Coincidence Design is a service for single, fit, well-heeled men (women and fat guys need not apply). If there's some unattainable babe you're fascinated with, they'll stalk her, profile her, make sure she's not a drunk or a psycho, and give you an in-depth briefing on her tastes and interests, then engineer a "coincidental" meeting where you can charm her with your stolen knowledge, arrange future dates, and eventually get married. Hard to imagine that anything this unsavory is anything but a hoax. Link Discuss (Thanks, kirstie!)

Nice little profile of retro-style artist Shag. Link Discuss

An Ottawa artist has whipped up a bunch of cold-war-era Civil Defense posters and put 'em up around the city. Link Discuss (Thanks, Jude!)

Some bloggers are organizing a blogging conference in Vegas next August. Sounds like a lot of fun -- I love meatspace gatherings of virtual groups. Link Discuss (Thanks, kd!)

Gallery of weird old comic book covers back in the days when they published comics about all sorts of things and not just superheroes. Link Discuss

A guide to hangover cures from around the world. Happy New Year!

• Tripe soup (turkish)
• Eine Chance fuer die Saueferleber
• South African Hangover Cures
• Kudzu - The Chinese Cure
• The Russian Cure
• Korean Tea Touted as Hangover Cure ve function
• Thai drinking Food
• White Willow Bark
• Die Dampframme im Hirn
• German Hangover Food
• JASSA-The Senegalese Hangover Food
• Thai Restitution Soup
• THC in Lebensmitteln
• ROTE RADIKALE
• Johanniskraut hilft gegen Alkoholsucht
• The Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrom

Link Discuss (via Fark)

Here's a concept robot dog that runs Windows. No screenshots, unfortunately. Link Discuss (Thanks, Michael!)

The NYT polls six legal experts for a review of Internet law in 2001. Link Discuss (via /.)

The Linksys WAP11 -- the cheapest, most versatile wireless access point around -- has an undocumented software switch that puts its output into overdrive, vastly (and illegally) increasing the range and power of the device. Link Discuss (via /.)

Bruce Sterling's doing a public ongoing interview on the WELL.

You wanna read a real futurist, check out this blurb I just wrote for Jules Verne's latest English-language translation, INVASION OF THE SEA.

"Mr Verne's latest techno-thriller boldly confronts the menace of Islamic terrorism. He has topnotch chops in technical accuracy, with endearing dashes of broad humor and a keen eye for telling detail. Let me be the first to predict this: someday this French novelist will be known worldwide!"

And it's true, because Verne's book really *is* about Islamic terrorism, specifically, French engineers versus fanatic desert saboteurs in North Africa. Some "wars" are older than others. Bin Laden thinks that war been going on since the 12th century, but, you know, how often do the rest of us bother to notice?

Link Discuss

The USPTO is moving to an all-digital archive, and they're tossing old patents as they digitize them, creating a bonanza for dumpster divers.

A few random swoops into the bins produce aged prints of patent documents dated from the 1880's and 90's, with spidery intricate sketches of inventions.

Four of the reproductions have the name T. A. Edison at the top of the page. That's Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of the light bulb and the holder of more than 1,000 United States patents. One of the sketches retrieved from the dust bin of bureaucracy is of Mr. Edison's "dynamo electric machine or motor," patented March 15, 1892.

This is not Mr. Rabin's first dive into the trash bins. He was there a few days ago with a friend. "We started taking out ones that just appeared to be old, that just seemed to be interesting, that was something you just can't see going into the trash," said Mr. Rabin, the president of a patent research firm.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Steve!)

Universal's Cactus Shield copy-protection software can be "circumvented" by playing protected discs on a DVD drive/player, as opposed to a plain old CD player/drive. Then you can rip the tracks to MP3. Link Discuss

JK Rowling got married last week. Link Discuss

YEAH! Mena at Dollarshort has scanned this 1963 National Geographic pictorial/historical on Disneyland and posted it to her site. This is really fabulous stuff, with tons of material on the upcoming World's Fair attractions (espcially Mr. Lincoln!) and photos to die for. Link Discuss (Thanks, Mena!)

Tired of fingerprints and scratches marring the surface of your iPod? Try waxing it with car-wax!

Of course it is important to not wax over the headphone and firewire jacks as well as the buttons and scroll wheel. Use particular care in waxing around the buttons as not to get any wax in between the case and the buttons that?s where the q-tips come in handy

Link Discuss