Pointy Haired Dilbert has some pretty cool visualizations for the ‘08 Election featured on his blog. I really liked this one:

While watching the debate, I happened to read this article. How much lower can it go?

From Ethiopia to Mozambique the Afar Depression in Africa is slowly ripping apart to form a new ocean that some scientists say will be as big as the Red Sea. The crust here is only 20 km (12 mi) thick and over 100 m (328 ft)  below sea level in places (New Orleans is only about 8 ft below sea level). This is a rare opportunity for geologists to study the processes involved with the earth splitting open to create new formations. But don’t hold your breath just yet – it could take another 10 million years for the new ocean to actually form (Assuming global warming doesn’t make it happen next year)!

via Slashdot

There’s a bit of drama unfolding in the Wachovia buyout. The most recent update is that the Wells deal is on, and not the Citigroup deal. Citigroup had brokered a deal to buy the failing bank for $2.1bn, or about $1/share. (Note that Wachovia is worth about $6.00/share right now.) This deal obviously isn’t the best for the shareholders, but Wachovia says they brokered this because they thought they were about to be taken over by the government. Citigroup posted losses of $7.6bn in the last two quarters, expects to lose money again this quarter, and their stock has seen a 62% drop in the last year. However, even with their troubles, this merger would be a huge gain for Citigroup, especially at the price they’re offering. Citi would become the largest US bank, with nearly $3 trillion in assets, and the FDIC would assume all losses over $42 bn in exchange for $12 bn stake in Citigroup. Shareholders, however, are understandably more interested in the Wells offer.

The twist here is that taxpayers could lose out more on the Wells deal than the Citigroup deal, since banking regulations recently passed to encourage mergers would allow for a nearly $74bn profit shelter for Wells-Wachovia. The biggest losers, of course, could be Wachovia’s employees. The firm has already announced plans to cut over 11,000 jobs – nearly 7,000 of those existing positions. If the legal issues surrounding the proposed mergers drags on, it could spell trouble for Wachovia’s customers, and prompt a takeover by the FDIC.

What are your thoughts on the Wells-Citi drama?

Is this the beginning of Skynet or what?

Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology plan to use living neural networks composed of thousands of brain cells from laboratory rats to control simulated power grids in the lab.

From those studies, they hope to create a “biologically inspired” computer program to manage and control complex power grids in Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria and elsewhere, and possibly other complex systems, such as traffic-control systems or global financial networks.

The Missouri S&T team will work with researchers at Georgia Tech’s Laboratory for Neuroengineering, where the living neural networks have been developed and are housed and studied. A high-bandwidth Internet2 connection will connect those brain cells over 600 miles to Venayagamoorthy’s Real-Time Power and Intelligent Systems Laboratory. Missouri S&T researchers will transmit signals from that lab in Rolla, Mo., to the brain cells in the Atlanta lab, and will train those brain cells to recognize voltage signals and other information from Missouri S&T’s real-time simulator.

Via KurzweilAI

Today President Bush signed into law a $700bn bailout plan(Actually closer to $850bn with plenty of Christmas treeing) to allow the Treasury department to buy up “toxic” assets from failing financial institutions. The DJIA immediately reacted by falling nearly 500 points by days end, to close –157 over open that day, and nearly 818 points lower than Monday’s open. Whether it was from the news that the jobless rate is rising (it’s ~6% now), or from the realization that now the government will have an even greater stake in the housing market, there’s no way of really knowing. However, the bill is passed, and, for once, it’s good to see the government act with decisive action, even if it is in conflict of interest or is completely lacking in important details, like how the money will be spent. What happens next will really determine if we have to repeat the bailout. In 5 years we can begin to recoup losses from the financial industry, but that could be thrown out of the window if the cost is too great, or if we have another bailout. Politicians are promising to enact tougher regulation on the market, which is part posturing, and part a realization that years of encouraging banks to lend out money to people with no hope of actually getting their money back is a bad idea.

I must say I’m supremely impressed with the latest Word Press update. The new admin page is much nicer, and the way that it informs you that there’s necessary business in a certain section with the really cool comment style boxes is very aesthetic. Great job, guys!

For those of you who have beef with Comcast, this is some good news. AT&T apparently purchased cable internet for 150 phones in a competitor’s region to test the actual connection they had. ars technica has the results, with some pretty slides to boot.

Will Ferrell is one of the most amazing comedians ever. Check out Will and Dave Grohl live in this video.

Who knew a tetanus shot would make you run a fever? Well, apparently I didn’t. Last night I began feeling just horrible, and today I’m running a 100° fever. Which is just enough to make you feel cold and hot all at the same time. Here’s to hoping tomorrow brings better.

On a related note, Dvorak has a post about how sewing machines manage to get two pieces of thread to combine. Something else I never knew.