And Remember: The Howard Hughes plane, "The Spruce Goose" was actually made of birch wood. The nickname was not invented for the Hughes plane anyway. At the time, almost any wooden plane was nicknamed a Spruce Goose. When Hughes built the massive aircraft, the media just perpetuated the name. It is said that Hughes greatly disliked the moniker. Joe Burns, Ph.D.

"Fear of a Hacked Planet", MSN Computing Central - Uncle Sam subjects new drugs to thorough scrutiny before approving them. Were he equally careful with new laws, people wouldn't wonder whether his top hat and beard conceal Big Brother underneath. At issue: the Council of Europe's Cybercrime Convention, which, said former deputy associate attorney general Ethan M. Posner during congressional testimony in May 2000, "will define cybercrime offenses and address such topics as jurisdiction, international cooperation, and search and seizure." Not to mention threatening the rights of individuals and businesses worldwide, according to numerous opposition groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Democracy & Technology, or CDT.

RANDOM - A very interesting experiment in interactive Flash animation. While trying the different forms be sure to move the mouse around to different points on the screen.

And Remember: Did you know the great English playwright William Shakespeare Actually mentioned America in one of his plays? It was "The Comedy of Errors." Act III, Scene II. Joe Burns, Ph.D.

Tiffany House Bed & Breakfast Inn - We found this beautiful B&B where Evelyn and Megan will be staying for Kim's graduation. Nestled among the spreading oaks, high on a hilltop with a panoramic view of Mt. Lassen range, sits this late Victorian two story home architecturally designed to provide comfort and gracious living. A large shaded deck complete with wicker furnishings, comfortable chairs, a quaint gazebo, and a relaxing hammock lend a sense of nostalgia and tranquillity. A refreshing swimming pool is also available. And at this site you can go on a virtual tour of the inn.

W3Schools Online Web Tutorials - Inside W3Schools you will find a large number of free Web building tutorials, from basic HTML and XHTML tutorials, to advanced XML, XSL and WAP tutorials.

MSN Entertainment / Music - Rock & Roll's Ten Wackiest Pranks - April Fool's Day is here again, bringing back fond childhood memories of mischief: water balloons, whoopie cushions, joy buzzers, salt in the sugar bowl, etc. Since most rock stars never really seem to grow up, the world of rock & roll has long been a fertile territory for pranks, hoaxes and practical jokes. In honor of the silliest day of the year, we proudly present rock's ten wackiest pranks. Some were premeditated, some impulsive; some were dopey, some were brilliant; some were light-hearted, while others were hilariously vicious. But all of them deserve a place in the pop culture firmament, as well as in our naughty little rock & roll hearts.

Kyle's Skateboarding Page - Hi welcome to my site. I would like to thank all of you for coming and helping my site. I will tell you about skateboarding. (Posted for our dear friend Pam. Agreat teacher who knows the sixth grade student who created the page.)

Forbes.com: Microsoft's War Of Attrition - This time last year, Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people) was worth $96 billion, Sun Microsystems (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people) worth $150 billion, and America Online (nyse: AOL - news - people) worth more than $200 billion. Against this inflated dot-com currency, Microsoft's $24 billion bank balance--a huge cache by any measure--was rendered strategically impotent.

Earthquake As Artist --- Photos from Gaelic Wolf Consulting - On February 28, 2001, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake, located some thirty miles below the surface of the earth and a few miles away from Olympia Washington, moved the ground for a bit more than half a minute. A sand tracing pendulum, located at a shop in Port Townsend called Mind Over Matter, produced some very interesting patterns. (Contact: 888-385-3853 or via e-mail at mom@olympus.net.)

And remember: Have you ever heard of a face being called a "mug"? It came from the 18th-century practice of carving grotesque human faces on sides of drinking glasses. Needless to say, if you're told you have a nice mug, it isn't a compliment.

Joe Burns, Ph.D.

ABCNEWS.com : Australian Plans Highest Skydive Ever March 5 — Breaking the sound barrier — going past the speed of sound — shouldn't be a big deal anymore. After all, military aircraft go supersonic all the time. But try it without any sort of vehicle around you, and it just might put you in the record books. That's what Australian Rodd Millner is hoping to do when he rides a balloon to the edge of outer space, 25 miles up, and jumps.

Seattle Earthquake HUMOR Thousands were spilled and hundreds were injured as a giant tremor rocked the Seattle area Wednesday morning. Neither café lattes, cappuccinos, steamed chai, nor even the tiny espressos were spared from the force of the 6.8-magnitude quake. As Senior Investigative Baristas survey the damage, leaked reports suggest that as many as 10,000 hot drinks were spilled - many causing injury.

Howstuffworks "How Printable Computers Will Work" - Manufacturing computers is a costly and time-consuming undertaking. A microprocessor fabrication plant costs $2 billion and takes two full weeks to produce one silicon-based microprocessor. Few computer enthusiasts have the resources to make their own computer chips. However, researchers are developing ways to allow anyone to become their own microprocessor fabricator. Users will simply download microchip designs from the Internet and print out a working ink-based, plastic processor on a desktop fabrication machine, similar to an ink jet printer.

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.