Midwest 9-Ball Tour / Olathe, KS by Lea Andrews Out of the full field of the 128 players who gathered July 17-19 for the Midwest 9-Ball Tour stop at Shooters Billiards in Olathe, KS, only one man, Chip Compton, made it through unscathed. The $4,000-added main event, run by Evelyn and Danny Dysart, was run alongside [...]

Carolina Ladies J. Pechauer Tour / Hickory, NC by Lea Andrews Kim “The Cooler” Shaw, who topped the field at the Carolina Ladies J. Pechauer Tour stop in May, did it again on July 18 at Randolph’s Billiards in Hickory, NC. Although a scheduling conflict with a nearby APA ladies’ event reduced the size of the [...]

Tiger Bay Area Amateur Tour / Palm Harbor, FL by Lea Andrews Stephanie Mitchell, who had a good showing at the WPBA’s inaugural Satellite Tour event, had an even better showing at the $400-added Tiger Bay Area Amateur Tour event the following weekend on July 18. Balancing her tour director and playing duties perfectly, Mitchell went [...]

Seminole Pro Tour / Goldsboro, NC by Raymond Linares With only seven games booked in the loss column, Corey Deuel is the frontrunner for the title of champion at the Seminole Pro Tour’s Goldsboro, NC, event this weekend. With wins over Raymond Linares 7-2, Earl Strickland 7-2, and Mike Davis 8-3, Deuel is in the final four [...]

Do Eskimos have more words for "snow" than we do? You're probably not alone if you thought the answer was yes.

Truth is, this is one of those pesky urban myths – like the untrue predictions of a moon-sized Mars in August – that just won't fade from the popular mind-set.

Such legends can spread quickly on the Internet, so computer scientists at Intel Research in Berkeley are developing new technologies to filter and measure disputed information online.

The software is called Dispute Finder and is the project of Rob Ennals, a research scientist at the Intel lab in Berkeley.

Think of it this way: Every time you visit a Web site, any statement on that page will be highlighted if someone else has marked it as disputed. If you click the highlight, you can see what evidence people have used to dispute the statement.

"Disputed does not mean wrong, it just means that there's some credible people that disagree with it," Ennals said. Objectivity, then, is not paramount – just contention.

The software makes use of a small number of highly motivated users to mark statements on Web pages as disputed while they're reading. These demarcations are then syndicated out to the broader array of more passive Web users.

The traditional way of dealing with questionable information would be to rely on experts like Conrad Jung, an astronomer at the Chabot Observatory in Oakland. He reports receiving calls about a persistent chain letter claiming that Mars will reach its closest point to Earth in August.

The chain letter – it's not dated but has been traced back to 2003 – is not outright false. It's just been misread as a prediction that Mars will be the same size as the moon in the August night sky.

That's not true, Jung said.

And in politics – where statements often become contentious – the Pulitzer Prize-winning Web site PolitiFact.com has journalists rating statements against a "truth-o-meter."

President Barack Obama's recent statement, "Californians consume 40 percent less energy per person than the national average," was rated "Mostly True" on the site, based on an analysis of California's electricity and energy usage as compared to national averages. (It turns out we use 40 percent less electricity, but only 30 percent less energy overall.)

Now imagine if, while you surfed the Web, you had a thousand little Conrad Jungs in your computer, whispering, "Hey, watch out, that might not be true." That's what Dispute Finder promises.

In the future, Ennals said, he'd like to develop Dispute Finder to also work with TV closed captions and, ultimately, with those persistent chain e-mails.

Brooke Haynes of El Dorado Hills, in middle, and Miranda Dodd of Shingle Springs, both 10, test on Thursday a robot they built during the weeklong session of the Internal Drive Tech Camp offered by UC Davis this summer. About 30 to 50 youths attend each camp.

"Code six," yelled a camp counselor at the back of a busy computer lab at UC Davis. The roomful of teenagers stopped and responded with an enthusiastic chorus, "Ooooh yeah!"

The chatter of computer keys quickly resumed.

This summer, kids at the Internal Drive Tech Camp at UC Davis are getting a solid dose of computer game design, programming and new media projects – a "code six," for example, is protocol to publicly recognize a camper's most recent accomplishment on a project.

UC Davis will enroll from 30 to 50 kids a week this summer. The camps are part of a nationwide network of summer projects designed to keep youths interested in technology. At some California universities, such as Stanford, tech-camp enrollment is over 200.

It may seem odd to send a child to summer camp in a computer lab, but there's reason for the program's popularity.

"(These camps) teach pretty comprehensive skills in whatever they're focused on. Kids come out with a lot of confidence with technology," said Betsy DiSalvo. She's a Ph.D. candidate at the Georgia Institute of Technology who studies learning programs in science and technology oriented toward underrepresented groups.

"It's the best camp I've been to this summer," said 11-year-old Cade Cotter. He would know: before tech camp he did time at karate and golf camps.

Before arriving, students select an area of interest for their weeklong project. Options include games, Web design, robotics, or film and video.

"Everyone has an individual project," camp director Eli Austin said.

But it's not all indoor work. Activities such as swimming are incorporated into the daily schedule.

Toward the back of the computer lab is the robotics area. There, on Thursday, two 10-year-old girls tweaked a remote-controlled robot while gleefully fending off an attacking "battle-bot."

The girls built the robot using a modular kit called VEX, which required them to wire the robot and program its mechanical behaviors.

In another corner, Will Raybould, 17, worked on programming modifications to the popular game Unreal 3. Raybould said he hopes to be a musician, but the experience this summer has him thinking about the allure of a career in game design.

Raybould was flanked by teaching assistant David Arslanian, who is working with six campers on more advanced programming.

In addition to the money the job pays, Arslanian said he benefits from the technology immersion and from having to explain it to the teens.

Arslanian, a sophomore computer science student at Sierra Nevada College, was once a camper himself.

Maurice Gordon, 15, of Sacramento gets help during his role-playing game from instructor Rebecca Lee during the UC Davis camp. Students select an area of interest for their project.

Amanda Buehler, 11, of Grass Valley works Thursday at the tech camp. Youngsters get a big dose of high-tech workings, but they also participate in outdoor activities.

Retired Aerojet engineer Clay Boyce is surrounded by Apollo 11 memorabilia, including a model of the lunar module and orbiting lunar station. Boyce and his colleagues at the Johnson Space Center control room waited with bated breath in July 1969 to see if their propulsion system would steer Apollo 11 to the moon.

Forty years later from his home in Gold River, former Aerojet engineer Clay Boyce remembers the most pressure-packed moment for him during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission to the moon.

While other people were concerned about the landing, Boyce was worried about the midflight firing. He said he held his breath as he and his colleagues waited to find out if the propulsion system they had designed would fire and keep the space capsule – and the astronauts inside – safely on course.

"Everybody I was involved with was worried about one thing from day one: 'What if (the rocket) doesn't start on the way to the moon?' " said Boyce, now 79.

He also recalled his relief and surge in confidence when the system engaged to make the first midcourse correction that would literally sling-shot them to the moon and lunar orbit.

"I knew they had all the wires hooked up right," he said.

With Monday marking the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 moon landing, Boyce has vivid memories of his front-row seat as history unfolded.

Likewise, he remembers the camaraderie of Aerojet colleagues during the halcyon days of the nation's manned space program, when astronauts enjoyed rock star status and aerospace engineers made the machines headed toward the stars.

"I suppose in the back of my mind I knew I was working on something that would be momentous," Boyce said. "But at the time, all I knew is that we all had a hell of an engineering job to do, and we were just focused on that."

Boyce was an Aerojet point man for the Apollo program, working on the company's propulsion system proposal in 1960, the year John F. Kennedy was elected president. The young president vowed to put Americans on the moon; his vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, would ramrod the effort.

Boyce's role was affirmed in April 1962, when Aerojet was awarded the Apollo propulsion systems contract.

Boyce said mixing with top-tier pros from prestigious engineering schools like Purdue University was intimidating, but he was more than game as he led Aerojet's team.

"I got my degree from the University of Idaho," he said. "For a boy from the north woods, it was really something."

Boyce and his fellow engineers spent thousands of hours planning, building and testing under sometimes enormous pressure. Hundreds of propulsion system test firings added up; everything had to work perfectly.

The effort was rewarded with the midcourse firing that sent Apollo 11 on its path to the moon. But there was still work to be done before the lunar landing on July 20, 1969.

Boyce was a key witness to the day's massive history. As he would for subsequent Apollo missions, Boyce represented Aerojet at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. As astronaut Neil Armstrong piloted the bug-like lunar module Eagle just above the lunar surface, Boyce was among a select few in the space center's observation room.

"I was probably as excited as anybody," he said.

Years later, Armstrong and lunar module companion Buzz Aldrin would recall the tension of the moon landing as Armstrong searched for a safe landing area as fuel ran low. Boyce said he and fellow observers in Houston were not aware of it then, but said Armstrong was the perfect man to handle the pressure.

"Armstrong was selected because, besides being a damn good pilot, his reaction time to assess a situation was excellent," Boyce said. "He had things go through his head, and he just seemed to be faster. If he hadn't done those things in testing, he would not have been there."

Boyce said Armstrong's focus, intensity and cool under fire were shared by other Apollo astronauts.

"I've probably met 15 of the astronauts, and they all have one thing in common: When you talk to them, they're concentrating on you and only you. You can almost feel them. … Very intense."

As the Apollo missions continued, Boyce said he was doing less engineering and more fixing: "I was good working with the customer. Generally, I got sent where we had a problem."

Boyce retired in 1991. Today, his Gold River home is stuffed with memorabilia from the Apollo days. Friday found him sitting among the historic treasures and planning an 80th birthday celebration.

He said one of his most memorable experiences came not during the Apollo 11 mission, but the next one, Apollo 12.

"I was in the observation room, and they hadn't quite landed, and I heard someone talking on the other side of me," he said. "Whoever it was, was talking about the color of the sky. The lights went up, and I saw it was Armstrong who was there talking about the blackness of the sky on the moon and the shade of gray on the surface. I guess he would know."

The SPS rocket engine that propelled Apollo 11 to the moon is shown in this archival photo. Aerojet-General Corp. was awarded the Apollo 11 propulsion systems contract in April 1962.

Seminole Pro Tour / Goldsboro, NC by Raymond Linares Fast Eddie’s Billiards in Goldsboro, NC, is playing host to the fifth stop of the Seminole Pro Tour season. This beautiful room is the second of three stops taking place outside of the state of Florida. The 36-player field is littered with world-class players. Top names include Corey Deuel, [...]

Taylor Road Productions, promoters of the Galveston World Classic, have issued more information to help clarify the eligibility of players participating in the Galveston World Classic at Moody Gardens. The announcement has come after heavy contact from players and teams wishing to participate in the upcoming event. The Galveston World Classic features both professional and [...]

By Sally Lee Ozone Billiards joins as the Presenting Sponsor of the 69th Annual Predator World 14.1 Championship. The Dragon Promotions event had called upon the billiard industry and patron individuals to assist with the funding of this year’s event, and Ozone Billiards has joined in to help answer the call. Comet Billiards will host [...]