MedScape: Visualization Tools in Clinical Medicine.  "The practice of clinical medicine relies heavily on pattern recognition -- the ability to recognize patterns in the presentation of patient data and thereby formulate a diagnosis."  Automating that pattern recognition is what I do :)

Humans are unbelievable pattern recognizers.  Want to see yourself in action?

"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the first and last ltteres are at the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can still raed it wouthit a porbelm. This is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe."  [ via Joi Ito ]

Impressive, eh?  We do the same thing with pictures, only more so.

Speaking of visualizing, John Robb notes the Viewsonic VP2290b.  Features 3840x2400 pels on a 22" wide screen, or 204dpi.  "At 18" away, the human eye can't tell the difference between an image on it and the real thing."  I can visualize myself using one!  Too bad I can't visualize writing a $6,000 check.  But these things always become less expensive...

And visualize this;Introducing Heliodisplay, a projector that displays videos into thin air.  Wow.

The 2nd Annual Space Elevator conference is taking place in Santa Fe.  "A space elevator is a revolutionary way of getting from Earth into space, a ribbon with one end attached to Earth on a floating platform located at the equator and the other end in space beyond geosynchronous orbit (35,800 km altitude)."  Based on an idea from Arthur C. Clarke, who is speaking at the conference.

From Slashdot: "Democrats have just introduced the Space Exploration Act of 2003 to the U.S. House of Representatives; the author is Nick Lampson of Texas, with 26 co-sponsors.  The bill sets a vision and goals for the future of NASA, beyond the Low Earth Orbit of the Space Station and Shuttle, outlining a series of incremental steps for human spaceflight.  These include development of reusable spacecraft for carrying people around in the Earth-Moon vicinity, including to the nearby Lagrange points; sending people to an Earth-crossing asteroid; establishing a lunar base, and sending people to Mars with a base on a Martian moon by 2024."  Man, is this a great time to be alive, or what?

I noted the other day I'm reading A Traveler's Guide to Mars.  Maybe I'll be able to put it to actual use in my lifetime!

A great post on Intelligent Design vs. Evolution, by godless.  "Should we decide whether to teach things because they're 'plausible' to people?  Of course not."  You know where I stand on this...  The biggest argument against ID is that is isn't necessary!  Essentially Occam's Razor.  Natural selection all by it very own self can explain everything.  So why postulate intelligent design?

From Kevin at VentureBlog, Snidely Whiplash And The Liquidation Preference.  I love it.

Clay Shirkey discusses the persistent failure of micropayments in Fame vs. Fortune.  So good I probably would have paid $.25 to read it.

Scott McCloud posted this rebuttal.  Not only does he write less well than Clay, he has a weaker point to defend.  Interesting nonetheless...

The main point here is that "free" is qualitatively different from "inexpensive".  I believe this to be observably true.  Look at the vast amounts of work people perform to get "free" music and even more work they perform to get "free" movies.  Music now costs $1/track, and movies can be rented for $2 from Netflix.  But people like free...

Wired: Disney Animates Dalí's Flick.  "In 1946, Walt Disney and Salvador Dalí, in one of cinema's oddest collaborations, teamed up on a short film called Destino.  But Disney's studio ran into financial trouble and put the unfinished film on the shelf.  Now, 57 years later, a team of Disney animators has finished what Dalí started."  This looks wild!

Nokia is coming out with a phone that lets you print your very own faceplates.  What a great idea!  Think this won't catch on?  Consider the huge ringtone business...

The 51st Carnival of the Vanities is up, I haven't checked it out yet...  but you should.

Do you love ice cream?  I do...  Anyway we're not the only ones: Bolshoi Theater Struggles with 'Heavy' Ballerina.  "Volochkova, who is taller than most ballerinas, admits being partial to ice cream although she opts for the lower-fat option of frozen yogurt.  'I love ice cream so much that I can't imagine life without it,' she said in a statement handed out at the news conference."  I found the picture at left on the web (click for larger pic).  I examined it closely, and she doesn't look too heavy to me :)