By Kyle VanHemert, Gizmodo – August 07, 2010 at 06:47PM
That 12-hour geomagnetic storm the other night that made the sky look all funky for some Northerners? Here it is in breathtaking HD. And NASA says that this just marks the start of a long, crazy solar storm season. More »
By Robin, ForeverGeek – August 06, 2010 at 10:50AM
In 2.5 minutes, here is every single time a lightsaber is ignited and retracted in all six Star Wars movies. The video’s maker says that he only included visual, on-screen actions, and not the times when you merely hear a lightsaber being turned on or off, off-screen.
I’m not sure what the point of the video is, other than to satisfy a certain geeky curiosity.
You may be surprised to find that only a handful of these lightsaber actions come from the original trilogy. The vast majority of them, in fact, seem to come from Episodes II and III.
By Jesus Diaz, Gizmodo – August 05, 2010 at 09:40PM
No matter how many times we watch this video—showing every single lightsaber ignition and retraction in the Star Wars movies—we can’t make the bloody Spyder III laser to ignite like that. More »
By Whitson Gordon, Lifehacker – August 05, 2010 at 08:00PM
While you could stick a door on your entertainment center to hide your cables and accessories, architect Dan Herchenroether shows us how to hide them behind a wall mounted TV, inside a secret compartment.
Home improvement weblog Apartment therapy has some neat pictures of the setup, and though there aren’t any specific directions, the hack doesn’t look too complicated. You’ll probably have to dig into your wall for this (so be sure you want to do it!), but after that it’s just a matter of mounting your TV on a panel, then connecting that to the wall with some hinges. Note that you’ll probably want an IR repeater so you can still control the devices hidden within the panel—you don’t want to go open it up every time you want to change the channel or turn up the volume. Hit the link for more photos.
By timothy, Slashdot – August 05, 2010 at 06:53PM
secretrobotron writes “I’m a recent university graduate from a co-op system which has kept me on the move every other semester, so I’ve never really had a permanent place to live, and I’ve never had the opportunity (or the capital) to buy expensive things. Now that I’m working, those restrictions on my life are gone and I’m living in an apartment with things I don’t want stolen. I would love to build a DIY home security system, but I don’t even know where to start since Google searches reveal things like diysecurityforum.com, which help only to an extent for a curious newcomer. Has anybody out there successfully built a home security system on a budget? If so, where did you start?” Related query: When similar questions have come up before, many readers have recommended Linux-based Zoneminder (last updated more than a year ago); is that still the state of the art?
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
By Kat Hannaford, Gizmodo – August 05, 2010 at 04:20AM
Color photography‘s been kicking around since the mid-1800s, but it wasn’t until 1935, when Kodak put the first color-film out, that people started using it. Nonetheless, color photos from Depression-era America are scant, which is what makes these so wonderful. More »
By Jason Fitzpatrick, Lifehacker – August 04, 2010 at 11:30AM
If you want to get those annoying fruit flies out of your kitchen without any heavy engineering, this simple trap uses stuff you already have in your kitchen and requires no cutting, taping, or other DIY tinkering.
Home and household blog Apartment Therapy shares instructions for building an ultra-simple fruit fly trap:
Get ready: All it takes is cider vinegar, a jar, dish soap, and plastic wrap. Pour just enough cider vinegar to cover the bottom of the jar. Add a drop of dish soap (it will break the surface tension of the vinegar so the fruit flies can’t just sit atop the liquid). Now, cover the jar with plastic wrap and poke a few holes in the top.
It’s worth mentioning that in the comments of the post readers shared how they skipped using the plastic wrap altogether and it still worked just as well. The flies are attracted to the smell of the cider vinegar and as soon as they land in it they sink. Have a clever way of getting pests out of your kitchen? Let’s hear about it in the comments.
By Erez Zukerman, Download Squad – August 01, 2010 at 01:00PM
Filed under: Business, Security, Humor
FriendDA is not even a website; it’s just a single Web page, pre-formatted for printing. It’s a form, that at first glance appears to be a standard NDA (or other legal form).
But when you read past the first WHEREAS, the whole thing becomes much clearer. I quote:
WHEREAS I possess a bright idea that I am choosing to disclose to you, The Advisor, with the mutual understanding that you are my friend and that you will not screw me.
The FriendDA then goes on to elaborate on the “manners of screwing” (their wording, not mine), and also makes it clear that it has no legal validity whatsoever.
So why make it, then? It’s supposed to be “slightly more than a hearty handshake” – meaning, if a friend of yours agrees to the FriendDA, you should feel secure enough to share your awesome new start-up-worthy idea with them. I find this interesting, culturally. Reading the original blog post which announced FriendDA back in 2008, you can see people are in two minds in the comments. Some think it’s quite silly (which I can understand), but some seem quite excited about it. What’s also interesting is that the author, Rands (pseudonym for Michael Lopp), is a senior engineering manager at Apple, at least according to Wikipedia. And we all know Apple’s stance (and ferocity) on legal matters.
So … is this proof that anything you put online will eventually find an audience, especially if you’re a published author? Or is it clever socio-political commentary on the litigious state of current American society as reflected by steeply declining moral values? Weigh in in the comments.
FriendDA is a totally non-binding NDA for friends (tech culture) originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 01 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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United States – Wikipedia – Apple – Author – Rands
By Sean Michael Ragan, MAKE – July 30, 2010 at 06:03PM
From a series of videotaped experiments by astronaut Don Pettit performed aboard the ISS in 2003.
Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » |
