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SPAM snobs

The SPAM is excellent tonight!

I developed an appreciation for SPAM when I was in the Boy Scouts; it tastes divine cooked in a skillet over a campfire; and it keeps indefinitely with out refrigeration; what's not to like? I loved cooking SPAM over a hot plate in college, but then I also ate American cheese; what did I know. I always thought the SPAM brand got a bum rap after its association with unwanted junk mail...damn those fools on Monty Python. Alas, in this country SPAM is doubly cursed, the subject of both culinary and cyber culture ridicule. But the Koreans clearly have a more discerning culinary sense; in Korea SPAM is a delicacy!

When Only Slabs of Pink, Jellied Byproduct Will Do

SEOUL — Stroll into an expensive department store and walk straight past the $180 watermelon with a ribbon twirled just so around its stem. Don't bother with the tea in a butterfly-shaped tin for $153, or with the gift boxes of Belgian chocolates or French cheeses.

If you're looking for a gift that bespeaks elegance and taste, you might try Spam. The luncheon meat might be the subject of satire back home in the U.S., but in South Korea, it is positively classy. With $136 million in sales, South Korea is the largest market in the world for Spam outside the United States. But here, some consider the pink luncheon meat with its gelatinous shell too nice to buy for themselves, and 40% of the Spam is purchased as gifts.

Especially during the holidays, you can see the blue-and-yellow cans neatly stacked in the aisles of the better stores. South Koreans are nearly as passionate about packaging as the Japanese are, and the Spam often comes wrapped in boxed sets. A set of 12 cans costs $44. "I can't understand what is funny about Spam," said Jeon Pyoung Soo, a CJ Corp. executive who is brand manager here for Spam.

Jeon recalled a recent visit to Austin, Minn., where Spam's manufacturer, Hormel Foods Corp., has created a museum devoted to the history and cult of Spam. Highlights include a 1970 Monty Python skit in which a group of Vikings drowns out all other conversation with a chorus of "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam." (The skit is credited with the word "spam" coming into use to mean unsolicited e-mails that likewise clog a computer's inbox.)

"Everybody was laughing and smiling but me," said the 27-year-old Jeon, who went to business school in the United States and is fluent in English. "I knew all the words, but I didn't get the joke."

"It is a curious thing about Spam that in the Far East, it is taken very seriously, while in the United States, particularly on college campuses, it has this quirky, kitschy retro feel to it," said Julie Craven, public relations manager for Hormel.

When Only Slabs of Pink, Jellied Byproduct Will Do - Los Angeles Times

Giant pinhole camera

Giant pinhole camera to shoot alien worlds

One of the really difficult problems in photo astronomy is that of 'imaging' really faint objects against the great abundance of starlight that is everywhere in the heavens. This a bit like the problem of seeing stars in the sky above a brightly lit city; too much light. For the astronomers that hunt the special class of planets that orbit in'extrasolar' systems in distant parts of the Milky Way, the 'light problem' is totally overwhelming. The principle mechanisms of discovery in extrasolar astronomy have thus been entirely 'indirect'; the presence of a planet orbiting a distant star has been inferred by a wobble in the trajectory of the star; or a periodic dimming of the brightness of the star that has suggested that something is passing in front of the star. No one has yet been able to actually 'image' an "exoplanet" directly. But this is going to change soon, and the tool that will be used to accomplish this seemingly impossible task is a gigantic version of the first camera ever made - the pin hole camera!

Imagine having a photograph of an alien world in a far off solar system, one that shows continents, ice caps, cloud cover, maybe even rivers... thru a pinhole! ...this is going to be fun.

Camera obscura views obscure extrasolar planets

The project is for an orbiting, soccer-field sized "starshade" shaped like a daisy that would funnel light from distant planets between its petals to a second spacecraft trailing 50,000 miles behind. Known as the New Worlds Observer, the project was selected for initial funding by NIAC in 2004 as a giant pinhole camera in space.

The starshade would block out intense light from the parent stars of planets outside the solar system while allowing planet light to creep around the starshade's edge and funneling it into a trailing spacecraft for analysis, Cash said. The observatory would allow scientists to map and catalogue planetary systems around nearby stars -- including those with "warm, close-in orbits around parent stars" similar to Earth and Venus -- to frozen, giant planets at the edges of distant solar systems, he said.

"Using photometry and spectroscopy, we could identify planetary features like oceans, continents, polar caps and cloud banks, and even detect biomarkers like methane, water, oxygen and ozone," said Cash. "We could knock off a new planetary system every week, and we could build it tomorrow using existing technology. It's the kind of mission I dreamed about as a kid, and one that nobody would ever forget."

CU Proposal To Image Distant Planets Is Funded For Second Round Of Study

Alien Planets to Pose for Giant Pinhole Camera in Space

In the fall of 2000, sitting in my apartment in Glenn Dale, MD, I prepared to watch the coming solar eclipse with a shoebox. I opened the blinds on my window, found a comfortable spot on the floor, and propped the box up next to me, one end pointed at the sun. A tiny hole in the end pointed toward the sky allowed just enough light through to form an image of the sun on the inside wall of the box. Thus, without special filters or even a proper telescope, I spent the next hour watching the moon?s shadow creep across the disk of the sun.

I used a pinhole camera; a device known to the ancient Greeks and put to various uses ever since. A small hole punched in the wall of a box -- or a room -- creates an inverted image on a screen of whatever object the camera faces. The pinhole camera, or camera obscura, was used in the Renaissance as a drawing aid. When the screen was replaced by a photographic film, it formed the basis for today?s handheld cameras.

Now, a project funded by NASA?s Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) could launch the humble pinhole camera into the sky. Dubbed the New Worlds Imager (NWI) and led by Dr. Webster Cash of the University of Colorado at Boulder, the goal is to use a large-scale camera obscura to obtain the first pictures of exosolar planets -- worlds from beyond our solar system.

NASA - Alien Planets to Pose for Giant Pinhole Camera in Space

NASA - EXO-planet finding project

Again with the hubris!

Hubris in the 'Age of the BLOG'

Definition: "Hubris" is exaggerated pride or self-confidence often resulting in retribution.

If you are old enough to remember Watergate (and Yogi Berra) this is starting to feel like "Deja vu all over again". The arrogance of a ruling party often causes them to over-reach; then they lie about it; then there are the inevitable 'leaks' that allow the press dig out the 'real' story; then we investigate the liars; then they lie about it 'under oath'; then we convict them of 'perjury'. Once the liars are 'outed', this country simply does not abide liars in high office.

This is why we need an independent press, and an independent judiciary, and precisely why we must block either party from placing ideologs on the courts. As we all know from virtually every episode of "Law and Order", it is often much easier to catch the "evil doers" for sloppiness (in this case perjury) than it is for us to catch them for their original cleverly crafted crimes. In the end we rely on the inevitable blindness of hubris, on the inexorable scrutiny of the press, and on the practiced thoroughness of special prosecutors, to keep the politically powerful in check. This is just another dimension of our system of checks-and-balances at work.

Of course none of this would be happening to this administration with out the press (strenuously prompted by the bloggers) keeping the liars in the spotlight. In spite of his legendary mastery of classic and proven propaganda techniques, Karl Rove simply could not control the 'press' this time around; has he lost his touch in the face of new media technologies? ...Once again hubris comes to the rescue... this time in the 'Age of the BLOG'.

Poll: Americans Favor Bush's Impeachment If He Lied about Iraq

By a margin of 50% to 44%, Americans say that President Bush should be impeached if he lied about the war in Iraq, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. The poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,001 U.S. adults on October 8-9.

The poll found that 50% agreed with the statement:

"If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him."

44% disagreed, and 6% said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 3.1% margin of error.

Those who agreed with the statement were also more passionate: 39% strongly agreed, while 30% strongly disagreed.

"The results of this poll are truly astonishing," said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik. "Bush's record-low approval ratings tell just half of the story, which is how much Americans oppose Bush's policies on Iraq and other issues. But this poll tells the other half of the story - that a solid plurality of Americans want Congress to consider removing Bush from the White House."

Poll: Americans Want Bush Impeached

The Bush family at war with itself

Howard Fienman with Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hard Ball:

Right now, my sense, in reporting this... is that the Bush family, political family, is at war with itself inside the White House. My sense is, it's Andy Card, the chief of staff, and his people against Karl Rove, the brain.

And that runs through a whole lot of things, whether it's Harriet Miers or Katrina. But it all starts with Iraq.

And some submerged, but now emerging divisions within the administration over why we went into that war, how we went into that war and what was done to sell it. There are people who are out for Karl Rove inside that White House, which makes his situation even more perilous.

My understanding, from talking to somebody quite close to this investigation, is that they think there are going to be indictments and possibly Karl Rove could be among them, if not for the act of the leaking information about Valerie Plame, then perhaps for perjury, because he's now testified four times.

And there are conflicts between what Matt Cooper told the grand jury and what Rove evidently told the jury himself. And Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, is an absolute stickler for detail who has no political axe to grind here, other than keeping his own credibility. Having put Judy Miller in jail, having gone to the lengths he had, my understand is, he has got some people here, not only Rove, but perhaps Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff.

'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for Oct. 10th - MSNBC.com

For President Under Duress, Body Language Speaks Volumes

It's only 6:17 a.m. Central time, and President Bush is already facing his second question of the day about Karl Rove's legal troubles.

"Does it worry you," NBC's Matt Lauer is asking him at a construction-site interview in Louisiana, that prosecutors "seem to have such an interest in Mr. Rove?"

Bush blinks twice. He touches his tongue to his lips. He blinks twice more. He starts to answer, but he stops himself.

"I'm not going to talk about the case," Bush finally says after a three-second pause that, in television time, feels like a commercial break.

The president was a blur of blinks, taps, jiggles, pivots and shifts. Bush has always been an active man, but standing with Lauer and the serene, steady first lady, he had the body language of a man wishing urgently to be elsewhere.

The fidgeting clearly corresponded to the questioning. When Lauer asked if Bush, after a slow response to Katrina, was "trying to get a second chance to make a good first impression," Bush blinked 24 times in his answer. When asked why Gulf Coast residents would have to pay back funds but Iraqis would not, Bush blinked 23 times and hitched his trousers up by the belt.

When the questioning turned to Miers, Bush blinked 37 times in a single answer -- along with a lick of the lips, three weight shifts and some serious foot jiggling. Laura Bush, by contrast, delivered only three blinks and stood still through her entire answer about encouraging volunteerism.

For President Under Duress, Body Language Speaks Volumes

The Google EPIC

Goog God!

While Microsoft is working feverishly to reposition themselves against the threat of Google, the rest of us have to wonder...what's next? Is nothing safe from Google? Are we all going to be subsumed? Are we all just so much 'content' to feed the insatiable 'indexing engine' of the Goog God? And what will Google do when it is done?

Movie portrays growing Google as the death knell for Fourth Estate

As Google positions itself to be a total online content provider, the question of what is next for the search engine giant might be at least partially forecasted by U.S. journalists Matt Thompson and Robin Sloan.

Matt Thompson, deputy editor for online content for startribune.com, the Web site for the newspaper in Minneapolis, and Robin Sloan, who works for Current, a San Francisco-based cable and satellite TV network, created "EPIC 2015." In the short movie, the two peg the growing Google as the death knell for the slumbering Fourth Estate, which loses its gatekeeping and publishing role to the Internet.
The eight-minute piece -- produced by the Museum for Media History, a fictitious construct of Thompson and Sloan -- swerves between the plausible and the dramatic, tendering a prophecy that is both alarmist and maybe inevitable.

Short movie envisions the growing Google 'EPIC'

See the EPIC 2015 movie at:

Robin Sloan 2005

Search on every word in every book, in every library on earth...in a second!

Imagine sitting at your computer and, in less than a second, searching the full text of every book ever written. Imagine an historian being able to instantly find every book that mentions the Battle of Algiers. Imagine a high school student in Bangladesh discovering an out-of-print author held only in a library in Ann Arbor. Imagine one giant electronic card catalog that makes all the world's books discoverable with just a few keystrokes by anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Google's job is to help people find information. Google Print's job is to make it easier for people to find books. When you do a Google search, your results now include pointers to those books whose contents, stored in the Google Print index, contain your search terms. For many books, these results will, like an ordinary card catalog, contain basic bibliographic information and, at most, a few lines of text where your search terms appear.

Imagine the cultural impact of putting tens of millions of previously inaccessible volumes into one vast index, every word of which is searchable by anyone, rich and poor, urban and rural, First World and Third, en toute langue -- and all, of course, entirely for free. How many users will find, and then buy, books they never could have discovered any other way? How many out-of-print and backlist titles will find new and renewed sales life? How many future authors will make a living through their words solely because the Internet has made it so much easier for a scattered audience to find them? This egalitarianism of information dispersal is precisely what the Web is best at; precisely what leads to powerful new business models for the creative community; precisely what copyright law is ultimately intended to support; and, together with our partners, precisely what we hope, and expect, to accomplish with Google Print.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Google Print

WSJ.com - Books of Revelation

Autonomous cars!

Stanford wins the DARPA Robot Car Race!

This is not easy. I've raced motorcycles in long distance 'overland' races many times, and I can report that just completing a race like this one is an accomplishment to be proud of; to have averaged 19 miles per hour over the whole race is very very impressive; but to have done it with out a human driver is totally amazing! This is the beginning of a vast new transportation age.

There were five finishers this year (last year none finished), and this year's number two car was a mere 11 minutes behind. This was a real race! That these robot devices were designed and built by private institutions, under the direction of some very clever private citizens - and not in some secret government skunk works - is yet another indication of how big this step actually is. In the not very distant future, we can expect to see private entrepreneurs developing all kinds of autonomous transportation devices, eventually including cars that can drive us along on the interstate highways, faster and safer than we can do it ourselves...maybe even drive us home safely in blizzards! This is clearly a plausible future.

At the very least we will see this particular desert race get very interesting next year when they run it again. Next year they're going to go a lot faster; maybe as fast as humans. Is the 1000 mile Baja race next? Robotic car technology will have completely 'arrived' when an autonomous car can win the unlimited class at Baja...against humans. Actually maybe winning the Indy 500 will be easier.

2005 DARPA GRAND CHALLENGE CHAMPIONS

Today Stanley and the Stanford Racing Team were awarded 2 million dollars for being the first team to complete the 132 mile DARPA Grand Challenge course. Stanley finished in just under 6 hours 54 minutes and averaged over 19 miles per hours on the course.

stanfordracing.org

Stanford Volkswagen Wins $2M Robot Race

PRIMM, Nev. - A driverless Volkswagen won a $2 million race across the rugged Nevada desert Sunday, beating four other robot-guided vehicles that completed a Pentagon-sponsored contest aimed at making warfare safer for humans.

The race displayed major technological leaps since last year's inaugural race, when none of the self-driving vehicles crossed the finish line.

Stanley the VW Touareg, designed by Stanford University, zipped through the 132-mile Mojave Desert course in six hours and 53 minutes Saturday, using only its computer brain and sensors to navigate rough and twisting desert and mountain trails. The Stanford team celebrated by popping champagne and pouring it over the mud-covered Stanley.

Stanford Volkswagen Wins $2M Robot Race

DARPA Grand Challenge 2005

Stanley is equipped with seven Pentium-M processors, GPS, a radar system, four laser range finders and stereo camera set-up as well as a single camera system. It has an inertial measurement unit, that along with wheel speed data can estimate how the vehicle is tilted, relative to the ground.

The evidence for 'design'

Letter to the editor - from a local newspaper, sent by friends Robert Dahl and Dion Wright

I find myself adopting a philosophy of Really Stupid Design as the likely alternative to old-fashioned evolution.

After all, mankind represents not so much the pinnacle of God's - or Darwin's - creation, as a second-year student engineering project that barely qualifies for a failing grade.

The pains in my neck and back? A badly designed support system for a creature doomed to a vertical existence, obviously cribbed from the deity at the next desk who was designing a four-footed creature.

As my lifetime store of knowledge increases, my ability to recall it is likewise declining. Not to mention failing eyesight, hemorrhoids, vermiform appendix, hammertoe, Morton's neuroma and a Jones fracture. And what kind of tool-using animal has only two arms? Try repairing a furnace fan yourself sometime, Mr. Divine Engineer.

Whoever designed me had better be encouraged to go into some other pursuit where He can't hurt anyone. Comparative religion, for example.

WP, Retired chemist, Oro Valley

The Unintelligent Design network

...instead of being swayed by either side, we at UDN, Inc. have found a theory that effectively merges the strengths of the two theories without the weaknesses. The intelligent design people say there are too many holes in the fossil record, and that evolution is only a theory; the scientists say there's not enough evidence of intelligent design. So we say, instead, that life has indeed been designed, just not very well.

Unintelligent Design Network, Inc.

Intelligent Design Trial

A debate has arisen over a Pennsylvania school board's decision to teach both intelligent design and evolution in the classroom. Here are some highlights from the trial:

Intelligent Design Trial - from The Onion

Killer Flu?

Killer flu of 1918 caused by bird virus

The virus responsible for the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed an estimated 50m people worldwide, has been reconstructed by genetic engineering in a high-security US laboratory.

Preliminary studies show that it is an avian flu virus that mutated to spread quickly between people just as many experts fear will happen soon with the current H5N1 strain of bird flu in Asia. Details of the project are published today in the journals Science and Nature. The US National Institutes of Health approved the research, despite its apparent risk, because it will help scientists find new treatments for the most dangerous types of flu.

Killer flu of 1918 caused by bird virus

If not the sun...

The global thermostat

Serious students of climate change (starting with James Lovelock in the early 60') have repeatedly observed that the temperature of the Earth is remarkably stable over the entire history of life. In the face of sometimes dramatic changes in solar output, our planet has enjoyed a very stable average temperature throughout. Why? What keeps the Earth's surface temperature so constant?

Today there is no serious question that the Earth is undergoing dramatic warming; the question is not 'if', but 'why' this is happening. Skeptics of the idea that human behavior is the root cause of the current warming of the earth's atmosphere will often point to recorded fluctuations of the sun as the main culpret behind global temperature fluctuations; in this way they feel absolved from responsibility and any need to correct human behavior - hey, its the sun...its a 'natural' thing.

Leaving aside the wisdom of ignoring changes that will dramatically impact human existence on earth, natural or not, the evidence is acumulating that fluctuations in the output of the sun have nothing directly to do with observed recent global warming trends. Sure the sun heats everything on earth, but the linkage between the heat of the sun and the heat of the atmosphere is, as Lovelock tried to tell us 40 years ago, much more complex than we understand. The fact is that there has been a 25% increase in heat from the sun since life began but surface temperature has remained approximately constant until now. Why?

Absent a good theory of how atmospheric temperature regulation actually works, we are none the less confronted with the unpleasant possibility that we may have inadvertently changed something, in modern times, that is critically important to the ability of the system to self regulate; we may have broken the 'global thermostat'.

Climate doesn't swing to the rhythm of the sun

CLAIMS that increased solar activity could explain the world's warming climate are challenged by a study of Irish bogs. The research, which is a fresh blow to climate sceptics, shows that while there are cyclical changes in both climate and the sun's activity, there is no obvious link between the two.

...To deduce climate variations over the same period, the team used an archive of more than 750 excavated trees from the bogs, dating back 7648 years, to gauge tree cover. Periods of more abundant cover indicate relatively warm and dry spells, while sparser cover suggests the climate was wetter and cooler, since a higher water table makes it difficult for saplings to flourish.

"We find a clear cycle in wetting and drying phases, with shifts about every 800 years," says Turney. But the peaks in solar activity do not coincide with peaks in warmer conditions.

Climate doesn't swing to the rhythm of the sun

Don't blame the Sun for all global warming woes

Blaming the Sun for all the woes related to global warming looks less tenable an argument following the publication of a research paper on climate cycles in the latest issue of the Journal of Quaternary Science.

There have been several ideas as to what has been driving climate change over the past 10,000 years, according to the papers lead author and radiocarbon dating expert Dr Chris Turney from the University of Wollongongs GeoQuEST Research Group at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences. He and his international co-researchers have concluded in their paper titled, Testing solar forcing of pervasive Holocene climate cycles that solar activity is not the primary force.

Don't blame the Sun for all global warming woes

Moon discovered orbiting tenth planet

I'll give it a "ten" with a bullet!

While the academics at the International Astronomical Union debate the definition of "planet", a new breed of planetary astronomers is pressing ahead discovering more candidates for the title. It seems like only yesterday that the solar system was the sleepy backwater of astronomy, but in recent years the action in astronomic science has definitely moved to the solar court. And as is often the case with revolutionary science, the old guard can be found quibbling and weaseling over technicalities, trying to explain away the uncomfortable new facts that contradict their illustrious careers and their textbook articles. But the future seems clear to anyone who cares to look - we are about to discover a whole lot more "planetary" neighbors, and the odds are good that some of them will be more than big enough to satisfy even the graybeards. Of course the fun of it is that these exciting new worlds have been out there all along...Velikovsky was right!

Moon discovered orbiting tenth planet

The tenth planet in the solar system has a moon at least a tenth of its size. The discovery, made on 10 September with an adaptive optics system on the Keck II telescope, will allow astronomers to pin down the mass of both objects.

The tenth planet is not officially a planet - for now its only official designation is 2003 UB313. By convention, its moon - announced by the International Astronomical Union on Sunday - is designated S/2005 (2003 UB313) 1.

But Mike Brown, the Caltech astronomer who revealed 2003 UB313 in July and nicknamed it Xena after the television warrior princess, is calling the moon Gabrielle, after the princess's companion.
Moons of "trans-Neptunian" objects - which orbit farther from the Sun than Neptune - are very hard to see because they are faint and appear very close in the sky to the objects they orbit. But Brown began searching for a moon as soon as he found 2003 UB313. "Having a moon is just inherently cool," he says.

Moon discovered orbiting tenth planet

A revolution in planetary science

A swarm of small worlds discovered in recent years is remaking our view of the solar system, astronomers agree. Pluto, once an oddball, is now thought to be one of many round objects out there.

"It's really a revolution," says Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute. "We are finding out just how quaint our view of the solar system was."

Improved technology promises more discoveries. Some astronomers won't be surprised if something as big as Mars, or even Earth, is found way out there but still bound to the Sun. So far, only a fraction of objects thought to be in the Kuiper Belt, beyond Neptune, have been found.

Stern, who is managing NASA's New Horizon's mission to Mars, points out that there is a billion times more space in our solar system beyond the Kuiper Belt compared to inside that region.

"Hold onto your hat," he said. "It's just going to get more bizarre."

SPACE.com -- Defining 'Planet': Newfound World Forces Action

Far-out worlds, just waiting to be found

IN THE dark reaches of the solar system lurk swarms of hidden worlds. Too small and too distant to reflect sunlight, they have remained under the cover of darkness for billions of years. But now the outer solar system is giving up its secrets. And with them comes an astonishing claim: "It's quite possible that there is a halo of planets surrounding our solar system, just waiting to be found," says Eugene Chiang, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley.

What makes Chiang's claim so surprising is the sheer number and size of these planets. Weighing more than Mars, they dwarf Sedna and Quaoar, the largest rocky bodies spotted circling the sun beyond Pluto.

The evidence comes from a source closer to home: the discovery of a 100-kilometre lump of ice and rock circling the sun in the same orbit as Neptune. This frigid asteroid was chalked up as a mere curiosity when it was first spotted in 2001. Now astronomers realise it could point to an undiscovered world on the edge of the solar system.

Chiang is not the only one to think that the nine planets we know of are only half the story. Alan Stern, a planetary astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, is convinced there are more sizeable planets out there. "I think it is a 100 per cent certainty," he says. "Definitely there are Earth-sized objects out there and some will be larger than the Earth."

New Scientist SPACE - Features - Far-out worlds, just waiting to be found

The Googleplex

The Googleplex is up to something

When I was in high school the term "google" meant the number '10 to the 100th power'. A "googleplex" was an even larger number, '10 to the power of 10 to the hundredth power'. In those days Bill Gates was in Junior High. Today 'Google' is the biggest search engine on the web; 'The Googleplex' is the name of the home office of the Google company, the hottest place in tech; and Bill's company Microsoft is the incumbent computer software monopoly on planet earth, but things are changing fast.

The Googleplex is embarked on a number of initiatives that are making old Bill look over his shoulder; some say he simply doesn't understand what is happening. Not Apple, not Linux, but Google is keeping Bill awake nights. Bill's right hand man, and MS CEO, Steve Balmer has vowed to "kill Google". Is Microsoft about to get "IBM'd"? Just as Micorsoft out maneuvered IBM at the start of the desktop revolution, is Google about to out maneuver Microsoft and take over the top spot on every computer desktop? Bill and Steve may be mad as hell, but do they "get it"? Stay tuned.

Google, the internet's leading search company, is expected to build on NASA property at a now-vacant site in the heart of Silicon Valley, which will include offices, housing and roads, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing unidentified sources.

At 1 million square feet, the new campus would put Google in the same league as other Silicon Valley tech companies such as Oracle and Yahoo.

The new facility would be larger than filmmaker George Lucas' new complex in San Francisco's Presidio and nearly as big as the 52-story office tower in the Bank of America Center in San Francisco's Financial District.

Wired News: Google Plans Lavish Campus

Nasa and Google have agreed to work together on a variety of projects, including large-scale data management, massively distributed computing, bio-info-nano convergence, and the "encouragement of the entrepreneurial space industry".

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said: "Imagine having a wide selection of images from the Apollo space mission at your fingertips whenever you want it.

"That's just one example of how this collaboration could help broaden technology's role in making the world a better place."

The work will build on Google Maps which includes charts of the moon. Google recently hired Vint Cerf, known as the 'father of the internet' and a promoter of the concept of an interplanetary internet.

Google to set up Nasa base - vnunet.com

Google ended months of speculation late Friday afternoon by submitting a proposal to offer a free wireless Internet service to the city of San Francisco.

In recent months, speculation about Google's plans as an Internet service provider has reached a fevered pitch. However, the company said Friday that it did not yet have plans to roll out free nationwide Internet services.

Google Bids to Help San Francisco Go Wireless - New York Times

Google's Patents Reveal Strategy To Beat Microsoft

According to “The Google Legacy,'' history is about to repeat itself. Microsoft today is where IBM was years ago. And Google is in a position to do to Bill Gates what he did to IBM. The result could be a new industry kingpin.

..Some filings in the patent portfolio point to an accelerated use of high-speed fiber and wireless that could be used to deliver Google technology. “Google already has some number of data centers where it’s good to have high-speed connections,” he said.

With Wi-Fi currently working its way into communities across the world and with wide area WiMAX ready to be deployed in a big way next year, it could be a natural fit for Google to deliver its technology over these high-speed links, free of charge. Noting that Google is moving to VoIP via its recently-announced Google Talk, the high-speed connections appear tailor-made for delivering streaming video,

Google's Patents Reveal Strategy To Beat Microsoft

Sparks flew--along with accusations of flying chairs--in one of the first hearings last week in Microsoft's lawsuit against Google Inc. over the hiring of former Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee. In written testimony, former Microsoft engineer Mark Lucovsky claimed that CEO Steve Ballmer threw a chair in anger when Lucovsky said he was going to Google, and Ballmer vowed to bury Google CEO Eric Schmidt and kill the search company. (Ballmer says Lucovsky's account isn't accurate.)

Google Is Getting Under Everyone's Skin