Closing out some Firefox tabs of awesomeness…

Warren Ellis on Wired.co.uk — “Look out for Hollywood films about spelunking on the Moon”

2010 is here. “The year we make contact”, if you like SF novels or watched the film 2010, while looking at your watch and wondering how long until Helen Mirren got her baps out. In keeping with Wired’s position as “futury magazine about all the futures that will happen in your pants in the future”, I now bring you “predictions of things that will definitely happen in 2010″. Happy New Year, and try not to scream too loudly. That sort of thing wakes up the flesh-eating EATR robots.

LA Times — “L.A. City Council wants bullet train officials to weigh two options for Union Station”

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously urged officials at the California High Speed Rail Authority today to consider two proposed alternatives for the bullet train stop at Union Station downtown.

Councilman Ed Reyes said the alternatives were crucial to protecting the residents in East Los Angeles as planners determine the route for the 800-mile bullet train between Northern California and San Diego. Proponents say the train would carry passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in about 2½ hours.

NY Times — “E-Reading, in 2 Authors’ Eyes”

What do authors think of the new electronic replacements for bound paper? Some are traditionalists who want nothing to do with electronic readers — one book editor said that most of his authors avoided the devices.

Ars Technica — “How Robber Barons hijacked the ‘Victorian Internet’”

Ars revisits those wild and crazy days when Jay Gould ruled the telegraph and Associated Press reporters helped fix presidential elections. Is government supervision really the worst thing that can happen to a communications network?

/. — Is Linux Documentation Lacking?

“A number of blog posts are surfacing that are calling out the helpful open source community on their documentation. No, not the documentation for the highly skilled technical people, but the documentation from beginner to apprentice. [...] Is it really as bad as these blogs paint it? Has it come down to using Google before a man page?”