Micah's stories

At the recent RoboCup, Sony's AIBOs played soccer. Sort of a more civilized version of the Robot Wars program on TV. It's worth going to MSNBC just to see the pictures of the dogs splayed on the playing field. Anthropomorphics in its most literal form!

I really don't seek out news about sea turtles, but this article was a little too weird for me to pass up. Weird, sad, but funny in an ironic kind of way. Satellite-tracked sea turtle ends up being eaten. Scientists hope to recover their expensive transmitter at some point.

Camels that can make use of salty water have been found in China. This article is worth reading just for the final paragraph, which displays the dry sense of humor commonly associated with people in the UK. *grin*

Some of you might remember Tad William's charming novel, Tailchaser's Song about a cat out to save the world... or maybe you've picked up some of his later work, the fantasy about Osten Ard (the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series), or the Otherland books. It looks like Williams is jumping into online fiction experimentation with his website Shadowmarch. He plans to allow subscriptions soon, but in essence it's a pay-if-you-like-it fantasy serial. The author has significant plans for the site, outlined in the 'About' section. I think it's cool to see successful authors trying out the online fiction models... someone's going to have to, in order to find a way that works.