Offbeat posts

Greatness in television science fiction does not have a very strong track record. Star Trek didn’t last very long before getting cancelled. Even ST:TOS lasted much longer than Firefly. Despite all of the poor excuses for scifi TV series in recent years, Battlestar Galactica was the one shining piece of stellar entertainment. Unfortunately, SyFy backed themselves into a corner. On one hand, they ended the series with no opportunity for a sequel. Then, they tried to play the prequel game with the failed Caprica. This didn’t bode well for Blood and Chrome, the prequel that should have been.  There’s…

The vast majority of attempts to tie in a mobile app to a television show have been completely lame. There is something potentially lucrative about taking advantage of “the second screen” in television entertainment, but nobody seems to have found the secret formula. AMC still hasn’t found that formula, but their Dead Yourself app is cool enough to note. Fans of the The Walking Dead are excited about the midseason premier on Sunday, so building up buzz has been pretty easy. That doesn’t mean that an iPhone app that turns faces of normal humans into the walkers of the show can’t add a bit to the fun….

Leave it to the folks at Minute Physics to give enjoy thinking harder than you really want to for under four minutes. That was the case yet again as they tackled the age-old concept of an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force. Rather than just take it all at face value, they dig deeper into the concept, bringing out both the fallacies as well as the brilliance hidden within the question itself. If you have a minute (well, 3 and half, actually), we strongly encourage you to get educated. Let’s do science! …

Hydrophobic and oleophobic coating may sound like something boring that you’d find in a college chemistry textbook, but it also helps bring into existence the coolest product demonstration we’ve seen in a while. As long as you can get passed the annoying “90s modern” music, you’ll be amazed at the visuals of how this stuff interacts with liquids. The concept is simple: coat absorbent materials with Ultra-Ever Dry and start dipping it into wet places. That’s where the fun starts. The science behind it goes down to a molecular level and uses nanotechnology, which we won’t get into here. The video…

Intelligence, from a scientific perspective, is a broad, and deep comprehension—”catching on,” “making sense,” of things, or “figuring out” what to do. The average IQ falls between a range of 90 and 110. An important disclaimer, however, is that intelligence tests do not measure creativity, character, personality, or other important differences among individuals, nor are they intended to. The notion that our intelligence is influenced by our genes has shifted from “taboo” to common acceptance. There are three genes associated with academic achievement: Dat 1, Dat…

The Pez is strong with this one. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about true geeks over the years, it’s that they love Star Wars in any form. Our patience was tested to its fullest with the most recent trilogy, but we did not waver for very long. Disney and JJ Abrams give us hope, a new hope, so to speak, but until we go through another round of tests of our trust in the Star Wars universe, we have these flash drive Pez dispensers around to keep us busy. According to BitRebels: Another example are these super geeky Star Wars Pez Dispensers that are modded to include a flash drive inside. Etsy artist DHHdesign…

There are many ways to go about launching a new product, and there are many ways to fail before you even get off the ground.  It’s not a myth that most new businesses fail.  From funding troubles to challenges in connecting with the market, there are numerous dangers waiting for both entrepreneurs and product managers. However, there are some best practices for creating a successful product launch.  Here are five of them.   Know your market Large companies spend as much time studying the marketplace as they do in research and development on the product.  In the build-up to a product…

The year 2004 was the year that would change the way the world would communicate forever. We did not know then that a little startup, an idea born from the mind of its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, would become not only the leading social network but that it too would infiltrate the Internet’s existing eco-system and turn itself into the most successful startup to date. Not only would Facebook Inc. become successful amongst Internet users of all ages and demographics, but its net income would surpass the estimated value of all other startups that too are deemed successful. We are talking far…

Over the first few thousand years of our existence (up until 2003), humankind generated 5 billion GB of data. Today, we generate that amount every two days. Think that’s a big jump? Well hold on to your seats, because experts predict that by next year we’ll be generating that amount every 10 minutes! This infographic takes a look at our “digital footprint” – the amount and type of data we consume as a society, from viewing videos to surfing the web to specific device usage, including desktops vs. laptops, e-readers vs tables and Androids vs iPhones. A full 75% of the information in the digital…

Are they alien eggs, fungal growths, or wet air freshener balls? Those are the questions being asked about thousands of purple balls that were found in the desert in Arizona outside of Tucson. Geradine Vargas and her husband were out taking pictures when they spotted the out of place pool of balls. They shot images of them and sent them to a botanist friend who could not identify them. That’s when they contacted the local news channel to investigate. “We checked out the mysterious spheres for ourselves, and learned they were still there,” said Liz Kotalik from KGUN9. “They’re like gooey marbles…