Happy birthday Blue's News, as it was 24 years ago today on October 9, 1996 that blue's Quake Rag moved from my personal homepage to its own domain and adopted its new name (and a capital "B"). Today's logo commemorating the anniversary was created by Walter "2" Costinak in 2008.

A lot has happened over all those years, and there are so many people to thank that I'm sure I'll forget someone, so apologies in advance. But thank you to Redwood and Joost Schuur for helping get the word out early on. To Mike Wilson for the invitation to the QuakeWorld launch event and to all the game developers who provided cooperation and friendship over the years to this press scum. To Mike and Brian at Fluxx Designs for helping get the new domain. To furn and Bagpuss for their programming back in the day. To Walter "2" Costinak for the site design and all those logos. To loonyboi for all his contributions. To Verno, JDreyer, and drayth for taking on the thankless job of forum moderation. Special thanks to Kxmode for his truly Herculean efforts at dragging our old code into the modern age with his mobile conversion and other contributions toward making everything work better under the hood here. And more so than any other individual, thank you to Frans, whose tireless volunteer efforts over two decades have kept this site going and moving forward. There's no doubt that without him, you would not be reading these words today. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the many who have taken the effort to send in news tips and links, starting with Ant and the tireless Neutronbeam as well as other current contributors like Acleacius, A51Abductee, j.c.f., RedEye9, Max, Simon, and ConsoleGenRL (I know I'm forgetting some, so apologies). Thanks as well to the many others who contributed so much in the past, including (but certainly not limited to) Mike Martinez, Enahs, Randy Perry, Apache, James Fudge, nin, Frans, loonyboi, and so many more. And finally, thanks to all of you. Many of you have been here this whole time, which is pretty boggling, and special gratitude to those who signed up as supporters when we offered that option earlier this year. This proved to be vital to being able to continue on as the pandemic devastated advertising revenue. I know that's a lot, and as I say, I know this is woefully incomplete due to my faulty memory, so one last time, apologies to the deserving I've failed to mention.

I'm greatly looking forward to our 25th anniversary next year, and the next 25 years after that. Excelsior!

Anniversary Round-up
Thanks Ant and Neutronbeam.

Breakfast Link

• John Lennon: 80 quotes from the Beatles legend for his 80th birthday.

Stories

• World Food Programme wins Nobel Peace Prize.
• Former library employee accused of stealing $1.3 million worth of printer toner. Librarians aren't usually so well-toned. Thanks Roddy.

Science

• Nitrous oxide, more harmful to the climate than CO2, increasing in atmosphere, study finds. Thanks Max.
• A Vaccine That Protects Against COVID-19 May Be Right Under Our Noses. Thanks RedEye9.

Media

• Maximum Jackman.
• Patrick Stewart on meeting Sting on Dune.
• Periplo Marionetas The Puppet Makers. Thanks Boing Boing.

Follow-up

• Eddie Van Halen’s 12 Essential Songs. Thanks Roddy.