It seems that even rocket scientists can not escape today’s economic uncertainty. In an already slowing job market, NASA announced that their plan to retire the space shuttle in 2010 could result in over 8000 lost jobs.

Art history majors across the country may soon have more than just former Bear Stearns employees and Hillary Clinton campaign staffers to worry about when applying for that job at Starbucks.

There is just no way to pad your resume enough when you are up against a former NASA employee, someone who has probably gotten closer to an actual ’star’ than you ever will.

To make matters worse, NASA employees may have falsely gotten their hopes up when Google decided to play an April fools prank and announce their plan to privately fund the colonization of Mars called “Project Virgle.”

Out of 8000 employees, at least one or two must have had their resume stamped and ready to mail until they looked at the calendar. Be careful, Google. These are the same people who accidentally threatened the planet with that spy satellite full of toxic gas back in January. It is probably best not to make them angry and see what they can threaten us with when they actually try. Read More »

Does the MacBook Air commercial give you a gear-boner? Have you maxed out a credit card with iTunes. Do people not recognize you without your EarBuds dangling beneath your hood? Well, you’re not alone. The simple, sleek design and user-friendly interface of Apple has finally reached hegemonic status in the consumer world.

According to Reuters.com, a poll by BrandChannel.com of 2000 readers, from 107 countries, marked Apple as the brand having the biggest impact on consumer’s lives.

From the article:

The poll by online magazine brandchannel.com asked its readers to identify the brands with the greatest impact on their lives, and say how they affected readers’ behaviour and their view of the world.

The nearly 2,000 professionals and students who voted named Apple overwhelming winner. The creator of the iPod and Mac computer triumphed in six categories including most inspiring brand and the one readers cannot live without.

You’d almost think they were talking about the U.N., or some charity. But instead they’re talking about a corporation that sells $600 $500 phones and $3000 laptops. Somewhere along the line, somebody confused “The Man” with being “the man,” and now we’re in a recession. Great.

The Hot Shots Golf franchise keeps it real - real casual and goofy, that is. Often imitated and never duplicated (unless you consider Mario Golf an offshoot), the series’ thrives on its easy to learn, hard to master learning curve…and its endearingly annoying cast of characters.

I can stomach almost any twee, campy character in a videogame, but I don’t quite understand game developer Clap Handz’s fascination with these weirdo stereotypes. Maybe that’s part of the fun - dozens of non-golfing types acting extremely ungolfish (?) - but it can get grating at times.

With that minor gripe out of the way, the game itself is gold, as expected from the charming series.

This installment of Hot Shots Golf hasn’t underwent any major changes, which is a relief for longtime fans of the series. The most notable change in gameplay is the revamped shooting mechanics, which have more to do with the physics of your character than just lining up your shot with an on-screen grid. Both shooting options are used in the game, but the Advanced Shot system makes for a more strategic game without getting caught up in sim-like depth. It’s still an arcade-sports game at heart, sharing more in common with Golden Tee than Tiger Woods PGA Tour. Read More »

We live in a Facebook age where our every move is showcased for the world to see. Even personal matters, like ending a relationship, are no longer private because of the Newsfeed.

Valleywag tells the story of a distraught reader whose status change went virtual via his Newsfeed. To avoid having this happen to you learn how to correctly manage your Facebook privacy settings before the break up goes down - you’ll thank us (and Valleywag more specifically!) later.

One of the most legit news stories this month has been all but ignored by most media sources, or at least pop culture.

American audio historians in Paris extracted a 10-second recording of “Au Clair de la Lune,” a traditional French folk song, recorded in 1860 from a phonautograph, almost two decades before Thomas Edison would be crowned a world-class innovator for inventing the phonograph.

The phonautograph, created by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, was an invention that recorded sounds visually, designed to document human speech (?!). The phoautograph has been essentially forgotten about, since it was perceived as not being incapable of reproducing sound the way Edison’s machine did with his first official aural document, a Handel concert, in 1888.

The clip of “Au Clair” from the phonautograph was extracted by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and now stands on its own as a seminal piece of recorded history.

Hear the snippet of “Au Clair de la Lune” recorded on the phonautograph in 1860 here, and read the entire New York Times article covering this important historical breakthrough.

AdAge is reporting that major changes are coming to the way video submitters track viewing statistics on YouTube.

YouTube, which delivers one out of every three online videos viewed, according to ComScore, today introduced an analytics product that will let video creators see the geographic makeup of their audience, using internet protocol data, and a timeline charting a video’s popularity. Up until now, the only publicly available information was the number of views, comments and ratings.

Hello, fellow Internetters!

Remember the old days when we’d travel over to Ebaums, load up an Arnold Schwarzenegger Soundboard and prank our families and enemies? Guffaws all around.

Oh the fun times we had, back then.

If you’re feeling nostalgic - and a little spiteful towards George Bush - I say partake in one of the Internet’s favorite pastimes. This George Bush Speech Soundboard gives you plenty of the man’s choice phrases to work with, so have at it. All you have to do is drag your fave phrases into the timeline at the bottom of the board and voila - instant idiotic speech.

It’s trivial for sure, but just entertaining enough to waste away a few hours (and brain cells).

I have a friend who thinks that every Craigslist Missed Connection was written for her.

Seriously. It would say, “You: Blonde with eyes. Me: Guy on the train who was looking at you. Did we connect?” And she would stretch her arms and yawn and tell me, “I saw myself in Missed Connections today. Did you?”

The truth is, I have seen myself in Missed Connections. Once. But I didn’t respond. I do have a boyfriend, after all.

So why am I looking at Missed Connections in the first place?

BECAUSE I CAN’T STOP.

Take, for instance, the case of a random m4f in Chelsea: Read More »

Lexisum is an addictive new website for all you Wikipedia information junkies out there. When you search a Wikipedia entry through Lexisum you receive a quick explanation of the topic without the clutter of the pictures, formatting, links and general mumbo-jumbo.

This is a great tool when it comes time to write finals papers, since it gives you only the most relevant information making it a solid on the fly reference tool.

Seeing that P2P and BitTorrent sites are under fire these days, I suggest going the legal route when acquiring music, like ‘borrowing’ it from friends!

Share any song in your iTunes library and download any song from your friends’ iTunes libraries over the internet with freeware application Mojo.

When downloaded, Mojo allows access to any iTunes shared music folders on computers that have the application. Downloading music, video and photos is as easy as clicking and dragging on the respective folders. To make matters even more convenient, Mojo detects which songs you already have on your computer by coloring them light grey; DRM ones are denoted in bright red.

Now, all you have to do is track down that old smug roommate who only listened to obscure punk 45s from Berlin, convince him to join Mojo and rip him off clean. Mojo: making the world a better place.

For more details you have three choices: check back here soon for a full review, read Lifehacker’s great breakdown or just go ahead and download Mojo now.