I haven’t found a corresponding news story about this yet (sadly, I can’t read Spanish or I’d do more searching in news from Madrid), but I was very taken by this photograph of women parading in their wedding dresses. If you looked at the photo by itself, you would think perhaps it was a mass wedding or maybe a fashion promotion. The caption reveals that it is a march against domestic violence. Suddenly, the dresses and shielding veils take on a darker meaning.

They Might Be Giants will be at The Fillmore on July 16 and 17. There will be a new Peter Gabriel album out this year, and, it appears, an accompanying tour. The Powerpuff Girls movie will be out on July 3rd. This has been a public service announcement. We now return you to your regularly scheduled weblogging.

I didn’t expect handwriting recognition to be a major selling point of Microsoft’s new Tablet PC, but I did expect them to make it a little more intelligent and flexible. But according to David Coursey, their recognizer doesn’t train itself to your writing, so it won’t get better over time and learn how you write. Also, it is designed for cursive writing! So if you decide to print legibly, you are out of luck, though there is an input mechanism akin to Palm’s Graffiti. Well, as Coursey discovered, the mantra from Microsoft is “Handwriting recognition doesn’t matter.” True perhaps, but it would be interesting to see what would happen if someone made it good enough to matter. When would we prefer to write? Sending a handwritten note to someone via instant messenger or email is an intriguing concept, though. Just think, you can draw your very own smiley faces.

As Karl is pondering what fireflies eat, I find myself facing another summer without the blink-blink-blink of bugs outside my window. I associate fireflies with the 4th of July as we used to sit outside waiting for the fireworks display, watching tiny glowing lamps signaling in the darkness. Though I do not wish to destroy California’s environment any further, I always think it would be nice to have these little bugs here. I speculated that they need a moist environment, but it appears that there are species that live in dry areas as well. However, little seems to be known about their habitat and food sources. Their bioluminescence has been studied closely, of course. But you won’t see it west of Kansas.

Check out FLIP, the Floating Instrument Platform. This strange boat is more like “a huge specialized buoy” which turns itself on end and becomes a research platform for up to 16 people. It takes 28 minutes for its empty compartments to fill with water and sink the lower 300 feet. The passengers stand on the outside decks during the flip, and I’ll guess that Fred Astaire references are frequently made by newcomers.

Herr’s Changing Cheddar Magic Popcorn actually changes color from pink to green while you’re chomping away at it. The metallic bag features a section that acts as a mirror so you can see your tongue turn colors. Someone set up Willy Wonka with snack foods.

Luminex is a fabric that actually emits its own light. It’s not just reflective. Of course this means it needs its own power source, so your next pair of pants for that rave may have a pocket with a battery in it.

I’m taking a few days off…we’re moving to a new house. Back on Monday!

There are finally signs of forward motion on trans fat labeling. The National Academy of Sciences is preparing a nutritional study that includes information on trans fats, and I doubt it will be in favor of them. The FDA is expected to go ahead with their delayed nutritional label changes after the study is released this summer. Their original attempt to get the label to list the amount of trans fats was stalled with opponents arguing that the research was flawed. I’m not wondering who those opponents were. Just take a look at most prepared food labels and you can see that the food industry will suffer greatly from having to expose an unhealthy number on their boxes of cereal, ramen noodles, crackers, diet cookies, bags of tortilla chips, tortillas themselves, the list goes on and on. Frito-Lay has a helpful page that lists their products which don’t have hydrogenated oil (Smartfood cheese popcorn is very yummy).

Why didn’t the airlines think of this sooner (or did they)? Delta will be selling upgrades to first class at the gate, subject to availability of course. They are priced according to flight distance. Although budget travelers may not spring for the opportunity, many will find it an enticement as it appeals to a traveler’s psychology. It spreads out the spending of money and is a much easier splurge to make then when you are buying your original tickets, especially if you’re sitting right there, hungry and tired, unhappy from traveling. It’s also a great enticement for business travelers whose companies paid for their original coach ticket. Unfortunately, the losers are probably those with frequent flier upgrades, though Delta says the most frequent fliers will still get priority on upgrade requests.