The presumed existence of the Higgs boson particle- or as it is known colloquially and much to the chagrin of proper scientists, the God particle- promises to bestow upon humanity a huge level up when it comes to understanding the origins of the very universe in which we live.

Particle physicists- the men and women who work tirelessly over the course of decades to make these small advances- developed theories that would eventually support the existence of the hypothetical elementary particle Higgs boson as early as 1962. (Which is kind of sad when you think of all the physicists from back then that would have been thrilled to pieces by how far the research has come but have obviously not lived to see it.) Long story short, Higgs boson is an essential building block in particle physics, and its confirmation would support some of what is known as the Standard Model- the basic building blocks of the visible universe.

Experiments to confirm the existence of the Higgs boson particle are currently being performed with CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, with the natural outgrowth of the discovery being super symmetry- or SUSY- something particle physicists believe is the next big thing in physics. Howard Baer is a Professor of High Energy Physics at the Oklahoma University Department of Physics and Astronomy, and he’s been looking for SUSY for 25 years. Baer explains:

“Finding the Higgs boson is like looking for a needle in a haystack, but the Higgs boson is only the tip of the iceberg of SUSY matter. With SUSY, we are talking about the next level of the laws of physics.  If there is SUSY, then we will find super partners, which will provide a new perspective for the origin and evolution of the universe.  At that point, we can say we are on the road to a much deeper comprehension of nature.”

Robert Cailliau, formerly of CERN, explained to Al Jazeera why the research needs to be so exhaustive:

“The particle can only be seen by its tracks, like footprints in the snow. If you see a single print that looks like it was made by the paw of a cat, you should consider that it could have been something else that made the print: a falling leaf, the wind, whatever … It’s only after seeing many prints of cat paws one after the other in related circumstances that you would be justified to say ‘there was a cat here.’”

Have you been following news about Higgs boson and the Large Hadron Collider? Do you think 2012 will bring a lot of new scientific breakthroughs?

Higgs Boson Research Might Unlock Mysteries of Particle Physics, Scientists Say is a post from: The Inquisitr

As a parent, Maurice Sendak’s post-Where The Wild Things Are interviews totally make me regret not reading my kids more Maurice Sendak books when they were little-little.

Back when Where the Wild Things Are was adapted for the screen, Sendak was asked about kids who might be scared by the film- and spoke what some parents might find refreshing words about bubble-wrapping kids for the big, scary world. Sendak said:

“If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered… This concentration on kids being scared, as though we as adults can’t be scared. Of course we’re scared. I’m scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can’t fall asleep. It never stops.”

The In The Night Kitchen and Chicken Soup With Rice author was asked again about the scaredy-cat issue when he released his newest work, a book called Bumble-Ardy. Unsurprisingly, Sendak was similarly unconcerned with whining parents, and said as much in post-publishing publicity.

Now the plain-spoken author is the subject of a new, short documentary from the Tate. In the piece, Sendak denies his work are “children’s books.” He says:

“How do you set out to write a children’s book? It’s a lie… The magic of childhood and the strangeness of childhood, the uniqueness that makes us see things that other people don’t see.”

When asked about sequels to Where the Wild Things Are, Sendak huffs:

“Go to hell … go to hell. I’m not a whore, I don’t do those things.”

Watch the full clip below, and another of the initial comments by Sendak in 2009 about Where the Wild Things Are:

Maurice Sendak in Short Documentary, Still a Badass is a post from: The Inquisitr

Comedian Louis CK is arguably the web’s most shared and revered comic of the modern era, with his bits being posted and reposted prolifically on sites like Reddit and Fark.

CK appeals to a broad base of comedy fans, and consistently seems to approach both his act and celebrity with a uniquely relatable bent. Although he’s got a show and is sitting up there talking to David Letterman, he’s one of the celebrities that people feel is really just a dude like them. So it’s probably not too surprising that Louis CK broke ranks from other performers of his stature in distributing his newest material to the masses, eschewing the iTunes market and similar outlets to offer a DRM-free version of it on the web and just asking his fans not to be dicks about it.

Louis admits he does not really understand what a torrent is, and even goes so far as to say he “doesn’t know enough” about them to register an opinion. But he just politely asks that if you download the video, you not torrent it because he paid for it himself. He says:

To those who might wish to “torrent” this video: look, I don’t really get the whole “torrent” thing. I don’t know enough about it to judge either way. But I’d just like you to consider this: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without “corporate” restrictions.

He reminds us:

Please bear in mind that I am not a company or a corporation. I’m just some guy. I paid for the production and posting of this video with my own money. I would like to be able to post more material to the fans in this way, which makes it cheaper for the buyer and more pleasant for me. So, please help me keep this being a good idea. I can’t stop you from torrenting; all I can do is politely ask you to pay your five little dollars, enjoy the video, and let other people find it in the same way.

All in all, it would be really cool if CK’s method of distribution turns out to be a successful game changer and allows people to acquire material directly from the artist at a lower cost. I plan to purchase Louis CK’s “Live at Beacon Theater” as soon as I can grab a hour or so to watch it, and I’d encourage you to do the same if you’re a Louis fan like me. Would you buy more music or other digital content if it were offered without DRM and built-in publisher cuts?

(A preview below, with a warning- very NSFW and present-children material.)

Louis CK Sells New Stand-Up Special Without DRM, Asks You Nicely Not to Torrent It is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Orionids are an annual phenomenon that occur every October, though visibility for this year’s shower is not expected to be clear. A large crescent moon will illuminate the night sky on Friday and Saturday, whereas a dark sky is best for watching meteor showers (living in a lit-up city will only hinder your chances).

This sums up a frustrating twelve months for (U.S.-based) meteor watchers. The LA Times notes how a full moon spoiled the view of the Perseids in August, and the Draconids from early-October peaked during daylight hours across North America.

And apparently, the Leonids meteor shower in November will be a similar washout. Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office, told The Times:

“The moon has just decided to wash out the meteor storms this year. They are a subtle phenomena and you really need a dark sky. A bright moon nearby really ruins the show. It’s not going to knock your socks off this year, but if you are out in the desert or up in the mountains, it is certainly worth a look.”

The Orionid meteor shower consists of dust particles, each roughly the size of a single sand grain, entering the Earth’s atmosphere and exciting the air molecules around them. This reaction gives off light. The shower is named the Orionids because it looks as though it circles the Orion constellation.

So, anyone getting up early at the weekend to catch the show?

The 2011 Orionid Meteor Shower: Coming To A Sky Near You (Maybe) is a post from: The Inquisitr

This is the craziest (but coolest) thing I’ve read all week.

Have you ever read someone’s musings or writings online and think it’s better than a lot of the published or produced work you’ve seen in the realm of film or book markets? Reddit- known to be a relatively clever site with an oft peeked-in-upon user base- has probably been exposed to its fair share of good ideas. And one was so good it might very well end up as a full-length feature film.

About a month ago, Reddit user The_Quiet_Earth posed the question “Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU?” in r/AskReddit- a subreddit devoted to culling answers from the Reddit community. The Redditor described the question in the excerpt at the bottom of this post to other Reddit users.

As the thread wore on, people off the site took note. One of those people was an exec at Warner Bros., who’ve snapped up the rights to James Erwin’s idea. Erwin- who has won at Jeopardy twice- had this to say about the serendipitous turn of events:

“Here’s the thing. I was very, very lucky to post what I did at the moment I did. It wasn’t just the idea of coming up with just the right answer – if I’d posted the same text an hour later, everyone would already be bored with the question. They wouldn’t have seen it and it wouldn’t have blown up. So that was definitely a lightning-in-a-bottle situation.”

Below, a snippet of the description for Rome Sweet Rome. Would you go see it on the big screen?

We’d be up against nearly 330,000 men since each legion was comprised of 11,000 men. These men are typically equipped with limb and torso armor made of metal, and for weaponry they carry swords, spears, bows and other stabbing implements. We’d also encounter siege weapons like catapults and crude incendiary weapons.

We’d be made up of about 2000 members, of which about half would be participating in ground attack operations. We can use our four Abrams M1A1 tanks, our artillery and mechanized vehicles (60 Humvees, 16 armored vehicles, etc), but we cannot use our attack air support, only our transport aircraft.

We also have medics with us, modern medical equipment and drugs, and engineers, but we no longer have a magical time-traveling supply line (we did have but the timelords frowned upon it, sadly!) that provides us with all the ammunition, equipment and sustenance we need to survive. We’ll have to succeed with the stuff we brought with us.

So, will we be victorious?

Wait, What? Movie Studio Options Thread on Reddit is a post from: The Inquisitr

Scientists from Britain and the US have been studying the Tyrannosaurus rex, and made some interesting discoveries about the beast with which all five-year-old boys are obsessed.

Using super-cool computer modeling and three-dimensional laser scans, the team made some new observations and discoveries about the dinosaurs. One of the things the researchers did involved “weighing” specimens, including the Chicago Field Museum’s “Sue.” “Sue” is the largest and most complete T-rex skeleton on display.

In a press release, Peter Makovicky, PhD, curator of dinosaurs at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago commented on what was learned about the specimen during study:

“Sue’s vertebrae were compressed by 65 million years of fossilization, which forced a more barrel-chested reconstructio… Nine tons is the minimum estimate we arrived at using a very skinny body form, so even if we made the chest smaller, adding a more realistic amount of flesh would make up for the weight.”

Co-author of the study Dr. Vivian Allen of the Royal Veterinary College spoke of specimen diversity as a barometer of realistic T-rex weight:

“These models range from the severely undernourished through the overly obese, but they are purposely chosen extremes that bound biologically realistic values.”

Sue’s newly estimated body weight was a surprising 30% more than was previously believed, and it’s thought that the massive creature would have weighed in at a scary nine tons. One of the discoveries was that smaller specimens had originally been overestimated size-wise, indicating little T-rexes likely hit a growth spurt between the ages of 10 and 15.

Tyrannosaurus Rex Bigger Than Originally Thought, Probably Scarier is a post from: The Inquisitr

This 29-year-old woman took a video of her reaction hearing herself with an implant for the first time in her life, and was nice enough to share it with all of us on YouTube. Amazing and uplifting. (Clip below.)

[Video] 29-Year-Old Hears Herself For the First Time, Onion Cutting Ensues is a post from: The Inquisitr

Kids’ writer Maurice Sendak- never one to parse words- is back with a book that has unsurprisingly gotten some flak from the overprotecting parents brigade.

Sendak most recently made news after the film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are was criticized by parents who felt the classic book- about a little boy who goes to bed (gasp!) with no dinner before becoming a “wild thing”- was too scary. Sendak rightly told the whining moms and dads to “go to hell,” eliciting a few more fevered upset from the apparent committee to pretend kids don’t love scary and edgy shit.

Sendak authored and illustrated In The Night Kitchen and The Nutshell Library, and is out with his first written and illustrated book in 30 years. Bumble-Ardy follows a nine-year-old pig and his quest to have the ultimate birthday party, having been deprived his whole life.

CSM describes a bit of the controversy:

At one point in “Bumble-Ardy”, Sendak introduces the Grim Reaper, not an image that every parent wants her children dwelling on as they go to sleep. One reviewer on Amazon.com wrote that “Bumble-Ardy” was a “disturbing book in so many ways.” Sendak sees it the other way around. It is parents who are scaredy cats, he argues, frightened to deal with the nightmarish fantasies and even murderous impulses with which children are familiar and which books such as “Alice in Wonderland” explore.

Sendak refers to other, popular and more milquetoast kids’ fare that he says he isn’t against- but he consciously acknowledges he’s bucking the trend:

“It’s not a putdown of those earlier books. But basically, they went by the rules that children should be safe and that we adults should be their guardians. I got out of that, and I was considered outlandish. So be it.”

It would be kind of cool if all the parents who find it a bigger crime our kids might never be exposed to Maurice Sendak books got together and formed some kind of outrage group, but I think that particular demographic too busy living their lives and teaching their children actual useful things to have time for such a ridiculous venture.

Maurice Sendak Defends ‘Scary’ New Book is a post from: The Inquisitr

After an appearance on The Colbert Report, MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis and Stephen Colbert challenged fans to send Stephen Colbert’s head into space due to the host’s fascination with 3-D renderings of his likeness.

The DIY outfit Maker Industries sent one of the 3-D Colbert heads into space on a weather balloon with a Flipcam, and uploaded the footage from the ensuing trip- watch below:

Stephen Colbert… in Space? [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

A Vegas virgin, it was with much trepidation and apprehension that I took my first trip to Sin City earlier this month. Inevitably, the question lobbed constantly when I disclosed the loss of my Vegas purity to others was regarding accommodations- and few people had heard of the Cosmopolitan, the Vegas property at which we’d chosen to stay.

I was familiar with pop culture, however, and found Vegas in general to largely fit in with the Vegas I’d seen in movies and on TV. However, the Cosmopolitan managed to be both very Vegas and not at all Vegas-y from what I’d seen. Unlike the rest of Vegas, no discernable theme is apparent when exploring the vast, opulent property- but the feel of the hotel/casino isn’t dissonant, just full of crazy-awesome surprises.

Lobby & Hotel

Perhaps the centerpiece of the casino and common areas is the Chandelier Bar- a three story watering hole actually encased in a purple tinged, glittering chandelier. The effect needs to be seen to be believed, nearly dreamlike in its execution and with a kind of old-world, super excessive Roaring 20s feel. Cocktails are treated with the same level of incredible detail, quickly delivered works of art with touches such as fire-breath inducing dry-iced raspberries.

The mid-level is where shopping is located, with such diverse offerings as a Kid Robot outpost- and lacking the standard Vegas mall feel overall. The casino is on the first floor, and it’s a bit like most Vegas gambling spots with a bit of the unique Cosmo bent to it.

Dining

The Cosmopolitan’s series of restaurants have a heavily New York-bent, with an outpost of the Blue Ribbon Sushi empire as well as a secret pizza joint serving up shockingly authentic slices. (Ask at the desk how to find it- even this lifelong New Yorker was impressed.) A dinner at Blue Ribbon revealed extensively attentive customer service (consistent throughout the property) and stellar cuisine- five star dining in a casual atmosphere. Don’t skip the fried chicken- the chef will serve it in an appetizer portion if you ask, and it is a huge standout at the well-regarded eatery.

Buffets- while not my general style- are an integral part of Vegas. And while the much lauded Bellagio buffet as well as the Spice Market failed to impress at all, the Cosmo’s Wicked Spoon is a stylish outlier on the Vegas buffet scene.

If you want to get your buffet on but don’t want to mingle with the unwashed masses, check out this spot. Single serve pots, ramekins and general minis are of sublime quality, comprised of well-sourced and even local ingredients, and entirely buck the sucky food in giant quantities trope of Vegas cuisine. Presentation is inventive but it’s not all flair- nearly all dishes sampled were both delicious and balanced. It’s almost humbling to have enjoyed a buffet so thoroughly, but I’d have visited several more times if I were in Vegas longer.

Rooms

A brand new property, the rooms at the Cosmopolitan are both brand-spanking new and top notch. Bathrooms are a true standout, with big jacuzzi tubs in many, and a standalone shower stall big enough for two people. Amenities are C.O. Bigelow, and the understated luxe theme is palpable throughout. Beds are unfairly comfortable, drawing you in for lie-ins when you could be out exploring all there is to see in Vegas.  (Pics below.)

The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas isn’t a bargain pick, but the experience offers tremendous bang for your buck in the crowded Vegas travel scene. I’d go so far as to say if you’re going for a wedding or event, staying elsewhere is unimaginable.

Have you checked out the Cosmo for dinner or a stay? What were your impressions?

[Travel] The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas is Vegas For the Vegas-Weary is a post from: The Inquisitr

A previously unknown letter written by Abigail Adams has been discovered in a desk and donated to a Massachusetts historical society.

Adams, wife of founding father John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams, was the first Second Lady and second First Lady in the United States. She is known to have written more than 2,000 letters during her life, many discussing politics and the American Revolution with her husband. She was known for views that were at the time considered radical, including some on women’s liberation. Nearly a century and a half before the women’s suffrage movement, Adams wrote:

“…remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”

The letter recently discovered was written in 1788 by Adams just before she left London after her husband’s ambassadorship to return home to Massachusetts, and was found among the papers of a recently deceased lawyer. The letter was sent to her uncle, Dr. Cotton Tufts (historical porn star name FTW), with whom she frequently corresponded.

A gender studies professor commented to the Boston Globe about Adams’ letters in relation to women’s history:

“Any Abigail Adams letter is a treasure,’’ said Edith B. Gelles, a senior scholar at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University. She has studied the Adamses for nearly four decades.

Gelles called Abigail Adams’s letters “the best record we have’’ of women’s lives during the Revolutionary War period.

The most recent letter is said to be characteristic of Adams, and include some shrewd political analysis from the former First Lady- as well as a “lament” that European leaders did not take the newly formed America seriously yet.

Boston Globe: New Abigail Adams Letter Found in Desk is a post from: The Inquisitr

Historians are getting history wood in New York with the addition of a massive, previously unknown collection to the New York Historical Society’s stable of photos.

The existence of the cabinets full of very rare images from the 1939-1940 World’s Fair came as a surprise to the museum, and augments their collection significantly- adding ten times the number of photos. The images extensively detail pop culture of the late thirties, including many ideas and practices that have since been long retired. Included among the 1939 World’s Fair Pavilions were:

• Nature’s Mistakes (with an eight-legged horse and two-headed cow)
• Midget Town
• The cigarette pavilion, sponsored by Lucky Strikes
• The parachute jump (which moved to Coney Island)

Marilyn Kushner, of the New York Historical Society, spoke to the NYDN about the new additions to the museum’s collection:

“These photos put a really personal flavor on the World’s Fair,” Kushner said. “It’s a lot of popular culture we’ll be able to glean…”It’s not only what the brochures wanted us to see. It’s a really personalized view of what everybody saw.”

She points out that many of the exhibits wouldn’t be congruent with today’s culture:

A whole pavilion dedicated to cigarettes. Could that ever happen now?” Kushner said.

The Society didn’t say when or where the images would be available for viewing.

1939 World’s Fair Photos Recently Uncovered in Manhattan Apartment is a post from: The Inquisitr

Snuffleupagus, you are the father.

Scientists have discovered that the ancient species the Woolly Mammoth- which we basically know as a hairy elephant- could have interbred with a completely different elephant species that was much larger- which is kind of dirty, woolly mammoths. The suspected fraternization was also part of a long-distance relationship:

Although woolly mammoths lived in the cold of the tundra, the Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) preferred the more temperate regions of southern and central North America. The Columbians were much larger than woollies, with Columbian males reaching one-and-a-half to two times that of woolly males.

The Mammoths died out in Siberia about 10,000 years ago, but dwarf versions of the species- essentially toy mammoths- lived on on an Arctic island until about 3,700 years ago. According to science people, the mammoths and the other elephants had significant difference- for instance, the non-mammoth males were one and a half to two times bigger than the mammoths:

“We are talking about two very physically different species here,” said researcher Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. “You have roughly 1 million years of separation between the two, with the Columbian mammoth likely derived from an early migration into North America approximately 1.5 million years ago, and their woolly counterparts emigrating to North America some 400,000 years ago.”

The estimations were made from mitochondrial DNA located in specimens in Utah and Wyoming, and the findings were published in the May 31st edition of the journal Genome Biology.

Woolly Mammoths, Giant Elephants May Have Gotten Busy is a post from: The Inquisitr

Rapper Eve has weighed in on the feud between Lil Kim and Nicki Minaj, essentially saying the female rappers have to knock it off.

The beef started when Nicki Minaj went off on Kim in her track with Eminem, “Roman’s Revenge,” presumably because Kim had (somewhat rightly) pointed out that Minaj kind of ripped off her look and style. Kim hit back with the track “Black Friday,” erasing all ambiguity that it was on like Donkey Kong between the two rapstresses.

The feud has been relatively quiet for the past few months, but rapper Eve commented on it during a recent interview. On the Tim Westwood show, Eve said that there are too few female rappers in the game to accommodate the animosity:

“You know, it’s definitely a nice group of females that’s out representing, but because I come from hip-hop, I need more females in hip-hop,” said Eve. “Nicki definitely is holding the flag down, and a lot of people be wanting me to hate just because that’s how girls supposed to do in hip-hop, but I’m loving everything she does. But we need more females, man. There’s too much testosterone in the hip-hop game.”

Eve said she’d pull Kim aside if they were pals:

“I need her to stop. If I was Kim’s friend, I’d be like, yo. ‘cause she’s Kim, period,” said Eve. “So she never has to feed [into the beef]. She shouldn’t. It’s bad. It’s not a good look. If I was her friend, I’d tell her, yo, just come back bigger and better. The best way to get at people is to do you better than you’ve ever done you. So that’s it.”

Later this year, Eve is set to drop the new album Lip Lock.

Lil Kim and Nicki Minaj Need To End Beef, Says Eve is a post from: The Inquisitr

Proof positive that art can really come from anything. Also, I want a Diet Coke, but OMG, it’s perfect!

Epic Supermarket Mario Display is a post from: The Inquisitr

There was a great post over at Techdirt the other day about an iPhone developer, Chris Baker, who found out that someone was trying to find a cracked version of his app: F***ing Word Of The Day.

Typically when developers find out that their applications have been cracked they tend to get all pissy and start lashing out at anyone associated with doing, or asking for a cracked version but Chris took a really cool, and refreshing approach.

Once he had found out about the request for a crack of his app,  Chris headed to the forum thread where the request had surfaced and wrote the following message to the thread:

Hello! I’m the creator of the ******* Word of the Day website and more particularly the F-ing Word of the Day App. First of all, this is a huge compliment! As a person who pirates content, I’ve always placed the moment people are pirating MY goods as the exact time of my arrival, as it were. So congratu-*******-lations to me. With that said, I’d like to just offer that while I’m employed with a decent salary in the city of New York, I am by no means rich…I write all the sentences myself and find the words to use myself and I do this in my own personal time and essentially for free. Sure, I learn a few words too, but I was already a pretty well-read guy, and could have done without the site.

What’s my point in all this? Go ahead and pirate the app. It cost me 1500 bucks to have programmed. It’s not even a month’s rent for me. But if you think the site is cool, and you want to pay for one eighth of a Stella Artois for me, hook me up with 99 cents. The rapture will be here soon, I could use the drink.

Now in normal developer/cracker/pirate conversations this is a point when either the pirate or cracker gets their back up and the war of words escalates but in this case the person who wanted the crack and who Chris replied to wrote back that if he had a credit card or some other way to pay for the app he would have been more than willing to buy it.

Turns out as well that the person appreciated Chris’ response so much that he took down the request for a crack and would redouble his efforts to find some way to pay for the app, even if it ended up costing more.

This in turn brought Chris back with this comment:

Sir, you’ve warmed the cockles of my heart. I believe Apple allows you to gift apps to people, and I’m feeling charitable so if you want to email me your address or whatever in the hell they require to complete such a transaction, I will buy the app for you. I only ask that you give the ******* thing a good rating.  I hope this comment thread goes down as one of the more unexpected things that happens to you online. I like the unexpected. And I like making people happy, even when something stupid like learning vocabulary is involved.

One of the interesting side effects of this conversation was that people following the thread turned around and started buying Chris’ app – even though, as some as they pointed out, they didn’t have any use for the app.

Too bad more companies didn’t act the same way.

Hey Mr. RIAA, this is how you treat pirates is a post from: The Inquisitr

Hands up if as soon as you got your first Game Boy, you were a lifelong earbuds convert.

Perhaps I’m dating myself. [/foreveralone] But earbuds have always offered a more desirable personal listening experience, unless you’re a DJ and you need those giant, hearing-test-at-school issue headphones. (Which, by the way, make you look like a total toolbox on the subway.) However, it seems earbuds aren’t totally ambient-noise free or without-cons either. The fiddly little things don’t fit perfectly in every ear, and some days just will not stay put.

While you may be irritated you didn’t think of it first, someone has invented inflatable earbuds that fit your individual ear better than stock-standard, hard plastic buds. According to DVICE, the design is not only less of a pain in the ass to use, it’s also easier on your hearing:

Your ears have a natural acoustic defense mechanism that activates whenever they encounter intense sound pressures, like those that you get when you seal off your ear canal with conventional earbuds. This defense mechanism essentially tenses up your inner ear, which has the effect of cranking down the volume of sound that you hear by up to 50 dB in an effort to protect all your delicate hearing bits. Not only does this “hearing fatigue” force most people to turn the volume of their music way up to compensate, which is bad for your ears, but it can also cause discomfort and pain.

Alas, the innovation is just in prototype stage, and not yet close to the consumer market. Would you be interested in trying balloon earbuds?

[Cool] ‘Balloon’ earbuds fit your ear, don’t fall out every three seconds is a post from: The Inquisitr

As soon as we got an internet to send email, pictures and eventually video, people started using it to get their rocks off, send titillating texts and cybersex was immediately invented.

While the genre of web-gratification has remained constant and strong since the advent of this form of communication, certain aspects of it have always been lacking. For instance, there’s no real way to make out over the internet, or we’d all probably be doing it right now. But a new invention seeks to bridge that gap and allow for virtual spit swapping between two interested parties. (And kisses can be recorded, which is actually a wee bit sad, but the functionality is there.)

The Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications has developed a not very romantic sounding “Kiss Transmission Device,” enabling the sensations of tonsil hockey to be transmitted over the web:

“If you take one device in your mouth and turn it with your tongue, the other device turns in the same way,” says the device’s inventor in a YouTube video. “If you turn it back the other way, then your partner’s turns back the same way, so your partner’s device turns whichever way your own device turns.”

The makeout machine is currently in the prototype stage, but it certainly holds promise for long distance relationships- if of course, the parties are imaginative, as it “currently resembles a breathalyzer crossed with a motorized toothbrush.” Later versions of the device will perhaps remedy some of the less-tactile aspects of kissing a device, not a person:

“The elements of a kiss include the sense of taste, the manner of breathing, and the moistness of the tongue. If we can recreate all of those I think it will be a really powerful device,” he explains in the video.

Would you utilize such an innovation in the absence of contact? Is this creepy or cute?

Would you make out with a machine? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Videogame proposals? They’ve been done before – but never quite like this.

Gamer Ben is a huge fan of Borderlands, the popular (and might I say excellent) FPS/RPG hybrid from Gearbox. So when he met girlfriend Tora, he had to sit her down and explain his guilty secret: he was A GAMER, and his Borderlands addiction may well take up hours of his time. Would Tora be okay with this?

Well, err, yeah, because like Ben, Tora is a Borderlands nut. The couple have since blasted through the campaign and all downloadable content as a team. Borderlands “easily made that awkward starting out stage of any relationship go extremely smooth,” Ben told Kotaku. Hence, when Ben decided to pop The Question, he decided to take a chance and ask Gearbox for some help.

And help they did. The studio spent a week working on a special Borderlands-themed proposal video for Ben to show Tora, featuring some brilliant close-to-the-knuckle quips from the game’s robotic mascot, Claptrap. You can watch this amazing clip below, and Tora’s response below that. What an awesome bit of fan-service by Gearbox!

[Via Kotaku]

[VIDEO] D’awww!: Developer makes Borderlands-themed proposal video for superfan is a post from: The Inquisitr

Mayor Mike Bloomberg has extended an official honor to everyone’s favorite location aware mobile game Foursquare, declaring April 16th “Foursquare Day” in Gotham.

Bloomberg explains the date for the unmathematically inclined, saying “4/16, the fourth sixteenth of the year—is Foursquare Day in New York City and around the world.” I was not aware Hizzoner was the boss of around the world, but that’s what the announcement says. Bloomie also points out the local connection, and how the now globally-popular site was conceived in a probably overpriced table in a probably overpriced apartment in the East Village just a few short years ago.

In a post on their blog, Foursquare adds:

The Mayor was excited because foursquare is a fast-growing business sprung from his city, and there are over 7,500 other local New York businesses (and a quarter million globally) finding new customers every day on foursquare. We were pumped to give him a foursquare hoodie and foursquare day shirt.

In his signoff on the Declaration, Bloomberg also admits that he’s only the “aspiring” mayor of City Hall in Manhattan- that honor goes to Scott S., who has over 30 check-ins. No information was revealed officially about a badge for the day, but in the comments, it was mentioned shouting “Happy Foursquare Day” on the 16th will earn you one.

Mayor Bloomberg declares April 16th ‘Foursquare Day’ in NYC is a post from: The Inquisitr