Wired: Robots of Arabia

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.11/camel.html?pg=2&topic=camel&topic_set=

For their 10 grand, the Qataris will get an aluminum frame on shock absorbers, hinged arms, and, for a thorax, a box about the size of a hardcover book. Inside the box there's a processor, four microcontrollers, and a soundboard. On the racetrack, trainers follow each camel in an SUV, wielding a remote. With a joystick and buttons they can maneuver the whip, striking the camel in front, on the side, or on its flank; control the force of the blow; and spin the whip so it whistles past its ear (a goading action known as khali). With a slider, they can tighten or lengthen the reins; a screen on the remote displays the camel's speed and heart rate, and the life left in the battery.

Still, there are aspects of the design that only this project, in this culture, could inspire. The robot camel jockeys have plastic heads that wear wraparound sunglasses and bicycle helmets. Their features are vaguely childlike, and their skin is an odd orange color - part Swiss, part Arabic, and part Bedouin, or so it seems. Fair enough, but the heads are as empty as a department store dummy's. There are no electronics in there: They exist only to anthropomorphize the robots to the point where the camels - skittish creatures - will accept them.

AP: Popular San Diego seals win reprieve from governor (AKA I am not making this up)

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_8586/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=2PZ2In1q

...the city said it planned to hire someone to walk the beach with a public address system broadcasting the sound of barking dogs to scare off the seals...The issue is so hotly contested that the city had planned to deploy two police officers to the site to prevent interference by pro-seal activists, he said...

Wired: Speechless: Dilbert Creator's Struggle to Regain His Voice

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-08/ff_adams

According to the National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association, there are an estimated 50,000 SD sufferers in North America. Their ranks include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., NPR host Diane Rehm, and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels of Run-DMC, who developed the condition a decade ago and whose acceptance speech at this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony was noticeably strained.

NYT: The Meaning of Life

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/opinion/16iht-edcohen.html

"Which brings me to low-cal Canto and high-cal Owen: Canto looks drawn, weary, ashen and miserable in his thinness, mouth slightly agape, features pinched, eyes blank, his expression screaming, “Please, no, not another plateful of seeds!”

Well-fed Owen, by contrast, is a happy camper with a wry smile, every inch the laid-back simian, plump, eyes twinkling, full mouth relaxed, skin glowing, exuding wisdom as if he’s just read Kierkegaard and concluded that “Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backward.”"