tuesday miscellany

This latest passel-o-links post is at least mildly organized; the links are arranged into a few broad categories, including one solely about echidnas. It's not a classification scheme your average librarian would be happy with, but hey. It's what I came up with, and rearranging all the links now would be way too much work. So enjoy, or not...

Sci+Tech

• Slashdot on (maybe) high-temperature Bose-Einstein condensates.
  
• The Panda's Thumb wonders about all that cutting-edge Intelligent Design research that's supposedly going on.
  
• That's the problem, though: The fundies can never quite decide if ID is supposed to pretend to be science, or whether it's the heart of their culture war they're waging against the rest of us.
  
• This year's Nobel in Physics has been awarded for research into the cosmic microwave background, a remnant of the big bang. The creationists would be outraged, if only they understood a single word of this stuff.
  
• I've already mentioned the first pics from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, so that's not news, but here's a side-by-side comparison of pics of the same crater taken by MRO, and by Mars Global Surveyor, which until now was the keenest eye in the Martian sky. Wow. Just... wow. That HiRISE is some kind of camera, that's all I can say.
  
• Like having nightmares? Check out this gigantic deep-sea isopod. Clearly, Tokyo is doomed.
  
• At Pharyngula, PZ lists the top ten reasons religion is like porn. My favorite items:

  
  5. You want to wash up after shaking hands with any of its leaders
  4. The costumes are outrageous, the performances silly, the plots unbelievable
  

  
  
• Some related research, which ought to make a lot of people (especially guys) happy.
  

Politics

• The latest alarming signs of the times at Cosmic Variance.
  
• Tom Tomorrow looks on the bright side.
  
• Kip Hawley is an idiot.
  
• See also Wikipedia on Security theater.
  

Local

• alt.portland introduces a valuable new public service, a guide to gas stations in/near downtown. Sure, sure, gas is evil, we all know that, but sometimes it's a necessary evil, and a scarce one at that.
  
• Happy new (water) year!. It hasn't rained yet, and we're a full couple of days into the new water year, so I expect the local news to start screaming about a drought any day now. They usually do.
  
• This year's crop of GABF medal winners from Oregon. Mmmm.... Beeeerrrr...
  
• The latest "address nerd" post over at ZehnKatzen times, with a rare example of one of the city's old-style street signs. I know I've seen others like that around, but I can't recall where, or when. I may have to try this Pizza Baron place he mentions. I'm a sucker for old-style 70's-80's pizza parlors, and they've nearly vanished from the earth. More than once I've driven all the way out to Hood River for a Pietro's fix, which is an unreasonably long way to go for pizza done the old-school way.
  
• Up in Yakima, WA, a horrible, horrible fire has destroyed 4% of the US hop harvest. Nooooooooo!!!!!!
  
• It's that time of year again: the HP Lovecraft Film Festival, at the Hollywood Theater this Friday thru Sunday.
  

Echidnas

• Accounts from someone who's looking after an orphaned baby echidna (they're called "puggles"). Seems that orphan puggles need to be fed a concoction known as "I Can't Believe It's Not Echidna Milk".
  
• An article about echidnas, with lots of photos.
  
• And still, nobody can answer the eternal question "Why did the echidna cross the road?".
  
• Four more photos of echidnas.
  
• Ok, just one more
  

Random Coolness & Weirdness

• Another four reasons to love Oktoberfest.
  
• How to make your own Discworld cake. This is obviously the most excellent cake ever.
  
• Less edibly, here's the latest advance in breakfast junk food technology: Jimmy Dean Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick. Glurrrghh.....
  
• Treehugger tries a foray into math via heirloom tomatoes. I can't make head or tail of what they're getting at, and I detect a strong smell of bogosity.