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Most of us have read stories about where Linux came from. We all know about Linus Torvalds programming away somewhere in Finland. Some of us know about Richard Stallman, and the Free Software Foundation, and why that plays into it.

I like to think that racism and sexism and other prejudices are largely gone from our society, but I'm still occasionally disappointed.

Here's another mixed message in the news: A woman has won the Turing Award. That shouldn't have been a news item at all, but it turns out a woman has never won the Turing award before. It's a sign of progress that it's happened, but a sad reflection on our society that it hasn't happened before.

I don't quite know how to introduce this one. Some of you may not have heard of the Ig Nobel awards. Well, now you have.

I've read quite a few articles about the Ig Nobel awards over the years, but this one is more entertaining, and more in keeping with the spirit of the awards than the others.

Go there. Read it. It's worth it.

I've read several stories along these lines now, so I suppose I should pass it along.

For most people, apparently, one key to improved productivity is to reduce multitasking. That is, turn off your e-mail, reduce other interruptions, and allow yourself more uninterrupted time to concentrate on a single task.

I hadn't heard anything about the style known as "steampunk" until I stumbled into this. We'd been looking at the websites of people who had converted buses into motorhomes, and spent some time looking at this one.

I noticed a link to some brass lanterns on one of those pages, and that led me to the Steampunk Keyboard. This is essentially a loose set of instructions for creating your own antique brass computer keyboard. You just have to see it.

Some of us were just born this way:

Yes, of course it's from Dilbert.

Some of you will have heard about SETI@Home, which uses your computer's spare CPU cycles to help search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, but fewer are aware that the same technology is being applied to help find cures for Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

It's easy to do, and won't cost you anything, except maybe a few cents' worth of electricity. Just go to Folding@home (folding.stanford.edu) and download and install the software.

This is an excerpt from the RSIBreak.org website:

Repetitive Strain Injury is an illness which can occur as a result of working with a mouse and keyboard. This utility can be used to remind you to take a break now and then. It will show you a random picture from a collection you can configure yourself for a configurable duration at a configurable interval.

I was thinking about e-mail, and how we give birth to it, nurture it, raise it, see it through its growing pains until we think it's mature enough, and then send it out into the ether to fend for itself.

Out there among the bits, the data packets, it often doesn't do well. Vicious routers tear at it, evil DNS servers misdirect it, cheap old coax cables mar its shiny youthful skin, and finally ruthless spam filters kidnap it and hold it for untold amounts of time.

Here's a Google Map of Yellow Point Lodge on Vancouver Island. I've heard that it's a very nice place to stay, but it's very difficult to get a reservation.

The link includes a link to the lodge website. If you're interested, you can find more detail there.