When you buy a new computer, it’s important to look at what type of output ports it supports. After all, you want to be able to easily hook it up to your computer monitor, or the projector at work or in school.
The reason most projectors, and even a lot of displays have multiple input ports is because there’s no clearcut standard for video connectors. In fact, there are multiple standards of computer video cables. Three of them are still actively competing for a spot on your laptop’s side. These are VGA, DVI and HDMI.
via make use of
Are you having more trouble sleeping since you got your iPad or Samsung Galaxy S II? That comes as no surprise to researchers at the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who’ve found that two or more hours of exposure to backlit devices suppresses melatonin.
via mashable
Since the beginning of time — or what feels like it — we’ve been chained to our homes and desks by landlines. Ten years ago, landlines were the main vehicle of communication, used to run a business or keep in touch with family.
Today, we have endless options to get in touch and communicate. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter work simultaneously as marketing channels, customer service hubs and family lifelines.
via mashable
Inventor Izhar Gafni made a Cardboard Bike which is slated for mass production. The cost to produce one of these bikes is around $9 since the materials being used are inexpensive, the selling price is expected to start at $60. I was surprised to read that the weight that the bike can handle is 485 pounds, I am thinking that this is greater than the typical off the shelf bike in a department store. The inspiration for the bike is a cardboard canoe, who knew there were so many things being made from cardboard!
via hacked gadgets
Close calls in movie casting history always fascinate me. The possibility of some other actor inhabiting what has become the definitive version of that character in your head is mind boggling. The reasons why people turn down roles, especially in successful franchises, are especially confusing. Those last minute casting changes are heartbreaking at times, especially when you see the aftermath of events, and how the actor's careers were affected.
via geek tyrant
Space exploration requires technical expertise, careful planning, and test after test after test. But it can be hard to discount the role of luck in missions where so much can go wrong. In the US and Russian space programs, many rituals are attached to missions, perhaps to add a little good fortune to their science.
via io9
Fascinated by a story of how a magnetic implant imparted a "sixth sense" in its host, engineer and enthusiastic geek Marek Majkowski was eager to test this supplemental sense without the invasive surgery. With the help of cheap hardware like the Arduino and a little open-sourced code, he did just that.
via lifehacker
Some of our favorite movies have left us with long, lingering questions. Like how does Bane eat? And what sort of mental damage does a giant dog dragon inflict on a couple of kids in the real world? And so many other unanswered questions.
via io9
Whether it's camping or yard work or simply cracking a bottle of beer, they're the kind of thing that's worth having on hand. Bike repairs? It's a screwdriver. Eating a walnut? It's a nutcracker. Mending the fence? It's a wirecutter.
via gizmodo
Ok this might be old news to the more hardcore fans, but this was a total revelation to me. Someone particularly enthralled with the idea that E.T. may have in fact have been an alien from the Star Wars universe actually trawled through the movie and found this clip – undeniably aliens that were of E.T.s race had a seat on the Senate of the Old Republic. via geeks are sexy
The discovery of the Higgs boson was a singular event, but it was also the product of a long effort:the Atlas project, which used CERN's Large Hadron Collider to analyze particle acceleration. The existence of the Higgs was confirmed -- or, well, the existence of a particle that "looks for all the world" to be the Higgs was confirmed -- when groups of researchers detected a "bump" corresponding to a particle weighing 126 GeV, making it consistent with Dr. Higgs' mysterious particule.
via the atlantic
Bruce Wayne's batsuit is hardly a batsuit without a cape, but physicists at the University of Leicester have determined that the Dark Knight's memory cloth cape — which snaps into a rigid form when exposed to an electric current — is pretty much a one-time-use accessory. Not because it would break or anything, but because Batman would probably be dead.
via io9
Right now, there is a neural network of 1,000 computers at Google's X lab that has taught itself to recognize humans and cats on the internet. But the network has also learned to recognize some weirder things, too. What can this machine's unprecedented new capability teach us about what future artificial intelligences might actually be like?
via io9
Quinn Norton reports in depth on Wired with a careful, important account of where Anonymous's actions come from -- how coordinated activity (political, lulzy, legal and illegal) can emerge from noise, randomness, bombast and joking. This is the best description of how decision-making works in decentralized movements, and has important implications for the future of activism, governance, politics, crime and security.
via boing boing
Because July 4th falls on a Wedneday, a lot of Americans will spend a five-day weekend traveling and drinking. It's pretty common to misplace a wallet or a purse on that kind of vacation. And getting on a return flight without a valid ID, as you might imagine, is not easy. But it can be done. Here's how to work it with the TSA.
via gizmodo
Let's say the end of the world as we know it is coming — but someone offers you a priceless spot in their guaranteed-to-be-safe bunker, so you can be one of the chosen few who rebuilds the Earth. Would you want to survive, and emerge into the post-apocalyptic wasteland? Would the positives of playing a role in a new society outweigh the loss of creature comforts? Or would you rather just go out with the majority of the human race?
via io9
