John Graham-Cumming is currently collecting funds to use Charles Babbage‘s original blueprints to finally build his unfinished masterpiece: an entirely clockwork programmable computer that was conceived in 1837.

Charles Babbage was a visionary thinker of the 1800′s who had a lot of great ideas (like calculating mathematics by mechanical means)… but no funding. He never managed to get a completed prototype of any of his computers made during his lifetime. Since his death, there have been at least two working Difference Engines constructed. However, the Difference Engine was basically a normal calculator, and could perform only basic mathematical functions.

Graham-Cumming is looking to make a working model of Babbage’s Analytical Engine, which was actually a programmable computer. The graphic calculator version of the Difference Engine, if you will.

While digging out a new water tank in the San Diego Zoo, construction workers found an animal that was certainly not a part of any exhibit there: a nearly intact whale skeleton that has proven to be 3 million years old. That predates the Ice Age, for those of you playing along at home.

The creature was an adolescent baleen whale, not yet grown to its full sized, despite being twenty-four feet long.  Whale skeletons are not uncommon finds in southern California, although we imagine that this is the first one the San Diego Zoo has ever dug up.

Researchers have been taking a new look into the evidence surrounding the death of Ötzi the Iceman, discovered by hikers in 1991 and still the oldest natural mummy to have been found in Europe. General consensus has it that, judging by the inhospitable location of his body and the stone arrowhead embedded in his shoulder, Ötzi was murdered and his body left to the elements.

A new interpretation, posed by Alessandro Vanzetti and his colleagues, states that Ötzi was actually up on the mountain because he was taken there for his funeral.

A researcher at the University of Manchester has discovered a pattern of symbols embedded in ancient Greek philosopher Plato‘s writings which give them a musical structure. According to Dr. Jay Kennedy, a researcher at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine who has been studying Plato’s work for five years, this code reveals his “hidden philosophy.”

“The result was amazing,” he said, “It was like opening a tomb and finding new set of gospels written by Jesus Christ himself.”

Another Dan Brown book in the making? Perhaps, but more importantly, what implications do these findings have for our conception of Western history, and the age old conflict between science and religion?

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? is one of those cultural touchstones that tends to be fondly remembered by the valuable 18-34 demographic, and has inspired countless nostalgia-based Facebook groups to that end: It was one of the first computer games that was any fun, and one of the rare “edutainment” games of all time that wasn’t desperately snore-inducing.

Sure, you were forced to learn about geography from puzzlingly unhelpful townspeople, (they knew obscure landmarks in cities, but not the names of the cities themselves?) but you were also up against one of the most ingenious thieves of all time. She even managed to steal the game-winning puck from the Stanley Cup, the Strait of Magellan (how is that possible? –Ed.) and even a monkey-eating eagle. If you’ve got to learn that Reykjavik is the capital of Iceland to stop that sort of ruthless criminal, it’s worth it.

Here, via Wikipedia, is a complete list of fifty things that Carmen Sandiego stole in Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

(Before we dig too far into this, you may want to visit the 56k Modem Emulator, to establish the proper sonic mood. Ah, that beloved squeal.)

A colleague (who is handsome and wise) recently discovered an old Media Metrix report delineating “World Wide Web Audience Ratings” for December 1998. It’s a remarkable study, categorizing thousands of sites and conglomerated web companies.

This thing is like finding election results from 1880; like coming across the original Billboard music chart. It looks familiar, like you should know all of the component elements, but it’s unrecognizable. As though they’re all brands made up for movies.

The Rankings
Home and Work, Combined
We’ll start where the report starts – at those sites most popular when combining home and work visits. (Please see above diagram for clarification.) Before I list them, I want you to try and think up what the top fifty websites were in 1998. Got it?

Yeah, you’re wrong:

After seven years on TV Ice-Catraz, Futurama is coming back to Comedy Central in June, with 26 episodes on order. Earlier today, comedycentral.com posted a 30-second teaser trailer for the relaunched series which, while it might not send fans into paroxysms of laughter, will at least elicit some nostalgia.

With that nostalgia lighting our hearts afire, at least until we remember Bender’s Game, we thought we’d revisit the eight best minor characters from the original run of Futurama:

In 1988, James Cameron directed his first and only music video: “Reach,” for ’80s New Wave act Martini Ranch. It’s a remarkable video, in that:

*It stars Cameron’s ex, Kathryn Bigelow, as a rock n’ roll cowgirl

*Judge Reinhold and Paul Reiser are in it

*There are tarantulas and a monkey in it

*It is a music video that James Cameron directed

(h/t Ectoplasmosis)