Monkey time explained. Wondered what "UTC" meant? I did. "Coordinated Universal Time" didn't mean much to me, until I found this. The passage of time can be measured so accurately that the rotation of the earth can be seen to be variable. UTC allows these people to add leap seconds to our clocks.

Has your hedgehog been pestering you about volunteer opportunities? Put that hedgie to work for charity at the second-annual Wheel-A-Thon! Let's just hope there isn't too much self-anointing going on.

The Cell-Phone Gun. A REAL killer app... [Warning: Quicktime. Via Gizmodo]

Hutton! Hutton! Hutton! Discuss... more inside

Moby Games. An extensive database of videogames (a computer game IMDB, basically). The Killer List of Videogames, a site devoted to just arcade machines. Which is part of The International Arcade Museum, a site devoted to all coin operated machines. more inside

The sound of joy Speaking of beautiful music, (or something), have we all been Winged yet? Indispensable.

Papal blessing for break-dancers VATICAN CITY (AP) -- In an unusual spectacle at the Vatican, Pope John Paul II presided over a performance of break-dancers who leaped, flipped and spun their bodies to beats from a tinny boom box.

250 Years of Serendipity. The word "serendipity" (aka "accidental sagacity" or the art of making unexpected discoveries) was first coined 250 years ago today, on 28 January 1754. To mark the anniversary: a new book, The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity, not just a history of the word but "a protest against that rhetoric of science that defines discovery as anything other than a messy blend of inspiration, perspiration, error, and happy chance".

"Interview with a Fungus" (PDF) is the winner of the 2003 Shell Economist Writing Prize. [Via World Changing.]

Making Sense Of Marcel Duchamp. An excellent primer on one of the First Modern Men.

Not since we attacked the darkness has role-playing humor been so good.

A True Legend of the Intraweb... You'll see a lot of parody candidate sites popping up on the web this year. This was one of the first... and the most obvious.

Resources for poor music students A myriad of free musical scores (some repositories having very limited bandwidth; some dealing only with early or later chamber music; some specifically for pianists). Are the cheap miniature study scores of my youth obsolete? (Mostly PDF, with some Postscript.)

Life in the Sell Lane - Glamour and intrigue. High stakes. Seamy competition. Selling cars is no easy racket, as this undercover journalist can attest. It's a long read, but highly worth it, especially if you're in the market for a new car.

A bean that grows into a plant with a leaf containing a printed message... that's impossible, right? How the heck do they do this?

Squarespace: New Blog Tool I just came across a new blog tool that seems to have a lot of promise: Squarespace. It has some bugs (just released on January 6), but it provides a ton of features into a very smart architecture. Highlights: --"Module" concept for adding site features like journals, file storage areas, links, and discussions easily --"Clients/ audiences" feature that allow for dynamic site personalization based on login --"Drop box" that enables file upload/ storage by dragging a file into a browser --Direct server file management capability --Excellent access logs/ statistics tracking --Virtual hosts, XML feeds, and other features we've come to expect from such tools --Structure/ style customization I just found this yesterday, so I haven't gotten too deep into it yet, but these people are definitely on the right track of moving from mere blog management to complete site management.

Giovanni Guareschi's The Little World of Don Camillo: these stories center on the often-rocky relationship between Don Camillo, a priest in a small Italian village, and the mayor, a communist, and they brought world-wide fame to their author and illustrator. more inside

And to think today would have been productive (Flash)

Rise of a ruling-class family. An excerpt from Kevin Phillips' new book about the Bush family, "American Dynasty."

A suitable contender for the Republican nomination more inside