Wombat Mobile I should be coding or sleeping instead of this...

Wow, CNN was all pope all the time this morning. It looks like the first vote was inconclusive based on the black smoke emanating from the chimney. This whole ritual is bizarre, yet oddly fascinating.

Lots of changes in the betting odds on the new pope name since I blogged about it. Here are the current odds at paddypower.com.

Name	Odds
Benedict	3-1
John Paul	4-1
Pius	6-1
Peter	8-1

Their odds are pretty random and absurd, but amusing, nonetheless.

Here's an interesting blogger who's going around registering potential papal domain names. He's registered these six domain names: Benedict XVI, Clement XV, Innocent XIV, Leo XIV, Paul VII, Pius XIII.

Back to the smoke. It's funny reading stories about the various methods of producing the white smoke in the past:

Given the trouble with the smoke bombs, the cardinals in 1963 switched to Italian army flares producing black and white smoke. In the first of two 1978 conclaves, they experimented with chemical additives, but the smoke came out gray when John Paul I was elected.

“Not only did it fail to work outside, but it was nauseous to the men inside,” said Pham, a Vatican official from 1992 to 2002 who now teaches at James Madison University in Virginia.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7506702/

Maybe they should consult some phreakers, who have interesting ideas on how to make white smoke. Or how about adding some different colors to expand the possible messages conveyed via smoke. (red smoke could mean, "we need more wine")

Note to Kids: The above links are for entertainment purposes only. While creating white smoke would add realism to your "playing Conclave" games in the backyard, those methods are dangerous and possibly illegal.