Paul Hillier decided to record Stockhausen's <I>Stimmung</I>. The composer had a few few thoughts.

I'm a sucker for blimps, so I dream of a day when our skies are filled by them. <I>Air & Space</I> looks at the technological challenges and possibilities of that eventuality.

It's time for a new round of "Shakespeare debunking," arguing that the son of an illiterate laborer could never have written works so full of science, history, legal shenanigans, and aristocratic mores&mdash;that it must have been a cabal, one that included at least a few nobles.

Richard Sherman strolls down memory lane, telling us what it was like to work on the last Walt Disney animated feature, <I>The Jungle Book</I>. Well, there were more cartoons from Disney, but <I>TJB</I> was Walt's last.

I wasted&mdash;er, enjoyably spent&mdash;the weekend reading Phil and Kaja Foglio's <I>Girl Genius</I> online. Now I've ordered the printed books, and I recommend you do the same. Here's a taste of the Oz meeets steampunk comic. Order all six volumes&mdash;or spend the next three days online. At which point, you'll order all six volumes anyway, so save a step.

I've been spending the last few days exploring <I>Riley Rock Index</I>, billed as music's megaportal&mdash;justifiably, I believe.

Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy gives us a fascinating overview of Islam's long and variable engagement with science. "The question I want to pose—perhaps as much to myself as to anyone else—is this: With well over a billion Muslims and extensive material resources, why is the Islamic world disengaged from science and the process of creating new knowledge?"