Robert Cialdini's science of persuasion.

Those impressive profilers you see on TV and the movies? In reality, they're not quite as effective as they're portrayed—not by a long shot.

<I>"Rave on down through the corridors,<BR>
"Rave on words on printed page!"</I>&mdash;Van Morrison, "Rave On John Donne"

The Cassini-Huygens probe has been recording the sounds of Saturn. My cats, who are thoroughly bored by everything audio (other than the gear's heat-generating properties), were quite agitated by these sounds. Good to know, <I>hee hee hee</I>.

The <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/1295awsi">announcement in October 1995</A> of the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) set the hearts of audiophiles and music lovers pounding. Although primarily a digital video and computer-data storage format, DVD's massive capacity could be applied to a "super CD" audio-only disc. Finally we would be liberated from the musical limitations of the CD's 16-bit word length, 44.1kHz sampling rate, and two-channel format. We were tantalized by reports of 96kHz sampling rate, 24-bit word length, and multichannel playback. Digital redemption appeared to be just around the corner.

I believe I've linked to this in the past, but golly, I get a kick out of it&mdash;and it's coming soon!

I'm solidly hooked on <A HREF="http://www.joshreads.com/"><I>The Comics Curmudgeon</I></A> and I have to confess that the newly revived <I>Cracked</I> website is a guilty pleasure, so when the two get together to describe the "Five Most Unintentionally Hilarious Comic Strips," you <I>know</I> I'm there.