang for the buck.

Is Chez Panisse Overrated? Michael Bauer defends Chez Panisse against those who claim that it's lost its top-tier status.

Okami For Wii: March 25 The much-ballyhooed PS2 game will see its Wii port arrive on March 25.

LOC Crowdsourcing Photo Tagging The Library of Congress is using Flickr to post old photos from its archive, enlisting Internet users to tag and discuss the pics.

Uncov Fails Amy Über-snarky Ted at uncov says that an AJAX-based collaborative text editor is one of the worst possible ideas.

Soda Bottle = Crib Sheet [video] This video shows a clever technique for bringing a crib sheet into a test: On a bottle of Coke.

Beautiful Lyon...In Dubai Those crazy kids in Dubai are replicating the city of Lyon on a 700-acre plot of land. Will they set up a clone of Burgundy nearby for authenticity?

XML Basics A good reminder about XML fundamentals

What Cell Phone Bars Mean An explanation of what cell phone signal bars mean, and how 4 bars doesn't necessarily mean you'll have a great call.

The Origins Of "Restaurant" An explanation of the origins of the word "restaurant."

Threesome: A Puzzle Game My friend Oskar, one of the world's best puzzle designers has a new "maze-with-rules" Flash game. Get your three dots to the three X's on the other side of the board.

Curt The Skier One of our favorite East Bay chefs talks about skiing, one of his other favorite pursuits.

10 Caramel Tips David Lebovitz offers 10 caramel tips

Wireless Wii Nunchuk CNET's CES gaming award goes to a wireless Wii nunchuk. I totally want one.

Port At The Airport Mark Morford forgets that he's packed a 16-year-old bottle of Port in his carry-on, and has to drink it before his flight.

Randomness And Menu For Hope Pim and I were surprised to see lots of "more than one prize" winners in the Menu For Hope raffles, so I wrote a post, backed up by data I generated from a simple program, to show how clustering is completely expected.

The Future Of Local Advertising User-generated content -- i.e., reviews -- will drive more local advertising, say some analysts. Expect more interaction between business and reviewers and more blurriness between ads and editorials.

3D Printing For Candy Cross a 3D Printer with a candy machine, and you get the next evolution in yummy impossible objects.

Menu For Hope 4 Results The winners of this year's Menu For Hope raffle, at last!

Running As A Videogame Using the Nike+ system as a videogame.

Security Experts With Open Wireless? Bruce Schneier, the famous security expert, maintains an open wireless network at his house.

GTD And Cooking LifeHacker looks at ways to make cooking more efficient. Some will be obvious, some less so.

How The iPhone Happened Wired provides a lightweight look at the story of the iPhone.

Happy Anniversary, Meriko Today marks the anniversary of the iPhone's announcement, so a big hurrah to our friend meriko, a key person on the team that got it to MacWorld.

Darth Vader And Yoda In Soul Calibur IV Could it be? Fight as Darth Vader or Yoda in Soul Calibur IV. Too bad it's not for the Wii.

Simulating Robots In Java IBM DeveloperWorks article about using Simbad, a robot-simulation library for Java

LEGO Of Gadgets Plug-and-play gadget modules you can snap together to build anything you want (so says the marketing copy).

The Origin Of Buzzwords Oxford University Press looks at the origins of buzzwords.

VG Publishers Punish Pubs With Bad Reviews EGM's editor-in-chief Dan Hsu reveals that some video game publishers will punish sites and magazines that give bad reviews. And do you think other publisher/reviewer industries are far behind?

SideSwipe Kitchen-Aid Paddle A paddle for Kitchen-Aids that scrapes down the side of the bowl as it turns.

$50 Trashcan Smoker Build an electric smoker from a trashcan for about $50.

Sean Makes Hot Chocolate My friend Sean puts his full-steam gourmet sensibility to use with a cup of hot chocolate.

Veteran Journalist On Media Changes Wall Street Journalist Paul Steiger gives a veteran's view of the state of Old Media.

Elizabeth David's Cookbook Picks What cookbooks did Elizabeth David like? Cooked Books has the answer.

What J-School Should Teach Steve Borriss suggests curricula for journalism school, in the face of media changes.

100 Things We Didn't Know In 2007 The BBC's annual list of facts that they learned this year. Curiously, we were just wondering about the origins of jaywalking.

Banish These Words! A bunch of word nuts nominate 2008's words to banish from the English language. (And I imagine the language will continue to ignore them.)

Harold McGee On Heat Food scientist extraordinaire Harold McGee explains heat.

Volunteering = Path To Self-Respect Violent Acres says stop whining about finding yourself and start volunteering for causes you care about.

Best Of Bootie 2007 The year's best song mashups.

Ad-Free Blogs A movement to declare your blog an ad-free zone.