Curious George: Personal Wiki? I really, really like the Wiki editor and would like to adapt it for my web server for personal essays, book reviews, etc. Unlike traditional date-based blogs, Wiki maps out content to static URLs, which helps organize things and is great for Google spidering. I'm so tiring of cobbling up and uploading HTML pages by hand! Can anyone recommend one of these Wiki clones or some other option for 'tiny footprint' personal use?

Have you ever been to The Meguro Parasitological Museum? If not, why don't you go there with me? Thousands and thousands of parasites are waiting for you. Come with me! This way! Oh, I see. You feel bad. Push this "Exit" to go back the first page.

Curious George: Internet radio. I'm alone working on a big project right now and badly need to hear some tunes. I want any pointers for good grass-roots "Internet radio" that has good college style flavor (like a mix of indy/retro/bubbling-under). I don't even know where to start looking. I've been listening to some big FM simulcasts from the UK but the content is either overplayed hits, annoying hip hop, or ads. I went to one US college station I know of but they had a baseball game going.

Rodney King II. Police beatings are alive and well in LA. This morning's incident comes a week after the LAPD put numerous reforms into place following a Justice Department complaint.

HMO's protected by Supreme Court ruling. Americans who get health insurance through their employer are no longer entitled to damages for any harm they suffer when their HMO improperly denies coverage for recommended medical care, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday. A boon for cutting down on rampant litigation or a removal of checks and balances on HMOs?

Spider myths debunked. No, you don't inhale four spiders a year in your sleep. No, the daddy longlegs doesn't have the world's worst venom. No, hobo spiders don't chase you down to attack you. What is it about spiders that invites so many fabricated scientific facts? Rod Crawford, curator of arachnids at Seattle's Burke Museum, helps debunk some of the more notorious claims. (Also see this spider myth page.)

Curious George: Playlists. Why are MP3 playlists all over the Web? Google finds countless thousands of hits. What ends does posting a list with 1000+ songs serve, besides the fact that one simply can? Just curious... I seem to run up against tons of such superfluous content when I'm searching for music details.

Have you used a Cray today? A Cray Y-MP and Cyber 960 are available for your amusement via telnet, thanks to volunteers of Munich's Association for Historical Computers. Most of their machines run only on Saturday due to the massive power requirements. And hey, if you have any fiber optic cable it sounds like they could use it!

Florida to Alaska by bike. What's it like to pedal a bike across the continent? Wade Anderson did the trip a few years ago and his journal documents it with detail and introspection. Do you have any favorite cycling trip websites?

Oh Satan, move in our voice. Listen to some famous speech reversals and backwards masking in famous songs, such as Led Zep and John Lennon. Each mp3 includes the full verse then plays at least two reversals. Caution: may lead to devil worshipping and marijuana use.

Oops. A 35-ton concrete truck drives over an Ohio bridge marked for six tons. Truck is written off, driver makes monkey of self.

Wal-Mart's economy is bigger than Poland. A slightly outdated Top 100 list but still intriguing.

Weather Music Gallery. Free music MP3s on a government server? You bet. El Paso warning forecaster John Fausett takes an unorthodox approach to informing and educating the public about dangerous weather.

Be all that you can be! The Army announced today it is expanding its stop-loss policy theaterwide. This will keep all deployed soldiers in the Army past their separation/retirement dates for as long as their unit is in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for 90 days after returning home. Interestingly there are now 138,000 U.S. troops occupying Iraq, a third that at the peak of the Vietnam War. Can anyone with relatives or friends in the military give us a "temperature check" of how morale is in the service?

Curious George: Slashdot slashdotting itself? Might Slashdot be getting too big? The many fleeting news items posted daily bring upward of 1000+ replies. It escapes me what the motivation is to reply, when what one writes will be buried by hundreds of more replies in hours or vanish beneath a threshold. Can't a forum be too big? I'm not griping; I really want to understand! (On a slightly perpendicular note, 4758 reviews for this random Amazon bestseller -- why would one feel compelled to spend 15 minutes writing a review no one will be able to dig down to?)

Curious George: Do you play video/computer games? If no, why not? And if so, what have you been addicted to recently? Finally, what was the most influential game on you, ever? Just a friendly "get to know you better" survey. more inside

Curious George: Getting out of frames jail. How can I close a Web page frame using a "javascript:" command on a browser address: bar? Of course this assumes I can find the frame name. An example: the frame at the top of this page. On sites like Delphi Forum boards I am frequently stuck in "frames jail" where 20% of the screen is occupied by dead space. No luck Googling on this one -- far too many nonrelevant hits to sift through.

Strap this baby onto your bicycle (or, ok, on your R/C airplane if you must) and step into the spage age. A real jet engine that is 5 inches in diameter, uses real Jet-A fuel, and can be yours for $2795.

ZzzzZZZzzzap. See what happens when a power company rigs up a failure on a 500 kV power line.

Security checkpoints to begin in Boston subways. And no more pictures in the New York subways. Slowly, the US transmogrifies into another Tel Aviv.