The letter "i" is used to connect word elements (diversiform: divers-i-form) because it is the stem vowel of nouns and adjectives used in combination in Latin, as transferred to Middle English through French.

There's no link here; I just thought that was a neat bit of etymology.  

I have a theory about A Miracle of Science: it could be bunnies.  

An archaeological team in England, undertaking a dig over the course of several months, discovered that they were excavating not a Viking site but a 1940s patio. Among the medieval Nordic items unearthed were a World War II child's gas mask and a TV remote.  

Eratosthenes meets Tsiolkovsky: images of the sundial on Spirit.  

If you try this, write in and let us know how long you got grounded for. --Mark Sachs

27 January 2004

The Opportunity rover has landed smack in the middle of a crater on Mars, and the Spirit rover is slowly coming back into working order.  

A Miracle of Science: No matter how far humanity advances, we'll never evolve beyond irritating younger siblings.  

At over a dollar a pound, avocados attract thieves like guacamole attracts football fans.  
Jessica Gothie

Hot off the newswires, the walkthrough for Ikea: the Game.  

A little levity centering on Mars: Why did the Spirit rover stop responding for a while? Where did Spirit land?  

Your explanations are pure, one-hundred percent, weapons-grade bolognium! --Futurama

23 January 2004

Some communication has been re-established with the Spirit rover. Built NASA tough.  
Joe Foering

I'll bet German has a word that means "beautifully mad." English needs a word like that to describe the renaming of King County, Washington to...King County, Washington. The county was previously named after a slaveowner named William King, and was renamed after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  

You had me at "Death From Above." --Gloria Webber

22 January 2004

The sad record of Mars probe failures marches on: the Spirit rover has stopped communicating.  

A Miracle of Science now contains 100% of your MRDA of experimental art.  

Pokemon Buddha. Nothing more need be said.  

Want to see Roger Ebert go postal on a bad film?

I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.  

I've gotta handful of vertebrae and a headful of mad! --Steve Behling and Michael Stewart

21 January 2004

Two Worlds, One Sun.  

I'm not up to date on the worlds of IRC and chatrooms, but even I can enjoy the antics of Elf Only Inn. It starts out with static, unchanging images meant to imitate chatroom icons but evolves into a hand-drawn comic over the course of time. Vulcan Dopeslap!  
Mark Sachs

I guess I'm just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws. --S.J. Perelman

20 January 2004

Have some A Miracle of Science, it's free! Also free are pages 157, 158, 159, 160. 161, and 162.  

Look up your birthday star. It's not astrology, it's a website that will determine which star's light has taken the entire time you've been alive to reach Earth. As of today, the light arriving from Zeta Herculis left that star around the time I was born.  
Betty Ragan