Today our excellent crew of carpenters put the roof beam in place, and we celebrated in traditional style by hanging a pine wreath on the end of it.

Penn Jillette goes way beyond mere atheism.
NPR: There is No God

Buddhist Tradition Thickens Parts of the Brain

Brain imaging of regular working folks who meditate regularly revealed increased thickness in cortical regions related to sensory, auditory and visual perception, as well as internal perception — the automatic monitoring of heart rate or breathing, for example.
Encouragingly, the study’s subjects were ordinary folks (not monks) who meditated for [...]

My latest story for Technology Review (on their brand spankin’ new web site, which is about 30 times faster than the old one):
Esperanto for Toasters
The ZigBee wireless standard could teach a common language to your lights, appliances, doors, and even your cell phone.

In the not-too-distant future, your cell phone might become the key to your home. By transmitting a signal to a sensor, your phone will announce your arrival and the front door will unlock.
And that’s just the first step. Transmitters in the door will send signals elsewhere in your house, switching on the lights, turning up [...]

Sure, intelligent design is bad science, because its central propositions can’t be tested — more precisely, there is no test that could show them to be false. But doesn’t it give you an extra frisson of schadenfreude to know that ID is also bad religion? J. M. Tyree points out ID’s theological underpinnings, and summarizes [...]

by Clara (transcribed, and annotated, by a teacher at preschool)

Once upon a time I rided a bike to school. Cause it is hard to get to school on the freeway cause there is traffic. Traffic is so you can’t get through. It never ever lets you. Traffic is cars and they make sure you don’t [...]

Link: Mobile Film School
Link broken? Try the Wayback Machine.

Palm lovers, get out your hankies. Thisstory is a real tearjerker.
The company that single-handedly createdthe personal digital assistant with the Pilot 1000in 1996 is at a crossroads. Down one path liesWindows. Down the other path: stagnation,decay, and perhaps death.
If you buy a Treo next year, there’s a goodchance that it will be based on the [...]