The New, New Economy: More Startups, Fewer Giants, Infinite Opporutnity. The article talks about how large companies are breaking down because they’re just too big for their own good. Is now the time for smaller companies? I’m reading this because, although I hear the economy is bad right now, it seems like the prime time to start your own thing, which is something I think my folks should do since they’ve got a bit of a cash crunch issue going on at home. There are some great GTD (get things done) blogs I read that talk about turning passions and hobbies into actual marketable skills, and I believe I and my family need to embrace some of those ideas.

Man-made star to Unlock Cosmic Secrets. This seems like another Large Hadron Collider type of thing. The National Ignition Facility in CA had this building made to focus a ton of high powered lasers at one microscopic point to re-create the conditions inside of a supernova. So now we can have mini-supernovas whenever we want in a controlled laboratory to study the effects and hopefully gleem something about the universe from it. We can also use these man-made stars to test nuclear fusion.

Body burners: The Forensics of Fire. Interesting article on how bodies burn. These forensic scientists use corpses and simulate bodies burningin various environments and conditions. The article also debunks some myths. Ha! I’d love to see the Mythbusters try this! I found it interesting cause it might be useful know such a thing in writing a story — not that I have any CSI/murder mystery type of stories planned. BTW, I did not look at the pictures. I imagine they’re gross, so look at your own risk, and the leave comments.

Media World: Hugh Hefner is looking for a sugar daddy. Hugh Hefner’s looking to sell the Playboy empire he created for 300 million bucks, but nobody wants to pay him for it. I’ve always liked the idea of getting a subscription to Playboy but I could never justify actually doing it. This looks like another one of those economic decision making problems. There’s free pr0n on “teh Internetz” or there’s a subscription to Playboy. There needs to be something in the middle that would make me want to buy a subscription, but even then I can’t justify buying a magazine over buying, say, something useful, like, food.