Curious George: Ejectable Cabin I was just reading about the 2nd plane crash in as many days on the Blue. I don't fly, haven't for several years after a bout with bad turbulence. But I've often wondered why they don't make a plane (and charge more, of course) that will eject its passengers in case something goes wrong... Am I missing something? more inside

Curious George: Why do generic Cheerios taste so bad? I mean, we can send a man to the moon, but we can't replicate the Cheerio? What's up with that? more inside

ROAR! If this article is true (and the Beeb never lies), I won't be driving my MINI through any safari/game preserves any time soon. If you, too, have a MINI or a smart, you might want to avoid going on safari too...

And the reviews are in... Karla, the infamous movie about the Bernardo-Homolka killings, is about to come out. Seeing as how its release here in Canada will likely be somewhat limited, particularly in my hometown of St. Catharines, this review is as close as some of us are likely to get. Or are willing to get. more inside

A Keyboard with every key being a stand-alone display A russian company designed a keyboard which keys can display basically anything: from different alphabets to a specialized set of keys for applications or games.

A disaster , similar to the one in Niger, appears to be threatening the region of Timbuktu, the legendary city whose name is a byword for remoteness. more inside

Meet the P38. No, silly, not that one. Or that one. But the dinky little gizmo with exactly 39 uses.

Having a bad day? In The Rough [.mov] Big. Small. From Blur Studios.

ROBOKITTY! (warning, QuickTime required.) via.

I, for one, welcome our cosmic bullet overlords Had this article on my computer for quite some time, just rediscovered it after clearing out some files. I apologize if it's been posted here before. Freaky stuff though...

Curious George: Yahoo beheads spokesmodel. Why? I remember enough from business school to believe that Yahoo chose and placed the photo on its mail welcome screen with tremendous care. The pretty--possibly non-existent--woman of no particular ethnicity has been there for a couple of years. more inside

Curious George: HTML coding. I'm hand-editing an HTML document and it's corrupt because one of the tables is not closed off properly. Is there a utility that can help find the mistake, perhaps by indenting all the code? I find that the online validators aren't very helpful for this.

Melvin Vaniman (1866-1912) was an American mechanic, dirigible and plane designer, opera singer and near polar explorer but most famously he pioneered the art of panoramic photography. His fame was established for the most part during his sojourns in Australia and New Zealand. [Some Hawaiian panoramics at Library of Congress (search on Vaniman)]

Walken in 2008.

We Jam Econo. The Minutemen were a punk band out of San Pedro, California in the early 1980s... but that's not the half of it. Think punk is about safety pins and dyed hair? These guys will show you differently. Here's the trailer. Or listen to stuff here. more inside

Is it Gutenberg 3 already? Summer's almost over... The 13 month calendar, devised by good ol' Auguste Comte in 1849, didn't go anywhere, despite its conversion fun,. Enter George Eastman and a few other industrialists and their accountants, and the idea was reborn in a simpler way. Regular months and weeks, predictable holidays, extra month's rent, that sort of thing. Obviously, it didn't catch on except in the offices of Kodak itself -- the one place where Eastman could control time -- where the calendar was used until 1989 (presumably, to co-ordinate the dates on all those layoff notices with the pogey office). more inside

I ♥ Daniel Clowes (some images NSFW) Sure, many of you already know and love Daniel Clowes, one of the best underground comics artists ever. But have you bothered to visit these websites, or read these articles and interviews? more inside

Happy Melon Day, Love Turkmenbashi "Let the life of every Turkmen be as beautiful as our melons," President Niyazov said in a statement.

A history of Pi, and a trivia quiz. more inside

Idiot America: Not Just a Song -- It's the Law The U.S. Federal Government's cap on the number of highly skilled workers allowed into the US has already been reached for the year. That means they'll be turning away geniuses, scientists, engineers and others who are the best in their fields. At the same time the tide of unskilled illegal immigrants will continue. The rationale for this policy is that the cap protects homegrown "highly skilled" workers - as if skilled labor isn't outsourced to wherever the best workers are, anyway.