Today on Offworld

Today on Offworld, we rang in the new administration with our vote for gaming's best president: the mech-fighting, West Wing exploding commander in chief of Xbox import rarity Metal Wolf Chaos.

We also saw a number of excellent looking games on the horizon: a WiiWare remake of Edmund McMillan's visceral platformer Meat Boy, Square Enix's troublingly addictive puzzler Yosumin, Jeff Minter's typically psychedelic Xbox Live Arcade remake Gridrunner+++, and, above all else, Arkedo's just-released brilliant looking firework-debris dodging DS arcade shooter Big Bang Mini.

Finally, we heard about a new homebrew creation that uses Wii remotes to teach us how to knit sensible hats and octopus toaster covers, brought down Kyle Gabler's website by downloading his incredible World of Goo soundtrack, and, best of all, re-downloaded area/code entertainment's absolutely fantastic iPhone game Drop7 -- one of my top-most recommended iPhone games released thus far.

Scientist explains why climate scientists talk trash

Dr Peter Watts, a PhD biologist and a hell of a science fiction writer, talks about what it means that a bunch of climate scientists Science doesn't work despite scientists being asses. Science works, to at least some extent, because scientists are asses. Bickering and backstabbing are essential ... More.

Concordia University has a spy-squad that snooped on novelist for "bilingual interests"

Rob sez, "Documents recently obtained through access to information legislation show that author David Bernans was being spied upon by investigators at Concordia University in Montreal. "In this first-person narrative, Bernans chronicles his experience dealing with Concordia's security apparatus,... More.

Canadian border guards want to be sure that foreign journalists don't criticise Vancouver Olympics

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's As It Happens radio show covers the story of Amy Goodman's recent' border crossing into Canada. Goodman -- host of the US public radio show Democracy Now! -- was coming to Canada to give a speech at a library, and Canadian border guards questioned her intensel... More.

Saturday Morning Science Experiment: Gravity Is For Suckers

Astronaut Don Pettit--inventor of the Zero-G Coffee Cup--plays with free-floating, head-sized water bubbles on the International Space Station. Make sure you stick around for the third experiment, where Pettit sticks an antacid tablet into one of the bubbles. Thumbnail image courtesy Flickr user ... More.

Pub fined £8K after user infringes copyright with its WiFi

A British pub has been fined £8,000 because someone using the WiFi there allegedly committed a copyright infringement. Even though British law exempts people who provide Internet access from liability for their users' copyright infringements, the pub was still fined (the details of this are co... More.