February 20, 2004

» Deeply unconvincing BBC report that txtpr0n passes the Turing Test

But the best candidate for passing the Turing test is the Natachata program that conducts smutty conversations via text messages.

Regular users of pornographic SMS chat may be shocked to find out that they are swapping dirty talk with machines rather than young women and men

» Massive planetoid found past Pluto

The largest object to be discovered in the Solar System since Pluto was found in 1930 was spotted by a sky survey on Tuesday.

News of the hulking object leaked out on Thursday before the researchers at Caltech could pin down the giant's size and orbit.

Tentatively called 2004 DW, the object lies beyond Neptune in the mysterious Kuiper Belt. This shadowy belt is a collection of primordial icy bodies which circle our Sun and are thought to be the remnants of planetary formation.

» Spectacular supernova remnant

The snap shot indicates that the supernova blast wave continues to impact a pre-existing, one light-year wide ring of material, and the nascent central supernova remnant continues to expand. Like pearls on a cosmic necklace, bright hot spots produced as the blast wave heats material up to millions of degrees began to appear on the ring in the mid 1990s and have been followed across the spectrum by astronomers ever since.

» 5,201 ways to say goodbye. The NYT has a good piece

Still not satisfied with pool-filled voids on the site of the twin towers? Count your blessings. It could have been a monumental red question mark, a geodesic steel egg, a glowing apple spiked on a tapering spire, two ghostly white airliners with the victims' names inscribed on the seats or a steel column tilted open like a Pez dispenser to reveal a jumble of mangled artifacts.

» Fifty years ago today, Ike Eisenhower either met aliens or, uh, went to the dentist. Or died. You be the judge.

Includes a reference to James Mixson's must-read "A History of Dwight D. Eisenhower's Oral Health".

The Ike-met-with-ETs theory is advanced by Michael Salla, a former American University professor who now runs the Peace Ambassador Program at AU's Center for Global Peace.

The Ike-went-to-the-dentist theory is advanced by the folks at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kan. And by James M. Mixson, a dentist, professor of dentistry and historian of presidential dental work.

Just to make things more intriguing: On the night in question, the Associated Press reported this: "Pres. Eisenhower died tonight of a heart attack in Palm Springs."

Two minutes later, the AP retracted that bulletin and reported that Ike was still alive.

Indeed, Ike was alive. And he continued living until 1969. But in the decades since his death, his activities on the night of Feb. 20, 1954, have become fodder for strange theories about alien beings.

» Degrading the Muppets: Exhibit 1; Exhibit 2