I know that someone, somewhere, for some reason really wanted to know about the ultrasonic velocity characteristics of cheddar cheese, and the effect that temperature has on said characteristics (warning: PDF file). Importantly, this study managed to “demonstrate the feasibility of using ultrasonic measurements to determine temperatures in Cheddar cheese” — this must be important to someone.

I gotta tell ya’, I’ve become pretty dang annoyed with the dang X10 wireless system ads that have started popping up under m y web browsing window. Thanks go out to Gael for a bunch of awesome links — one to X10’s explanation of the ads, and another to a page which will disable the ads. (The unfortunate thing is that that last link only disables them for 30 days, but in looking at the URL, there’s an argument that sets the 30-day variable; if that’s right, then this link should disable them for a year, and this one should disable them for 10 years.)