[Yahoo! News]
The tsunamis that crashed into southern India have unearthed priceless relics, including two granite lions, buried under sand for centuries, archaeologists say. The sea has thrown up evidence of the grandeur of the Pallava dynasty. These have been buried for centuries.

[fun.from.hell.pl]
Perhaps the most challenging karaoke ever: Volare by the Gipsy Kings.

[Open Source Shakespeare]
Open Source Shakespeare was created to be the best free resource for scholars, thespians, and Shakespeare lovers. It includes the 1866 Globe Edition of the complete works. With searchable text of the plays and poems, a concordance, and more!

[tobiasbuckell.com]
How much does a science fiction or fantasy writer make? Well, this is depressing.

[NOLA.com]
New Orleans parade-cam. Happy Mardi Gras!

[Lethem in Landscape]
The Squandered Promise of Science Fiction by Jonathan Lethem. I guess this essay is fairly notorious in certain SF circles, but it's the first I've seen it. I agree with a lot of what he says, though I think he overstates his case to make his point.

[Reason Online]
Interesting interview with Neal Stephenson.

[The Economist]
The characteristics of information—be it software, text or even biotech research—make it an economically obvious thing to share. It is a “non-rival” good: ie, your use of it does not interfere with my use. Better still, there are network effects: ie, the more people who use it, the more useful it is to any individual user. Best of all, the existence of the internet means that the costs of sharing are remarkably low. The cost of distribution is negligible, and co-ordination is easy because people can easily find others with similar goals and can contribute when convenient.

The question is, can sharing be used to supply more than just information?

[Policy Review Online]
Stanley Kurtz claims that Humankind faces three fundamental choices in the years ahead: at least a partial restoration of traditional social values, a radical new eugenics, or endless and compounding population decline. I say that the future, as usual, will be more complex than can be predicted.