I’ve been struggling with my reactions to the whole Danish cartoon fiasco. This is mostly because my usual reaction is that Free Speech trumps all, but in this case my usual reaction feels, well, wrong. Abbas Raza has written a well-reasoned and thoughtful piece which is very much worth the read. [Link]

I had no idea. Danica McKellar (you remember, Winnie Cooper from _The Wonder Years_ and more recently from _West Wing_) is somewhat of a math genius. Her (co-authored) paper, _Percolation and Gibbs states multiplicity for ferromagnetic AshkinTeller models on Z(2)_ is apparently quite brilliant, not that I’d know the difference. How hot is that!?

Seems everyone and their brother is trying to replace my trusty IM client. Fancy, browser-based, Ajaxified chat seems to be everywhere. There’s meebo.com for those who want to use any of the services in one centralized place. Google just added Gtalk directly in the Gmail interface (it’s nice.) I just spent 20 minutes in a pre-release version of 37Signal’s _Campfire_ app, which is apparently targeted at business meeting chats. All of these apps are nearly good enough for my purposes.

Frank settled down in the Valley and he hung his wild years on a nail that he drove through his wife’s forehead. –Tom Waits

Thought I’d share a one or two word opinion of a few recently read items… On Photography (Susan Sontag) Smart, fascinating look at photography in a social context. Nice change of pace from the usual gadget chatter. Marley and Me (John Grogan) Funny and touching story taking place over 13 years between a man and his dog. I cried like a baby at the end. Honest. Consider the Lobster (David Foster Wallace)

I’ve been using Noodler’s ink in my fountain pen(s) for a while now and love it. One thing I didn’t realize is that it “…contains a cellulose reactive dye that remains water soluble in the bottle and in your pens, but becomes permanent on paper when dry.” This means that no-one will be washing _my_ checks. Wait, does anyone still use checks? [Link]

I heard today that the Vatican chimed in on all the hoo-ha over a tiny Danish cartoon… “The right to freedom of thought and expression cannot entail the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers. " Excuse me your holiness, but that’s *exactly* what it does.

A fabulous, but under-utilized feature of OS X is the Services menu. One of the reasons it doesn’t get used enough is that the menu can become unwieldy rather quickly. Enter Service Scrubber. Works as advertised.

Am I the last to hear about coComment? This is a *great* idea. And it works very well.

From 3QD, a little background on how scientists look for new planets. My editor often has to remind me that the general public is usually more interested in what a finding is than in the technical details behind a finding. Most of the time, my editor is right. In this case, however, I think the techniques employed by planet-hunters are pretty cool so the following is a brief primer on how the techniques work and the pros and cons of each:

Swirl2 She just can’t help herself when the camera’s aiming her way.

I feel the need to remind you all that Tom Waits is a genius. Do me a favor and pick an album from iTunes and buy it. His music is brooding, experimental, noisy and somehow sweet. Seriously, pick any of them. Try _Alice_, _Mule Variations_, or _Rain Dogs_ to start. Each of those three is entirely different from the others. Each is wonderful in its own way.