Spacebound cars and Pirate toasters

Source: Sci Fi Tech Lock'N'Safe is a voice-activated safe. Yes, someone is someone actually thought this was a good idea.

Source: Sci Fi Tech Yarrr! The Pirate Toaster marks each piece of bread with a Jolly Roger. Might make a good gift someone with young children or a pirate fetish.

Source: Sci Fi Tech The $100(US) SteriPen uses ultraviolet light to, it claims, kill 99.9% of the bacteria floating in whatever water you may be drinking. Good idea for camping or trips to countries with questionable water supplies.

Source: Engadget The UK television program Top Gear built a mock space shuttle using a Reliant Robin and set a record for the largest rocket ever launched in the UK. Follow the link to watch the video of the launch and the less-than-successful landing. Looks like the video was pulled from YouTube so you'll have to make do with the picture.

Source: Coolest Gadgets The radio-controlled water cannon turns spraying unsuspecting pool-goers into child's play. The cannon as a range of 10 feet to ensure that the maximum number of people want to become well acquainted with your child, or at least how much air time they can achieve when launched into the pool.

Star Wars fanfic, Part II

A well-choreographed (for non-professionals) and well-designed piece of light-saber work. Very well done for two guys doing this just for fun and in their spare time.

http://www.youtube.com/v/-is63goeBgc

Space bots and Daylight Savings woes

Source: Space.com Two robotic spacecraft have been launched as part of a three-month mission to test the feasibility of refueling and repairing satellites in orbit. The NextSat is the smaller of two and is designed to dock with satellites so that their store of propellant can be topped up. It can also be used to transfer replacement hardware from the ASTRO to the satellite. The larger of the two is the ASTRO which has a robotic arm that allows it to either recapture the NextSat or transfer parts to NextSat to shuttle to a satellite.

Source: Space.com The State of New Mexico has threatened to "...secede from the astronomical community..." if Pluto is not given official status as a planet. Their primary reason? The original discoverer of Pluto used to live there. The reaction from the International Astronomical Union has been, understandable, understated, given this is a threat with no teeth. They have also declared 13 March as "Pluto Planet Day".

Source: National Geographic If Global Warming can be seen to have an upside, one of them may be access to a new source of fuel in the form of gas hydrates. First discovered in 1983, it is now believed that there may enough methane trapped in the form of gas hydrates to exceed the world's traditional supply of gas, oil and coal. Each 0.02 cubic metre of gas hydrate can yield as much as 4.5 cubic metres of methane. Research is currently being conducted in the Arctic to determine how to mine this resource from the sandy sediments in which they appear.

Source: ABC News As we go into the weekend knowing that Daylight Savings time starts three weeks earlier than usual this year (causing innumerable computer headaches), it turns out that the plan may be more annoyance than solution. The original purpose was to reduce the US's energy consumption by a wopping 1%; Canada followed suit in it usual passive manner to avoid upsetting anyone. The idea was that with an hour more sunlight in the evening, electric lights would be on a shorter period of time. A new study points out that there will, in fact, be an "...increase in morning electricity consumption ... so big that it offsets any benefits we get from the extra light in the evening." The cost of this shift has been estimated at more than $2 billion(US).

Source: SlashDot IBM, in association with The Anomalies Network, has designed a new search engine for those of you have may have been captured by aliens. UFOCrawler is a repository of information pertaining to ghosts, conspiracy theories and extraterrestrials. Strangely enough, I might have a use for this sight, these being things I find entertaining.

A note expanding on yesterday's report of NetFile being down: apparently the problem is some data being scrambled, such as Social Insurance numbers being switched with birthdates [Toronto Star]. Intuit Canada recommends that you can either wait for NetFile to come back online or submit paper copies. QuickTax will generate a barcode for printed returns so those who use their system can simply print out the data and submit it.