Eight-Legged Alien Freak Attacks Space Shuttle!
NASA abruptly halted the planned launch of space shuttle Atlantis on Sunday, effectively postponing any launch until January at the earliest. Officially, a “recurring fault in the fuel sensors” was blamed for the cancellation. But footage from NASA’s own camera reveals what may have been the real reason for the delay: a giant intergalactic spider beast.

Credit: CNN

TV viewers watched in horror on Sunday as what appeared to be an enormous alien arachnid fiercely attacked the shuttle. The freakish, bloodthirsty creature was seen crawling on a live television feed as the shuttle sat helpless on the launch pad, astronauts inside no doubt terrified to witness up close a spectacle beyond anything they could ever imagine crossing in the vast emptiness of outer space.

The attack lasted a little over a minute. Then, in a display of supreme indifference and terrifying arrogance, the monster got bored and wandered off…

No More New Year’s Resolutions
More than 75 percent of Americans would prefer to never again make a New Year’s resolution, according to a new survey conducted by Opinion Research Corporation for organic-food supermarket Whole Foods Market. Instead, they want to adopt long-term healthy lifestyle solutions.

The national survey asked participants, if they could choose one resolution, what it would be. Apparently, 33 percent of respondents chose “making the world a better place” as their top resolution in 2008.

I guess if you’re going to choose one goal that you’ll stick with for a month before giving it up completely, “world peace” is pretty grand. But I think “losing 30 lbs.” might be more realistic.

You Think Your Colleagues Are Lousy?
Some of the crazy stunts employees pulled throughout the year to make CareerBuilder’s list of “Worst Employees of 2007” (via CNN):

• The founder of a California pot-lacing food factory who was arrested on drug charges for conspiring to manufacture and distribute marijuana in such products as cookies, honey, barbeque sauce, soda and candy bars.

• An employee at a Baltimore elections warehouse who was charged with the possession, manufacture and distribution of more than 400 illegally copied DVDs of newly released movies.

• A former federal immigration employee and his sister who pleaded guilty to charging people $8,000-$16,000 to obtain green cards through fake marriages in New York. The siblings were paid to prepare phony documents for customers to acquire marriage licenses and other legal documents. (Americans were paid to participate in phony marriages with the customers.)

• A bakery employee in Canada resisted an order to stay home from work while he was sick with salmonella poisoning. He was required to stay home until his tests came back negative, but he never submitted samples for testing and returned to work without permission.

Many more HERE.

iPod Propsicles
Thawing an iPhone that has frozen up is one thing. Freezing an iPod in a popsicle is something else entirely. But that’s the idea behind a Brazilian ice-cream company’s summer promotion starting on December 18. (Yes, it is summer in Brazil now.)

Unilever’s Kibon will manufacture 10,000 specially made “propsicles,” identical in size and color to the actual thing, frozen with iPod shuffles inside.

Apple apparently cooperated with the promotion, developed by marketing agency Bullet Brazil. The fake popsicles look exactly like the real thing, but are not what they seem.

“We developed a special prototype that emulates the real ice cream,” Mentor Muniz Neto, creative director for Bullet Brazil — the company that developed the idea — told Gizmodo. “It protects the iPod from humidity [which would have destroyed the shuffle in no time, even with plastic around it] and it feels like the real ice cream. It is virtually impossible to fell the difference without opening the package.”

Also hidden with the shuffle are details of how to get hold of the iPod’s charger and manual.

Top 10 Most Commonly Used Passwords
According to PC Magazine:

10. (your first name)
9. blink182
8. password1
7. myspace1
6. monkey
5. letmein
4. abc123
3. qwerty
2. 123456
1. password

Pre-Electronic Fraction Calculator
This is how old-school engineers did it:

Learn how to make your own, at EvilMadScientist.

Top Tech Jargon You Love to Hate
According to Network World:

10. Price performer
9. Easy-to-use
8. Unique / first of its kind / leading provider of / infinitely scalable / revolutionary / breakthrough / and any use of the word “leverage”
7. Touching base, on the same page
6. Cost/benefit analysis
5. Web 2.0
4. Large value proposition
3. Solutions-oriented
2. Reduced TCO
1. Value add

What is w00t?
Merriam-Webster opened the polls online for people to vote for 2007’s Word of the Year (via UK Guardian). The list was comprised of the most frequently looked-up words at Merriam-Webster Online, as well as some of the most popular submissions to Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary, which operates Wiki-style.

“Woot,” or “w00t,” a popular term generally used as a cheer in online competitive gaming, won the dictionary’s 2007 competition. Merriam-Webster defines “w00t” as “an interjection expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word ‘yay.’”

Inclusion in the online Open Dictionary doesn’t necessarily mean “w00t” will ever make its way into the print version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Though it does up the odds a bit.

Among the 20 other candidates on the list: blamestorm, sardoodledom and quixotic.

Jet Packs to Come Next Year!
Futuristic jet packs could be sold to the masses as early as next year, with a company already taking orders for “personal flying machines,” according to a recent report from Fortune Small Business (via News.com.au).

Jet Pack International in the U.S. is planning to release a $226,060 jet pack, which could travel 16km without refueling, early to middle of 2008.

The company is taking pre-orders for the T-73 Turbine Jet Pack, which will be sold to qualified individuals who have undergone extensive training by the company.

“Everyone wants things to evolve to the point of 'The Jetsons,' and I think it could,” Jet Pack Chief Executive Troy Widgery told the magazine.

Cheers.