In yesterday's NYT, NASA-affiliated scientist William S. Marshall, wondered why no one seems to care about NASA's discovery of water on the moon.

Almost as surprising as NASA’s announcement is the lack of attention it has received. Thirty years ago, a development like this would have been heralded as one of humanity’s greatest discoveries.

Marshall hypothesized that astronomers were disappointed because they couldn't see the impact plume and that the rest of us were too distracted by problems on Earth.

Marshall should stick to astrophysics. [Read more]

When President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, many noted that it came with a $1.4 million prize. What would Obama do with it? Well, while a variety of charities will likely get the money, it’s apparent that the GOP could use some of the money so that they and Michael Steele can have a $1.4-million Web presence:

The recent relaunch of GOP.com featured a miniature animated Michael Steele begging for money and an appropriation of the ghost of Jackie Robinson and was the most comically awful thing in the history of the internet. The cost: $1.4 million. [Read more]

WASHINGTON — In a press conference by the nation’s business leaders and a smattering of government officials, it was announced that everything bought over the past seven years has been immediately recalled, and that all personal information held by all businesses had been lost.

“If we can just get everyone to form an orderly line outside of every store they’ve purchased things from, that would just be great,” said a government official. [Read more]

I'm hoping to start a fairly regular set of postings on Quantum Mechanics and/or other weird science that fascinates me. However, if there's no interest (after all, it's outside the normal scope of all things dagblog), I'll drop it. With that in mind, I thought I'd start with an overview of Quantum Mechanics, talk about how it's really weird, and give my interpretation of it, all without delving into math or jargon. Well, I'll try to at least save any such delving for the comments section.

For those who find QM confusing, I offer up these quotes:

Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it. - Niels Bohr [Read more]

So apparently, the U.S. Postal Service is in a peck of trouble. Despite raising postage fees numerous times during the past couple of years, the USPS announced earlier this week that it had lost $2.4 billion between April and June and would be $7 billion in debt by the end of September.

Are you kidding me? $2.4 billion in losses in 3 months?? Are you sure the USPS isn't making cars or selling subprime mortgages?

I know the economy is tough, and more and more people are communicating digitally nowadays, but there's no excuse for this kind of performance. FedEx and UPS are still making money, after all. [Read more]

Call me a loyal customer. Yahoo has been my home page for a decade, which is about two thirds of the life of the web itself. Whenever I bought a new computer or installed a new browser, I dutifully found my way through the preferences to set my default page to good old Yahoo. In the old days, back when people still prepended "World Wide" to "Web," I preferred Yahoo because the home page loaded quickly and offered a great directory that neatly sliced the contents of the entire web into a handy taxonomy. "Drilling down" to the right category was usually easier than sifting through pages of crap delivered by the antediluvian search engines of the day. [Read more]

We finally have liftoff. Congratulations, NASA, sixth time's the charm.

Now we wait for the shuttle to catch up and dock with the International Space Station, which should happen around midday Friday. Here'a site that lets you follow the choreographed dance between the two vehicles in more-or-less real time:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/

Once the two spacecraft are docked together for their 16-day rendezvous, they should make a spectacular sight from Earth. [Read more]

I'll get back to the regularly scheduled My One Favorite Things soon enough, but right now I got a bone to pick with my cell phone company, T-Mobile.

I mostly have positive vibes toward T-Mobile as their customer service has been very helpful and their network seems to have continually improved in New York City, but I'm annoyed with the numerous 'surcharges' the company tacks on to my monthly bill.

T-Mobile probably isn't alone here, but I think it's a crime that these charges - which earn the dubious award of being My One Least Favorite Thing of the week - now add up to more than $10 a month, approximately 21% of the cost of my plan. [Read more]

The NYT reports that Google is planning the most direct challenge to Microsoft to date: an operating system.

The software, called the Google Chrome Operating System, is initially intended for use in the tiny, low-cost portable computers known as netbooks, which have been selling quickly even as demand for other PCs has plummeted. Google said it believed the software would also be able to power full-size PCs. [Read more]

I don't actually know how the folks who manage Eve Online plan to deal with this, except that they've booted the virtual fraudster out of the game.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/07/03/science-online-bank-heist.html

The scary part is that he successfully traded the "interstellar kredits" he stole for real-life money. Only $5,000 or so -- but still! If what you stole doesn't really exist, can you be accused of committing a crime in the real world? Especially when the virtual world permits and even encourages illegal activities? Suppose you libel a fellow player in an interactive game. Does he or she have recourse in a real-world court? [Read more]

Is this incredibly lame or amazingly awesome? 

I've always sucked at making decisions. Leave where we're having lunch up to me and we'll likely be having dinner there.

If there's one thing about modern life I cannot stand, it's the plethora of options we have. Sure the freedoms we now enjoy are terrific, the new opportunities exciting, the potential adventures limitless, but instead I like to focus on all the bad choices we can now make.

Lately, my indecisiveness is getting worse. And if I had to place blame on a particular culprit (and I must as implicating my own neuroses is not an option), I think Apple has had a lot to do with it.

It's just the way they relentlessly make great products and then have no problem making those products obsolete - and dramatically cheaper - in a matter of months. [Read more]

You've seen a lot less of me on dagblog lately, and while I'd love to put all of the blame for my absence on my Beyonce and the wedding plans which have been set in hot and heavy motion (It's mostly painful, stressful stuff, but registering at Target was hella fun - come to Papa, Wii!!), but there is a much bigger badder beast than Mrs. All-Consuming Wedding at work here - and its name is PokerStars. [Read more]

Late last year one of my predictions for 2009 was that Facebook would go public, sparking a mini-rally in the markets. Yet a lot of what I read about in the press lately is all about their struggles - having trouble raising money at the valuation they want, having trouble hiring the workers they want, having trouble generating significant ad revenue.

To which I say, bullshit. [Read more]