Farmville is a popular online game, usually played through Facebook, but now available on platforms including the iPhone. I've played several similar games (like We Rule) and found it a baffling experience. The game was simultaneously boring and addictive. "Gameplay" consisted of laborious, mechanical management tasks, and demanded that the player constantly return to the game at specific times to harvest crops in order to get virtual currency, so you could...plant more crops and set your clock again.... READ ON

Today's weird science: Dr. Neil Shirtcliffe shows off substances that repel water in very surprising ways. It's a little hard to describe -- basically, imagine a coating that prevents water from adhering to something. And I mean water will not stick at all. Now put that coating on glass, and on a piece of rough material (like a rough version of Teflon). Now start squirting water on those coated substances and submerging them -- and watch as very weird stuff happens. Check out the nerdy goodness:... READ ON

I've been in plenty of Monopoly games that dragged on for hours, with one or two bankrupt players sitting on the sidelines, bored to death. But a few intrepid gamers decided to figure out the shortest theoretically possible Monopoly game. Their solution is explained here and depicted in the video below. While extremely unlikely, it's theoretically possible that it could happen. It takes only nine rolls of the dice. But what's more interesting is this comment thread in which several other Monopoly... READ ON

I'm pleased to announce the triumphant return* of the most useful site of the century, Celebrities Eating Dot Com. Yes, that's right, this is the best destination for photos of celebrities eating food anywhere on the internet, period. Want to see Obama eating a hot dog, or John McCain eating a hot dog, or, let's go for it, George Clooney totally destroying a hot dog? NOW YOU CAN. Before, you might have to resort to Google Images to get embarrassing nom-nom-nom celeb shots, but thanks to this crack team... READ ON