Random tidbits

Several minor things....

• I've got an article on single-molecule electronics coming out in the June issue of Physics World. It's reasonably accessible, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, though I wish there had been more space to discuss the theoretical challenges.
• This is damned cool. I had an undergrad course that was like the baby version of this - building up transistors into logic gates; then using logic gates to build a shift register; then building and programming a little 6502-based computer to run a model train network. This guy's work puts all that to shame by comparison.
• The pseudonymous Kyle Finchsigmate, always entertaining and clever (often profane), has started a wiki site devoted to chemistry experimental techniques. In comments about that I came across this site from Rochester. I think it would be great to have a site like this about experimental physics, though clearly it would take a lot of work from many people to have it be any good....
• I've been asked by a reader to solicit discussion and opinions about the various journal online manuscript submission/review systems. Which ones are good, and which ones are lousy? From what I can tell, the APS system is decent (though it always seems to complain erroneously about mistakes in my references and article lengths), and the Paragon system from ACS is quite good. The Nature publishing group one also seems to be put together well. I'm not a fan of "Manuscript Central" or whatever it is that Elsevier and IEEE use. What do you all think?
• Thank goodness McLeroy was not confirmed as head of the TX board of education.
  
• This'll be the last update for about the next 9 days or so, since I'll be traveling with very limited 'net access.