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links for 2010-11-03

  • A NASA official may have made a 35-million-mile slip of the tongue. The director of NASA's Ames Research Center in California casually let slip mention of the 100-Year Starship recently, a new program funded by the super-secret government agency, DARPA. In a talk at San Francisco's Long Conversation conference, Simon “Pete” Worden said DARPA has $1M to spend, plus another $100,000 from NASA itself, for the program, which will initially develop a new kind of propulsion engine that will take us to Mars or beyond. There's only one problem: The astronauts won't come back.  The 100-year ship would leave Earth with the intention of colonizing a planet, but it would likely be a one-way trip because of the time it takes to travel 35 million miles. That’s a daunting prospect, partly because of the ethical dilemma, and partly because it may be the only recourse. "What psychological challenges should we anticipate in those who volunteer in good faith and with great courage
  • If you have multiple computers, you probably want an easy way to share your keyboard and mouse. There are different ways to accomplish this goal. You can try using a hardware KVM switch (Keyboard, Video, Mouse). I’ve tried a couple KVM switches, and they never worked reliably. How would you like free software to share the keyboard and mouse?! How would you like to handle both PC’s and Macintosh computers?! Synergy is a PC program. It’s rather complicated. I had to get help setting it up for multiple PC’s.
  • I’ve written posts like If I started today and Start From Nothing, where I talked about how I’d go about building my social presence. In this post, I want to talk about if I were managing a small team or department for an organization using social media tools. There are similarities, but there are some things I’d set up differently. In building any social media platform, if you don’t start with goals, you’re starting with a hope for failure. There are many possible goals: relationship-building, lead generation, sales, marketing, awareness, customer service. In my example, I’m going to set mine up with the goal of improving leads and sales, while helping out my customer service department. You can alter the recipe to taste. For internal communication, I’d use a mix of Yammer and Google Docs. I’d use Yammer for the “fluid” information for our organization and I’d use Google Docs for static information, such as spreadsheets and records and documents.
  • As the next part of our Web Design Layouts series, today we’re going to examine the “F Pattern Layout”; Rather than trying to force the viewer’s visual flow, the F-Layout gives in to the natural behaviors of most web surfers and it uses scientific studies to back it up. This tutorial will walk you through the principles of the F-Layout, why it works, and how you can create your own.
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    links for 2010-09-11

  • The European Space Agency has just released images showing all the satellites and human-made debris now orbiting space as a result of 51 years of launching stuff since Sputnik. That's about 6,000 satellites up there—of which only 800 remain operational—plus thousands of other objects from launches and accidents. According to their mindblowing simulations things are getting a lot worse: About 50 percent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events (about 200) or collision events (less than 10). Yes, we knew that there was a lot of crap out there, but not to this extent. According to the ESA, this is really bad news and urgent measures are needed. Explosions in space are not disastrous on their own, but because of the aftermath. One example: a geostationary satellite travels at 6,213 miles per hour. If it explodes, all the debris stays near the orbit, forming a cloud around the Earth within a few days, as this simulation shows:
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    links for 2010-08-18

  • Die-hard "Star Wars" fans have visited the imaginary worlds of Hoth and Tatooine countless times in the sci-fi films, and now they want NASA's help to do some real intergalactic exploring. George Lucas thrills fans, explains R2D2 difficulties Star Wars speed dating: Looking for love in Alderaan places? National Star Wars Day: Our top 10 Star Wars quotes At the Star Wars Celebration V convention in Florida over the weekend, "Star Wars" filmmakers and fans asked NASA representatives to develop a hyperdrive that can transport astronauts through space at light speed. And to make it snappy. After all, in the "Star Wars" universe, the technology was developed a long time ago, in a galaxy far away. IN PICTURES: Star Wars Droids "The idea of spending six months traveling to Mars doesn't seem very exciting," said Gary Kurtz, producer of the original "Star Wars" in 1977 and its first sequel, "The Empire Strikes Back."
  • imgs.xkcd.com/verizon_billing.mp3
  • Life in Athas is a harrowing experience. The land abounds with perilous hazards and deadly monsters. In spartan gladitorial arenas, contenders battle armored braxats and hardened muls that are intent on eviscerating them for the crowd’s pleasure. In the merciless wastes, belgoi draw adventurers to their doom with the alluring jingle of bells, or savage humanoid tribes of gith or halflings hunt travelers for pleasure, loot, and even food. And, in the Sea of Silt, giants guard their borders against any trespassers who manage to survive the constricting tentacles of the silt horrors. The Dark Sun Campaign Setting provides exciting character options for D&D players, including new races, new character themes and class builds, new paragon paths and epic destinies, and new equipment. It also provides everything Dungeon Masters need to run 4th Edition Dark Sun campaigns or include Dark Sun elements in their homebrew campaigns. It has rules and advice for handling survival challenges, arena
  • The Dark Sun Campaign Setting introduces the concept of character themes. With this new mechanic, players can add an extra layer of depth to their characters and have that reflected in the powers their characters use. Slaves have always been a part of Athasian society. Their lives are hard, often short, and for most, deprived of dignity. A small minority—those who are sufficiently brace, desperate, or lucky—escape to better things, but they can never lower their guard against the threat of discovery. An escaped slave’s only hope is to see freedom as a rebirth. Old haunts, one-time friends, even family—all need to be avoided for fear of being recognized and turned in. Hide the brand, disguise the tattoo, cover up the scars, explain the calluses away—successful escaped slaves do all this and more. Escaped slaves must take up a new name, a new history, and if one can manage it, a new appearance. The strong will and
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    links for 2010-06-28

  • It’s the twentieth anniversary of the famous “pale blue dot” photo – Earth as seen from Voyager 1 while on the edge of our solar system (approximately 3,762,136,324 miles from home). Sagan’s words are always worth remembering: Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
  • Avatar The Last Airbender Online is dedicated to the incredible TV Show Avatar The Last Airbender. Avatar The Last Airbender surprised and enthralled Millions of viewers both young and old, and is renowned for it's Striking Visuals, Fantastic, Creative, Awesome Martial Arts scenes, and other fabulous parts of Avatar The Last Airbender which in my opinion make it the Best Cartoon in it's class, if not the best TV show ever made! Hopefully AvatarTheLastAirbenderOnline.com can pay a lasting tribute to the fantastic show and be a place for fans of the show and those new to Avatar to learn more about Avatar and relive the awesome storyline and episodes.
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    links for 2010-01-29

  • President Obama traveled to a House Republican retreat in Baltimore on Friday and delivered a performance that was at once defiant, substantive and engaging. For roughly an hour and a half, Obama lectured GOP leaders and, in a protracted, nationally-televised question-and-answer session, deflected their policy critiques, corrected their misstatements and scolded them for playing petty politics. (Full video and transcript available HERE.) White House officials told the Huffington Post they were absolutely ecstatic. MSNBC's Luke Russert, who was on the scene in Baltimore, relayed that a Republican official and other GOP aides had confided to him that allowing the "cameras to roll like that" was a "mistake." Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy So effective was the president that Fox News cut away from the broadcast 20 minutes before it ended.
  • Zoom from the edge of the universe to the quantum foam of spacetime and learn the scale of things along the way! Learn the size of the Pillars of Creation and marvel at the minuscule scale of a neutrino! ARROW KEYS! ARROW KEYS! You can use arrow keys if the scroll bar is too sensitive. Thank you so much for your high ratings and rave reviews!
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    links for 2009-12-09

  • A mysterious light display appearing over Norway last night has left thousands of residents in the north of the country baffled. Witnesses from Trøndelag to Finnmark compared the amazing sight to anything from a Russian rocket to a meteor or a shock wave – although no one appears to have mentioned UFOs yet. The phenomenon began when what appeared to be a blue light seemed to soar up from behind a mountain. It stopped mid-air, then began to circulate.
  • Today we have a review of some of the additional design features you may wish to consider adding to your blog in order to make it visually more appealing and also to make for a better overall user experience. I get a lot of emails about design – it appears most people can install a nice wordpress blog – especially when using the easy install feature that is available on the Cpanel at Hostgator.com and adding themes such as those available at Woothemes.com However it appears a good number of you would like to Jazz up your Blogs – make them more striking and impacting. This post is for those people. For each feature we have suggested, we have also included a screen-shot of that feature in action on some of our favorite blogs. Just one word of warning here — we are presenting you with 20 different features to consider, but this does not mean you should actually use all 20 features. I am a huge fan of customizing your blog and making it as individual to you as possible (bearing in mind
  • Web designing is an art. It is always to learn from the best in the field especially in a dynamic world like Web Design where today’s design become anachronistic by tomorrow. Ergo, Here is a list of the best tutorials to implement latest trends among the web designing community to help you stay in sync with your web designs.
  • Here we go again … our latest list of the 100 best websites sees short attention spans, the rise of Twitter, more browser wars and celebrity gossip sites setting the news agenda
  • Recently I came accross various websites filled with quotes from designers & artists from around the world, insiprational quotes to get you thinking. In this article I have selected various top design quotes that apply to my experience and gives me power to be creative and think foward. I have also asked several fellow bloggers about their favourite design(ers) quotes and the feedback was a very positive and the inspiring list of quotes are embedded in this article. Please join in and add your favourite design(ers) quote in the comments, thank you very much!
  • In May, I wrote about how to negotiate your salary. I argued that following the advice in Jack Chapman’s Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1,000 a Minute is one of the best ways to improve your financial well-being. I still believe it. If you’re looking for work or looking for a raise, you should absolutely read his book. But negotiation is a skill you can use in other parts of your life, too. In fact, in You Can Negotiate Anything, Herb Cohen says that we negotiate constantly with our spouses, our children, our parents, our co-workers, and our friends.
  • Every month we’re scanning the web for fresh blogs delivering quality content in the design-dev-freelance community, and these are the 10 entries for September. Yeah, I know, don’t have enough room in your RSS reader. Well, delete some old feeds :]
  • Speed Tracer is a tool to help you identify and fix performance problems in your web applications. It visualizes metrics that are taken from low level instrumentation points inside of the browser and analyzes them as your application runs. Speed Tracer is available as a Chrome extension and works on all platforms where extensions are currently supported (Windows and Linux). Using Speed Tracer you are able to get a better picture of where time is being spent in your application. This includes problems caused by JavaScript parsing and execution, layout, CSS style recalculation and selector matching, DOM event handling, network resource loading, timer fires, XMLHttpRequest callbacks, painting, and more.
  • Originally, I started a blog about Star Wars. Slowly it deviated out to other stuffs too and somehow turned into my mindless chatter,whatever comes to my mind. I enjoy collecting toys and collectibles. So this is still ultimately a toy blog! Aquarium Fish Keeping has been my longest surviving hobby. Enjoy playing RPG games on DS and PSP. Loves to photograph animals and nature. In love with dark mint chocolates and chilli crabs!
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