Courious George: Making a US FOIA Request I am a Permanent Resident of the US who immigrated 10 years ago. I am curious to find out what sort of records the federal governemt has acquired on me ("I have a file. I have a file!" -- Homer J. Simpson). From doing cursory Google searches it looks like I have to make seperate FOIA requests to each Federal agency for obtaining their records on me. Is there a centralized place where I can apply to get all my information released to me? Or do they deliberately make it painful to obtain the information? I am curious to hear the FOIA experiences of other monkeys as well. Were you surprised by the information they had on you? Disappointed? How about non-US-ian monkeys? What processes does your government have to initiate FOIA requests.

Chop chop! Curious George: slicing and dicing Yesterday I managed to slice open my finger instead of the onion I was aiming for. Looking for either online resources on cutting techniques (Google brings up a frightening number of links with offers including a free set of steak knives) or monkey-tips. more inside

A User's Guide to Time Travel - and for those of you a little more advanced, the TARDIS type 40 Manual. Furthermore, a study of Temporal Anomalies in Time Travel Movies so you can avoid all those tricky mistakes.

Indescribably Horrible! 'Bloodrock' is a must-see and 'Electriclarryland' leaves one bereft of speech!

LoneSentry.com -- photos, articles and research on the European Theater in World War II.

Royalty vs. Nature Is it just me, or would most anyone be able to achieve Albert's psuedo-accomplishments. Especially given unlimited money? He dreamt of a career in soccer, took part in the Paris-Dakar rally in 1985 and is a judo black belt. He represented Monaco at the Olympic Games in the bobsleigh four times and finished 7th in the world championships. Seventh in world bobsled championships? Be still my beating heart. This is less a dig at Albert (whom I'd love to trade places with) and more an invitation to have monkey's opine about nature vs. nurture. Seems that pretty much anyone could be seventh in world bobsled championships,no?

Richard Stallman wears tinfoil hat - gets in Trouble with UN Security. Bruce Perens has blogged about RMS appearing at the UN World Summit on the information society, and protesting privacy issues over the RFID by wearing a tinfoil hat. more inside

Thirty Facts about Chuck Norris more inside

Curious George: Espresso machines favored by monkeys. My current espresso machine is slowly dying and I need to replace it before my life is thrown into a mediocrely caffeinated tailspin. What I need is something that doesn't cost more than $200 ($100 would be ideal, but I want something that will last more than a year) and can make hot, consistent espresso. The frothing wand is nothing more than a vestigial tail as far as I'm concerned. Oh, and don't be pushing none of that pod business on me, I like to grind my own beans. Also, it needs to be pump and not steam driven. more inside

Read Between The Lines Hell... Rapper Houston gouged out one of his own eyes. He really did; there are some very disturbing photos of the results, but I'm not going to post them.

Curiouser and curioser It's Jorge, not George, but simian no less. What happens 'after the jump' is anyone's guess!

Curious George: Prettier Network Maps? For a project at work, I've been building a conceptual map of a communications network. The boss is happy with the results, but thinks the current output (minus identifying labels) is confusing and needs prettying up. more inside

Sony Rips Off Open-Source Software. As if this weren't bad enough, BMG now appears to have ripped off LGPL components from LAME -- without giving proper respect due.

Kuan Yin, The Compassionate Rebel (with a thousand hands!)

Bubbles in Color more inside

Binary Ring from The Gallery of Computation. Flash art.

Usurious George; Cuanto cuesta el mono en la ventana? I have a sneaking suspicion I'm overlooking something really obvious here...but here it is; if it costs $49,000 to buy a detached bungalow in Surrey, Canada, in 1974, and $285,000 for same now, will the number continually get bigger to infinity? How about currency? Will a $1,000 bill be lunch money in 2067?

Best of the Web The moral of the story? more inside

Bush Poo Flags! Police in Germany are hunting pranksters who have been sticking miniature flag portraits of US President George W. Bush into piles of dog poo in public parks.

Russian Reality Ruse A new reality TV show is aiming to pull off the biggest hoax in TV history - by persuading a group of Britons that they have been blasted into space.