For my next business trip...

Now this is how to fly properly on business trips!

If only...

9 Hilarious USB Keys

Pretty funny.

Life After People?

A very interesting show that tries to answer the question: "How long would the material things of our modern civilization last if people just disappeared?". Instead of dwelling on how every last human is removed from the earth, which is mostly immaterial to the premise of the show, the focus is on the aftermath of our disappearance. I guess it's kind of like watching a car accident or any number of disaster movies, one is compelled to watch even if the subject makes them a bit queasy.

One of the reasons I enjoyed this program so much was due to the post-apocalyptic series by S.M. Stirling I've been reading. It's an enjoyable read but before watching this show I thought his description of how quickly the material things of modern civilization were essentially swallowed up by Mother Nature seemed a bit far-fetched. Having now seen this program it does appear that left unchecked, every material thing we see around us is indeed temporary and man's mastery of Nature a bit more illusory than we imagine. Rather sobering to think that the remnants of the ancient Greek & Egyptian cultures have lasted far longer than ours would if modern society collapsed. A fascinating program, I highly recommend it.

You can watch the rest of the show here. Enjoy!

Gaza War's New Front: Facebook

[A]s the Financial Times notes, social networking site Facebook has become an important venue in the Arab world for protesting the Israeli campaign, as well as a potent fundraising tool for supporters of the Palestinian cause...

Of course, Israel has plenty of Facebook friends as well. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported today how Matt Freelander, a young Jewish Londoner, organized a pro-Israeli demonstration through Facebook; around 1,000 people showed up for the rally. Radio Netherlands notes another Facebook site that aims to round up a million supporters of Israel. (Wired)

It makes sense that this is happening. Islamic terrorists have for years now been using internet chatrooms, message boards and even YouTube for connections and propaganda purposes. It looks like Israel has learned from this and is now likewise engaging the enemy online in this current conflict through such efforts as the IDF's new YouTube channel.

(this is also posted over on Gay Patriot)

Five Gadgets That Were Killed by the Cellphone

Calling a cellphone a mere phone seems a little silly these days. The little pocket wonders now do so much they are really handheld computers. With extras. The process of mashing one or more gadgets together in the same box used to be called convergence, but that approach quietly died as the mobile phone ate up any and every rival device. So successful has this been that whole product categories have had the life choked out of their twitching bodies by the phone... (Wired)

I agree with all the items on their list except for MP3 players like the iPod. I suppose one day they will become obsolete but when the max storage available on the iPhone is a measly 16G I don't see this happening anytime soon. They'll have to vastly increase the storage capacity before it becomes attractive to more customers. Nope, I'm still sold on my 80G iPod. As for landline phones, sheesh I can't even remember the last time I had one. 7 years ago? I honestly forget.

5 Famous Sci-Fi Weapons That They're Actually Building

This is a really cool article at Cracked. As a big sci-fi fan though, all I ask for is a real honest-to-god death ray. No, I'm not advocating more war and greater bloodshed but c'mon: tell me you wouldn't love to test this at least once! Oorah, baby!

Of course, this mobile weapon system picture here would be cool to put through its paces as well...

History of Computers

It's amazing how far they've come in just 45 years since the days of LINC.