Note: This shower is only visible in the Northern Hemisphere. The Quadrantid meteor shower is one of my personal favorites, mainly because of the amount of meteors it produces. You can sight more than 100 meteors per hour- that's more than 1 meter per minute. Even though that doesn't sound like much, it will make your observing experience much more exciting. The peak is short, typically lasting no more than an hour or so. It is more easily observed on the fourth, with its peak at 1:00 AM EST.
Since the Geminid Meteor shower is intensifying more every year, grab your binoculars and lay down in a field to enjoy the show! If you are going to observe one day, do it on the peak: December 14th.
Shortening URLs has become a necessity in this age of Twitter and limited-character status updates. It not only allows us to cram more words into our oh-so-important Twitter statuses, but it also helps us with a few other things.
MineCon 2011 (held at the Mandalay Bay in Vegas) was in a word, awesome. The crowd was overwhelmingly young, the vibe was fun and nerdy, and best of all, the costumes were inspired. Below are my favorites, which unfortunately aren't of the best quality (lighting was low and super yellow, which wasn't helped much by my standard point-and-shoot). If you happened to attend Minecon as well, post about your experience to the community corkboard... if you're pictured below, please comment!
Friday's Community Byte was weird. The intent was to do a HackThisSite mission, but upon time to begin, everyone in there was programming without my assistance, with the help of Sol Gates. This is great! It's really awesome that everyone enjoys programming that much and will make the effort to learn even when I am not present. So, a tip of my hat to Mr. Sol Gates and the rest of you fine people.
Giveaway Tuesdays has officially ended! But don't sweat it, WonderHowTo has another World that's taken its place. Every Tuesday, Phone Snap! invites you to show off your cell phone photography skills.
"Google+ is dead." How many times have you read that in the past few weeks? It seems like I can't get away from this notion that Google+, as a social network, is a total failure. Don't feel too sorry for them, though. +Bradley Horowitz isn't worried. In an interview with VentureBeat, he explains, “Six months from now, it will become increasingly apparent what we’re doing with Google+. It will be revealed less in what we say and more in the product launches we reveal week by week.” Indeed, som...
Hideo Kojima is one of the biggest names in Japanese game design. He's the man behind every Metal Gear game, each of which has been beautiful but divisive. He's an auteur, a rarity in AAA game design, managing business, design, and programming for Kojima Productions. Last week he made a rare public appearance at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, which contains the school's video game programs, and gave a 90-minute talk about his career, influences, and the specifics of his new Fox game design...
After taking a beginner’s art class at my local community college I realized two things: one, art supplies are extremely expensive, and two, I am not talented at painting. Although my painting skills are comparable to those of a five year old, I still enjoy art and being creative. Therefore, I began to look for ways to be creative that didn’t require much skill or too much money.
Foldit is definitely a niche game. The sole gameplay mechanic is attempting to fold complex proteins into smaller and more efficient shapes following the rules of molecular physics and biology. Points are awarded based on how small one can make the protein. Online leaderboards track players' relative progress and allows them to view and manipulate other players' completed designs. It's original, certainly, but no developer is going to ship a million units of a game about molecular-level prote...
It's been an eventful week for Google+. Facebook decided to up its game and start rolling out several major updates intended to address privacy concerns. We got a glimpse into the future of Google+ via an insightful discussion between +Bradley Horowitz and +Tim O'Reilly. And Google decided to integrate the +1 button more fully with Google+ by allowing users to share directly from the +1 button. That's not all, though—scroll down for more news & updates that occurred in the past week.
Video games are one of the best non-medical things that have ever happened to sick children. They are stimulating, entertaining and require very little physical strength to play, which makes them perfect for those suffering physical maladies.
It's a hell of a lot easier to make money selling an indie game now than it was four years ago. But it's still a rough game.
As Google+ became available to more people, it started running into issues of accounts being suspended due to names that did not sound "real". According to Google+'s community standards, names that users "commonly go by" were encouraged, but not pseudonyms. Those who were using pseudonyms in their Google+ profiles quickly found themselves suspended from using Google+.
Whereas yesterday's segment of Making Art on Your iOS Device focused on the technical elements of drawing from life, today we enter the painterly realm of David Hockney and Jorge Colombo.
Minecraft has been out nearly two years now. Hard to believe, isn't it? Fans of the game have been spoiled with a lot of new content over that span from its creator Notch, as well as its modders. A couple months ago, Notch tortured the Minecraft community by tweeting some screens of a "Sky Kingdom" that he was working on.
It's only been a few weeks, and already there are a lot of misconceptions and myths floating around Google+. Let's take a deep breath, and tackle some of the more prominent ones.
+Tom Anderson of MySpace has been very active on Google+ over the first week, and he's not shy with his thoughts on the evolution of the industry he once owned. Here's his take on this morning's Facebook announcement and Mark Zuckerberg's response when asked about Google+.
Anybody who spends most of their day on the internet should know all about lulz. Lulz are most often jokes made at the expense of web users, as popularized on 4Chan. Today, a consortium of hackers called LulzSec is attempting (and in some cases succeeding) in efforts to shut down some of the games that offer web users a giant share of their online fun. World of Warcraft, League of Legends, EVE Online, and Bethesda Softworks have all been targeted by LulzSec's hacking efforts in the last week,...
Advancements in technology usually lead to the miniaturization of old technologies, and video games are no exception. Since at least 1990, game hardware manufacturers and enterprising DIY electronics enthusiasts have poured their efforts into making full-size video game consoles smaller, even handheld. And for good reason—who would have ever played a black and white Game Boy if they could have had an actual NES in their pocket?
To go Open Source or go proprietary? There is a common conception that open-source is unsafe and insecure and therefore companies should rather go for proprietary solutions. They think that because software is termed "open-source", that the world can see the vulnerabilities of the software and might exploit it, and less informed people tend to think that open-source software can be modified while it is running.
Digital distribution games are already firmly established on the PC, and they've infiltrated every present and next-gen console to some degree. Whether you like to play DOS, AAA, PC or indie games, there's a way to purchase most of them without leaving the comfort and warmth of your couch or desk.
Good Question. Belly Dance is an American term that encompasses MANY different styles of Middle Eastern, Eastern European, and North African dances both traditional and modern, and also Fusion styles that have pieces that resemble these dances form the "old country" but are distinctly American. Also, Belly Dance is somewhat of a misnomer since the dance has much more to do with the hips than the belly. There are also many different terms for the different Belly Dance styles depending on the r...
FOXBORO, Mass. - The New England Patriots Alumni Club (NEPAC), announced that more than a dozen former Patriots players are gearing up to host a "Football for You" youth clinic in Worcester on Saturday, May 29 from 12:30-5:00 p.m.
West LA Seido Karate-do embeds its personal protection program into its on-going classes. Private instruction in this aspect of Seido can also be arranged with Kyoshi on an individual basis.
Up On the Roof: Urban Rooftop Farming and The Brooklyn Grange So sometimes something inspires me so much that it makes me want to run to the rooftop of my eastside L.A. apartment and shout out at the top of my lungs "LOOK AT THIS, THIS IS AMAZING!". The Brooklyn Grange is one of those kinds of things.
Have you ever seen Whose Line Is It Anyway? Many people enjoy watching this show, where they can see people do comedy off the top of their heads. There's no prior thought involved and it can be a lot of fun to participate in.
Get lots of bright snow gear including a survival backpack and the necessary thing u need to survive in a blizzard on your own. Have tins, cans ice pics, whatever hanging from your backpack. Have a separate big bag kinda like a duffel bag attached by a rope to your harness on your waist. Go downtown where there's lots of people and walk like your in a blizzard (maybe have snowshoes on?). Or you can take that idea, erase the part about the duffel bag on the back and put 3 other people dressed ...
For this prank, get one of the guys from the crew (prob will be Dave England) to walk in a library ready to poop. Have him then get a book to read or maybe go on computer and just sit and not talk. Then have him begin to poop. While this is going on make sure he try's and plays it off. If people start to look around play it as cool as you can. IF at 1st no one knows he is pooping make him be the 1st to be like ewwww whats that or somthing. once there get out of there and see how people take it.
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our tutorials, post to the community corkboard, and come play on our free server!
On June 23, 2003, Linden labs created a free client program known as Second Life. This program allows users, or residents, to interact with each other in a virtual world by using avatars. Thanks to this program, residents are able to explore, socialize, and create and trade virtual property, and services with each other. Second Life has become one of the most popular programs used by various age ranges from 16 to 60, but how do you enter this world and get your own avatar?
By Ethical Traveler As the world becomes ever more interconnected, being an ethical traveler becomes both easier and more urgent. Travelers today have access to far more information than we did even 10 years ago. We can observe–almost in real time–the impact that smart or selfish choices, by governments and individuals, have on rainforests and reefs, cultures and communities.
Eager to share your favorite pieces of literature, but can't find any electronic version of the book? Don't worry! You can create your own e-book library. All you need is a digital camera and some free software.
A press release should be about news. It should have a sense of urgency about it and grab the reader’s attention from the outset. A good press release must quickly answer the journalist’s immediate questions:
Whenever we make a homemade circuit, we use what are called through-hole components. Any components with long metal leads is a through-hole component. They are great for soldering to, but it's tough to fit enough through-hole resistors and capacitors into a smartphone. To get those last microns, we have surface-mount components for SMDs (surface-mount devices). These are all of those teeny, tiny things you see when you crack open your digital camera or laptop case.
Ever wonder how all of those tiny chips and components can fit inside your laptop or smartphone? If you tried to squeeze them in there yourself, your laptop would quickly become too heavy for your lap, and your mobile phone would need wheels to stay mobile.
What happened to please and thank you? When did asking someone to come look at your build degenerate into COME NOW or FOLLOW or sending out teleport requests to any and all currently on the server without asking?
Three-dimensional printing is one of the many wonders of modern technology. It's the first step towards real life Star Trek replicators and Timeline-esque teleportation chambers. While we aren't at the level of reconstructing strands of DNA, it's already possible to make tons of fun and useful designs on a 3D printer.
Smartphones are crazy awesome. You can do your banking, track your children, find directions, and even pretend to have a mustache. The only thing that these personal supercomputers are missing is physical interaction with the environment.
