Overwhelmed by the Big Picture?
Having trouble keeping up with advances in nanotechnology?
Read SmallTimes and you'll know what's new and microscopic.

Blogdex points to Paul Graham's enhancement of the "Revenge of the Nerds" keynote lecture he gave at the ICAD conference in May.
His best LISP-advocacy line:

If you want to trick a pointy-haired boss into letting you write software in Lisp, you could try telling him it's XML.

Finally, the friendly Canadians at Bioware have made the Aurora toolset available in beta...
So I fear I'll get sucked into that to an unhealthy degree.
I might as well just cancel my EQ and DAoC accounts right now.
Hell, no sense in keeping the car or gym membership either...
World-building addiction is an ugly thing.

Speed Dating, only in Los Angeles.
Ew...

People in Miami are freaking out because there's a big ring around the sun!

We've been getting a flood of questions via e-mail.
Here's what some people had to say about it:

What is that is that big round black circle around the sun right now?
It looks like a rainbow but it's a circle.

there is a rainbow around the sun or a black circle.
every one in my school is freaking out.
we have no clue what is going on.
please e-mail me or post something on your website pertaining to this.

At lunchtime today I looked up and saw a circle around the sun. Could you please tell me what this is called?
I also looked at the Doppler radar and it showed this same shadow.

Finally, some wag wrote in this message:

AS WAS FORETOLD IN THE GOOD BOOK, THE HOLY RING OF FORZUTH HAS APPEARED!!!
REPENT ALL YE AND PREPARE FOR THE COMING OF THE LORD FORZUTH!!
HE WHO WAS PREDICTED IN THE BOOK OF MARCHEKD COMES!
"WHEN THE SUN IS IN THE 7TH AZMUTH OF HOKTAR, WILL COME THE LORD FORZUTH, HARVESTING ALL NONBELIEVERS BEFORE HIM, AND THE TRUTH WILL KNOW BY THE RING OF FORZUTH TURNS THE SUN INTO THE ALL-SEEING EYE."
PUT THIS ON YOUR WEBSITE SO THAT ALL MAY KNOW THE TRUTH OF MARCHEKD.

Our viewers are the best!

This morning, while having a double cafe cubano and a raised glazed donut at Pandora's Cup where my sister works, I saw some lucky ducks.

As I inhaled sugar and caffeine, across the street a mother duck and more than a half-dozen ducklings were attempting to cross Hennepin Avenue on their way to the lake.
The duck-train paced back and forth on the east side of the street, looking for a break in the endless north-bound and south-bound traffic.

"I really don't want to see this," I said to Jenny as I imagined the little family crushed by some reckless sport utility vehicle or distracted euro-sport sedan.
The ducks continued to be on the verge of entering the menacing traffic for several minutes, and eventually I gave up anticipating their demise and looked away.

Later, as I left Pandora's and headed to my car, I saw that the little family had crossed the street unscathed and were continuing on their way.
I love this city.

This would happen in Boca first...

And then there was this bill in California last year that initially included this statement:

The bill would make it a crime for any person to own, harbor, or keep any dog or cat over the age of 4 months, unless that dog or cat has been micro-chipped and the owner's identification has been entered into a national registry approved by the Department of Food and Agriculture. By creating a new crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program upon local governments.

The Miami Herald told us this was coming.
But are we ready to take this to the next level?

?

I'm amazed by this pipe bomber story.
What the hell?

From NewsChannel2000, one of our Florida affiliates, I learned about color and memory.
Want more detail? The journal article is here on the Max Planck Society site.

Of course, any artist will tell you this is true, but now the scientists agree as well.
You can see where I start to define who the authorities are, for better or worse...
Regardless, this concept is hardly new.

Meanwhile, a farmer wrote to ask me if I could make the animated radar loops available to his Palm Pilot.
This prompted quite a bit of research: does AvantGo or Blazer or any other PDA-based web browser support animated images?
Apparently not.

However, Ed did find a cool new PDA browser called Plucker that I can't wait to try.
And we also discovered a powerful image manipulation tool called ZBoxZ™.
With a name that enigmatic, it's got to be good!

But if you know of a way to configure a palm device to display animated images via HotSyncing from a web site, drop me a note and I'll be able to help a farmer from Iowa.

My trivia teammate Jim sent this hilarious Onion story to the Ferns today.
This one hits close to home.

The Strib has an article about how the city is safer than the countryside suburbs.

A few days ago /. had a good thread about geographic information systems.

Today begins the Tulip Time in Pella, Iowa (courtesy of TheIowaChannel).
Other strange celebrations will no doubt continue through May...

Such as Winnipeg's Teddy Bear Picnic.
Read about how Winnie the Pooh got his name from Winnipeg, MB.

Earlier today, I was attacked by a bat!

Okay, not really attacked so much as perched upon.
It looked like a little silver-haired bat.
But I'm no bat scientist, so it's difficult to say exactly which bat landed on my shoulder.
Catching it out of the corner of my eye as it flew down out of the gap between the florescent lights and the plenum, at first thought it was a moth.
Jeff captured it inside two styrofoam cups and set it free from the confines of our office.

I felt kind of roguish with a bat on my shoulder.
Sort of like a pirate with a parrot, but different...

Today is May Day.
Y'all should skip work and run your toes through the grass.

CNN covers labor protests in Europe.
Robert Herrick tried to convince his love to go a-Maying (from U of Toronto).
May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii.
Today would be a good day to learn Morris Dancing if it pleased you.

Es schweigt der Wind, es flieht der Stern,
Der trübe Mond verbirgt sich gern.
Im Sausen sprüht das Zauberchor
Viel tausend Feuerfunken hervor.
- Goethe, Faust