Oh the times they are a-changin’. There was a point when a good Merit Badge was a hard thing to come by. You had to help little old ladies cross the streets, build fire out of rocks and wet grass or maybe you had to cook your own hotdog. Whatever the task, it was arguably more admirable than falling victim to an Internet meme or connecting via dial-up. But, as times have changed, so too has the recognition for our feats....
When Ludwig von Beethoven died in 1827, he was three years removed from the completion of his Ninth Symphony, a work heralded by many as his magnum opus. He had started work on his 10th Symphony but,due to deteriorating health, wasn’t able to make much headway: All he left behind were some musical sketches. Ever since then, Beethoven fans and musicologists have puzzled and lamented over what could have been. His notes teased at some magnificent reward, albeit one that seemed forever out of reach....
In an almost stranger-than-fiction start to the week, interviews have unveiled that before Conan O’Brien made his way to the cable channel TBS, Microsoft tried towoo him to the world of Xbox. Microsoft wanted Conan to bring his show to the Xbox Live service, and to start an original content channel on the console. Eventually, due to Microsoft’s plans not being concrete enough at that time, the Conan team passed on the offer....
Samsung Electronics has announced that the company sold more than 5 million units of its Galaxy S2 smartphone, according to Yonhap News Agency. While we have to sheepishly admit that a disproportionate number of us at TNW are iPhone-toters, this particular phone isvery well knownaround here. The S2 has been on the market in South Korea since the end of April, and in Japan and parts of Europe in May....
Houston, we have a problem! Love and sex need to happen in space if we hope to travel long distances and become an interplanetary species, but space organizations are not ready. National agencies and private space companies — such asNASAand SpaceX— aim to colonize Mars and send humans into space for long-term missions, but they have yet to address theintimate and sexual needs of astronauts or future space inhabitants. This situation is untenable and needs to change if we hope to settle new worlds and continue our expansion in the cosmos — we’ll need to learn how to safely reproduce and build pleasurable intimate lives in space....
