Offbeat posts

It may be too early to start firing up your DNA thumb drive, but that’s not out of the question in the near future. A British scientist has imprinted 739kb of data onto a strand of synthetic DNA that includes 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets, a photo, a PDF of a scientific paper, and a 26-second sound clip from US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech, according to the South China Morning Post. The technology opens many doors for data storage. DNA has been shown to be extremely durable over time and requires no energy to maintain. Data storage devices have been getting smaller…

Last year, Audi started showing off its e-bike concept, a high-tech 50 MPH electric bike with carbon fiber and built in WiFi. The cool two-wheelers made its rounds through the blogosphere and tech shows and inspired many to think outside of the box with bicycle designs. Georgian designer Vladimer Kobakhidze was one of the inspired and designed a concept folding bike with the Audi logo proudly emblazoned on the frame. What Kobakhidze may or may not have done intentionally was to use the Mercedes Benz famous three-spoke logo as the wheels of the bike. It’s all harmless, but fun to point out nonetheless….

If you’re one of those who almost deleted your Instagram account but did not because you figured you’d give them one last chance to stop leaning towards the dark side, the latest round of Facebook/Instagram controversy should be enough to push you over the edge. As has been widely covered, Instagram and Facebook are locking people out of their accounts and requiring government issued photo IDs to get back into them. The story isn’t the fact that they’re doing this; Facebook has been known to have zero concern for their users and a distinct willingness to push their social media addiction to the limits….

There are dozens of iconic images of history’s most famous physicist that demonstrate both his personality and kind heart, but one that doesn’t get as much attention is this picture from 1931 when he visited Hopi House on the Fred Harvey concession at the Grand Canyon. While on a trip with his wife to do work and get courted by the California Institute of Technology, he took his wife to the Grand Canyon and had this photo taken with 4 Hopi adults and a Hopi child. In the background of the image to the right, we see J. B. Duffy, General Passenger Agent of the ATSF (the famous Atichson, Tokepa and Santa Fe Railroad),…

“Striking” might be overkill, but in a world where Jesse Eisenberg can get away with playing Mark Zuckerberg, this geek CEO doppelganger image is creepy enough to note. Kutcher tweeted the image after the premier of his new movie, jOBS, at the Sundance Film Festival. As far as the movie itself, the initial reviews range from lukewarm to pleasantly surprised. Nobody is heralding it as triumph, but few are calling it the stinker that many anticipated and reviews of Kutcher’s performance have been positive. Are you going to see it? Thank you Sundance for your support of Jobs twitter.com/aplusk/status/…—…

“Mixed Nuts in Space.” No, it’s not a sci-fi comedy starring Simon Pegg or a strange space porno. It could possibly be a portion of a horror flick based upon the creepy movements of the nuts in a can suspended in zero gravity. As you’ll see, they seem… alive. Nuts will never be the same again.  …

Censorship is arguably the most irreversible path a publication can travel. We are a semi-forgiving society that understands journalists will get the story wrong from time to time. We know that there are ethical boundaries that must occasionally be crossed. We are forgiving when a publication gets too controversial or stands behind the side of an argument with which we do not agree. When censorship enters the equation, a publication loses everything important to it. Credibility is gone. Unbiased reporting can no longer be expected. Every opinion and fact posted will be seen through the eyes…

A thespian from the time he was 8, Leonard Nimoy would go on to become one of the most iconic characters in science fiction both on television and the big screen. He spent his high school years at Boston’s English High School and acted throughout before attending Boston College. Before becoming the ever-logical Spock, his friends apparently called him Lenny. Click the image to enlarge. …

The internet is officially an “essential” part of life in Germany according to a court ruling Thursday. According to Reuters: A German court ruled on Thursday that people have the right to claim compensation from service providers if their Internet access is disrupted, because the Internet is an “essential” part of life. The court likened the loss of internet access to the loss of vehicular access. In other words, internet service providers can be forced to compensate those who are not able to get the internet access they require. It has become a right rather than a privilege in Germany thanks…

GoDaddy has built a name for itself through elephant-shooting CEOs, SOPA support, and sexist television ads that depict women in ways that are supposed to make men salivate before running to their computer to register their domain. The first ad that has hit the web for this year’s batch of Super Bowl commercials is less sexist than normal. Yes, there are beautiful women, but much less skin than we’re accustomed to from the registrar. The initial idea of the ad is pretty clever. It shows several men from around the world who apparently have the same idea. One man ends up acting on the idea and is thus…