Artist Stefan van Zoggel has designed some wicked cool "old school" postage stamps based on the Star Wars universe. And, of course, the postmaster cancel is charming. (Via Wired.)

Multiple Pulitzer prize winning photographer Horst Faas, whose camera documented the world of war, died yesterday at the age of 79. His amazing work for AP showed us, in barest terms, the brutality of combat and its aftermath. Faas was particularly known for his images of the Vietnam war, like this one:

This lovely chart shows the "Bond Girls," then and now. And wow, some of them aged very well. (All of the Goldfinger cast, for instance.)

Antibiotics for an ear/sinus infection combo...and a new painkiller to deal with it all. Word to the wise: when using a new pain medication for the first time, do not walk too closely to the wall. Because you tend not to miss.

Breakdown of vote on same-sex marriage...by education.

Yep.

There ya go.

First major overhaul of the "bible" of psychiatry in 30+ years...and the revision process is actually transparent for the first time; the psychiatric community is actually involved. "Crazy as fark" no longer a standard diagnosis.

(It's been many years since I first read about "On Being Sane in Insane Places" in my grad classes on participant observation research. Had forgotten. Need to read that whole thing, once I'm finished with some other reading today.)

Interesting that they ditched Asberger's Syndrome. This is good, since any time someone is a bit shy or socially inept, someone says "Asberger's!"...not every personality trait is a farkin' mental illness. It seems to me that it is much wiser to help people understand themselves than branding what they are as dysfunction.

Apparently, ruled a US District Court judge in Virginia, a Facebook "like" is not considered free speech.

Horse testicles.

Last week, I'd posted a story about a computer mix-up involving one of Boston's better hospitals and some odd automatic appointment reminders. Just an update, with thanks:

On Tuesday, the manager of media relations, communication, and public affairs at Brigham and Women's Hospital dropped me email about my story. (I'm sure that having it appear at Universal Hub probably helped, since Adam gets rather more readers than I do!)

She wrote:

I saw your blog post about the automated calls and shared it with our Information Systems teams. They believe that they have remedied the issue, so you should no longer receive reminders about appointments that aren’t yours!

Please let me know if it continues to happen and I will try to be of further assistance.

This fascinating video shows Andrew Ainsworth creating a Star Wars stormtrooper helmet from beginning to end. Ainsworth was the original creator, and he later made and sold additional helmets - prompting an unsuccessful suit by LucasFilms in 2011.

(Via io9.) It's quite fascinating...but I think it gets coolest about halfway through, when he begins the molding process. Wicked spiffy.

Lately, I've been getting an interesting crop of academic spam sent to my work account. For some reason, many people think I want to go to their conferences and read papers. Most of them are in my field (communication and journalism related). Some are in popular culture (which, okay, might relate but is a stretch for me).

But I'm pretty sure nobody wants me to do a paper presentation at an engineering conference, no matter what lists I'm on.