Daren

Prince Poppycock that is!

We are loving Prince Poppycock on America's Got Talent!

Judge Sharon Osbourne even dubbed him "the male Lady GaGa!"

We think GaGaloo would approve!

He's fabulous!

And that's the risk you run when dating a costar!

It seems Naya Rivera took out her jealous rage on former flame Mark Salling's vehicle.

Although the two were never exclusive, Naya and a few pals egged and keyed Salling's Lexus when she found out that he was seeing other girls.

A source claims Naya “went crazy when she read about other girls. When Naya found out, she and some pals trashed his Lexus."

Mark even got his friend, singer Samantha Marq, to defend his behavior.

“He’s on top of the world right now and living it up,” said Marq. “Besides, it’s hard to call it infidelity when they weren’t officially together!”

It's okay, Miz Rivera. You'll find another hottie, but stop trashing people's shiz.

[Image via WENN.]

Shocking? Perhaps not, but what might be is how rough he had it back at Angel Grove High! We feel so bad for him!

Check out this interview with David Yost, the original Blue Power Ranger, that he did at Anime Festival Orlando 2010. (above)

He talks about being apart of the NOH8 campaign, the harassment he faced while being on the show and joining a "Pray The Gay Away" group.

So sad! He seems like a really nice guy! He didn't deserve that kind of cruelty!

An unexamined brain is a tricky thing to carry around. You've got unintentional biases, marketing weaknesses, "overclocking" issues, and all kinds of other mental bugs you may not know about. Here's a helpful list of the mind's weird ways.

Photo by Digital Shotgun.

10. Knowing You Can Get Smarter Makes You ... Smarter

There's a way of thinking that goes that, since you didn't grow up with genius parents or Einstein's instinctive reasoning, you're only going to be so intellectually able throughout your life. But consider that when a group of college students were given a course that studied the ability to grow smarter and improve performance, they performed notably better in their further college studies than those students who were never taught such thinking. You can easily convince yourself that rigorous study can be a time sink, or let yourself believe in the brain's ability to adapt, and then actually adapt your own gray matter. And it kind of applies to the rest of this list, we'd hope. Photo by Adam NFK Smith. (Original post)

9. Your Eyes Skip Over Good, Cheap Menu Items and Fall for Menu Tricks

Why would a menu describe one breakfast item as "Fresh-cut Yukon potato hash browns with vanilla griddle cakes and thick-cut slab bacon," while the menu right under it is simply labeled as "biscuits with sausage"? Because the restaurant makes more money off that first item than the second, and uses the filler adjectives, and its proximity to a non-descript item, to push it. Tastes are, of course, a very personal thing, but if you want to let your hunger make the decision rather than the menu designer, read up on the psychology of menu design and you'll have a bit more ammunition the next time you head out to eat. (Original post)

8. Your Brain Can't Stop Spinning, Even When You're Asleep

It's not modern technology and consumer culture that gives us too many distractions and worries, but our brains. The human mind has had a tendency to spin off into unproductive cycles of worrying and wondering as long as humans have been around, but you can train yourself to focus on one thing, or no things, and get some actual relaxation and much-needed perspective. We put together our best take on the why and how of meditation in a guide for the rest of us. Photo by tess.

7. Online Stores are Just as Tricky as Retail

It's the suckers who head to the mall and pay the listed price for their shiny objects, right? Then again, online stores have just as many tricks up their sleeves. Blue backgrounds are used to convey the comfort and calm of an item, and your decision. Virtual catalogs are filled with high-price items they'll never sell, to make mid-range items more appealing, and vital text is placed to the right of pictures, while less appealing facts are on the left. When you're facing the power of consumer research, do just like a shopping trip: make a list, name a price, and stick to them both. (Original post)

6. You Give Priority to Experiences that Prove You're Right

Everybody you know is getting an Android phone! What's more, it seems like Droid phones have taken over your city's billboards, and absolutely nobody wants to keep their BlackBerry anymore. Or, you know, maybe that's not the case at all. When you or somebody else puts a container around your experiences ("Everybody's heading to Android"), your brain can do funny things to your experiences, tinting everything toward a certain conclusion while drastically minimizing, say, those 10 people in line at the coffee shop, all checking their BlackBerries. Put another way, "If you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail." (Original post)

5. You Grow Attached to Items the More You Touch Them

Ever set out to "Really, seriously clean out this room," then find yourself, 20 minutes later, slowly sorting through photos and memorabilia, unable to toss a single thing? Erin Doland, editor of the Unclutterer blog, explained in a guest post why we can't help holding onto clutter. The more you touch things over a lifetime, but also in the last few minutes, the more attached you grow to those things. It's why every retailer worth their salt wants you to test, try, but most of all handle their sample goods, and it's why you find it hard to toss things that were once precious, but now totally useless. Have a friend or professional help you out by holding things up for you, rather than let your hands get all sentimental. Photo by Elsie esq..

4. You've Got a Finite Amount of Habit-Changing Willpower

It's a sad bit of truth, but spending all day at work being nice to people that you should blow up at can mean exploding on your friends or significant others after you punch out, or reverting right back to tossing your coat instead of hanging it up. Fast Company's Dan Heath explains how your mind processes temptations and habits in an entertaining video and in a explanatory write-up, and offers some simple advice—don't give yourself too many things to change-right-now-immediately-for-life all at once. (Original post)

3. Your Deeper Desires Go Shopping With You

Do you really need another 16 GB thumb drive to move files around, or are you just angry with all the tech problems you had at work? Are you really in need of a garage sale panini press, or are you just late on grabbing lunch? It's not such a stretch. As the Moolanomy personal finance blog points out, the role of HALT feelings—Hunger, Anger, Tiredness, Loneliness—are no small thing in the impulsive decisions we make. Step back from that thing you're about to open your wallet for, consider your HALT levels, and maybe you don't end up a bit more weighed down with the unnecessary. Photo by Christian Haugen. (Original post)

2. You Value New Numbers Based on Other, Unimportant Numbers

Why do infomercial hosts insist on telling you what "you'd expect to pay" for any item they're about to price? Because the "Anchoring Effect" works. A salesman tells you that the golf clubs you're looking at cost $1,200, you scoff, and suddenly he's noting that, this week, they're on sale for $599. Your brain remembers the first number, it sets the second number against it, and it looks like you'd be stupid not to pick up this deal—no matter how ridiculous the first price. Photo by bradleygee. (Original post)

1. You Let Negative Feelings About Putting Off Tasks Prevent Actual Work

Could sending out that email really be so painful that you've put it off three days in a row? Likely not, but it certainly feels that way every time you try to dig in. It's what a Psychology Today post describes as the "overwhelming wave" of negative emotions, building and seemingly towering over you when you try and address yourself to a task. Knowing that it's really this kind of meta-misery, though, you can perhaps acknowledge it, let it go, then move on. Photo by Steven C Wilson. (Original post)

(San Francisco) The federal judge who overturned California’s same-sex marriage ban has more bad news for the measure’s sponsors: he not only is unwilling to keep gay couples from marrying beyond next Wednesday, he doubts the ban’s backers have the right to challenge his ruling.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker on Thursday rejected a request to delay his decision striking down Proposition 8 from taking effect until high courts can take up an appeal lodged by its supporters. One of the reasons, the judge said, is he’s not sure the proponents have the authority to appeal since they would not be affected by or responsible for implementing his ruling.

By contrast, same-sex couples are being denied their constitutional rights every day they are prohibited from marrying, Walker said.

The ban’s backers “point to harm resulting from a ‘cloud of uncertainty’ surrounding the validity of marriages performed after judgment is entered but before proponents’ appeal is resolved,” he said. “Proponents have not, however, argued that any of them seek to wed a same-sex spouse.”

Walker gave opponents of same-sex marriage until Aug. 18 at 5 p.m. to get a ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on whether gay marriages should start before the court considers their broader appeal. Their lawyers filed an request asking the 9th Circuit to intervene and block the weddings on an emergency basis late Thursday.

They argued the appeals court should grant a stay of Walker’s order requiring state officials to cease enforcing Proposition 8 “to avoid the confusion and irreparable injury that would flow from the creation of a class of purported same-sex marriages.”

Depending on how the 9th Circuit rules, same-sex couples could begin tying the knot in California as early as next week or be put off while the appeal works its way through the court and potentially the U.S. Supreme Court as well.

California voters passed Proposition 8 as a state constitutional amendment in November 2008, five months after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex unions and an estimated 18,000 same-sex couples already had married.

In refusing to suspend his ruling for more than a few days, Walker agreed with the lawyers who sued to strike down the ban that it’s unclear if Proposition 8’s sponsors have legal standing to appeal.

Although he allowed the coalition of religious and conservative groups that sponsored the measure to defend the lawsuit during the 13-day trial over which he presided, the judge said appellate courts have different rules for deciding when a party is eligible to challenge a lower court.

Based on his interpretation of those rules, it appears the ban’s sponsors can only appeal his decision with the backing of either Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or Attorney General Jerry Brown, Walker said. But that seems unlikely as both officials refused to defend Proposition 8 in Walker’s court and said last week they see no reason why gay couples should not be able to tie the knot now.

Walker also turned aside arguments that marriages performed now could be thrown into legal chaos if Proposition 8 is later upheld by an appeals court. He pointed to the 18,000 same-sex couples who married legally in the five months that gay marriage was legal in California as proof.

San Francisco Chief Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart, who during the trial helped argue that Proposition 8 should be overturned, said that while it will not be up to Walker to decide the eligibility issue, “it’s very realistic” that the 9th Circuit could reach the same conclusion.

“We allocate the decision-making authority over how to enforce and defend and prosecute the laws to the executive branch,” Stewart said. “Do you want every Tom, Dick and Harry second-guessing what the attorney general does and challenging every ruling the attorney general chooses not to?”

The ban’s backers addressed the potential for such a roadblock in their emergency stay request, saying California’s strong citizen initiative law permits ballot measures proponents to defend their interests when state officials refuse to.

“We are confident we do have standing to seek the appellate review here, and we realize this case has just begun and we will get the decision overturned on appeal,” said Jim Campbell, an Alliance Defense Fund lawyer who is part of the legal team defending Proposition 8.

Other legal analysts think the appeals court will allow the group that raised $40 million to pass Proposition 8 to formally challenge Walker’s ruling.

“What Judge Walker’s ruling means is you can sponsor a proposition, direct it, research it, work for it, raise $40 million for it, get it on a ballot, successfully campaign for it and then have no ability to defend it independently in court,” said Dale Carpenter, a University of Minnesota constitutional law professor who supports same-sex marriage. “And then a judge maybe let you be the sole defender in a full-blown trial and then says, ‘by the way, you never can defend this.’ It just seems very unlikely to me the higher courts will buy that.”

Walker’s order clearing the way for same-sex marriages to resume in California for the first time since 52 percent of the state’s voters approved Proposition 8 nonetheless raised hopes among gay couples who flocked to government offices to await word that they soon will be able to exchange vows.

“We just want equal rights. We’re tired of being second-class citizens,” said Amber Fox, 35, who went to the Beverly Hills Municipal Courthouse on Thursday morning in hopes of marrying her partner. The couple wed in Massachusetts in June but wanted to make it official in their home state.

Teresa Rowe, 31, and her partner, Kristin Orbin, 31, said they were still happy with the decision even though the ceremony didn’t happen. The couple went to San Francisco City Hall early Thursday morning to fill out a marriage license application.

“It’s sad that we have to wait a little longer, but it’s been six years,” Rowe said.

Amazon's offering students with a valid .edu email address a free year of Amazon Prime, which grants buyers free two-day shipping on any item they buy, no minimum purchase required, and some exclusive email deals.

Amazon asks you to provide a college and major with your student sign-up, so they're not just looking for an .edu address. Still, these things tend not to involve multi-national investigation, so if you're loosely affiliated with a field of study at a university, you should be able to move ahead. Anyone who's not a student can still get a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime to kick the tires a bit.

A new addition to Ethan Persoff's fantastic Comics with Problems collection: A U.S. Army comic book from 2001 explaining "Don't Ask Don't Tell," or what they call "Homosexual Conduct Policy". The publication was very likely as a test document with little distribution. I dig the art, and I think the back cover is my favorite part.

Sweet baby Dorothy in a wig, does this ever beg for a Photoshop remix.

DIGNITY AND RESPECT U.S. Army Comic Book.

Enjoy the totally non-NSFW video titled "Dildo Knight Destroys Opponent."

(thanks, Antinous!)

Last week, there were reports from Italy that undercover reporters had shadowed three priests, and had followed them to gay sex clubs. Video footage, allegedly of these priests in the clubs, in a private flat where one of them had sex with a man, and of one saying Mass, has been posted on line. The Catholic Church says it is “embarrassed” .

It needn’t be – there’s a long history of Catholic clergy having sex with men, from the earliest church to modern times.

There are bishops and canonized saints with homoerotic poetry which may still be read in the Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse; another bishop who was ordained in spite of a well known reputation for frequent sex with other bishops, the French king, and top nobles of the court; English and French clergy wrote medieval love letters to their boyfriends; and popes from the Renaissance up to modern times who who have been noted for their own relationships with men, or their patronage of others with such relationships.

You wouldn’t guess it from official Catholic sources, but the Church has a long list of canonized queer saints – men and women who loved their own gender, and even cross-dressers. For centuries, they used specifically composed liturgical rites for blessing same sex unions in church, and buried same couples together in shared tombs, just like married couples.(See John Boswell, Allan Bray) But today, I want to write only about the ordained, male clergy.

The one that intrigues me the most is the fourth century Saint Paulinus of Nola. The Catholic Encyclopedia praises his missionary efforts, and also that of his wife, and his close associate and friend Ausomius. They also praise his religious Latin verse, which they point out proudly may still be read today in the Penguin book of Latin Verse. What they very carefully do not tell us, is where to find more of his celebrated verse – in a companion Penguin poets volume – the Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse. In addition to a wife, Paulinus (like many Romans) had a boyfriend, that same Ausonius, to whom he addressed frankly homoerotic love poem. This is typical of how the Church has attempted to airbrush out of its history the stories of its own people who we would today describe as definitely “queer”, if not clearly “gay”. The really remarkable thing about Paulinus is that he is not the only canonized bishop represented in the Penguin book – St. Venantius Fortunatus is another.

In the High Middle Ages, there were so many clergy composing elegant love letters to their clerical friends, or poetry glorifying the male form, that John Boswell described it as the greatest flowering of a gay sub-culture before the late twentieth century. As many of these men were monks who had taken vows of celibacy, we must accept that not all were sexually active, and not “gay”, but they most certainly displayed a sensibility which was distinctly queer. Many of those who were not monks, however most certainly did lead sexual lives, of whom the best known was John of Orleans.

Towards the end of the eleventh century, John was recommended for the vacant see of Orleans by his friend and lover, Archbishop Ralph of Tours. It was well known that the two had an established sexual relationship, just as John had previously had with another bishop, and with the French king, and with many other prominent men. There was strong opposition to this appointment, including appeals to the pope – based on his youth, not his orientation or even promiscuity. The appointment went ahead, regardless.

During the Renaissance, even as the Inquisition in many regions was hunting down, prosecuting and burning “sodomites”, a series of popes in Rome enjoyed their boy lovers, and graced Vatican buildings with homoerotic art commissioned from top artists. One pope died while sodomizing a youth, another (Julius III) had a reputation for chasing young boys through the streets of Rome, and at least one modern pope (i.e. after Vatican II) is believed to have had homosexual relationships before being elevated to the papacy.

The Vatican likes to claim that its teaching on homosexuality represents a “constant and unchanging tradition”. The only thing that is constant in this tradition is the presence of change. The true history deserves to be better known.

Mark Jordan has observed that the professional press corps in the Vatican acknowledge privately that they have detailed knowledge not only of which top officials are gay, but whom they are doing it with, and their particular predilections. Yet, there is a code in place which says that they will not disclose these juicy secrets.

Three priests in gay nightspots? These are small fry. Give me the dirt on the men at the top – that’s when I will sit up and take notice.

Sources:

Boswell, John: Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century

Boswell, John: Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe

Bray, Allan: The Friend

Jordan, Mark D: The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism

Also, On-line:

Lesbian Gay and Bisexual Catholic Handbook

Theology Library: Gay and Lesbian Catholicism

People With a History: Online Guide to Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Trans History (Fordham Univ)

In this Instructable, talbotron22 shows how to make "Kitty Crack," an ultra-potent catnip extract containing nepetalactone, catnip's active ingredient. One pound of catnip yielded 143mg of nepetalactone.

A note about safety. Yes, it is safe to use this extract on cats. I have looked into it, and there are a number of studies (very interesting in their own right) using pure nepetalactone on cats in experiments trying to figure out why it causes them to go bonkers. The upshot is that it's pretty safe. In the last of the references below, the LD50 of nepetalactone was determined to be 1550 mg/kg (about the same as aspirin), meaning you would have to force feed your average 5 kg cat ~8 grams in order to cause it any harm. So as long as you are reasonable with the extract it should pose no harm.

Android only: Using a task killer to constantly wipe apps and save battery is not a smart strategy. Watching out for the occasional CPU-killing app makes more sense, and that's just what Watchdog Task Manager does with smart alerts.

Watchdog runs in the background, watching for apps to start using more than a certain percentage of CPU power that you specify (with a default of 80 percent). When it notices an app going out of bounds, it notifies you and offers options to kill the app, ignore it, or add it to your "Whitelist" of pay-no-mind programs. By default, Watchdog doesn't use much power itself, only checking in every two minutes or so, but you can make it run more real-time if you'd like to really pin down a problem you know is happening.

If you're wondering about a long-term solution to apps that drive you nuts and seem to suck down your battery power, consider this summary of an informed Reddit post:

Use a task manager wisely because Android has no idea when you are no longer using an application, use AutoKiller to better configure Android's memory and process manager, and most importantly use a startup manager (Autostarts) to configure what applications start when your phone boots, and please tell everybody else about it. Use a better launcher if your phone comes with a crap one.

Watchdog Task Manager Lite is a free download for Android phones, with a paid version ($3.49) removing all advertisements. You can grab the Lite version with your phone using the QR code at left, or by searching the Market for "watchdog" or "zomut."

Android lets you add a lot of things to your home screens—widgets, shortcuts, folders, apps—so much that organizing it all can get overwhelming. Here are some tips for optimizing your Android's home screen for maximum productivity.

Everyone's phone is different. You may have a Motorola Droid with just a three-home-screen vanilla version of Android, or you may have an HTC phone with seven screens, a ton of extra widgets and other UI enhancements. Regardless of your situation, though, there are a number of things you can do to keep your home screen organized, so you can spend less time flipping through them and more time using your phone.

Try a New Home Screen Launcher

One of the first and best things you can do is get a different home screen launcher. The default is fine, but there are a few options out there that provide a ton of useful options that can help you customize your screen based on your workflow.

My personal favorite is LauncherPro, available for free in the market (though there is a $2.99 version that comes with some good-looking widgets) and set it as your default launcher by checking the "use default for this action" when you first hit your home button. It's clean-looking, remarkably fast, and comes with a nice scrollable dock at the bottom where you can put your really commonly used apps. I also find this useful for "toggle" switches, like toggling Google Voice on and off, or visiting previously mentioned Smartbar's Quick Settings window (more on that later).

After installing LauncherPro, you can access a number of new, home screen-related settings by going to the home screen, hitting the menu button on your phone, and tapping Preferences. You'll have to just poke around; many of them are performance and appearance-based, giving the dock new looks or icons, but there is one in particular that everyone should take a look at.

The second option down is Homescreen Settings, where you can choose the number of screens you have. You can choose a number from one to seven, and also pick which one of those is your default screen (you'll want it to be the one in the middle, probably—i.e., if you have seven screens, you'll want the default to be screen number four).

How Many Home Screens Should I Have?

It seems like there are two general philosophies on organizing one's home screen: some people like to have as many screens as possible, with a ton of apps, shortcuts, and widgets filling them up. Others like to have just a few screens with the most important apps easily accessible, and the others close by in folders or other app launchers. Here are some strategies you can use for each method, starting with those of you who like a lot of screens.

Using a Lot of Home Screens

Find your overview shortcuts: Using a lot of home screens gives you all kinds of options for organizing things, but it can also result in a lot of swiping. Luckily you don't need to constantly swipe through them all just to get to an app or a shortcut. If you are using LauncherPro, you'll notice that tapping the home button once while already on a home screen will give you an overview of all your screens. You can then tap on one of them to go straight there. This makes having seven screens less of a time-wasting burden. Note that other launchers may have this ability, too, though sometimes they're located in different places—often long-pressing the app drawer icon or pressing the dots next to it that correspond to your home screens will get you a similar overview.

Categorize by screen: Now, this may seem obvious to some, but one of the best tips I can give you for using all those screens is to organize them by category. I, for instance, have my default screen which has some of my more used apps like Gmail, Google Talk and Facebook, but my others are either organized by music, productivity, games, social networking, etc. For example, my music page has a large Music widget for changing tracks, as well as shortcuts to the Last.fm, Pandora, and apps. It makes it easier to know where you have to go to access a given app.

Don't underestimate the power of widgets: If your phone can handle the slight performance hit they sometimes incur (I've found that LauncherPro is still blazingly fast on my Motorola Droid with seven home screens and lots of big widgets), they're really convenient. You can view lots of information from a given app without even opening it up. For example, to see my to-do list, I can just swipe one screen to the left; I don't even need to open my to-do app. Similarly, I can read Facebook and Twitter without waiting for the apps to load just by scrolling through the widgets. It's a nice time saver when you just want to take a quick peek and don't need to do any serious work with the app in question.

To add a widget, just long press on any empty space on your home screen and pick "Widget" from the menu. You'll get a list of all the widgets available to you and you can select one to put it on the home screen. You can also drag them where you like just by long pressing on the widget, just like you would an app shortcut.

Using Fewer Home Screens

If you prefer just a few home screens, you obviously want your most important and most used apps at the ready, so put those on the home screen first and foremost. If you have any leftover room, you can either throw a widget or two on the screen, or you can add folders, which save you the trouble of scrolling through your app drawer when you need a slightly less common app. Organize these folders just like you would home screens by category: throw your music apps in one folder, productivity apps in another, and so on.

To add a folder, just long press an empty space on the home screen and choose "Folders" from the menu. You have a few presets to choose from, but if you just want a custom folder with a few shortcuts in it, pick the top option. Then just drag your apps on top of the folder's icon, just as you would on a computer. To rename the folder, open it up and long press on its title bar.

For quick access to other apps, there is a convenient feature in Android where if you long press the Home button on your phone, it will give you a list of recently used apps. This can be pretty handy for fast app switching, especially if you don't have a lot of shortcuts right on your home screen. You can also organize your apps using labels instead of folders (sound familiar, Gmail users?) using an app called Apps Organizer, available in the Market.

Shortcuts, Shortcuts, Shortcuts

App shortcuts are always useful, but the neat thing about Android is that there are a ton of other kinds of shortcuts you can add to a home screen. You can add a shortcut to one of your browser's bookmarks (so you can have quick access to, say, Google Reader, or your favorite technology blog), shortcuts for navigating to a specific address (so you can always get back home with the touch of a button), or specific contacts (so you can call certain friends with two taps instead of scrolling through your contact list every time). These are huge time savers, and after adding them to your home screen you'll wonder how you ever lived without them.

To add a shortcut, just long press on an empty home screen space and choose "Shortcuts" from the menu. Depending on the apps installed on your phone, you'll have a number of choices, so look through the list and see which ones would benefit you and your workflow the most.

Apps That Make Life Easier

There are a lot of other apps out there that can enhance this experience, but there are a few that have made my life particularly easy. One is previously mentioned Power Strip, which gives you access to widgets, apps, and other shortcuts without you even having to leave the screen you're on. It's quite useful for toggling on certain functions, or changing your music track without leaving your working application.

The other is previously mentioned SmartBar. This app has a ton of features (if you love task killers, this app will make your life a lot easier), but my personal favorite is the Quick Settings feature that is, essentially, a more advanced version of the Power Control widget. You can toggle on and off things like WiFi, GPS, home screen rotation, and even your unlock pattern. It's pretty handy to have around, and doesn't take up any space on your home screen if you don't want it to (unlike other apps, you can put it in your menu bar if you prefer—I like it in LauncherPro's dock).

Today we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Echo 1, history's first passive satellite. NASA's Echo mission began rather poorly. A test launch had exploded so brightly, so spectacularly, that it prompted frightened calls up and down the entire eastern seaboard.

This same satellite birthed live, space-based global communications as we know it. The early test's fantastic failure was due mostly to the Echo 1's fantastic design: It was essentially an enormous, 30-meter-wide balloon full of nitrogen. As it rapidly inflated, 60 miles off the ground, the pressure differential between the bird's interior and the thin air of the upper atmosphere shredded the 0.01 millimeter-thin skin. The highly reflective fragments sent flashes of light in all directions. Witnesses said it looked like fireworks.

NASA wanted Echo to be the first passive satellite—basically a gigantic mirror that bounces signals from one point on the earth down toward another—ever assembled and launched. This was an important ambition for a nation that was almost uniformly terrified of lagging behind the Soviets in the space race. Both the USSR and the US had launched active satellites—which broadcast pre-recorded messages from the final frontier—but Echo was to be the first of its kind, holding the potential to massively expand our ability to communicate with one another.

When the Echo 1 finally reached orbit on August 12, 1960, it stayed there for eight years, and was visible to the naked eye over the entire planet. It's considered to have been seen by more people than any other manmade object in space. Ever. For NASA, it was an invaluable source of experimental data, and was used to send TV, phone, and radio transmissions across the US and around the world. For the US government, it was also wielded as an effective work of propaganda, a symbol of glowing American influence above the world.

But Echo 1's political meaning during the space race is happily forgotten. What's still with us is its legacy, having proven that satellite communications works. Earth's orbit is now crowded with satellites beaming information around, and, more often do not, they do not explode in shimmering, terrifying showers of light. But they're working on the Echo 1's same premise—and for that, we wish it a happy 50th birthday.

Skip to the middle of the video below for a look at the Echo 1 and its successful launch—between a generally wonderful display of midcentury space porn—when NASA was exciting enough to demand its own dramatic soundtrack.

UPDATE: We received an email this morning from Tiffany Nason, granddaughter of William J O'Sullivan, who oversaw the Echo project. We asked her to share her memories on Echo, her grandfather, and the satellite's legacy:

As a kid, everyone talked about him and what he did. My grandmother would regale us with stories of tea time with the first ladies when my grandfather had meetings with presidents. We have the National Geographic magazine from the front page cover of Echo, video footage from NASA's project interviewing him and his team, there's all sorts of letters signed by the president hanging on the wall, the video footage of him on TV shows, even a memorial stamp. We're all very proud to be part of his family and honor his work. His name doesn't appear a lot in connection to the satellite anymore—I've heard tall tales of having to pay encyclopedias for the mention, but the most sensical one is that NASA (NACA then) was really about having it be all about them and not the individuals. That changed slightly in the days of Buzz Aldrin and the great space heroes but even today it's about NASA and not the scientists. From what I can put together via family oral history and archived memorabilia, my grandfather definitely got his 15 minutes of fame but it seems that these days the world has really forgotten about Echo and it's significant contribution to global telecommunications (and shiny birthday balloons.)

They say the best camera is the one you have with you, and for many of us that means the one on our phone. Photojojo's ingenious magnetic lenses are the easiest way to make your best camera even better.

The lenses—there's a .67x wide angle and a 180º fisheye—attach magnetically via a self-adhesive metal ring that you affix around your phone's camera, and supposedly they'll work with any cameraphone. The ring's removable, too, so using the lenses doesn't require any extensive or permanent modification to your precious smartphone.

The macro lens is $20 and the fisheye lens is $25, or you can grab 'em both for $40. For anyone who's into taking real photos with their cameraphone (and that seems to be a lot of you) these could be worth adding to your kit. [Photojojo via Wired]

Update: Some helpful commenters point out that you can save some bones by buying these over at DealExtreme, though the shipping might take a bit longer.

Very very powerful lasers—not like the Spyder III, but actual building-sized lasers used for science—might be reaching their physical ceiling for intensity. Going beyond a certain point means they can destroy themselves.

It all comes down to the fact that light and matter are interchangeable (mass-energy equivalence!), and at high enough energies, that laser light can create matter. And then...

When such matter is created with a sufficiently high energy, it in turn can emit photons that move fast enough that they create their own matter. This cascade effect can have as much energy as the laser itself does, and result in the destruction of the laser.

What this means in terms of laser weapons and high-powered (Death Star, planet-exploding) lasers is unclear. Maybe it's time to make the switch to phasers, eh? Make it so, science. [Physics Buzz via Pop Sci]

ITA Software's Matrix is the software that powers Orbitz, Kayak, CheapTickets, and lots of airlines and travel agents' tools. But you can skip all their ads and come-ons and search Matrix itself for the no-nonsense scoop on flying cheap.

There's not much to not like about how Matrix gets its job done. You know how you're asked to "Please wait while SuperDuperFlights finds you the best fares!" That wait is cut nearly in half on Matrix. You can view a standard comparison of airline fares from one city to another on certain days, but if you're looking for something a bit more specific—flying in and out of multiple cities, for instance—the "More Options" button lets you do what you will across the nation's airways.

The calendar view of the cheapest days for flying is another handy feature, though that's offered on other flight comparison sites, too. Commenters at The Consumerist blog point out that hardcore business travelers can get a lot more out of Matrix by learning some of its simple flight codes.

How about it, frequent fliers? Are you Matrix masters, or do you use another tool to get around the world (personal assistants don't count). Matrix is a free site, with an iPhone app offered, too.