I made a few changes to the site today; I moved "Blog Roulette" into the navigation bar, added "Greatest Hits", and removed "Sites" from my blogroll.  A few other invisible changes behind the scenes, too.  As always, please let me know if you notice anything amiss...

The controversy about same-sex marriages took another weird turn, as Benton County, Oregon, has stopped issuing marriage licenses altogether.  I am not making this up, I'm not that clever.  [ via Citizen Smash, who is that clever... ]

The 2004 Wired Rave Awards have been announced.  Big winners: Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings), Steve Jobs (iTunes music store), David Byrne (Powerpoint art!), and Brahm Cohen (Bittorrent).  Hard to argue with any of them, eh?

Frequent visitors will know that I like SpaceX and follow them closely.  I had missed their December update, which is pretty cool - they formally unveiled the Falcon rocket by parking it outside the FAA headquarters in Washington.  Patti Grace Smith, head of the FAA space division said, "Those of us who live and work in Washington know how difficult it is to find a good parking space.  So I must say you've done quite well here."  Anyway read it all, it is very interesting.  This truly is rocket science.

Oh, and the January update is out as well:  "We are now entering the final stretch before launch.  A lot of work still remains, but the bulk of the development on engines, structures, avionics & guidance, regulatory matters and the mobile launch system is done.  There could still be some hidden issues that show up only at the last minute, but, notwithstanding a major setback, we are on track for a maiden launch around the middle of this year."  They have already booked a full schedule of 2005 launches as well.

In other space news, Wired reports Probe Flotilla to Scour Planets.  "During the next decade, space agencies in the United States, Europe and Japan plan to send no fewer than nine unmanned vehicles to planets, comets and asteroids near and far in an attempt to answer as many questions as possible about the nature of the universe.  An additional seven spacecraft have already reached their destinations or are on the way."  This nice survey describes each of the missions and links their websites.  Excellent.

Doc Searles discusses The Cluetrain Manifesto and the generally cluelessness of Journalism (capital J) regarding online publishing, especially blogs.  "They crush statues with every sentence they write."

Andrew Gumet unearths Lessons from the 60s, particularly the importance of conceptual integrity when building software.  I totally agree with this.  Open source doesn't imply anarchy; look at Linux, which has been directed by a small committee of people who shared a vision.

Ottmar Liebert has traded his Audi TT for a Toyota Prius, and loves it.  It has even made him nicer :)

He also pointed out this Lexus, a "luxury hybrid SUV".  36mpg in the city!

And not least, he's considering this adapter to interface your iPod to your car stereo.  Very cool, now I can finally replace the cassette adapter.

Finally, I doubt this actually happened, but it is funny nonetheless:  [ via acidman ]

Senator Hillary Clinton, at a party, walked up to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and told him, "If you were my husband I would poison your drink."

Schwarzenegger replied, "If you were my wife I would drink it."