U.C. San Diego researchers have discovered that some ad codes are tracking user history far beyond what was previously believed - and not just shady sites.  This 'history sniffing' was found on large sites like Morningstar.com and Newsmax.com, among others.  The culprit in those cases - ad-targeting company Interclick - admitted to being the tracking code on those sites.Interclick said its new homegrown code

In another chapter in the War on Science, Wikileaks documents show that the US government was less interested in science accuracy and more interested in pushing its climate agenda during the 2009 run-up to the meeting.

I can't make sense of the point behind this video but that's why I have a science site and not a chat show like "Gylne Tider".They made a promotional video of people lip syncing a remake (1987) of Paul McCartney's "Let It Be" (I know, I know, it was technically The Beatles, but we all know their agreeing to list themselves as Lennon-McCartney gave John Lennon a lot more credit for Beatles work on those last few albums than he deserved - he was phoning it in) but they aren't singers - and the subtitles are fun to read.Tonya Harding, the not Don Johnson guy from Miami Vice, Glenn Close Botox-ed into oblivion, Katarin Witt on air guitar and many others - this is a keeper.

Who would you think is the most read person in the world;  Shakespeare, God, that lady who wrote the Harry Potter books?Nope, it turns out to be Matthew Carter of Cambridge, Massachusetts.Never heard of him?  Neither had I but the Babbage blog at The Economist has.  Carter is the person who created the Georgia and Verdana fonts, which are now on practically every personal computer in existence.  He created them both in the 1990s for Microsoft, which released them with Internet Explorer and bundled them into Windows and then issued them as a free download for all PCs.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Julius Genachowski announced Wednesday that he has circulated draft rules that will "preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet" - but they ironically couldn't be disclosed to the public ahead of the December 21st vote.Yes, rules on openness no one in the public will get to see.  Welcome to government oversight of Internet freedom.

TSA is positively Grinch-like this holiday season, with complaints of an eerie choice between uncertain X-ray scanners or 'gate rape' by TSA security if you refuse to be irradiated, neither of which has any chance at all of stopping terrorists, since actual countries with terrorists don't do anything of the sort.

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, which wasn't officially on a secret mission though it raised various alarms when it disappeared for two weeks, has returned.  Tracking X-37B was a delight for amateur astronomers since, let's be honest, you can't really keep a secret in the sky from them.   While NASA employees were drinking coffee, an amateur found a gaping hole in Jupiter, so not a lot gets by unpaid sky watchers.

This isn't the kind of Ferrari you expect Formula One drivers to be in but it sure goes fast - it is the world's fastest roller coaster, screaming along at 150 MPH.Watch F-1 drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa go from 0 to face-peeling in two seconds flat.

The Post Carbon Institute has a video on 300 years of fossil fuel usage.  It isn't entirely accurate (we didn't 'run out' of wood, it got surpassed) but it's interesting.As they write "While there's a damned good chance we'll fall off a cliff, there's still time to control our transition to a post-carbon future" - the private sector will do it.   There is a reason we are not an alcohol or whale oil economy, after all.

In another chapter in the Democratic War on Science, Kentucky scientists are concerned about Democratic Governor Steve Beshear's announcement that the state is partnering with Answers in Genesis (AIG) to create "Ark Encounter," to make what developers call a full-scale ark including models of dinosaurs.  Cost: $150 million.