FBI Begins Visiting Libraries: "The FBI is visiting libraries nationwide and checking the reading records of people it suspects of having ties to terrorists or plotting an attack, library officials say."

Drought eases in Pennsylvania: "Philadelphia Suburban Water Co. (PSW) reported that its reservoirs are ready and available to handle the increased usage expected after the governor's easing of drought restrictions throughout much of Southeastern Pennsylvania."

National Water Monitoring Day: "October 18, 2002 - Citizen monitors, established volunteer monitoring organizations, federal, state, Tribal and local monitoring staff are invited to participate in National Water Monitoring Day on October 18, 2002. Citizen monitors including families, classrooms, civic organizations and service clubs can participate and sample for a core set of water quality parameters (Temperature, pH, Water Clarity, Dissolved Oxygen) using an inexpensive National Water Monitoring Day test kit available through this web site. Established volunteer monitoring organizations and government monitors may use their existing protocols, equipment, and monitoring methods."

Renewals and Pickups: "Canadian and American primetime television programs renewed for 2002-2003." Cancelations: "Casualties of the 2001-2002 television season".

Dean Peters: "The trick then is to eithe mangle or hide your email in plain site. One way to do this is to use NUMERIC or HEXADECIMAL encodings, that is use codes instead of characters to represent your email address. The advantage to this is that when a normal/nice visitor clicks on your link to an email address, it works just fine. But for the spambots, they either send their tripe to an invalid email address because they didn't unencode it - which raises their operating costs and adulterates any list they're selling. Or they miss harvesting the address altogether because it doesn't 'look-like' your average everyday email address."

Roland reports:

"Please welcome Sandi Smith to ETL and our creative services team. She will be working in the role of Marketing Writer, and brings many years of marcom copy writing experience to ETL. She starts today, but this week she will work 1/2 day on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Starting next Monday, she will be working full time. As with all other work within Creative Services, Sandi's projects will be posted and scheduled through the department's production schedule."

Scientists mix spiders with goats: "Scientists have combined the DNA from a goat and spider to create an animal which produces silk that is five times stronger than steel. The fibre, derived from the goats' milk, harnesses the huge strength of silk spun by spiders."

On globalization, tactics, and the new football game: "Love or hate it, football - or soccer for the Americans - is the biggest pro sport in the world. It has been practiced in almost every country for a long time, and has shown a remarkable stability in its rules since its creation as a sport, more than one century ago."

Gigantic airships aim to damp forest fires: "Water will rain down continuously from gigantic airships, which will be kept topped up by passing drop-planes or helicopters. 'It'll be like having a non-stop artificial rainstorm,' says Pope. They suggest using 300-metre-long propeller-powered airships carrying just under one million litres of water and flying high above the flames. From there, adjustable valves on the underside of the balloon--much like large shower heads--will pump out a staggering 200,000 litres an hour over a large area of the fire. They could also have a few water cannon that can be directed over particularly persistent hot spots."

The case for irresponsible blogging: "What it does suggest is that the full truth will come out faster -- especially in an era of instant Web-based reactions and corrections --when journalists who have 50 percent of the story, or even 40 percent, publish what they know when they find it out rather than waiting until they think they have100 percent of the story (which of course they probably never do). ... I'd even claim, irresponsibly, that you'll often have a better chance of getting the truth from reluctant sources if you print the charges first (couched in the suitably uncertain phrases and questions most easily employed by opinion writers and bloggers) and get the reactions second -- since at that point sources who'll be reacting won't be tempted to think that by lying they can kill the story in its crib and prevent the charges from ever being made."