MizPee knows that when you’re on the go, sometimes you “gotta go.” Point your mobile browser at it, and it’ll tell you the nearest spots for relief. In the future, hopefully they’ll add GPS support, but for now I’m waiting on Apple to offer their own version with an iPhone-specific interface; they could call call it “iPee.” [lifehacker]
Category Archives: Blog
Benz Over and Take It
Mercedez Benz refused to activate the GPS locator device for a car which was strongly implicated in a fatality hit-and-run accident, despite a court order to do so. Leaving alone the legal precedent that even non-court-ordered law-enforcement placed GPS tracking is legal, the idea that communication equipment can be turned against its owner by court writ is well-established. [engadget]
Northrop Grumman Buys Scaled Composites
Space.com reports that Scaled Composites is getting bought out by aerospace giant Northrop Grumman.
On one hand, it seems like big aerospace sees a future in the more nimble approaches and radical garage-based attempts to claim space for private industry.
On the other hand, one can easily point out that big aerospace has not been focused on nimble projects, but trying to find the most complex payouts and contracts.
Is this a chill over the nascent small private space access group? Or a chance for private space access to get access to larger research money and support?
update: Jeff Foust digs up more details about the relationship here.
Space station’s eurobot doing well in tests
The ESA’s three-armed robot is supposed to help astronauts and move around the outside of the station by itself is apparently doing well.
I for one welcome our new space robot overlord…
Slush survival tips for short story writers
If you write short fiction with an eye to getting published, you’re probably hungry for advice on how to make your manuscript survive the slush-pile process. So give thanks to Doug Cohen, fiction editor for Realms of Fantasy Magazine, for sharing this insightful essay where he looks at the openings of genuine slush-pile survivor stories, and analyzes what it was about them that saved them from the default rejection note. Of course, not all parts of the writing process are quite so easily explained – witness Jim van Pelt talking about where story ideas come from. [Cross-posted to VCTB]