Relationship hacks

Advice on keeping things running smoothly in intimate relationships or personal relationships generally; varied but usually mature advice from the lovely community at Metafilter.

A true hero

86-year-old WWII veteran Philip Spooner has become an instant national hero in the states for his contribution to a debate on gay marriage in Maine. Worth viewing in a week when hateful politics have been much in the news. (via MetaFilter and BoingBoing)

Fifty years of space missions

An astounding infographic, showing space missions by target, country and whether the missions were successful. The bottom of the chart shows the most distant probes (the Voyagers and the Pioneers) and how far away they are (Voyager I is at ten billion miles). If you have a 4000 pixel monitor, this is what it’s for.

Update: To go along with it, All the Mars missions in one infographic.

making the world fun

walking up stairs and cleaning up has never been more fun

The Speaking Piano

An amazing hardware hacking project: a mechanical piano, computer-controlled, becomes a speech synthesiser.

Words (and non-words) to avoid in online dating

Interesting research project from the owners of dating site OKCupid. Looking at first-contact emails, which words make a response more or less likely? Apparently illiteracy is a major turn-off: the singles don’t want to be told that someone “realy luvs u”.

Tribute to Alan Turing

Wow, a Number 10 Petition that actually achieved something! Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s tribute to Alan Turing, code-breaker and computer pioneer.

The Tree of Life: Sir David Attenborough in full effect

In case you missed one of the TV highlights of the year, here is the BBC’s Tree of Life animation in HD glory on YouTube. Watch it again, show your kids and tell them the Greatest Story Ever Told.

(transcript)

Diary from Big Chill 2009

Paul has remarked that I’m the sort of person who goes to a music festival and writes it all down. Well, guilty as charged. Maybe it’s because I don’t do drugs.

Toss 140: the columnists, digested

Toss140.net is a Twitter spin-off where users summarise media columnists in 140 characters. For example, a column in the Daily Mail is abbreviated as “Ban this sick filth. Just thinking about it is turning me on.” Gerry Adams in the Guardian is condensed to “Global economic crisis? War? Climate change? Let’s get our priorities right: I still want a united Ireland!” A Daily Telegraph blog is rendered as “Ed Miliband using wind power to SAP AND IMPURIFY OUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS” It’s the brainchild of Bad Science author Ben Goldacre, and you can participate yourself via Twitter.