Wes Phillips

That's what a newly discovered 1763 copy of an earlier map is said to "prove." Has anybody else out there read Kim Stanley Robinson's alternative history <I>The Years of Rice and Salt</I>? It's a good 'un.

Honda made the <A HREF="http://www.metacafe.com/watch/7521/cool_honda_commercial/">best commercial ever</A>. Now it has made one that's almost as good. Call it a concerto for Civic and chorus.

Evidence that a Black Hole leaves a dent in space-time "just like a dimple in one's favorite spot on the sofa."<I>Right</I>, that's precisely the homey metaphor that immediately occurred to me. Isn't anybody else alarmed by alterations in reality as we perceive it? i mean, it is all about <I>me</I>, isn't it?

Apple's release of its latest version of the iTunes software for Macs on January 10 promised "stability and performance improvements" over the 6.0.1 version already in existence. It also included a new iTunes MiniStore feature that "watches" what you click on your library or playlist and, when you double-click on a selection to play it, changes its display to reflect "matches" you might consider purchasing. This means that iTunes 6.0.2 is sending your now-playing information to an outside server.

Certain ideas (or <I>memes</I> in Internet jargon) seem to achieve instantaneous critical mass, at least if you judge them by how frequently certain web URLs are transmitted among friends. One article that appeared in our inbox many times this week linked us to research by music psychologist Adrian North of the University of Leicester, who led a team of researchers who monitored 346 people for two weeks, evaluating how they <A HREF="http://www.toptechnews.com/news/Research-Claims-MP3s-Create-Apathy/stor… to music</A>.

Of course, being cats, Huckleberry and Bagheera said it to my luggage, not me.

Sleep inertia is a wonderful phrase, one I'm sure to add to my personal lexicon. "We found the cognitive skills of [some] test subjects were worse upon awakening than after extended sleep deprivation," researcher Kenneth Wright said. That's because in some of us, the cortical areas responsible for problem-solving take longer to wake up than other parts of the brain&mdash;as much as 12 hours, in my case.