Space Station Sunday: A New Module And A New Movie

Good afternoon, space fans!  Here's what was going on a few hundred miles over our heads this week.

In the words of esteemed space pirate Han Solo,
"She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid."
(Image courtesy nasa.gov.)

Red Picket Fences: Will Your Martian Apartment Be 3-D Printed?

Barring any massive mistakes in the next two decades or so, humanity is going to Mars.  It's very well within reason to suspect that some of the readers of this article -maybe even you, prospective pioneering Martian! - could be taking a one-way ticket off of Earth, permanently.  So, you know, you've got to start seriously planning for how cool your Martian digs are going to look.

It's actually way roomier than what's similarly priced in Manhattan.
(Image courtesy 3dprint.com.)

NYC, NSFW: Graffitti Artist Uses Public Wi-Fi Terminals For Publicity; Porn

New York City is a haven for artists, and not all of their mediums are conventional ones.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in the realm of "street art", the sometimes destructive but often clever ways artists make their mark on the very architecture of the city itself.  Now, with the city offering computer terminals in places where payphones once lurked, it was only a matter of time before someone put the internet's favorite pastime into the public eye...

An un-pornographied wifi portal in NYC.
(Image courtesy fastcolabs.com.)

Words Up: "Expresso" App Helps Edit Your Wrecks Of Text

Writing is one of those art forms that's particularly unpleasant when its bad.  And now, in the age of texting everything and bastardizing verbiage 2 d point tht it loox lik ths (sorry, we won't do that again), it's sometimes hard to remember how to construct a coherent communication without sounding idiotic OR overly loquacious.  Now, there's an app to adjust your adjectives...

Tied up with editing effectively?  This app can help.
(Image courtesy thepolyman.com.)

Space Station Sunday: Some Landing And Some Expanding

Good afternoon, space fans!  It’s been an amazing week for astro-adventuring.  Here’s what was up!

The SpaceX Dragon joins the ISS party, and brought one really interesting
balloon from Bigelow Aerospace...
(Image courtesy spacex.com.)

Data And DNA: Encoding Digital Files Into Genetic Material Creates Serious Storage Space

Humanity is accruing data at an unprecedented rate.  All those Tweets, tags, photos, cat videos, terrible novels, decent screenplays, drafts of terrible novels that might eventually become decent screenplays, and everything else we shoot, snap, sing, strum, or smash into a computer is adding up.  There's the possibility of etching literary works into crystals, sure, but what about those of us who need some somewhat-simpler storage?  A new answer might surprise you...because it's also PART of you...

It's just like burning a CD...into genes.
(Image courtesy assignmentexpert.com.)

How to Get Around the New York Times and Washington Post Paywalls without Really Trying

If you are a news junky, you've most likely come across paywalls for sites like the New York Times and Washington Post, which allow users to access a small number of articles every month, before they block access:

There are, however, a number of easy ways to bypass the paywalls for these particular sites.