Skyehaven’s Cool Thing of the Day

The American Museum of Natural History and NASA have joined forces to produce a planetarium show about the amazing variety of stars that dot our cosmos–exploding stars, giant stars, dwarf stars, neutron stars, even our own star!

You can order your free (yes, FREE) copy here.

Posted here by special request: A dramatic reading of the open letter from Leon to ABC regarding their butchery of “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.

Solution? Employ your own crass commercialization and go buy the DVD.

An elderly couple at the Mayo clinic prove that happiness, even at a venerable age (the source for this video says they’re well into their 80′s in this video) is playing together.

I’m still percolating this Washington Post article about telekinetic toys (free reg) and the possible future applications.

You slip the wireless headset on. It looks like something a telemarketer would wear, except the earpieces are actually sensors, and what looks like a microphone is a brain wave detector. You place its tip against your forehead, above your left eyebrow.

A few feet away is a ping-pong ball in a clear tube called the Force Trainer. The idea is to use your thoughts alone, as recognized by the wand on your forehead, to lift the ball. Your brain’s electrical activity is translated into a signal understood by a little computer that controls a fan that blows the ball up the tube. Levitates it. As if by magic. It’s mind over matter.

All you have to do is concentrate. On anything, it doesn’t matter. The harder you concentrate, the higher the ball goes.

First instinct is “I want one of these for Christmas!!!”
More thoughts to follow after I have some time to ponder the imponderables.

As money gets tighter and people get more worried, we’re all looking for ways to become more self-sufficient. Here’s a great website offering some supplies that will allow you to do just that. Now, fermentation is not just about wine and beer (though that’s cool in and of itself). It’s also about pickling and canning, too. And all of these are ways to stretch a dollar, if you have a little room to plant a garden.

Ok, I’ll admit it. All of this is just a way to lead into linking to a really cool show that kind of flew under the radar here in the states. It’s a bit dated, but still damned funny.

I’m going to switch up gears a moment here.

I enjoy cooking “country meals” for my family. One pot meals that are simple and don’t tend to take a whole lot of time. One of the problems with that, sometimes, is that the food cooks fast so the food doesn’t have enough time to really flavor up, so to speak.

Here’s my solution to the problem. This stuff is a miracle spice. It works in everything from scrambled eggs to pot roast. I’m telling you, Jane’s Krazy Mixed Up Salt is an essential. Before I found this website, I’d scour the grocery stores and buy up all the Jane’s they had whenever I found it. Sometimes I had to go without…and when that happened nothing tasted right.

If you see it in the store, or feel like ordering it from the website, give it a try. I don’t think you’ll be sorry.

Cool.
NOT cool.

My blood runs cold/my memories have just been sold

Nothing like taking a cherished memory from my youth and turning it into sloganeering and indoctrination of our youth.

Baseball cards just got a whole lot cooler.

Just hold the special 3D Live card in front of a webcam and watch a three-dimensional avatar spring to life — rotate the card and the figure rotates in full perspective. The technology provided by Total Immersion also allows collectors to drop the player into simple pitching, batting and catching games using the computer keyboard. Series 1 cards will cost $2 for a 12-pack while a buck snags a fistful of five.

Be sure you click through to the website for video of this marvel. File this one in “how do they DO that?”

I’ve decided to start a new weekly tradition. With an entire weekend staring me in the face, let me introduce you to the Friday Time Waster. This week’s installment looks promising to waste not only my time, but my son’s too.

I’ve recently taken a second job doing transcription work for a library in Australia. They have hours and hours of oral history sitting in their vaults that must be transcribed so it can be cross-referenced and used for research into the early 1900′s in the area. One of the most interesting parts of this job is listing to people’s memories of the Great Depression in Australia.

In a bit of synchronicity, my husband recently stumbled across Clara on YouTube. She has a popular online cooking show in which she shares Depression era recipes and her memories of growing up at the time. Clara’s also preparing to release a DVD and a cookbook of her recipes. With the recent economic downturn, this seems particularly timely.