'Hogwarts' Dragon Unveiled

By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News

May 23, 2006 — A dragon-like dinosaur named after Harry Potter's alma mater has performed a bit of black magic on its own family tree, say paleontologists who unveiled the "Dragon King of Hogwarts" on Monday in Albuquerque.

The newly described horny-headed dinosaur Dracorex hogwartsia lived about 66 million years ago in South Dakota, just a million years short of the extinction of all dinosaurs. But its flat, almost storybook-style dragon head has overturned everything paleontologists thought they knew about the dome-head dinos called pachycephalosaurs.

"What you knew about pachycephalosaurs -- you can chuck it," said Spencer Lucas, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History.

"Dracorex hogwartsia is a rather fantastic new dinosaur," affirmed paleontologist Robert Sullivan of the State Museum of Pennsylvania.

s for how it got its name? A group of children at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis drew the connection to the fanciful school of witchcraft that the famous fictional wizard Harry Potter attends and came up with the name hogwartsia..

"It's a very dragon-like looking dinosaur," said Sullivan.

J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, has been notified and apparently rather likes the new name.

"I am absolutely thrilled to think that Hogwarts has made a small claw mark upon the fascinating world of dinosaurs," said Rowling, according to a museum press release. "I happen to know more on the subject of paleontology than many might credit, because my eldest daughter was Utahraptor-obsessed and I am now living with a passionate Tyrannosaurus rex-lover, aged three.

Bar tables to mess with the drunks :-)

Cool tables... Go watch the videos. I'm not sure how these tables are made, bu they are very cool. My favorites are the fire and spin tables which have moving fire or a spin effect like watching a toy spin around when hands, feet or beer bottles are placed over or on it. I would NOT drink in the bar that has these, but I would love to be the designated driver :-)

http://www.freeset.ca/hldemo_nightclub/

Robots will rule the world someday!

From http://techdirt.com

Robot Performs Heart Surgery, Will Surgeons' Union Go On Strike?
from the scalpel-please dept
Score one for medical technology. The first heart surgery performed solely by a robot took place in Italy this week, while doctors in the US monitored its progress. The robot already had experience from 10,000 human-guided surgeries, data from which it can now reference on its own. In this way, the machine is like an advanced chess computer, onto which trainers can load millions of games for it to reference in game situations. Though doctors are among the biggest costs in healthcare, and technology like this could certainly help save money, we can expect surgeons to fight tooth and nail from letting robots encroach on their territory. They'll claim, much like top chess players do, that surgery is part art and that a robot could never match the performance of a human. Of course, robots don't get tired after a long day, stressed out, lose concentration, or have any of the other human traits that affect the quality of surgery. And while doctors make mistakes all the time, robots will be held to a higher standard; after one mistake, there will be calls to curtail their use in medicine. With all due respect, many surgeons are like plumbers who work on an extremely complicated system of pumps and valves -- in both cases, technology is reducing the value of their labor.

It's not over until the disgraced president sings

By Michael Conlon
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A dozen years after his death and more than three decades after he left the White House in disgrace, Richard Nixon is alive as never before in the grand opera world, which can't seem to get enough of the him.
"Nixon in China," the John Adams' opera first staged in 1987, is in the midst of a new wave of popularity and performances, the latest being a triumphal turn on the stage of the Chicago Opera Theater where it opened May 19.

This is kinda cool. I have always been facinated by Nixon and would love to see there take on his very rocky presidency. Maybe they will tour the US soon... lol, yeah right :-)

The Prisoner is coming back!!!!

Wow!!!! This is one of my fovorite shows of all time! It's very campy, but had some wild concepts in it too. Even today the island resort where the show was filmed is a major tourist attraction. To make this better... I read @ http://sliceofscifi.com that the new Doctor Who is going to be in the lead! This news just keeps getting better and better for me. Now hopefully SciFi cannel picks it up when first out and I won't have to fly to the UK to tape it ;-)

SCI FI Announces Caprica

NEW YORK—SCI FI Channel announced the development of Caprica, a spinoff prequel of its hit Battlestar Galactica, in presentations to advertisers in New York on April 26. Caprica would come from Galactica executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, writer Remi Aubuchon (24) and NBC Universal Television Studio.

Caprica would take place more than half a century before the events that play out in Battlestar Galactica. The people of the Twelve Colonies are at peace and living in a society not unlike our own, but where high technology has changed the lives of virtually everyone for the better.

But a startling breakthrough in robotics is about to occur, one that will bring to life the age-old dream of marrying artificial intelligence with a mechanical body to create the first living robot: a Cylon. Following the lives of two families, the Graystones and the Adamas (the family of William Adama, who will one day become the commander of the Battlestar Galactica), Caprica will weave together corporate intrigue, techno-action and sexual politics into television's first science fiction family saga, the channel announced.

CNN.com - 'World's unsexiest man' named - Apr 19, 2006

BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- Comedian Gilbert Gottfried, the voice of the Aflac duck in television commercials for the insurer, was crowned "unsexiest man in the world" by an alternative newspaper Tuesday.

"The parrot-voiced, pickle-faced comic is to sexy what Kryptonite is to Superman," The Boston Phoenix wrote.

Hey, c'mone now. Leave him alone! Gilbert is one of the coolest charecter actors around. He is also one of my favorite Disney characters of all time, Iago the parrot in Alladin. Jeesh, at least they could have put Steve Buccemi ahead of him! Also a great actor and all around cool guy, but he truly is one interesting looking man :-D