Rudy Rucker
Rudy Rucker is a writer, a mathematician and a computer scientist. Born in Kentucky in 1946, Rucker moved to Silicon Valley when he turned 40. Rucker has published twenty-five books, primarily science-fiction and popular science. He was an early cyberpunk and an editor at Mondo 2000. He often writes SF in a style is characterized as transreal. His most recent novels were Frek and the Elixir, a far-future epic about a boy's galactic quest to restore Earth's ecology and As Above So Below, a historical novel based on the life of the sixteenth century painter Peter Bruegel. Rucker is a professor emeritus of computer science at San Jose State University, where he created a number of freeware programs relating to chaos, artificial life, cellular automata, higher dimensions, and computer games. He is presently working on The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul, a nonfiction book about computers and the nature of reality. Rucker's website can be found at www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/rucker or at www.rudyrucker.com.

Three hearty helpings of Web Zen. Site about fruit pie superheroes (comic book product placements of Hostess snack cakes); wacky online short about pie and heartache; and the definitive test of whether or not
iPod is the best thing since sliced bread. Thanks, Frank D.!
"iPod vs. Sliced Bread ROUND 6: Which one makes a better date? Well, neither one needs much grub, so you’re already saving some pennies for your Saturday afternoons at the arcade. Sliced bread’s a better kisser (tastes good and it’s flexible) but the iPod’s got a more toned body. Plus you’ll never get into any good clubs with sliced bread. WINNER: iPOD."
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Nevada Volcano Nukes? posted by Xeni Jardin at 8:48:03 AM | permalink
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See You in Court, Satan posted by Xeni Jardin at 8:28:26 AM | permalink
Mobile Swarming posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:32:04 PM | permalink
You Were Expecting, What, a Vibrator Bomb? posted by Xeni Jardin at 9:34:48 PM | permalink
Anti-Gravity Tech Unstealthed posted by Xeni Jardin at 1:44:57 PM | permalink
Geek Couture Bling-Bling posted by Xeni Jardin at 1:05:42 PM | permalink
C'est Chic/Está Chido posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:36:05 PM | permalink
Dirty Bomb Fixins On The Loose in Baja posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:20:16 PM | permalink
Passé: Egosurfing. posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:26:50 AM | permalink

Special crimes, special times, and America's penchant for fine prime-time slime. I'm thinking it all points to one logical conclusion. We need a new breed of extreme reality-TV shows featuring corporate scandal figures in freaky battles: naked mealworm wrestling, pig-bladder-pie-eating-contests, dance contests with Janet Reno. The object of the games would be to win, like, clemency or a weekend getaway in one of their reposessed Florida mansions or something. Former shareholders who lost money get to referee. Pink-slipped pedo priests can perform live cavity searches during halftime. Work with me here. I'm seeing a kind of, you know, Gladiator meets Jackass meets Moneyline kind of aesthetic. People, this thing has legs. Who's down with me?
What would happen if one of the seven dormant volcanoes near Nevada's planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump were to wake up? This article says they could propel lava at 600mph toward canisters of spent fuel, effectively creating radioactive lava flows and a bighugesupersizedfreakin' mess.

An unsuspecting dompe scavenger found that vial of iridium that San Diego/Tijuana border authorities were looking for--in a trash heap. "It could have been common criminals who did not understand what was inside, or someone who did know and wanted to harm the company, said Eduardo Sandoval, commander of the Baja California police in Tecate. The box was taken to the military base in Tecate, and without his permission, 'nobody can touch it, nobody, nobody, nobody.'" Link

USAToday ran this story today with more background on the alneda.com item I blogged here last week--first spotted on Cryptome.org. Story does not include any analysis of allegations that Messner's less-than-altruistic motivation for the domain grab may have been to increase traffic to his porn domains.
Online examples of kooky-but-true lawsuits brought against Satan (and/or God) in US courts. Here's one against Satan and His Staff (PDF), then there's I Am The Beast Six Six Six (PDF), here's a third with 300 plaintiffs including Mr. Lucifer (*.txt) as well as the State of Israel, George Bush Sr., FBI, CIA, etc.
This WP article explores a new wireless culture-meme known as swarming, "the unintended consequence of people, cell phones in hand, learning that they can coordinate instantly and leaderlessly... Swarming is also leading to such wondrous social developments as 'time-softening,' 'cell dancing,' 'life skittering,' 'posse pinging,' 'drunk dialing,' and 'smart mobs.'"
A woman is suing Delta Air Lines, alleging she was publicly humiliated when security screeners on terror alert demanded she remove a sex toy from her luggage after it started vibrating. Link
Janes' reports today that Boeing is developing anti-gravity propulsion technologies at its Phantom Works facility in Seattle with an obscure Russian scientist. Reportedly, Russian officialdom is not amused with the project known as GRASP, or
Gravity Research for Advanced Space Propulsion. "'If gravity modification is real,' [the leaked Boeing document] says, 'it will alter the entire aerospace business.'" Thanks, JP.

Jewelry designer Catrina Gregory creates shiny, pretty things in L.A. for both boys and girls. Her new online store is here. Above: the remarkably comfortable "double happiness" ring. Characters can be imprinted below, on the hidden underside. Nothing proclaims shameless nerd-love like a titanium knuckle ring inscribed "31337 h4xx0r." Fo sheezy.

Tijuana-based designer Eduardo Chavarin makes super-cool (in Baja slang: cool="chido") t-shirts, now available here, online. Tongue-in-cheek chic meets border culture kitsch. Check out the "tijuana" tee, "naco" tee (naco = "ignorant-mullet-wearing-dweeb"), and my favorite: "Estar Guars."
I'm working near the San Diego/Tijuana border today. And evidently, so is a teeny-tiny vial of very radioactive iridium-192, which the border patrol says has been missing since Saturday. Oops!

Future Cool:
Social Cluster Analysis.
Namebase is an online resource for data mining on politics, corporations, intelligence, crime, and culture. Their graphic cluster analysis engine Proximity Search produces diagrams of social network connections to the public figure of your choosing. Enter "Gates, William," "Ashcroft, John" "Rumsfeld, Donald," or "Bush, George W" for hours of endless conspiracy theory thrills. Thanks, DP!