Movie audiences gasped when Roger Moore’s 007 took his white Lotus Esprit for a surprise dip to evade the enemy in the film The Spy Who Loved Me. The famous scene, shot using a model, triggered the imagination of countless gadget-lovers, who wondered if such a car could be made.

Well, it can and it has been. Rinspeed will present its new sQuba, the worlds first diving car, at the Geneva Motor Show March 6-16. The car is not only able to drive on roads autonomously (without a driver, passenger or further assistance) with a push of a button, it can also transform into an amphibious vehicle which can be submerged in water up to 33 feet (10 meters). An electric motor with powerful torque drives the rear wheels, while the propulsion on the water is ensured by two propellers in the stern and two powerful jet drives in the bow propelling the vehicle under water while diving. When underwater, the driver and passenger are enclosed in the vehicle thanks to light weight body components made of futuristic Carbon Nano Tubes and are supplied with fresh breathing air by the self-contained on-board system.

Q would have been proud - 30 years after James Bond disappeared under the waves in his specially adapted Lotus, car designers have done it for real! More…

The Pentagon announced Thursday that a Navy warship has been tasked with shooting down a failing United States spy satellite that, if left alone, was expected to hit Earth within weeks.

In a joint news conference, NASA administrator Michael Griffin and Gen. James Cartwright, the No. 2 officer at the Defense Department, announced that an SM-3 missile, designed to hit inbound ballistic missiles, will be fired from a Navy cruiser or destroyer as early as this Thursday to obliterate the inbound spacecraft. The idea is to break apart the satellite to rid it of toxic fuel onboard by smashing its tank, which is the largest intact piece left. If successful, it would be the first direct U.S. test against a satellite since 1985, when an F-15 climbed to 80,000 ft. to fire a three-stage missile at a defunct solar-monitoring platform in low-Earth orbit. More…

The odds were in favor of the satellite crashing in the ocean after losing much of its sensitive equipment during reentry. Perhaps the chance to use our ballistic defenses against a real-life target was just too good to pass up.

Today is Presidents Day, at least in California. It falls, awkward and confusing, on the federal holiday designated by our federal government as Washington’s Birthday. And when I talk to friends and relatives around the country, I’m always reminded what a blurry and diminished holiday it has become. Here’s why.

Presidents Day (or Presidents’ Day), is a commonly used but erroneous name for the federal holiday officially designated as Washington’s Birthday. It is also the official name of a concurrent state holiday celebrated on the same day in a small number of states on the third Monday of February. To further muddy the water, some states call it “Washington’s and Lincoln’s Day” and other variations. Some spell it “Presidents” Day, some spell it “Presidents’” Day.

As the official title of the federal holiday, Washington’s Birthday was originally implemented by the federal government of the United States in 1880 in the District of Columbia and expanded in 1885 to include all federal offices. As the first federal holiday to honor an American citizen, the holiday was celebrated on Washington’s actual birthday, February 22. But on January 1, 1971 the federal holiday was shifted to the third Monday in February by the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, an ill conceived idea in my opinion that created long weekends but significantly diminished the meaning and significance of the affected holidays. Adding another layer of confusion, a draft of the Uniform Holidays Bill of 1968 would have renamed the holiday to Presidents’ Day to honor both Washington and Lincoln, but this proposal failed in committee and the bill, as voted on and signed into law on June 28, 1968, simply moved Washington’s Birthday.

In the late 1980s, with a push from advertisers, the term Presidents Day began its public appearance. The theme has expanded the focus of the holiday to honor another President born in February, Abraham Lincoln, and often other Presidents of the United States. Although Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, was never a federal holiday, approximately a dozen state governments have officially renamed their Washington’s Birthday observances as “Presidents Day”, “Washington and Lincoln Day”, or various similar designations.

But, at least from my perspective, today honors only George Washington. It is, and should continue to be, the day we honor the accomplishments of the man who has been referred to, for over two centuries, as “The Father of his Country”. Celebrated for his leadership in the founding of the nation, he was the Electoral College’s unanimous choice to become the first President. He was seen as a unifying force for the new republic and set an example for future holders of the office.

The federal holiday is also a tribute to the general who created the first military badge of merit for the common soldier. Revived on Washington’s 200th birthday in 1932, the Purple Heart recognizes injuries received in battle. In 2007, the country celebrated both Washington’s 275th birthday and the 75th anniversary of the rebirth of the Purple Heart medal.

Since 1862, there has been a tradition in the United States Senate that George Washington’s Farewell Address be read on his birthday. Citizens had asked that this be done in light of the approaching Civil War. The annual tradition continues with the reading of the address on or near Washington’s Birthday. For many, the revisiting of Washington’s Birthday is a strong reminder of the many contributions made by a great man to the early republic.

And so with that said, I’ll be taking the rest of the day off. Enjoy the holiday and we’ll see you tomorrow!

This is a particularly interesting self-portrait, in part because it was taken by an astronaut of himself in space, but even more so because of the reflection in the glass of his helmet. Visible in the image, working in from the outer borders, are the edges of the reflecting helmet of a space suit, modules of the International Space Station (ISS), the Earth, the arms of Expedition 15 astronaut Clay Anderson, and the digital camera used to snap the image. This picture was taken during the shuttle orbiter Endeavour’s mission to expand the space station last August.

In his January 31 post, Kevin Kelly writes:

(There) are eight things that are better than free. Eight uncopyable values. I call them “generatives.” A generative value is a quality or attribute that must be generated, grown, cultivated, nurtured. A generative thing can not be copied, cloned, faked, replicated, counterfeited, or reproduced. It is generated uniquely, in place, over time. In the digital arena, generative qualities add value to free copies, and therefore are something that can be sold.

He goes on to explain these eight generatives — immediacy, personalization, interpretation, authenticity, accessibility, embodiment, patronage, and findability — building blocks of new products and services that are required reading for anyone who creates products or offers services in today’s digital economy.

You can read more at Kevin’s site.

Thanks Mike!

Claire sent this after my post earlier today about the Valentine’s Pig with heart-shaped markings. (Click each thumbnail to enlarge.)

This cute little long-haired Chihuahua, named “Heart-kun”, was born in May in Odate, northern Japan, with this heart shaped pattern in his coat. Shop owner Emiko Sakurada said that, of a thousand she has bred, this was the first marked with a heart. And before you ask, she says she has no plans to sell him.

It must be a sign that this is going to be a very “special” year!

Sometimes, guys, even the best laid plans for a perfect romantic evening fall flat…

The first known association of Valentine’s Day with romantic love is in 1382’s “Parlement of Foules” by Geoffrey Chaucer, but the earliest origins of the holiday can be found hundreds of years earlier. The date was likely named in honor of a priest who was clubbed, stoned and then beheaded in the 3rd century for marrying young couples in contravention of Claudius II’s edict forbidding marriage. Hardly the sort of cheery story one might expect for the origin of a holiday devoted to romance and love!

Although we still celebrate it today, Saint Valentine was actually removed from the calendar of celebrated saints’ days in 1969 – perhaps due to the array of “unfortunate” events that have occurred on the date throughout history. Weddingpaperdivas wants us to be aware of the “darker” side of the holiday, offering their list of the 14 most unsavory events in the history of Valentine’s Day. Continue reading…

Is this cute or what? The 13-day-old Gloucester Old Spot piglet christened “Valentine” - what else? - is one of a litter of seven born at Byford’s Farm in Taynton, near Newent, Glos. Story

Dawn told me about this yesterday. She’d heard the song clip on one of our morning drive time talk shows and couldn’t wait to share it with me.

Now, I wasn’t familiar with Sarah Silverman (I don’t mean that figuratively) but she’s apparently got a show on Comedy Central and is appearing this month in Las Vegas. The shorter song video clip has gone viral since her appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s January 31 five-year anniversary TV show, but because I thought she was so funny, I’m posting the longer version which includes her intro. Enjoy!

I just finished reading a humorous article by Eric Feezell about the oft misused phrase, “begging the question.” I’m told that I may have, at least on occasion, misapplied it myself, although I am prepared to offer my best circular reasoning to the contrary.

In the article, Feezell postulates that the term “begs the question” has essentially been bastardized, whereby laymen (e.g., us) have misconstrued or broadened its meaning, and in the process have pissed off a very small group of anal-retentive, scholarly types (e.g., them). So when you use the phrase, like most other people, you use it to mean something like, “Well, that opens up another can of worms.” For example: Your 16-year-old son gets in a fight with a bouncer at a strip club. Sure, it’s bad enough he’s rumbling with bouncers—and you are probably in need of some parenting books—but you might say the whole situation begs the question: How did he, being underage, get into the strip club in the first place? And did he at least get a lap dance before he was thrown out? (Let’s hope so.)

But that, writes Feezell, would be the incorrect use of “begging the question.” In a nutshell, “begging the question” refers to a certain fallacy in syllogistic argument where the very thing you are trying to prove (your conclusion) is presupposed in the supporting argument (your premises). This is sometimes called “circular reasoning.”

Structurally, it would look something like this:

• x implies y
• Assume x
• Therefore, y

Feezell explains, with tongue in cheek, linear, circular, triangular and other more complex variations of argumentative logic such as inductive argument and, of course, Popeye-Cartesian proof of existence (I think what I think, therefore I yam what I yam.)

I found his explanations entertaining and informative. If you enjoy word play, give the article a read because, as you know, smart people read, people read this blog, so reading this blog makes you smart. Right?

“Green Porno is a series of very short films conceived, written, co-directed by and featuring Isabella Rossellini. Inspired by the amazing and often bizarre sexual practices of insects and other creatures, these eight films are both comical and insightful studies of the curious ways a variety of earth’s tiny critters “make love”. Simple, playful and childlike by design, Green Porno provides a unique and provocative glimpse into an “underground” world of sexual encounters.” …

Or so the official Green Porno website, still under construction, promises. It’s difficult to imagine actress, model and film director Rossellini mounting a giant paper bug, but I’m on the site’s mailing list to get a heads up when it’s completed and the eight short films, designed for viewing on cell phones and small screen devises, are viewable.

So, why did I post about it today, you ask? Well, I thought it would be interesting to see how many people Googling “porno” would find their way to my site. Call it a silly experiment.

Gawker video guru Richard Blakeley mashed-up two of the New York Times’ interactive newsmaps: one showing the deadly path of last Tuesday’s tornadoes, the other showing which Democratic candidates won which states on Super Tuesday.

The results: does God hate Hillary? (And note: Obama won Alabama, but Hillary won each county in that state with a recorded death from last Tuesday’s storms.) [NYT, NYT]

Flying at more than twice the speed of Concorde and five times the speed of sound, this hypersonic airliner is set to be the future of modern air travel. Looking like a supersonic passenger plane from Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds, the revolutionary aircraft with a top speed of 3,400mph aims to fly between London (or Brussels) and Sydney in under five hours. Billed as the “Son of Concorde”, the commercial plane is designed to carry 300 passengers and will reach speeds of Mach 5 – five times the speed of sound.

The ground-breaking aircraft - known as the A2 – is the work of British engineers at Reaction Engines Limited in Oxfordshire. At 433ft long (132m), the A2 is half the length of the Titanic and weighs 400 tons, lighter than a Boeing 747. Yet despite its length, the aircraft will be able to land on current international airport runways. In addition, its hi-tech liquid hydrogen-powered engines will produce few carbon emissions, making air travel much greener.

Is there a downside? Well, apparently there will be no windows, so everyone will have to jocky for aisle seats. More…