Best magazine cover of the day, so far

Here’s the cover story — Are We Failing Our Geniuses?

Time has, by the way, put its archives online — TIME Magazine Archives, 1923 to the present.

Columbia Journalism Review has a fun take on Time’s famous style — Hyphen Heaven.

21

In New Mexico, until you are 21 your driver’s license is vertical (”portrait” in computer talk). Once you turn 21 you can trade it in for the normal horizontal license adults receive (”landscape”).

I’ve been told that some establishments refuse service to anyone who does not have the horizontal license. That is, even after you turn 21, if you haven’t gone to MVD and gotten a new DL, they won’t admit you or serve you. If you don’t head over to MVD on your 21st birthday, you could be turned away from your own celebration.

I guess a private establishment is entitled to set its own rules if the rules are in fact administered across the board with no exceptions. But this sounds a little like a class action lawsuit in waiting to me.

Did you know?

“Happy Birthday to You” is copyright protected through 2030. The rights are owned by Time Warner and it brings in around $2 million a year.

If you sing it in public without permission (which means paying Time Warner for the privilege), it’s a copyright violation.

I wonder if I could get a job as a copyright bounty hunter. You know, hang out at Chucky Cheese and similar places, and when the kids all sing “Happy Birthday” demand payment for Time Warner and then get a percentage.

I’d been wondering about this

The MAGIC gamma-ray telescope team has just released an eye-popping preprint (following up earlier work) describing a search for an observational hint of quantum gravity. What they’ve seen is that higher-energy gamma rays from an extragalactic flare arrive later than lower-energy ones. Is this because they travel through space a little bit slower, contrary to one of the postulates underlying Einstein’s special theory of relativity — namely, that radiation travels through the vacuum at the same speed no matter what?

Scientific American

Maybe Einstein’s theories are like “his” videos. They “were never designed to make [us] smarter, only happier.”

Time’s 50 Best Websites 2007

NewMexiKen must have been 51st.

“Our 2007 picks are the best examples of what’s new and exciting about the Web right now. Here we honor sites with exceptional style and smarts, sites that offer new and improved ways to access and share content, generate our own and otherwise enrich the online (and off-line) experience.”

Time’s 50 Best Websites 2007

25 Sites We Can’t Live Without

Best line of the day, so far

The evidence also shows great, gaping weaknesses. Giuliani’s penchant for secrecy, his tendency to value loyalty over merit and his hyperbolic rhetoric are exactly the kinds of instincts that counterterrorism experts say the U.S. can least afford right now.

Giuliani’s limitations are in fact remarkably similar to those of another man who has led the nation into a war without end.

Amanda Ripley, reporting on Giuliani’s terrorism credentials in Time.

Pennsylvania to Impose $25 Tax on Driving Across State

Motorists traveling across the state of Pennsylvania on Interstate 80 could pay a $25 tax by the year 2010. The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission on Friday asked the US Department of Transportation for approval to turn the free and paid-for interstate highway into a toll road for the purpose of raising money for mass transit and other public spending projects. This would be the first conversion of a free interstate into a toll road since the interstate highway system was developed fifty years ago.

TheNewspaper

What do you think of the idea of turning freeways into toll roads?

August 23rd is the birthday

… of Barbara Eden. “Jeannie” is 73.

… of Linda Thompson. The folk/rock musician, who with then husband Richard made one of the great rock albums — Shoot Out the Lights, is 60 today. She was voted best female singer of 1982 in Rolling Stone.

… of Shelley Long. The star of Cheers and numerous films is 58. Long received six Emmy nominations for her portrayal of Diane Chambers, winning once.

… of Kobe Bryant. He’s 29.

Gene Kelly, the wonderful singer/dancer/actor, was born on this date in 1912. Kelly is most famous for Singin’ in the Rain but received his sole Oscar nomination for best actor for Anchors Aweigh. He died in 1996.

It was on this date in 1864, in Mobile Bay, that Union Rear Admiral David G. Farragut said “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”