The Final Scene from Strauss' Salome -- as you have NEVER seen it performed before!

The Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem -- dedicated to the greater glory of Nike.

Google Video: interview with Richard Feynman

Good morning, class. Pop quiz! Please prove each of the following assertions about integers. Use the back of the page, if needed. You may begin.

From Missing laptop found in ET hunt:

the returned computer contained 20 tracks of rap music with unintelligible lyrics, possibly from the person who stole the computer or bought it on the underground. "It's really, really horrid rap," [James] Melin said. "It makes Ludacris look like Pavarotti."

Won't he be sorry when those lyrics turn out to be an ultimatum for total planetary surrender, followed by 19 tracks detailing the consequences for failure to respond immediately. Where are Agents J and K when you need them?

YouTube: Rachmaninov needs Big Hands

Become an Opera Buff in 10 minutes! Including, for each of the "Top 10 Operas" profiled:

• the Death Toll ("who dies and how")
• what to say in a loud voice at the bar in the lobby during intermission
• what to say under your breath in the pub after the show

Massachusetts State Senator Scott "Beefcake" Brown Talks Dirty to Captive Teen Audience!

When I first read about Scott Brown's antics at the King Philip Regional High School on 2/13/07, namely, using the coercive power of the State (via some obliging school administrators) to have his not-yet-voting-age critics rounded up and brought before him for some collective punishment, he struck me as just another run-of-the-mill vindictive, authoritarian, homophobic bully. But after reading his comments that:

"I felt really good about it. And now I find out I'm being portrayed as a vile-speaking hate-monger. It's pretty saddening. I feel very badly that I'm being victimized here"

and that

The school committee wants Brown to apologize for using profanity at the assembly. He said he has not decided what to do about the committee's position, adding "obviously they have an agenda." The committee never asked to meet with him before taking its vote, he said.

...I begin to sense the presence of Malignant Narcissicism. And I'm not the only one. I'd like to know what would have happened to any of the King Philip High School students in Joe Ferreira's history classes (and only those classes) if they had refused to attend Senator Topman's special presentation, or if they had walked out when he started spewing obscenities at them. While Senator You-Talkin-to-ME? may not deserve to die, he certainly deserves to be crushed by a landslide in his next bid for re-election. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at Massachusetts Republican Party headquarters last week, as, no doubt with tears in their eyes, they drew a thick black line through Brown's name as a possible challenger to John Kerry in 2008.

I can't believe I missed Darwin Day on Mon Feb 12! The Discovery Institute certainly didn't. And how come there isn't a Patrick Matthew Day, or an Alfred Russel Wallace Day?

Flashback to March 6, 2003: Hillary Clinton presents her views on going to war, Saddam, and WMD to members of Code Pink. This was 5 months after her vote on the Iraq war resolution, and 2 weeks before the invasion began. Worth watching through to the end, where she goes "off script" for a moment.

From Substitute Teacher Faces Jail Time Over Spyware:

A 40-year-old former substitute teacher from Connecticut is facing prison time following her conviction for endangering students by exposing them to pornographic material displayed on a classroom computer.

Local prosecutors charged that the teacher was caught red-handed surfing for porn in the presence of seventh graders. The defense claimed the graphic images were pop-up ads generated by spyware already present on the computer prior to the teacher's arrival. The jury sided with the prosecution and convicted her of four counts of endangering a child, a crime that brings a punishment of up to 10 years per count. She is due to be sentenced on March 2.

From Was porn-surfing teacher wrongly found guilty?:

- This was a classroom computer, not her personal computer. She was substitute teaching for the day.

- A forensic examination by an expert, W. Herbert Horne, showed that the machine was infected with porn-spewing spyware. All the evidence suggests that these were popups created by a piece of malware on the computer. Surpringly, the prosecution admits that it made no search made for spyware during its investigation.

- The forensic expert also found that here were multiple user accounts on the computer, and porn had been on the computer for quite some time.

- David Smith, the prosecutor, said that Amero intended to access the pornographic sites because she had to "physically click" to "get to those sites". The statement is so patently wrong it boggles the mind. As anyone here knows, when a popup occurs, it gets logged as a normal website visit (as well as the graphic material itself) and no “physical click” is necessary. Fwiw -- the "graphic images" in question were all in the Temporary Internet Files directory.

- Much of the case apparently came down to the prosecution's self-righteous statement that "she should have turned off the computer", which is ridiculous considering the circumstances.

Amero was a substitute teacher under strict orders by the school administrators not to turn off the computer.

You can contribute to Julie Amero's Defense Fund via her blog.

You can contact Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell and ask her to provide leadership by pardoning Julie Amero and expunging her conviction.

Google on hot seat for link to film pirating:

"Among the keywords Google reportedly sold to two websites accused of promoting film piracy are 'bootleg movie download' and 'download Harry Potter movie.'

I'm hoping that soon, this page will be among the search results returned for the above phrases, which will unleash an unbounded recursion that will suck in the entire Web like a MONSTER BLACK HOLE IN CYBERSPACE!!! Whoa, that's strong coffee.

Get a week's worth of the cutting-edge buzzwords in a single sitting by watching "Innovation and Growth in a Flat World" where Thomas "The World is Flat" Friedman and a panel of open-source ubergeeks hold forth on "how web 2.0, open source, mash-ups, and global collaboration challenge conventional business models and [...] how innovation thrives in a world that demands ever more agility, openness and collaboration".

Don't tell this guy about the Ludoviko Technique. From NPR: Judge Sentences Loud Drivers to Opera:

The citizens of one Florida county were fed up with loud car stereos rattling their windows and disrupting their sleep -- so they passed a law against blaring music. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Dade County Judge Jeffrey Swartz about his technique to encourage volume control. He gives violators the option to sit in his chamber and listen to opera for two and a half hours.

First offense: "Trial By Jury" by Gilbert and Sullivan
Second offense: "Tosca" by Puccini ("You don't want to end up like Cavaradossi, now do you? Don't make me call the Baron...")
Third offense, and the gloves come off: the Complete Works of Richard Wagner, with NO BATHROOM BREAKS!

Get your nullomers and peptoprimes right here! From New Scientist: "The DNA so dangerous it does not exist":

Could there be forbidden sequences in the genome - ones so harmful that they are not compatible with life? One group of researchers thinks so. Unlike most genome sequencing projects which set out to search for genes that are conserved within and between species, their goal is to identify "primes": DNA sequences and chains of amino acids so dangerous to life that they do not exist.
[...]
"There must be some DNA or protein sequences that are not compatible with life, perhaps because they bind some essential cellular component, for example, and have therefore been selected out of circulation. There may also be some that are lethal in some species, but not others."

Or in some genders or races or particular individuals...

[...]
the next step is to test 20 of the peptoprimes in bacteria and human cells to see whether they have any effect such as causing death or provoking an immune reaction.
[...]
Further down the line there is the possibility of constructing a "suicide gene" to code for deadly amino acid primes. It could be attached to genetically modified organisms and activated to destroy them at a later date if they turned out to be dangerous.

Like politicians?
Sounds like a job for grid computing. It gives "searching for primes" a whole new meaning.
I can hardly wait for the Lethal-DNA-Sequences@Home screensaver.

From Destination: Love by Eric K. Arnold:

For only $60 per couple, Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland [California] is offering would-be intergalactic mack daddies and mack mamas the chance to live out their “Space Oddity” or Barbarella-esque fantasies with a Love Mission to Mars. Although a voyage to Venus (or, for some, Uranus) might seem more appropriate considering the occasion, Mars isn’t a bad place to visit, so long as you don’t mind a little crater dust on your space boots.

What? No half-price discount for the ladies? Don't they know that Mars Needs Women?

Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers. WARNING: Kids: Don't Try This At (Somebody Else's) Home!

From Revolving World:

The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

And the winners are...

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs
2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent
6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp
8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller
10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline
11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam
12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists
13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist
14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there
16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Harry Potter's fate revealed -- NOT!:

"Speculation has been rife that Rowling, who became the world's first billion-dollar author on the back of the success of the Harry Potter books and spin-off movies, may kill Harry off at the end of book seven. She said last year that at least two characters would die in the final book, and that she understood authors' desire to kill off the main character of a successful series. US authors John Irving and Stephen King were sufficiently concerned about the fictional hero's fate to urge Rowling to spare him."

Ah, Harry, we hardly new ye...

Arrested 'guerrilla marketers' make no apologies:

"'It's clear the intent was to get attention by causing fear and unrest that there was a bomb in that location,' Assistant Attorney General John Grossman said at their arraignment."

No, John, that wasn't their intent and you know it. But anything to help wipe the egg off Mayor Menino's and Governor Patrick's faces, eh?

TWO INDIVIDUALS ARRAIGNED TODAY IN CONNECTION WITH HOAX DEVICES FOUND IN AND AROUND BOSTON YESTERDAY:

This morning, two men were arraigned in connection with the hoax devices found in and around the Boston area yesterday. Sean Stevens, age 28, of Charlestown, and Peter Berdovsky [aka Zebbler], age 27, of Arlington, were each charged with placing a hoax device (Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 266, Section 102A½), and disorderly conduct.
[...]
Both men are due back in Charlestown District Court on March 7, 2007, for a pretrial conference.

No, Martha, they weren't "hoax devices" (spin, spin!) and you know it. Contact info:

• Assistant Attorney General John Grossman: (617) 727-2200 x2842
• Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, (617) 727-2200, ago@ago.state.ma.us, http://www.ago.state.ma.us

Schoolyard penis seen from space:

"Despite the school re-seeding [sic!] the area, the penis has turned up on satellite image search engines because a photo was taken before the new grass could conceal the appendage.

The unnamed pair of year 11 pupils from Bellemoor school for boys in Southampton, burned the 6-metre (20ft) phallus into the grass as an end of term joke."

Whatever will the aliens think?

MyFox Boston: Suspects in Marketing Ploy Released on Bail:

"After posting $2,500 bail, Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens went before reporters outside the courtroom. But instead of discussing the case, the two men launched into a nonsensical discussion of hair styles.

'What we really want to talk about today -- it's kind of important to some people -- it's haircuts of the 1970s,' Berdovsky said."

Oh my GOD! It's a CODED MESSAGE!! To... to... to those IRANIAN AGENTS IN IRAQ!!! Quick -- better NUKE TEHRAN before they GIT US!!!!