Evevr wanted to jump out of a perfectly good plane? How about jumping out of a perfectly good spaceship? The idea of entry into the atmosphere without a space vehicle of some sort is being conjured up by veterans of the space industry.
"Two veterans of the space industry are working to make the idea real. While the rest of today’s space-bound private enterprises—Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, XCOR Aerospace, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin—are fixated on getting humans to space, a company called Orbital Outfitters is working on an innovative way of bringing them back, whether it’s done purely as a sport or as an emergency backup plan in case things go awry. Rick Tumlinson, a longtime civilian space booster who founded the Space Frontier Foundation and helped launch the X Prize Foundation, and Jonathan Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon who has a unique understanding of the extremes of spaceflight survival—his wife, astronaut Laurel Clark, perished in the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003—have begun to develop the equipment needed to return you from the heavens without a vehicle."
- Popular Science
[via Gizmodo]
Automatically generate bibliography citations from ISBN #s with OttoBib. StudentABC will also generate citations, but seems to more suited to online articles.
The peeps at ririanproject have some tips on how to sleep better. In college I used to use a breathing technique to fall asleep faster and better. I would visualize each breath in/out as a side of a square. I.E. Breath in is side 1, breath out is side 2, breath in is side 3 and breath out is side 4. The breaths for each side of the square would start out at 10 seconds and then the start of a new square would increase 5 seconds in duration for each side of the square. A breath would also be a complete inhale or exhale depending upon the side of the square I was on. I would usually fall asleep by the time I would complete a square made up of 50 second sides (breaths.)
[via Digg]
I butt heads with people in traffic all of the time. I am guilty of being the reason, but then other people are guilty of just being dumb drivers. Both reasons are not necessary or good ones. ZenHabits give fives reasons to drive slower and how to achieve them. They are all common sense items, but items I don't necessarilly think about when I am butting heads or being a butthead on the road.
I having been using Spb Mobile Shell since it's release and now version 1.5 is out. I installed in a couple of days ago and it is NICE! It brings an ease of use to my PocketPC that is very desirable and doesn't randomly lockup my phone.
[via PocketNow]
The Nerf Maverick can be found at ThinkGeek and can provide comedy relief at the office with a quick game of DOOM within cube-land. Don't let me have a six-shooter of nerf bullets (with suction cups) is all I'm saying.
[via TechEBlog]
Well here is a pretty good week of posts. I am half way through the summer semester and all is well. Hope ya'll are doing good too.
Are you like me and consume mass amounts of coffee in the morning? Then after lunch, energy levels are waaay down? FuturePundit has a howto on the proper consumption of caffeine to stabilize your energy level throughout the day.
"People who take small amounts of caffeine regularly during the day may be able to avoid falling asleep and perform well on cognitive tests without affecting their nighttime sleep habits"
- FuturePundit
[via Digg]
Take the voice accent quiz and find out if it can truly tell what part of the US you are from.
[via Digg]
System admins have a set of tools that they use to keep their online domains regulated. tlbox has a pretty extensive list of system administrator tools.
[via Digg]
OpenDNS now blocks adult sites. This would be useful if you have curious, web surfing youngsters with developing hormones. This is a cool tool for parents.
[via CrunchGear]
Sputtr allows you to link to search sites from a single location. These links will search whatever you enter in for a search phrase.
[via LifeHacker]
I think the ol' blog here has set an all time high of two comments in a week. WOW! People are actually reading this blog. I am honored and will continue to bring forth cool and weird schtuff. ;-)
So if you are looking to be environmentally friendly in a BIG way then elephant recycled poo-to-paper products at PooPooPaper.com Pootique is on like Donkey-Kong...or Snufuluficus (sp?). When I say poo paper, I am not talking about toilet paper, but recycled paper that comes in the form of journals, noteboxes, stationary and paper sets.
[via GearDiary]
So this is probably one of the weirder thangs I have posted. Who would ever buy a popup book of phobias? That is just freakin weird and cool at the same time.
[via CrunchGear]
Want to see what others may find out about you when they run a background check? The consumerist has an article on how to run a background check on yourself.
[via Digg]
La-Z-Boy has come a long way since 1928. Wired has a pic gallery of La-Z-Boys over time.
"Finished in the spring of 1928, the first La-Z-Boy recliner is a slatted wooden patio piece with a swinging link that simultaneously pushes the seat forward and tilts the back. The prototype is made from orange crates."
- Wired
[via Wired]
Ever wondered howto send email to a cell phone? Well email-unlimited.com has a nice little instructional on how to send emails to cell phones no matter who the provider is.
[via Digg]
Kellogg's™ Froot Loops™ Cereal Straws has taken cereal to a whole new level. I am not sure if that level is up or down, but it's a new level. Gizmodo has a play-by-play account of the cereal straws. Kellogg's™ Cocoa Krispies™ Cereal Straws are available as well.
Gizmodo is a cool technology site and has a complete coverage (up-to-date) of the iPhone. I personally am sick of the iPhone-hype, but I would like to point peeps who ask to a site that gives the low down of the details.
Ever wonder how you are doing in the area of Green Living? EarthLab has a carbon footprint test you can take to see how you fare.
Wired has a cool behind the scenes article, The Rebirth of Optimus Prime: Behind the Scenes with Director Michael Bay, for the new Transformers movie. Believe the hype!
Flight of the Conchords is a comedy duo out of New Zealand. Check out their video Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros.
9-25-2007 is the release date for Halo 3. TA-DOW (today), Achieve360Points has the Halo 3 Achievements!
TV can be found all over the Internet. Mashable has a listing of 33 Ways to Watch Free TV Online.
Check out these RC Sumos in action. This is almost as impressive as Rocke'Em-Sock'Em-Robots.
Yahoo! Photos is closing down and Flickr, SnapFish, Kodak EasyShare or PhotoBucket are migration options being offered by Yahoo. Yet another option to get your photos off of Yahoo! Photos is to order a CD with all of your pics.
If ya spent the extra $$$ for Legendary Edition of Halo 3, then you'll certainly want to get the Covenant controller, Spartan controller and the H3 wireless headset from GameStop.
If you have Adobe Flash Player 9 installed and a webcam, then you too can use FlickaDay.com to create a daily picture timeline of your face or any other snapshot.