Boston Globe Online: Van Gogh was keen observer of starry nights - Vincent Van Gogh. The very name evokes the struggle between art and madness. The legendary 19th-century post-impressionist created some of his best-known paintings while confined to a mental asylum, and later killed himself at the age of 37. Yet, for many astronomers, Van Gogh cuts a very different figure. To them, he was a pretty darned good observer of the stars. ''Starry Night'' isn't merely beautiful; it depicts an unusually bright planet Venus in a rare alignment with a thin crescent moon.

Who Would Buy That? (auction oddities from all over the web) How often have you found an item on eBay that was so hideous you couldn't help but ask, "Who would buy that?"

TrekToday - Exclusive: Full Series V Character List Since before the end of 'Deep Space Nine', fandom has been speculating about the next Star Trek series, dubbed Series V by many. Over the past year the first rumours began appearing, suggesting the series would be set on a pre-TOS Enterprise, and in the past month Paramount officially announced it had begone pre-production. However, actual details of the next series' backstory were unavailable. That is, until now, as we present you what we believe is the full cast list for the next Star Trek series.

A Bit of Perspective on the Dot-Com Backlash (NY Times - free subscription required) - The faulty premise to the anti-Net backlash is that the Internet's transforming power is negated by some investors' failure to profit from it. One forgets how many railroads and radio manufacturers failed in their day. Moreover, the Internet by its very nature was never going to provide an easy venue for people to make money, once you set aside the Ciscos and others who sell the materials to build the network, and the AOL's and others who charge for access to it. The Internet is all about democratizing access to information and breaking down geographic barriers — two threatening developments for any seller's profit margins.

InternetWeek: PGP's Vulnerabilities Reveal The Truth About In this incident, the victim was an alleged mobster, Nicodemo S. Scarfo, who was using PGP to encrypt his e-mail messages. The eavesdropper was the FBI, who ran a black-bag operation against Scarfo and installed the keyboard sniffer. While it may sound like a great plot for a detective story, the principles surrounding this case could have profound effects on IT managers.

404 not found! - Now here's a "404 NOT FOUND" message that is actually fun to get. Its really sad when a webserver cries.

Doc Searls - Weblog Here's a veryinteresting and thought provoking article about why e need to be more "green".

Charlotte's Goat(Forbes.com): In a concrete bunker on a mothballed Air Force base in Plattsburgh, New York, two Nigerian dwarf goats named Mille and Muscade joyfully munch grass and slurp water. Oddly, they are protected from intruders by security guards and razor wire. Only 20 weeks old, these sister beasts warrant tight security because their milk is highly prized by the U.S. military. Their 70,000-gene chromosomes have been manipulated to include a gene from the orb weaver, a palm-size spider that spins the world's toughest natural material. Researchers are "growing" the spider's silk inside Mille and Muscade's mammary glands. These strands of silk, just 3 microns thick, are three times as tough as DuPont's bulletproof Kevlar. A woven cable as thick as your thumb can bear the weight of a jumbo jet.

Probe touches down on asteroid: The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touched down on a barren space rock called Eros on Monday, marking history’s first successful landing on an asteroid. Scientists said the probe sent signals back to Earth after making contact, indicating that the car-sized probe survived the descent.

The "Genius Babies," and How They Grew: In "Seed," Slate's David Plotz will tell the story of the Nobel Prize sperm bank founded in the late '70s by California industrialist and eugenicist Robert Graham and publicized by its most prominent sperm donor, William Shockley, the Nobel Prize-winning inventor of the transistor, who became obsessed with the degradation of the human gene pool. And David will report on what became of the children born of Graham's experiment. At least Slate expects that he probably will report on it. Instead of doing all his reporting and then composing a long article, David will file dispatches, which Slate will post immediately, as he goes about his research. Readers will be able to follow the reporter as he gathers and analyzes his material, and Slate has no more idea than the readers do about where the story will lead him or how it will come out. When he is done, if it works, the entire article will be published as an eBook.

eMail "wiretaps": Using a small piece of invisible programming code in an e-mail message, an e-mail's original sender can get copies every time the message is forwarded, including the comments added to the message by its recipients.

Governor Ah-nold? Star considers politics: If Calif. Gov. Gray Davis can’t solve the state’s electricity crisis, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger may try to terminate Davis’ political career. The action hero didn’t quite use the “T” word in a phone conversation with Los Angeles Times political columnist George Skelton, but his intent seemed clear.

MSN Pets & Animals: Cat dodges 90 trains Lives to tell the tale - A cat trapped on one of Britain's busiest train lines near Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, dodged 90 trains in two days and still lived, according the a report in The Sun newspaper on Wednesday.

MSN Computing Central: NSA attempting to design crack-proof computer. The National Security Agency and VMware envision an almost impenetrable computer that hides data in virtual vaults.

EVHEAD!: Essay And Then There Was One Wednesday, January 31, 2001 It's probably become obvious to the careful observer that all is not well in the Land of Pyra. Rather than wait for the public speculation and debate, I'm going to say what exactly is going on (from my perspective -- not speaking for anyone else on the team or as an official Pyra/Blogger representative). I'm sure the public speculation and debate will happen anyway, but I don't plan to take much part in it. I have other things to do.

It's Sony vs. Sony in Web battle: TOKYO -- In the global race to market music on the Web, Sony Corp. has had an unusual rival: Sony. As both an electronics company and a top record label, Sony wants to capitalize on any musical revolution online, making the latest in listening gadgets for it -- just as it has done before, with everything from the Walkman to compact disks. But the Japanese giant has also had to referee a potential conflict with its own music label which fears losing out to illegal copying.

Letter 'W' Missing From White House Keyboards: In an apparent prank carried out by departing Clinton administration staffers, Bush aides discovered that dozens of computer keyboards were missing the ``W'' key.

Light of Other Days by Bob Shaw Bob Shaw is the author of a significant body of successful science fiction novels and stories and is one of the leading science fiction personalities in the UK. His most famous single story is "Light of Other Days containing his powerfully evocative. if imaginary, invention of "slow glass" to slow the passage of light, later used in several other stories that all together form his book, Other Days, Other Eyes (1972)."

Scientists Bring Light to Full Stop, Hold It, Then Send It on Its Way The achievement is a landmark feat that, by reining in nature's swiftest and most ethereal form of energy for the first time, could help realize what are now theoretical concepts for vastly increasing the speed of computers and the security of communications.

EO Newsroom: New Images - Aurora from the Space Shuttle Astronauts aboard the STS-97 Space Shuttle mission in December observed and photographed the northern lights after undocking from the International Space Station. This image was taken on December 11, 2000. At the time, the Shuttle was just east of Newfoundland at 49.7N 51.6 W, at an altitude of 362 km. The image view is to the north (Polaris, the North Star, is visible), and shows two separate atmospheric optical phenomena.

Speech recognition apps coming of age In the movies, computers are always good listeners. In real life, they only hear what they want to hear. Much as people would like to speak with their machines, to browse the Internet by voice rather than keystroke, recent strides in speech recognition technology hardly provide the ease and spontaneity of a free-flowing dialogue between humans. Instead, the machines monopolize the discussion.

Talking to the Web The voice-enabled web is a bold technological vision with the backing of a number of major players. Will it get a fair hearing from an impatient public?

Mobile phones: now it's eye cancer Whew! What's next?

Related Stories: BT urges UK not to use mobiles, We've got brain cancer and we want your money, Death by mobile phone, US says mobile phones won't kill you, Finally the truth! Mobiles only kill children, It's official: Mobile phones give you diarrhoea.

Is ‘IT’ a wearable car? What could it be? Respected inventor Dean Kamen of Manchester, N.H., we are told, has come up with a world-moving invention that will be “an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous, and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities.” Has the man reinvented sex?

ABCNEWS.com : Mysterious Invention Puzzles Scientists The proposal says IT will sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking. The proposal quotes Kamen, who has won the National Medal of Technology, as saying the device will be an alternative to products that are “dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities.”

New Year Quiz 2 How much you know will tell you how old you are

IS IT LIGHTS OUT YET? See an online display of how close the California power grid is to overloading.

OVER THE COUNTER DRUG WARNING! The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a public health advisory concerning the risk of hemorrhagic stroke to young women associated with phenylpropanolamine (PPA). It has requested that all drug manufacturers discontinue selling products containing PPA. See the article for details concerning which OTC cold medicines, etc. are affected.