I quite enjoyed the Wired cover story this month, which begins by arguing that a surfeit of data is rendering the notion of scientific modeling basically obsolete, and continues by walking through several ways in which this phenomenon has manifested itself out in the world. I especially enjoyed this mini-essay about the Europe Media Monitor, which looks like a useful potential news source to scan to see what the world is talking about. You can see, for example, that it identified the pre-election violence in Zimbabwe as the biggest story of the day yesterday, and pulls together reports from all over the global press on the subject.

Taylor points to the Large Hadron Collider countdown clock, ticking off the seconds until Earth is destroyed by a black hole colliding with a strangelet or whatever.

This strikes me as a well-informed interview with Charles Lewis, “the godfather of non-profit investigative journalism,” on efforts to support the form. My favorite nugget, and the one highlighted on other sites that link to this interview, is that Lewis is modeling his new endeavor on the Children’s Television Workshop:

“I use the name ‘Workshop’ because I was always fascinated with the Children

If these Blik wall decals were easier to put up, my entire apartment would be covered in Donkey Kong platforms, rolling platforms, and freaky-looking princesses. Via Brand Flakes.

In one of the many Tim Russert reminiscences circulating this weekend, Isaac Chotiner mentioned the grandiose theme music of Meet the Press, which has always been one of my favorite parts of the show. Naturally, this sent me spiraling deep into the Googleverse, where I was delighted to discover a GeoCities (!) site entitled “Network news music,” containing the full themes of network news shows as they evolved over the years.

On the page for NBC, you’ll find two versions of the theme for Meet the Press — movement IV of a symphony entitled “The Mission,” which NBC News commissioned from John Williams; the movement is called “The Pulse of Events.” Movement I of “The Mission” opens the NBC Nightly News, and the third movement opened the Today Show for several years. Having grown up listening to many of these themes, it’s a revelation to hear the motifs that reverberate through all of them when you play them in sequence.

It’s finds like these that remind me how much I love the Web.

See also: this analysis of network news music from Slate.

Howard Weaver teases an upcoming McClatchy report on the wrongful detainment of (what looks to be) dozens of Guantanamo detainees:

For more than six years, the United States has held hundreds of men at Guantanamo

My new goal in life is to find that my architect has embedded an elaborate puzzle into the woodwork of my tony Central Park mansion. (via)

OK, if we were actually to to do this meetup exactly a month from now in Minneapolis (7/10-7/13), who could make it? I’ve got a comfy leather couch, a queen-sized aerobed in my spare bedroom (weightroom), floor space for anyone who doesn’t mind it, and I might be able to rustle up a friend or two to host some folks as well. I can promise a rip-roaring time, an itinerary packed with culinary and cultural delights, at least one save-the-world-caliber conversation, and lefse.

All I want for Christmas is a solemn promise that no one will ever use the word “cybergenic” unironically again for the rest of my life, please.

Via 3QD, George Packer in World Affairs Journal brings us one of the most textured essays I’ve read about Iraq in the war’s five years:

For all the television news coverage, Americans have the slimmest sense of what the war actually feels and looks like