70 years ago, today, Prohibition ended and Americans were once again allowed to indulge in booze. It was a massive failure of what came to be known as the noble experiment. Meanwhile, in England, the medical journal The Lancet is recommending a total ban on smoking in Britain. Another doomed noble experiment? Are there just some bad habits in this life humans refuse to live without?

First person account of a NSA recruitment interview (via Slashdot)

Photoshop exists because of Star Wars - An interesting article about the promotion and development of Photoshop. more inside

Defective Yeti's annual list of fun party games - I've never heard of any of them and they sound great.

The wisdom of Google

Evolving Alphabets [note: java] A program called The Alphabet Synthesis Machine allows you to create your own language, letting it evolve based on some user-defined parameters.

Scientific American's Top Sci/Tech Gifts 2003, which is a very cool list of toys/gagets for those of us who refuse to grow up. Link from Fark. Yes, I said Fark. You heard me.

"The new group is called the Groonies, because they happen to live in a town where [Data], the Chinese kid, lives ... and he's got an electronics repair shop and all the kids hang out at his shop. He has this Chinese accent and he calls the Goonies the Groonies, and so the new kids call themselves the Groonies, until they get into a situation where the old Goonies have to save the new Groonies, or vice versa." Richard Donner on a possible Goonies sequal. Keep up to date via Greg's Previews. Further, check up on the original gang here. Not to be confused with The Goonies II.

artblog: indy comics news, notes and spare change. because someone has to give a shit. more inside

There is grumbling in the glens over one company's efforts to introduce a 'new' kind of whisky. A deal has now been reached though. more inside

Jessa Crispin, Bookslut, doesn't appreciate being called a drunken slut, apparently. In a recent column in the Austin Chronicle, Shaun Badgley mentioned that the well-known Bookslut had spent a night on his couch after getting drunk. She's taken offense to that: Last I checked, calling someone a drunken slut, whether or not she is one, was frowned upon. In other news, those who don't know about her website probably should. more inside

Rating The Lesbians. Girl on girl screen kisses, dished up with s side of special sauce. Not a comprehensive list by any stretch, but oh so much fun anyway. [some mildly NSFW content] more inside

The Space Race That Never Was.

Praising Judy Davis.

Andrew Sandoval is a pretty interesting guy. He works as a music archivist for Rhino Records and others, producing rereleases of lots of wonderful music. Additonally,he has makes his own music. His second album was just recently released on The Bus Stop Label. more inside

Mossy goodness! Nearly as lucious as nog.

DaimlerChrislyer to host "Lingerie Bowl" during Super Bowl half-time. Too bad it's pay-per-view. Oh well...still beats the hell out of trombone and glockenspiel music.

Table tennis (flash).

Clockwork Science. Scientific theories are just subjective mathematical interpretations of the nature or reality. No better proof than both Poincare and Einstein arriving to the same results with differents theories of relativity. Neither of them is wrong. It's just that Einstein's interpretation is far more clearer and easier to work with than Poincare's. Who was maybe just to old to throw away his long held presumptions about nature. A very much older Einstein made a similar mistake when confronted with this other revolutionary theory. (the first link via Arts & Letters Daily) more inside

(With apologies in advance to SideDish and her fabulous tattoo.