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Here’s some good news. The Coffee Czar has a web log of his own: Word from the Czar. Great used links, gathered from around the web and published on the cheap from the man who brought you The Ring and other classic tales.

I’ve enjoyed reading Clay Shirky’s writings in FEED for some time. Here is his website: Clay Shirky’s Internet Writings. This is the leverage that the net gives you. If you find a writer that you like, you can go straight to the source.

I was poking around in the all-but-defunct (but nevertheless still cool) Mappa Mundi magazine where I came across a review of the wonderwalker by Marek Walczak and Martin Wattenberg. Martin Wattenberg is one of my heroes, plus I like the concept of wunderkammern, so off I went. The actual wonderwalker applet isn’t so impressive, but the motivation and ambition it shows are admirable. These are very good ideas that are going to work somewhere real soon.

Wunderkammern, or wonder-cabinets, are collections of oddities or, more ambitiously, concrete classifications of knowledge in compact form. They were popular in the Renaissance (see Giulio Camillo’s Memory Theater) and they make an appealing metaphor for the web. For a modern wunderkammer, check out the

I like the Space.com website. I was reading a fun article there about supercavitating supersonic submarine submunitions (bullets that travel faster than sound underwater). Then I got sucked into The Mars Face, Eros’ Heart: The Real Story Behind Mysterious Space Photos. Remember the mysterious Mars Face? We went back with a Polaroid, and he’s much uglier than we thought.

Something like the Anoto pen is going to take off. There are a number of others out there. Between the “true” pen interface and much better voice recognition systems, I believe in the hype that it’s going to dramatically improve the value of any given computer.

I wrote a paper (PDF format) on a MATLAB Programming Contest that got accepted at CHI 2001 in Seattle. Maybe I’ll see you there.

Take a break and read my latest story. It’s the solution to the puzzle “Write a Valentine’s story involving scissors, a trombone, and Kraft American cheese singles.”

You look terrific! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Did I sound insincere just now? I’m terribly sorry. But you know I meant it: you really do look terrific. It’s only a shame that sincerity is so often a casualty of Valentine’s day that my credibility has been stretched to its credit limit. Oh well.

Okay, I suppose it’s all very well, this Valentine’s day talk, but I will admit you could do with a little bit more time in the gym. Only a little bit, and then you’re perfect. Not that you don’t look terrific, though. Even so: always remember that you do deserve the flattery that you receive on Valentine’s day, even if the flatterer doesn’t realize it. And if you don’t have anyone around to flatter you today, listen to me: you look terrific! Honestly!

“Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass” is an honest-to-goodness view from the trenches of American higher education. I’ve taken lab classes like this. The object is to converge on the right answer at any cost. Any enlightenment is purely coincidental.

BioSpace.com is an impressive biotech news site.