The Brief - A daily briefing of technology news worth caring about
November 9, 2012 11:57 AM Subscribe
NASA will send you an email or text alert when the International Space Station is visible from your area. IBM scientists have recently made significant advances in nanotechnology. A mathematician thought a poorly-encrypted headhunting email from Google was testing him, but he had actually discovered a major security hole. All of this found via The Brief: A Daily Briefing of Technology News Worth Caring About from MeFi's own nostrich. [via mefi projects]
nostrich also edits "The Feature" (previously titled "Give Me Something To Read") which is "a hand-picked selection of the finest articles and essays saved with Instapaper."
Basically, a great selection of awesome longish reading material.
posted by kcalder at 12:12 PM on November 9, 2012 [3 favorites]
Basically, a great selection of awesome longish reading material.
posted by kcalder at 12:12 PM on November 9, 2012 [3 favorites]
The ISS is half commie and I refuse acknowledge that half. Don't get me started on the socialist Canadarm, always wanting to give somebody something for free!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:34 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:34 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
For truth. 47% of the ISS just wants Canadhandouts.
posted by davidjmcgee at 12:35 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by davidjmcgee at 12:35 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
Bookmark for the blog.
Mathematician Zach Harris is crush-worthy. If he were on MeFi I would enspouse him.
posted by maggieb at 12:47 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
Mathematician Zach Harris is crush-worthy. If he were on MeFi I would enspouse him.
posted by maggieb at 12:47 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
The scene: a large meeting at NASA Johnson Space Center, perhaps the EVA Tools Panel.
An electric current runs through the people at the table and around the room as 50 cell phones set to vibrate go off at once.
The phone of the one dumbass who forgot to switch his or her phone to vibrate beeps.
Your heartbeat hammers in your ears as you fish out your phone, afraid of what the emergency could be that would be sent to this room, filled with these people.
Your ears pop as the room collectively sighs with relief, as you all just learned that the ISS will be visible from Clear Lake tonight.
posted by BeeDo at 1:01 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
An electric current runs through the people at the table and around the room as 50 cell phones set to vibrate go off at once.
The phone of the one dumbass who forgot to switch his or her phone to vibrate beeps.
Your heartbeat hammers in your ears as you fish out your phone, afraid of what the emergency could be that would be sent to this room, filled with these people.
Your ears pop as the room collectively sighs with relief, as you all just learned that the ISS will be visible from Clear Lake tonight.
posted by BeeDo at 1:01 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
My problem with the various daily digest pages including this one is that by the time I get it, there might be one story I haven't seen and the rest is "old news". I guess it's good if you don't follow any tech sites though, or want to catch up.
posted by smackfu at 1:13 PM on November 9, 2012
posted by smackfu at 1:13 PM on November 9, 2012
I hate tech sites; they're a flood of info I could do without and yet feel compelled to slog through when I saw them in my feed reader (before I just mass-unsubscribed from them). I'm happier trusting "filter" sites like The Brief -- and Metafilter, coincidentally -- to sift through the dreck and bring to me freshly curated tech news that I may sip from the stream without drowning in the river.
posted by brownpau at 1:46 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by brownpau at 1:46 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
Cool! Thanks davidjmcgee!
posted by but no cigar at 5:34 PM on November 9, 2012
posted by but no cigar at 5:34 PM on November 9, 2012
I use ISS Detector on my smartphone to find the ISS. It also shows Iridium flares, Hubble, and about a gillion other satellites. I only use it for the ISS and Iridium flares, though.
I also use Sky Safari a lot, lately. It's helped me find Uranus and Neptune and a few other things I hadn't seen before.
posted by dirigibleman at 5:37 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
I also use Sky Safari a lot, lately. It's helped me find Uranus and Neptune and a few other things I hadn't seen before.
posted by dirigibleman at 5:37 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
In other NASA news: NASA controls a LEGO robot from space via 'interplanetary internet'
posted by homunculus at 6:32 PM on November 9, 2012
posted by homunculus at 6:32 PM on November 9, 2012
Track the IIS and other satellites at:
http://www.heavens-above.com/
posted by falsedmitri at 1:43 AM on November 10, 2012 [1 favorite]
http://www.heavens-above.com/
posted by falsedmitri at 1:43 AM on November 10, 2012 [1 favorite]
Great stuff. Had to mail Nasa about their form not validating email adresses using a '+' tag deliminator. Yeah, that's right, I called out Nasa on a tech issue.
posted by Iteki at 5:46 AM on November 10, 2012
posted by Iteki at 5:46 AM on November 10, 2012
NASA will send you an email or text alert when the International Space Station is visible from your area
Or you can plan ahead plan ahead .
See here also.
posted by y2karl at 10:56 AM on November 10, 2012
Or you can plan ahead plan ahead .
See here also.
posted by y2karl at 10:56 AM on November 10, 2012
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posted by tragedy at 12:09 PM on November 9, 2012 [1 favorite]