• All your ringtones are belong to Verizon.
Killer quote:
Earlier this week, he showed me how the RAZR he bought from Verizon last month blocks your ability to transfer files into its Audio folder, in an apparent brazen attempt to force users to buy ringtones rather than creating their own tones from CDs or from scratch.
Killer quote:
A RUSSIAN rocket has launched carrying an experimental inflatable spacecraft for a US entrepreneur who dreams of building a commercial space station.
• Houston: What would MacGyver do?
Killer quote:
Even in space, a little duct tape may work wonders.Astronaut Piers Sellers suggested using some multipurpose sticky material to fix a safety-jet backpack used during spacewalks after it almost came loose from him while he repaired the international space station.
• Accidental genetic engineering in your own backyard!
Killer quote:
Cucumbers and cantaloupes are closely related enough to swap genes, Joffrion said. He'd never seen anything like the Dusenberys' whatever."In the first generation, they'll cross and you'll get an unusual fruit," Joffrion said.
The firm flesh inside is yellow and somewhat sweet but has a flavor more like cucumber than cantaloupe, Tim Dusenbery said.
Men and women are different. No, really.
Killer quote:
"We saw striking and measurable differences in more than half of the genes' expression patterns between males and females," said co-investigator Thomas Drake, M.D., a UCLA professor of pathology. "We didn't expect that. No one has previously demonstrated this genetic gender gap at such high levels."
Religion and the paranormal: two great tastes that go great together.
Killer quote:
I’ve been looking for more info on all this Farrakhan/Nation of Islam UFO stuff, and it appears to actually be legitimate. Um, legitimate insofaras they actually seem to teach it as part of their religion, that is. I guess I’m just surprised by all this because Farrakhan was so prominent in the news in the 90’s (Million Man March, anyone?) that you’d think all this fucking UFO stuff would have really haunted him. I guess in the end though the racism was probably a more hot-button issue even than UFO’s.
Killer quote:
The trove will be sold for dollars. Not Federation credits.
Oh, har.
• Street gangs go geek, go online; cops follow.
Killer quote:
Some of the country's most notorious street gangs have gotten Web-savvy, showcasing illegal exploits, making threats, and honoring killed and jailed members on digital turf. Crips, Bloods, MS-13, 18th Street and others have staked claims on various corners of cyberspace. "Web bangers" are posting potentially incriminating photos of members holding guns, messages taunting other gangs and boasts of illegal exploits on personal Web sites and social networking sites.
• William Shatner will record your answering machine message (if you win).
Killer quote (from the press release, which isn’t online):
Whoever wins this contest is going to have an interesting time deciding what message they would like recorded on their machine. After all, even the simplest of messages would be noteworthy once it was “Shatner-ized” with a series of unusual pauses and emphases. Some fans might prefer a famous quote from Star Trek, personalized for their household or even a more recent quote from Boston Legal. Other fans might opt for a message identifying the speaker: “This is William Shatner, and you’ve reached the Burns residence.” There are a lot of interesting choices, but the winner needs to be careful – pick something too interesting and the winner may suddenly need a new, unlisted number.
• Experts say everyone should be using Macs.
Killer quote:
In contrast to the vast drop in worms and viruses, the overall level of malware continues to rise - indicating that spyware, Trojan horses and phishing are now the more favoured methods of attack for cyber criminals. In June 2005, the number of different pieces of malware protected against by Sophos stood at 140,118. A year later, by June 2006, Sophos was identifying and protecting against 180,292 different viruses, spyware, worms, Trojan horses and other malware, as well as adware and other potentially unwanted applications (PUAs). The vast majority of malware continues to be written for Windows, and while the first malware for Mac OS X was seen in February 2006, it has not spread in the wild and has not heralded an avalanche of malicious code aimed at Macs.
• Scientists like Gore’s science movie.
Killer quote:
The former vice president's movie — replete with the prospect of a flooded New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes, worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets — mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The Associated Press.
• Nanotechnology takes a very tiny leap forward with supersmall American flag. Killer quote:
The image of the flag -- complete with all 50 stars and 13 stripes -- is 7 microns tall, compared to the 100-micron width of a human hair. It was transferred onto a silicon wafer using a machine that follows the shape of any bitmap image file. The flag and its pole were cut using an ion beam -- a microscopic version of a laser -- and lifted to a standing position by a nano manipulator.
Nano manipulator? Cool.
• Man’s severely injured brain rewires itself. Killer quote:
Doctors have their first proof that a man who was barely conscious for nearly 20 years regained speech and movement because his brain spontaneously rewired itself by growing tiny new nerve connections to replace the ones sheared apart in a car crash.
• The elected officials deciding net-neutrality issues are morons. Killer quote:
I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
• The great-great-etc grandparent of us all may have lived as recently as 2000 years ago. Killer quote:
When you walk through an exhibit of Ancient Egyptian art from the time of the pyramids, everything there was very likely created by one of your ancestors -- every statue, every hieroglyph, every gold necklace. If there is a mummy lying in the center of the room, that person was almost certainly your ancestor, too.
• Two red-spot storms on Jupiter will converge in mid-July; visible through backyard telescopes. Killer quote:
"There won't be a head-on collision," she says. "The Great Red Spot is not going to 'eat' Oval BA or anything like that." But the storms' outer bands will pass quite close to one another—and no one knows exactly what will happen.
(Technorati tags: net neutrality, human ancestors, Jupiter storms, blood for oil)
