Been busy and the bookmarks have been piling up so this is a somewhat larger collection and all over the place at that.

First, Space & Science stuff:
• June 30 to be 1 second longer
• Mars Reality Show Could Fund Manned Colony by 2023
• How Humans Could Get to Mars in Weeks, Rather than Months
• BBC’s Space Travel Guide
• Researchers Test Infinite-Capacity Wireless Connection

Internet/Computers stuff:
• Pre-computer chess algorithm by Alan Turing goes up against Grandmaster Kasparov
• We know what your doing: a social networking privacy experiment
• Because of Google Ads, TV Tropes Deletes Every Rape Trope
• List of Worthwhile DOS Games

Sports!
• London’s wildly over-budget Olympics (101% over and counting)
• The US Olympic running team’s upcoming coin toss decision its 387-word procedure

And other things of very different tones (sorry)
• More than 200 church leaders across the US now say they no longer believe in God
• Conservative Rabbis Approve Gay Marriage
• Girl Found Alive In Dead Mom’s Arms After Tornado Throws Them From Home
• Journalist Natasha Smith’s account of being sexually attacked in Cairo
• Fan gets kicked out of Kenny Chesney concert for looking too much like Kenny Chesney
• Skater Punk Gets Stuck in Soda Machine, Needs Jaws of Life Rescue
• Swedish police appeal for help to find girl’s missing teddy
• Warren Ellis on the fiction of money
• Video: Nick Offerman Read Tweets from Young Female Celebrities
• Videos: 10 Essential Dirty Phrases in Sign Language
• Announced! The Big Lebowski 2: The Dude Goes To Washington
• Letters of Note: Helen Keller’s letter to Mark Twain in lieu of being unable to attend a Association for Promoting the Interests of the Blind conference

Whilst the music is somewhat of a pretty over-dramatic Inception knock-off (which consequently detracts from the overall message), this video just released from NASA demonstrates the complex multitude of stages that their 890 kilograms Curiosity rover will have to go through in order to land on Mars surface in August. Even ignoring the at times jarring music, this shit looks to be one awesome (and nail-biting) feat of engineering.

• 6 Filmmaking Tips From Stanley Kubrick
• Did The Events Of ‘Inglourious Basterds’ Change The Rest of Quentin Tarantino’s Film Universe?
• You probably shouldn’t Google how to kill someone before killing someone
• Photograph 51 and the Pursuit of Balance
• They Wear Nike on Mars, Right?
• Will immortality be bad for the soul

Also, lunchtime game of the day: linescape

Robert Downey Jr. Pin-Ups

Mars Sunset via Opportunity

This is pretty neat-o…

Since 2006, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been orbiting Mars, currently circling approximately 300 km (187 mi) above the Martian surface. On board the MRO is HiRISE, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, which has been photographing the planet for several years now at resolutions as fine as mere inches per pixel. Collected here is a group of images from HiRISE over the past few years, in either false color or grayscale, showing intricate details of landscapes both familiar and alien, from the surface of our neighboring planet, Mars. I invite you to take your time looking through these, imagining the settings – very cold, dry and distant, yet real. (35 photos total) [full article]