It's crazy to think that four years ago the Olympics were in China, George Bush was president, and there was no such thing as an iPad (and without the time-chewing obligation to manufacture millions of electronic tablets, China put on a terrific opening ceremony). Well, the Olympics are in London starting this Friday, and there's so much to blog. Where to watch online? NBC has paid 8.9 zillion dollars for the rights to the carry the Games in the U.S. across its numerous platforms, so you need to suspect the legitimacy of WatchGamesFerFree.com types of sites that promise Olympics action in high-def. The Threatmetrix Fraids & Ends Blog presents the top five cyberthreats for Olympic fans including downloading unauthorized apps, clicking on shortened URLs from non-trusted sources on Twitter and Facebook, and images of athletes "laced with malware" on rogue sites. Scary! NBC Olympics is the main legit place to start. Hongkiat.com runs down a total of five sites for following the Olympics, although the video is region-restricted on some of them.

The planets are always out there, silently orbiting, dancing with the stars. Normally we let the cosmic orbs sail by unnoticed. Now Mars and Venus are in the news and in the blogs. Days after the New Yorker published his essay "Take Me Home," about his childhood love affair with Mars, sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury (Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, etc.) passed away and blasted into his next dimension, at age 91. The New Yorker's Page Turner blog was quick to ask novelist Junot Diaz for a remembrance: "The truth is, for me, and for a whole generation of readers, I'm sure, Bradbury is never far from mind. He was simply too important, too indelible, his imagination too uncanny, his impact on the culture too sustained and profound....Bradbury influenced generations of readers and many of our most famous dreamers, from Stephen King to Steven Spielberg." "He preferred the term 'fantasy' to science fiction," says Vagabond Scholar, which rounds up many obits. Sci-fi writer Neil Gaiman quickly wrote an ode to Bradbury, intended for his own blog, but which the Guardian newspaper asked if it could use, so only the start of it, plus an excuse about it, is on the blog...