Just a few of the interesting links I’ve run across today:

• Remember that gag video about how the iPod package would look like if it was designed by Microsoft? It seems that was created by Microsoft itself as an in-house presentation about the problems of branding and packaging. Details here.
• Courtesy of Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy Blog, a pretty nifty animated gif of Earth rising into the Martian sky. Naturally, this was assembled using photos taken by those amazing little Mars rovers. As Phil points out, “Everyone you know is in that picture, on that tiny mote of light.” I find this humbling, and really, really cool.
• And finally, something that should come in most useful for you “workin’ for the weekend” types, a German blog that demonstrates through photographs 1,000 methods for opening a bottle of beer. Prost!

Have a good night, folks…

Although tear-jerking, heart-warming tales of sick little kids are all over the Internet and I suspect at least half of them are probably bull, this one raised a genuine lump in this old curmudgeon’s throat: last Friday, the Idaho chapter of the Make-a-Wish Foundation organized virtually the entire city of Boise to fulfill a young cancer victim’s desire to become a superhero. Yes, a superhero, complete with a costume, a super-villain to pursue, and super-sidekicks to help out. The kid girl even got a phone call from Adam West, which is kind of silly when you think about it; a six-year-old wouldn’t remember Michael Keaton’s Batman — or even Val Kilmer‘s or George Clooney‘s — let alone West‘s. (West was no doubt cheaper than the other fellows.) Still, what a great gesture of community compassion. And just about the time I was ready to give up on the whole human species as a bunch of selfish jerks…

From the “We’re living in the Future!” department comes news of a wild new “liquid armor” that could supplement or even replace the conventional Kevlar vests used by soldiers, law-enforcement officers, and anti-government wackos. At the very least, it could protect the unarmored limbs that kids are currently losing in Iraq:

“We can make thin layers of material for use on the arms and legs that remain flexible under normal motion, but become rigid and absorb energy when impacted by a ballistic threat or a knife,” [researcher Norman] Wagner says.

Cool, cool stuff. Of course, science-fiction writers came up with this idea a long time ago, so this is really only a case of life imitating art… which brings me back to my usual question: where is my Skywalker-style speeder bike, anyhow?