Still Alive – the Portal Song – FREE this week on Rock Band!

Digg: “Jonathan Coulton’s “Still Alive,” from Portal, is this week’s Rock Band
DLC. Also, it’s free, so you can have your, er, cake, and eat it too!”

Plot of New Neal Stephenson Novel Revealed [Anathem]

i09:

“We’ve heard rumors about Neal “Snowcrash” Stephenson’s new novel, but nothing more concrete than that it would be called Anathem
and it would be a space opera about math and aliens. That would mark a
real departure for the novelist, who has dealt only with human
histories and futures in his previous works like The Diamond Age, Snowcrash, and Cryptonomicon. Now Lev Grossman, Time magazine’s nerd correspondent, has more details about the plot of Anathem.

Grossman says he’s received a notice from the publisher with this catalog copy about the book:

Since childhood, Raz has lived behind the walls of a
3,400-year-old monastery, a sanctuary for scientists, philosophers, and
mathematicians—sealed off from the illiterate, irrational,
unpredictable “saecular” world that is plagued by recurring cycles of
booms and busts, world wars and climate change. Until the day that a
higher power, driven by fear, decides that only these cloistered
scholars have the abilities to avert an impending catastrophe. And, one
by one, Raz and his cohorts are summoned forth without warning into the
Unknown.

A little bit Ender’s Game, a little bit Name of the Rose? You know, that is sort of the perfect combination for Stephenson. But where are the aliens? And the space opera?”

The Return of Stephenson [Nerdworld]

Jedi Master Attacked by Darth Vader

Neatorama:

“Jedi Master Jonba Hehol was one of the founders of the UK Church of the Jedi.
His friends and family know him as 36-year-old hairdresser Barney
Jones. He was giving a TV interview in his back yard last week when a
man wearing a Darth Vader helmet and a black trash bag leapt over the
fence and began attacking him!

Wielding a metal crutch – his lightsaber presumably
being in for repairs – the Sith Lord proceeded to lay about his
opponent, whose Jedi powers proved inadequate for the task of defending
himself.

After besting Master Hehol in single combat, Vader, who The Sun
reports was under the influence of alcohol, went on to assault the
camera crew and a hairdresser.”

Police are investigating. Link -via Arbroath

Dean Kamen’s “Luke” Arm

This. is frakkin. cool.

Neatorama: “Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, has been working on a
next-generation prosthetic arm that will blow your mind. A man who lost
his arms 26 years ago can now peel a banana without squishing it. Read
more about the project at ieee spectrum. Link -via Reddit”

11-Year-Old Becomes Network Admin for Alabama School

Slashdot: “alphadogg points out a story about 11-year-old Jon Penn, who took over
control of a 60-computer school network in Alabama after the old
administrator suddenly left. Penn provides technical support, selects
software, and teaches his classmates about computers. From
NetworkWorld: “The first thing Jon found as he leapt into the role of
network manager was that he had to map out the network to find out what
was on it. He bought some tools for this at CompUSA and realized there
was an ungodly amount of computer viruses and spam, so he pressed the
school to invest in filtering and antivirus protection. ‘These
computers are so old they don’t support all antivirus programs,’ Penn
says. The school took advantage of a Microsoft effort called Fresh
Start that offers free software upgrades for schools with donated
computers, switching from Windows 98 to Windows 2000.”

Man installing satellite TV kills wife

And the Darwin award goes to…

Boing Boing: “Ronald Long of Deepwater, Missouri was having a tough time installing
his satellite TV system on Saturday. He couldn’t seem to puncture
through his exterior wall, so he decided to fire his gun at the wall.
One of the shots killed his wife who was standing outside.”

Uninstall programs with AppTrap

Lifehacker:

“Mac OS X only: Free, open source application AppTrap is an application uninstaller for your Mac. Silly Lifehacker, you say, most Mac apps don’t need uninstalled. Just delete the app! True, but when you delete an app from your Mac, it often leaves behind several system files.

AppTrap adds a preference pane to your system preferences, and when
enabled, it monitors the files you send to your trash. When you delete
an application (either by dragging it to the trash or Cmd-Delete), an
AppTrap window pops up asking you if you want to remove the app’s
associated files. Similar to previously mentioned AppDelete and AppZapper,
AppTrap’s trash monitor makes the process more streamlined than its
predecessors (in a “just works” sort of way). AppTrap is free, Mac OS X
only.”

AppTrap [via TUAW]

Rumor: Apple orders 10 million next-gen iPhones for summer release

DVICE:

“The
rumor mill is starting to crank at full force about Apple’s next-gen
iPhone, which is widely expected to feature a 3G web connection and to
come to stores in late June of this year. The latest fuel to this fire
comes from Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney, who claims that Apple has just
placed an order for 10 million of the handsets with an Asian
manufacturer.

Other rumors swirling around the second-gen iPhone include an OLED
screen to improve battery life, GPS for location-based programs, a
larger SSD hard drive, and a second camera for live video chatting. Of
course, it’s all just rumor and speculation at this point, but a whole
lot of people will be really surprised if a new model of iPhone doesn’t
come out by this summer. Keep your eyes peeled.”

Via Computerworld

Adobe Photoshop Express launches today for online editing

DVICE:

“Adobe announced its intention to create a free, online photo editing application in the fall of last year.
Today, Photoshop Express launches for public consumption. It’s not much
like the computer application of the program, so if you’re used to
using Photoshop, or even a free software imitation like Seashore
with precise number-based controls, you may be disappointed. On the
other hand, Photoshop Express offers a lot of options and some freedom—
it’s easy to use and completely free without requiring a download. The
program also teams up with Facebook, MySpace, and Picasa, pulling and
letting you edit all the pictures from your online albums there. Go
ahead, crop out your exes without taking a single picture off-line.

Right now Photoshop Express offers 2GB of storage, but don’t try to
upload all your pictures at once: it could be first day jitters, but
right now uploading speeds on the site are quite slow. While it’s no
Photoshop, we expect Photoshop Express will be useful to millions of
on-the-go photo posters who want to to upload, crop, straighten,
sharpen or distort their photos from public places or without relying
on a hard drive.”

Photoshop Express, via Gizmodo

Podcast of Ted Chiang’s THE MERCHANT AND THE ALCHEMIST’S GATE

Boing Boing: “Starship Sofa has made Ted Chiang’s marvelous arabesque time
travel story ‘The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate’ available as a
podcast.”

Oh yes, thank you very much. I brake for Ted Chiang stories — hell, I’d stop, drop and roll for a chance to read one.

MP3 Link, Text of the story