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.