2008 Beijing LEGO Olympics
… and the gold medal for 2008 Beijing LEGO Olympic recreation goes to… Hong Kong Lego User Group - a team of block-building super “athletes”!
(via Daily Mail)
‘Checkpoint Friendly’ laptop cases
As of yesterday (Aug. 16, 2008), the Transportation Security Administration is now allowing laptops to remain in newly approved ‘checkpoint friendly’ bags, but still “reserves the right to re-screen any bag or laptop regardless of the design of the bag.”
Relatively good news for tech-savvy travelers; now if only they would invent/approve ‘unloseable’ luggage (see Mishandled Baggage) we’d be making some real progress.
(via Engadget)
Kenya or bust!
Heading to Kenya on safari - catch y’all on the flip side!
Making it official…
Back in the Nation’s Capital to do this thing!
Aurora borealis on your schedule
Discovery Channel has posted a cool (but brief) slideshow of aurora borealis images. Having seen the Northern Lights once (in Maine), I can attest to its shear awesomeness. Thanks nature!
(via Discovery)
50 years of space exploration in the bag
Happy (early) 50th birthday, NASA!
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration officially hits the half-century mark on Tuesday, July 29 - celebrating 50 years of shooting stuff into orbit (among other notable achievements)!
(via Wired)
iApps: Instapaper
Instapaper is a free iApp that allows users to view saved websites - “a tivo for the Internet” as one reviewer put it.
Besides the required (but understandable) account registration, Instapaper is a great tool. After signing up, a “read later” button is added to your browser; simply click whenever you want to save a page.
The ability to access web content offline is very useful, especially on the (sleek) iPod Touch. Hopefully someone will expand this idea to existing feed readers (I’m currently a fan of gReader) - hit a button and bam, a cache of all the latest posts from your favorite sites stored on your pod, ready to read after hoping on a plane or going out of service. Apple should take requests!
Gotham City, Illinois
The Chicago Tribune has posted a cool PDF map of Chicago illustrating its transformation into Gotham City for the recent smash-hit, The Dark Knight.
(via Chicago Tribune)
I think, therefore iFormat
Searching for a cheap (free) and easy (but not necessarily fast) way to create high quality compressed video for your iDevice? Look no further than freeware, HandBrake!
While there are a plethora of competing solutions floating around the interwebs, HandBrake has been the most reliable and worthwhile software that I’ve come across (thanks WE). Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that its open source and available on all systems (Win, Mac, & Linux).
HandBrake offers users a wide variety of compression options, including built-in presets for iPod Touch/iPhone format (among many others). Simply point to your source video file/folder, select your compression mode, and hit start…its that easy.
Fb goes cloud w/ Facebook Connect
Facebook CEO M.Z. announced Fb’s new platform today:
Facebook Connect is our version of Facebook for the rest of the Web.
In other words, Fb is going to open its network and wealth of data (w/user permission) to partnering sites across the interwebs.
With Internet access becoming ever more prevalent, Facebook is angling to take on fellow cloud computing competitors - Google, Yahoo!, Apple, and MS (among others) - in a race to become the premier web-wide platform.
(via Reuters)
