If only we'd stuck with the metric system in the seventies, this would never have happened. Poor lost orbiter.

Robot Buddies! – cool, little robots to help out astronauts in space. When can we get them here on earth? I hope they come in more colors than just red. [n.y. times, registration required]

"The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities." – Ursula K. Le Guin

October 5 is National Techies Day!

State considers lowering standard for graduation – educators predict that many Massachusetts students will not graduate based on test results to date, so they want to lower the standard. I guess that is easier and cheaper than the alternative: raising the quality of education. I'm almost embarrassed to be from Massachusetts!

New Year's Eve in September [warning: lots of pictures > 40kb, fast connection recommended].

If you want to make the Internet entirely appropriate — whatever that means — for children, it will be appropriate only for children – Dan Gillmor.

When she said yes, they blew her away – each day it seems I notice more and more "Rambo" language in news articles to describe violent situations. No wonder we as a culture are desensitized to violence when this type of language is used to describe the murder of a young woman. Why do journalists employ the callous language of gansters and action heroes? Have we no respect for the loss of life? [via saturn.org]

I've decided that I don't like having parties. Mine is tonight, so maybe I'm having last minute jitters or something? I don't know, seems like lots of work, lots of money, and….guess I'm not feeling too optimistic about this evening.

I was thinking about the stat I posted yesterday about the average person's web use, and I realized I'm the opposite: I use the web once a day, and I stay there for about 13 hours.