There was hot competition among amateur scientists keen to edit the entry for 'earth' on Simple English Wikipedia - a version of the online encyclopedia "written in simple English for easy reading". At the time of being alerted, the section on the planet's rotation read: "The Earth spins like a basketball on Dennis Rodman's finger," but by the time we visited, it had changed to "The Earth spins (that means it turns around itself)..." Other insights from the entry - one of 14,557, in comparison with the main site's 1,664,354 include: "The Earth is tilted (that means that it is turned a little bit onto its side)", and, from a section on how the earth was formed: "I think that some one just threw a rock in to space and thats what killed the dinosaurs and made Fred Flintstone."

http://blog.outer-court.com

http://simple.wikipedia.org

US soldiers so inspired - or incensed, or bored - by being stranded in far-flung locations that they write blogs were celebrating the finest among the member. The top award at the second annual 'Millbloggies', a competition "created to recognise the best among the military blogging community" went to Captain Doug Traversa, stationed with the US Air Force in Kabul, for his blog Afghanistan Without A Clue. From a recent entry: "Right in the middle of an area where the kids had been making little roads and bridges in the dirt lay a small rocket. There it was, ready to kill them. Day after day Afghanistan hammers at me. Little children play with bombs. Landmines are everywhere. America, I hope you know how good you have it."

www.milblogging.com/

http://traversa.typepad.com/

The record industry devised a novel approach to stop university students downloading illegally copied songs from the internet - let them settle claims online with visa or mastercard. A new website backed by the major labels, called p2plawsuits, promises to avoid costly legal actions, and offers cheerful advice under Q&A topics such as "If I promise never to do this again, do I still have to pay?", "Will my parents find out about this lawsuit?" and "What payment methods can I use?"

www.p2plawsuits.com

www.riaa.com

Will Ferrell's lament about how comedies never win Oscars - one of the highlights from last weekend's ceremony - was one of several clips to be removed from YouTube after the Academy of Motion Arts & Sciences threatened the video-sharing site with a copyright action. The Academy found it unfunny that the clip had, soon after being posted, been viewed more then 250,000 times, and said it would really prefer it people watched or taped the broadcast.

www.variety.com

www.oscar.com

The NSPCC said it was setting up a presence in the virtual community 'Habbo' - a kind of Second Life for teenagers - in an attempt to get more children involved in its anti-bullying campaign. The charity said that 'booking a room' in the community's resident hotel, which recently ran a promotion entitled 'Are you way emo and all alone this Valentine's Day?', would enable it to "talk to teenagers in their own environment".

www.habbo.com

www.nspcc.org.uk

Estonia showed that it would not let concerns about phishing and other types of fraud get in the way of a good e-vote, becoming the first country in the world to hold national electrions with internet balloting open to all voters. Asked about security concerns with the poll, in which 30,000 people - or 3.5 per cent of registered voters - participated, Tarvi Martens, project manager for the country's e-voting project, said: "You trust your money with the internet, and you won't trust your vote? I don't think so."

www.wired.com

www.vvk.ee