The Antikythera Machine

New Scientist (the liveliest of the journals) and The Guardian posted this video of the rebuilt "Antikythera Mechanism", a machine found in a Greek shipwreck some 2,000 years old.
There's an argument on Wired as to whether it's a computer or a clock. Since it predicts points in time-- like calculating upcoming dates for the Olympics-- I say it's a computer. (The x-ray shows the inner workings of the original device.) I've been interested in ancient technology all my life-- Hero's steam engine, the citric juice battery used by the Egyptians for electroplating-- and seeing this mystery restored and deciphered is a wondrous thing.

"A Good Many Things Go Around in the Dark Besides Santa Claus." (Herbert Hoover)

Michael (Mike) Connell (standing above left), the I.T. guy for Karl Rove and the Bush administration, the fellow who "lost" those Justice Department e-mails, who admitted that the 2004 vote in Ohio had been rigged, has died in a small plane crash, leaving a wife Heather and four children. Probably an accident, but certainly the most convenient death for an outgoing administration since William Casey slipped into a coma during the Iran-Contra affair.

Does TIAA-CREF Hate America?

Okay, has anyone else noticed that the customers targeted by TIAA-CREF in their commercials-- "people in the academic, medical, cultural, and research fields"-- are the citizens most likely to be targeted as political enemies of the Bush administration? What does this MEAN?