A reminder for everyone: on this day in 1983, Stanislav Petrov saved the world.
It occurs to me this time around that there's an interesting relationship here - 9/26 is forgotten, while 9/11 is remembered. Do something charitable, and not patriotic, sometime today.
I've wondered whether landfills could be viewed as extremely high-grade ore compared to what's naturally available.
Yes, that's been suggested at least once before (may've seen it in a Vinge interview).
EDIT: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill_mining