Idle Stories for 2020

The Further Adventures of that Monolith Stolen in Utah 57
Elon Musk Tweeted About a Bitcoin Rival. It Soared 20% 43
Winner Announced In the World's First 'Quantum Chess' Tournament 25
A Stranger Crowdsourced $1,700 For a Mistreated Fast-Food Worker 50
Nathan Myhrvold's Dazzling High-Resolution Photographs of Snowflakes 58
Third Monolith Reappears, Fourth and Fifth Monoliths Discovered 103
The Best Way To Win a Horse Race? Mathematicians May Have the Answer 52
All Three Monoliths Gone -- Two Removed By Activist Vandals 119
That Mysterious Silver Monolith In the Utah Desert Has Disappeared 73
New Videogame Bug Turns Spider-Man Into a Trash Can 52
Kickstarter Mistakenly Emails Responses To Complaints From Seven Years Ago 8
UK Agency Demands Company Stop Using Name Which Includes an HTML Closing Tag 107
Tesla Tequila Sells Out Within Hours, Triggers Bidding Wars on eBay 72
Soccer Telecast Ruined When AI-Controlled Camera Mistakes Ref's Bald Head For Ball 59
A Few Trick-or-Treaters in Canada Receive a Surprising Treat: Bitcoin 37
Tesla Owner: I Butt-Dialed a $4,280 Autopilot Upgrade -- And They Haven't Refunded Me 104
Could Our Entire Reality Be Part of a Simulation Created by Some Other Beings? 203
13 Scientists Troll Scientific Journal With a Bogus Paper about Earth's Black Hole 65
Researcher Discusses Whether Time Travel Could Prevent a Pandemic 145
639-Year Organ Performance Changes Chords for the First Time in Seven Years 105
Major League Baseball Games are Experiencing 'Drone Delays' 31
Drone Drops Hundreds of Marijuana Bags On Tel Aviv 40
How Bill Gates Celebrated Warren Buffett's 90th Birthday 40
Remembering the Golden Age of Computer User Groups 55
A Covid-Friendly Wearable Shocks You With 450 Volts When You Touch Your Face 78
Steve Wozniak Turns His 70th Birthday Into a Charity Event 18
New Free Software Foundation Video Mocks Proprietary Remote-Learning Software 50
Tesla Engineer Reinvents Chocolate Chip for Maximum Taste and Melt 86
Vigilante Sabotages Malware Botnet By Replacing Payloads With Animated GIFs 16
John McAfee Loses Bet: Bitcoin Hasn't Hit $500K 49
Woman Who Harassed Starbucks Barista Now Wants Half the Money He Raised 229
Starbucks Worker Insisting Customers Wear Masks Rewarded With $70K On GoFundMe 331
Can Stadiums Replace Fans With Cardboard Cutouts and Avatars? 167
After 10 Years, Hidden $1M Treasure Chest Finally Found 78
Will The Pandemic Force Us to Learn How to Cook? 236
'Burning Man' Festival in Nevada Cancelled This Year, Will Move Online 45
What It's Like To Attend a Conference -- in Person -- in the Age of Covid-19? 35
Was Magellan's Voyage Riskier Than Sending Humans to Mars? 153
Ambitious Project Seeks to Re-Create Every Structure on Earth in Minecraft 60
Disneyland Is Closed. 31,000 Employees Given 18-Day Paid Vacation 122
MIT Celebrates 'Pi Day' With Star Wars-Themed Video 10
70% of Americans Hate Daylight Saving Time 231
Coffee Shop Refuses an Order Until the Customer Removes His AirPods 418
Nuclear Fallout Exposes Fake 'Antique' Whisky 76
Today is 02/02/2020 -- the First Global Palindrome Day in 909 Years 84
Waze Mistakenly Directed Hundreds of Drivers to a Remote Wildlife Preserve 80

"Why can't we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having a 'War' on it?" -- Rich Thomson, talk.politics.misc