astroengine writes: "NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has begun science operations in a new area of study nicknamed 'the Kimberly' after the Western Australian region. But in a new image uploaded to the Mars Science Laboratory raw image archive, it seems 'the Kimberly' is a little more Australian than mission managers originally thought. As spotted by @CoUdErMaNn on Twitter, Curiosity's Navcam photographed a rather interesting-looking rock formation just in front of the rover. The rock, which appears to have been formed through some erosion process, will likely fascinate geologists for some time. But at first glance the rock also appears to take the shape of Australia."

A German travel agency is offering an alternative to ties and adulation for dads this Father's Day, with tank driving lessons. The lucky dads will get a short lesson in how to control a 14-ton vintage Soviet tank, followed by a supervised half-hour trip through a practice field. For an additional cost, dad will be able to plow over an old car, while wishing he could do the same to the wall of isolation that years of putting has job first has created around his family. "Tanks fascinate all boys, big and small. We offer trips in armored tanks, driving around Germany's biggest playground for men — it's an ideal gift for Father's Day," the company wrote in a press release.

Matthew Sparkes writes "Ever since the first codes and ciphers were developed, there has been a battle between those who want to keep their information secret, and those who want to read that information. It has been a purely intellectual war, but one that is often driven by motives from above that are far more violent. This book chronicles that battle, from it's inception, to the modern day, and outlines the techniques used to obfuscate information, and the fascinating history of the application of those techniques." Read the rest of Matthew's review.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a CNN article highlighting players turning to lawlessness and deviance in The Sims Online. This subject, which other reports covered a while back, seems to fascinate the media, and CNN says the problems of bad behavior are "..raising questions about whether limits on conduct should be set in such emerging virtual worlds, even if they are huge adult playpens." Additionally, the article ruminates on more serious problems, as disputes that escalate beyond the virtual "..could lead to more real-world, legal liability for both players and the companies that make the games."

Not every nerd career takes place entirely behind a flickering CRT. Ellen Knowlton Wilson takes a peek here at a book which exposes one of the hotter fields for those with a nose for sulfur, feet like leather, and a penchant for scientific danger: studying volcanos.

Some writers on the Free software movement speak as if the kernel hackers, security experts and fanatical sysadmins who drive Linux and other Free operating systems are martyrs -- folks who may code out of love, but who ultimately are on what could be seen as a suicide mission rather than a milk run. The typical free software guy (and in fact, the typical software guy, period ) gets treated as a one-dimensional character, with the projects they work on reduced to meaningless blurbs. Peter Wayner knows better -- he takes to heart the notion that history is written by the winners, and proceeds to write history. Read on to see why I'm recommending his new book Free For All to my father. A correction: Theo de Raadt (whose name I had originally mispelled, sorry Theo) pointed out that I'd slipped in "Open" where I should have said "Net." Apologies to all involved in each.

Electric Communities are used by almost everyone online, but they're little studied or understood. Scientists like Mark Stefik of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center are finding that e-communities have their own social and biological traits: that e-dwellers show many of the same traits as animal species. Some are hunters, others gatherers, watchers and defenders. Part One looks at the biology of e-communities. Part Two looks at the evolution of new kinds of communities -- weblogs, in particular -- and lists some species traits.