Holy Smokes.

Top Hedge Fund Managers Earn Over $240 Million

James Simons, a 69-year-old publicity shy former math professor, uses complex computer-driven mathematical models to make bets on stocks, bonds and commodities, among other things.

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J.N. Bowles/Bloomberg News, right

James Simons, left, earned $1.7 billion in 2006, more than any other hedge fund manager. Kenneth Griffin, right, made $1.4 billion.

Crow IQ - a new wrinkle

Click to activate.

Kaye effect - dancing shampoo

WARNING: Turn sound down. Music extremely obnoxious.

Andrew Sullivan on Blacksburg and Baghdad

One Reminder 17 Apr 2007 10:48 am Imagine that this kind of massacre happened every day. Imagine a police force that was far too small to even respond to most of them. Imagine this occurring repeatedly for years until the perpetrators and their accomplices became the de facto power-brokers throughout the land. Imagine the shootings also being accompanied by the brutal torture of victims. Imagine families never having finality on whether their own siblings or parents or children have been murdered or not. This is Iraq today. Now think of the justified rage many feel at the VT campus police chief and university president for misjudgments. Now imagine them presiding over several more massacres in the same place. Ask yourself: why do we not feel as enraged by those responsible for security in Iraq? Are those victims not human beings too? Are they not children and mothers and fathers and sons? Are we not ultimately responsible for them, having destroyed the institutions of order in their country? Now go watch John Bolton tell the victims to go help themselves.

Medieval tech support

Animaris Rhinoceros Transport

And go here to see it in motion.

Lovesick swan

"The swan that fell in love with a pedal boat is back courting its plastic lover after spending the winter in a local zoo.

Swans choose a partner for life but the rare Black Australian swan nicknamed Petra made the mistake of falling for a pedal boat designed to look like a swan.

And when Petra's pedal boat lover refused to fly south for the winter Petra also remained, a move that could have killed her as the cold weather arrived.

In the end though local zoo chiefs took pity on the swan and gave her and her boat boyfriend a place to spend the winter, and this week the pair were once again on the lake together.

According to biologists in Muenster, north-western Germany, Petra has been circling its plastic lover, staring endlessly at it and making crooning noises, all the typical signs of a swan in love.

The boat in the meantime is still being hired out to families who want to picnic on the Aasee lake - where the star-crossed lovers have become a tourist attraction.

Zoo director Joerg Adler said: "This arrangement could go on for ever, the swan obviously believes it has found a partner for life."

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2264994.html?menu=

Now you know

From the Times Sky Watch, Week of April 8 (4/8/07)

"... reddish Betelgeuse, orangish Aldebaran and yellowish Pollux ...
brilliant topaz Arcturus ... Even as you observe these stellar colors,
do you notice that they are only recognizable in the brightest stars?
That is because of the physiology of the eye -- more specifically,
the fact that the color sensors on the retina, the cones, are
insensitive to faint light. Under dim light the rods in the retina
take over. But their greater light sensitivity is offset by their
colorblindness. That is why we see all faint stars as white. But
if we look at them through binoculars or a telescope, their
amplified brightness stimulates the cones, which detect their
color.

Channelling Tatouine

(Ethiopian tanks in Somalia. New York Times, April 8 2007)

That's my paper!

(Wednesday March 14, 2007)