In our collection of oddities this week we find some relief from stories about people making gobs of money selling stuff that looks like other stuff, NASA finally showing some concern about an issue that has troubled us all since we first stepped into the Apollo model at the science museum, and proof from the animal kingdom that Circuit City is a wretched store. Also, we exact our revenge on the iPhone 3G and we take a little time to mock a student hacker.
Americans suddenly too good to bid on stupid things that look like things on eBay
Desperate for help paying for his lavish nuptials, Dave Taylor looked into his pantry and found what he thought would be a Godsend: a slice of bread that looked vaguely like the Batman logo! Based on America's moronic track record with things that vaguely look like other things, he assumed that some twit would spend hundreds or thousands of dollars of good money to buy the useless slab of processed bread. Unfortunately for him, our nation seems to have suddenly come to its senses, and no one has bid a red cent for the useless bat-shaped foodstuff. read more
NASA employees peeing for science
As NASA's next-generation Orion spacecraft takes shape, engineers are still stuck on what's always the toughest part of space engineering: the toilet. The Orion's toilet might have to deal with six months worth of urine, which contains solids that are difficult to remove. To help the cause, NASA employees have been asked to donate their urine to the team trying to build a better potty, since, as one engineer says, "you can't make fake urine." read more...
Bear leaves Circuit City in disgust
Was he horrified at the high prices or turned off by the lack of selection? Whatever the case, the bear that wandered into the Colorado Springs Circuit City left without any game consoles, PC hardware, or large-screen TVs. read more...
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I heard mention that the Chrome OS will have some sort of encryption available a la bitlocker. If it's possible to encrypt personal data using another password or key, then it may have potential for very secure data.... And Ubuntu has an 'encrypt home directory' option, perhaps google should follow suit.
- Dann
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