Living

As the world awaits Curiosity's arrival on Mars, an alien landscape 141.6 million miles closer to home remains woefully unexplored. To chart the vast depths of the ocean, the UK has developed an unmanned sub capable of diving miles beneath the sea. It's called the Autosub6000. This 18-foot, 3-ton, titanium-clad Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is the latest in a long line of independent deep sea explorers developed by the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. As the name implies, the Autosub is pressure-rated to a staggering 6000 meters—deep enough to explore 90 percent of the word's oceans. Rather than being tied to its mothership via a 6km umbilical for power and control, like conventional ROVs, the Autosub free-dives. Its flight path is pre-programmed before the submersible is launched. In the water, up to twelve rechargeable lithium-ion polymer battery packs on a five-hour charge provide enough juice for 60 hours or 350km of operation. While this is a huge improvem...

Jul 30, 2012 4:20 PM   The good news: Each of the following 64 countries has free, unlimited access (broadband notwithstanding) to the greatest celebration of mankind's athletic achievements the world has ever known, thanks to YouTube and the IOC. The bad news: Chances are, you don't live in one. Afghanistan Angola Bangladesh Benin Bhutan Botswana Brunei Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Comoros Democratic Republic of Congo Republic of Congo Côte d'Ivoire East Timor Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Gabon Gabon Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau India Indonesia Iran Kenya Laos Lesotho Liberia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Mauritius Mongolia Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Niger Nigeria Nepal Pakistan Papua New Guinea Rwanda Singapore São Tomé and Príncipe Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Sri Lanka Swaziland Tanzania Thailand Togo Uganda Vietnam Zambia Zimbabwe [The Atlantic] View the original article here This post was ma...

Jul 28, 2012 4:00 PM   It took most of us well past the Game Boy's lifespan to finally get that amazingly addictive Tetris theme out of our heads. But if you miss it, you can re-kindle it—and all the frustrations you had with stacking tetrominoes—with this Tetris digital alarm clock. But don't worry, this isn't one of those annoying alarm clocks that forces you to complete a skill-testing puzzle before it shuts up. Instead, it's just a fancy digital clock that cleverly incorporates several Tetris elements—like tetromino-shaped buttons, the game's well-known repetitive soundtrack as the alarm sound, and an LCD display where the digits are assembled from falling pieces as the time changes. For nostalgia's sake it's totally worth the $40 asking price, and the fact that you can't actually use it to play Tetris is a good thing because no one wants to start their day completely frustrated. [Firebox] View the original article here This post was made using...

In 1996, 176.5 hours of the Olympics were broadcast in the U.S. This year? Try 5,535 hours across NBC's channels and sites alone. Holy crap, how are you going to watch all of that? Don't worry, there are ways. This is a guide for U.S. users (I know, I wish we were based in French-Polynesia, too), but a lot of this will apply regardless of where you are. In the U.S., NBC has exclusive rights to live broadcasting the Olympics. If you have a cable or dish subscription that includes MSNBC and CNBC, well, the Olympic world is your Olympic oyster. Congratulations, you have access to everything, and it's super easy. NBC's many networks will basically be transforming into Olympics coverage stations for the next few weeks. So you can watch all of that, but that's only the beginning. NBCOlympics.com is a massive orgy of content. Not only is it the best way to find out what's going to be broadcast and when, but you'll have access to live streams of every event as it h...

So Mountain Lion isn't perfect. It's got its flaws. But overall, it's a solid platform, and a lot of the smaller issues that pop up can be fixed with third party apps. Here's how to make everything just to your liking, using non-Apple software. Notifications are terrific in Mountain Lion. But a lot of us have had that same functionality for a while now, with Growl . The problem? They don't play nice together; Notification and Growl banner alerts both show up in the same place by default. So, you've got a few options: Abandon Growl; move Growl's notifications to a different corner of your screen; don't use notifications and only use apps that have Growl support (Sparrow ($10), Adium, etc.); or use Hiss . You'll like that last option. Hiss takes all of your Growl notifications, and converts them into Notifications. The big benefit is that all of your notifications will funnel through the same pipes. The bad news is that Notifications is way less custo...