Trail of an asteroid

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a photo of the trail left behind in the sky by a meteor that fell to earth in daylight. The asteroid was the first to be detected in space before it entered the Earth's atmosphere.

First Picture of Extra-solar Planet

Science News has an article with what is believed to be the first picture of a planet orbiting another star.

via slashdot

Logo Evolution

Best Ad has a post showing how various famous logos have evolved over time.  Some of them, like General Electric, have stayed remarkably similar while others, like Nokia, have changed completely.

Stretching a Cruise Ship

wtfurls has a post (with pictures) about a cruise ship being stretched like a limousine. They cut the ship in two, insert a pre-built middle section then weld the whole thing back together.

Bump Key Video

Lifehacker has a post with a video that demonstrates how easy it is to open a normal lock with a "bump key". I knew that this was possible but thought it took a bit more effort than it appears to in the video.

The Perils of Translation

The BBC has an article that illustrates the risks of making a sign in a language you don't understand. Signmakers in Wales needed to translate a sign from English into Welsh so they emailed the English part of the sign to a translator then put the response on the sign. Unfortunately the response was an automatic out of office reply.

Flash Game: Chronotron

Another flash game for your amusement.  Chronotron isn't quite as much fun as Amazing Contraption was but the idea is brilliant.  It is basically a time travel based level game.  To complete each level you have to cooperate with an earlier version of yourself.  As I mentioned, the game isn't the greatest but it is worth trying for the way it makes you think about the levels.

via kottke.org

Factoid: Leno has met all the Bonds

A minor claim to fame, Jay Leno has met all of the actors who have played James Bond. And according to the same article, he thinks they should be kinder to their cars.

Long Term Storage

Kevin Kelly has an article about an attempt to build a modern day Rosetta Stone that will last 2,000 years. The 3 inch metal disk will be etched with 350,000 pages of the Book of Genesis translated into over 1,500 different languages. You need a 750 power microscope to read the text.

via slashdot

First World War Sketches

The Mail on Sunday has an article about a First World War British soldier and the sketches he made during scouting missions on the front lines at places like Vimy Ridge. The sketches themselves are amazing, especially given the circumstances under which they were made.

Observation: TVs at the gym

Often when I go to the gym in the afternoon I am the only person in the cardio room. This means I get to change the channels on all the the TVs. Usually I change them from sports or soap operas to the news. In the past few weeks however I have noticed that the TVs are often set to the various financial news channels.

I'm not sure if this counts as an economic indicator or not.

Where did those chains start?

Bootsnall has a post detailing the original locations of 15 now massive chains.

I have vague recollections of visiting the original KFC (then known as Kentucky Fried Chicken) on a family trip to Florida.  I also think I may have been to the original Barnes and Noble in New York City but I'm not sure.

Virgin Galactic Reject Porn Deal

Space.com reports that Virgin Galactic have rejected a $1 million offer to make a porn film in space.

Post-blogging the Sudeten Crisis

Another geeky post here but this one is for history geeks. Aviation history blogger Airminded has just finished an experiment of "live-blogging" a historical event. He used newspaper archives and other sources to post-blog the Sudeten Crisis.

The Sudeten Crisis is also known as the Munich Crisis and is the series of events leading up to the famous "Peace for our time" announcement just before the Second World War.

Cake In A Mug

I haven't actually tried this but it looks like it might be fun.  It would be perfect for the lunch room at work assuming you happened to have all the ingredients.

Do Not Call Lists

Security expert Bruce Schneier has a blog post where he mentions the new Canadian Do Not Call List.  One thing he mentions:

Here's my idea. If you're a company, add every one of your customers to the list. That way, none of your competitors will be able to cold call them.

My question is, couldn't someone write a small program to pull all of the phone numbers in Canada from say Canada411.com and add them all to the Do Not Call List?

October Smashing Wallpaper

I'm a bit late with this one but Smashing Magazine have another set of their monthly desktop wallpapers.  I decided to skip the Halloween themes and went with the large ship in the fog. 

Moleskine Monster Post

Being a bit of a paper productivity geek, I've been intrigued by the current interest, some would say fetishism, for the Moleskine notebook. To summarise it all, Freelance Switch has a post with a huge list of links to articles about things you can do with your Moleskine.

NASA Photo Archives

NASA has a new website with all of their photo archives.  There are some very nice pictures there.

First launch

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a nice black and white photo of the first launch from Cape Canaveral.