The Clown Ride may move slow, but it's only because The Clown Ride doesn't have to move for anybody.

Four Spanish teenagers sent a camera-operated weather balloon into the stratosphere. The boys built the electronic sensor components from scratch. Gerard Marull Paretas, Sergi Saballs Vila, Marta Gasull Morcillo and Jaume Puigmiquel Casamort attached a £56 camera to a heavy duty £43 latex balloon, and sent their science project 20-miles above the Earth. Team leader Gerard Marull, 18, said, "We were overwhelmed at our results, especially the photographs, to send our handmade craft to the edge of space is incredible."

My hologram is everywhere I can't be.

Blake needs to talk to Jack about the homepage... or at least he tries to.

A law in Pisa mandates a 2:1 holder to pusher ratio.

Manastorm writes "A man who was wheelchair bound due to a motorcycle accident twenty years ago gained the ability to walk again after being bitten by a recluse spider. 'I can't wait to start dancing,' he said as he looks forward to a full recovery after experiencing what some call a 'true miracle.'" I think we all know how this story is going to end. I hope The Sinister Six have been practicing.

You don't get more hardcore nerd than dressing up in chainmail and playing electricity.

krou writes "The BBC is reporting that an 8-year-old boy, Zohaib Ahmed, from Hampshire, UK, has set a new record for the youngest person to ever sit and pass A-level maths with an A level grade. He scored 90% for the exam, and claimed his success was down to his parents. "My parents helped me out a lot. My dad taught me some maths and my mum sorted everything out. I couldn't have done it without them." More importantly for the /. community, the mother firmly believed in good planning, and gave them plenty of leisure time — to play computer games (and watch television)."

Jesus loves everyone except base jumpers.

An anonymous reader writes "In the Cold War the so-called 'Star Wars defense system' proposed using lasers to destroy incoming Soviet missiles. In a 2007 brainstorming session aimed at combating malaria, Dr. Lowell Wood, the architect of that system, proposed modifying his original idea to kill mosquitoes. The cover of today's Wall Street Journal contains an article that highlights this initiative as well as a few others, like using a giant flashlight to disrupt mosquitoes' vision and using the insects to vaccinate, in the war against malaria. The system is intelligent enough to avoid noncombatants like humans and butterflies and can even tell the difference between females, the blood-drinkers, and males. My favorite quote: 'We'd be delighted if we destabilize the human-mosquito balance of power.'"

A 24-year-old woman admitted to police that she slipped some tranquilizers into her boss's coffee because she felt "he needed to chill out." Veteranarian John Duckett knew something was wrong shortly after drinking some of the coffee. Officers said the woman cleaned the cages at the the Reynolds Road Animal Clinic. I hope she at least had the sense to slip it in a cup of decaf.

There are a few basic rules that everyone knows: don't run around on your roof holding an antenna during a thunderstorm, don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and don't try to smash bullets in your driveway with a hammer. 21-year-old Matthew Dugger never learned the bullet rule. Dugger went to the hospital after one of the bullets he was slamming with a hammer exploded, blowing shrapnel into his leg. The hammering was witnessed by several kids belonging to Dugger's roommate, who was already under investigation for inadequate supervision of the children. "Anyone nearby could have certainly been hit by it. It's such a monumentally stupid idea," said Travis Brunson, owner of Chiquita Guns.

The memo sums it up.

An anonymous reader writes "Jerry had a motorcycle accident last May and lost a finger. When the doctor working on the artificial finger heard he is a hacker, the immediate suggestion was to embed a USB 'finger drive' to the design. Now he carries a Billix Linux distribution as part of his hand."

A school has apologized for sending a truancy letter to the mother of a boy suffering from leukemia after she asked to take him out of classes to meet the Pope before he died. Louise Yates asked for permission from St Botolph's School to take her her six-year-old son Travis on a two-day trip to the Vatican in June for a blessing with the Pope. In response she got a letter about truancy and a copy of his attendance record. The school has since apologized and released a statement saying, "We are aware of Travis' illness and have given permission for him to travel to Rome during term-time. Government guidance suggests sending attendance information out with permission letters, but we appreciate in this instance it may not have been appropriate and we would like to apologise if this has caused the family any offence."

You'll be able to tell if the curtains match the drapes from every conceivable angle, if the New Jersey state's Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling has their way. The board has recently proposed a ban on genital waxing. Salon owner Linda Orsuto said that women would "go ballistic" if the proposal passed. She says that some women would resort to waxing themselves, visiting unlicensed salons, or go to other states, including Pennsylvania, in a quest to remain bare down there. It's only a matter of time before the Pennsylvania Tourism Board rolls out their "Dare to be Bare!" bumper stickers.

If you think good daycare is hard to find here, try finding it in Africa.

The Fourth District Court of Appeals in Santa Ana agreed with a lower court when it ruled that a contract written in blood between two Korean businessmen is unenforceable. One of the men agreed to repay the other about $170,000 of an investment. The deal was written in blood on a piece of paper in Korean characters. The translated note read: "Sir, please forgive me. Because of my deeds you have suffered financially. I will repay you to the best of my ability." Although the court has struck down the blood oath, they made no mention of contracts written on the bodies of ritual sacrifices, which are still binding.

San Francisco Food Bank officials say they recently received a donation from Kellogg Co. of thousands of boxes of breakfast cereal, all with Olympic athlete Michael Phelps' face on the front. Kellogg decided not to renew Phelps' contract after his picture was taken with a pot pipe. Food bank executive director Paul Ash says he doesn't know specifically why the Phelps cereal was donated. Hopefully, the hungry people that this cereal is going to feed will be strong enough to resist the picture of Phelps, and the heavy drug use it causes, unlike the youth of America.

A Quebec entrepreneur, Gerald Dominique, plans on launching a TV network dedicated to broadcasting digital obituaries. Gerald obtained a license for "Remember the Name" in February from the CRTC and has plans to bring the channel to the rest of the country. Dominique says "the goal of this channel is to tell stories. How many stories are lost all over the world each year — great stories about people's lives — those are the stories we hope to tell." I can't think of anything more fun to do on a rainy day than curl up on the couch with a gun, or a bottle of pills, and watch the obituary channel.