Wow, sometimes I am totally stoked to be living in the 21st century:

Google Earth to allow Exploration of Oceans, Mars

YES! How exciting.

But sometimes, I am both stoked and totally frightened:

'Fantastic Voyage' Revisited: The Pill That Navigates

Philips Research in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, has developed a prototype for a pill that can be programmed to navigate toward a specific trouble spot in the body and deposit its medicine there, radioing dispatches to the doctor as it travels.

This is HUGE. But eek, scary implications for things like biological weapons, suicide bombers, privacy, and personal freedom.

On a side note about personal freedom, oy vey, guess which catalog arrived for me at my generally gun-shy workplace?

Trevor and I also got one at home a few days ago, and I was wracking my brain thinking about how we could have gotten on their list, until I got the one at work today. We had bought each other these sweet tactical flashlights last year (I shipped his to my work), so it's obvious Surefire thinks we are militia members and our names got sold to into proper channels!

But truth be told, as someone who loves authentic (and vintage) military equipment, cheap ammo, and shooting mad guns, the catalog is RAD. But there are some creepy things in there. Like the Kuwait Liberation Medal, "awarded to members of the U. S. Armed Forces who participated in the liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi forces between 1990 and 1993."

I suppose there are collectors of that kind of stuff, but c'mon, you just know who else, among others, is buying this stuff and why. Thinking about it makes me do the wince and squirm that I do when other people are embarrassing themselves!