in series

"The idea of electrical communication seems to have begun as long ago as 1746, when about 200 monks at a monastery in Paris arranged themselves in a line over a mile long, each holding ends of 25-foot iron wires," writes Martin Redfern of BBC News. "The abbot, also a scientist, discharged a Leiden jar (a primitive electrical battery) into the wire, giving all the monks a simultaneous electrical shock. 'This all sounds very silly, but is in fact extremely important because, firstly, they all said 'ow' which showed you were sending a signal right along the line; and, secondly, they all said 'ow' at the same time, and that meant that you were sending the signal very quickly,' explains Tom Standage, author of The Victorian Internet and technology editor at the Economist."

hope springs eternal 2006

In today's espn.com poll, 39% of American residents picked the US to win the World Cup in 2006 while only 33% picked Brazil, proving once again that Americans are the world's most optimistic people. Or the most ignorant about soccer. I suspect it's mostly the latter.

183 days until the World Cup. Huge.

12 hours until the World Cup draw is announced, at which time I'll be stuck in front of my AGU poster. Not so huge.

a big crank

Apparently a newly discovered fragment of the Titanic indicates that the big boat sank in a different manner than was previously thought. As the Titanic historian David Brown puts it, "What we assumed was it broke up because it sank. Now we know it sank because it broke up."

Explorer Robert Ballard, who first found the wreck in 1985, was unimpressed. “They found a fragment, big deal,” he said. “Am I surprised? No. When you go down there, there's stuff all over the place. It hit an iceberg and it sank. Get over it.”

-- globeandmail.com

make your own kind of music

One of the cardinal rules of advertising: male pattern baldness is always funny. Also, this commercial gives me a great idea for a Christmas present for my dad.