On Oct. 4, 2004, test pilot Brian Binnie piloted the Burt Ratan designed, Scaled Composites built spaceplane SpaceShipOne to an altitude of 70 miles to win the first Ansari X-Prize of $10 million for the first private company to fly a reusable spacecraft to an altitude of 62 miles twice in two weeks. In doing so, the SpaceShipOne team also helped usher in the latest generation of prizes aimed at encouraging private companies, teams and individuals to develop, test and field technologies once limited... [Read more...]

Many people talk about how the Internet gives everyone access to vast amounts of information; however, few people talk about how hard it can be to find that information. Fortunately, Internet search companies are developing capabilities to make the infinite sea of Internet information easier to navigate. Here are a few features to check out the next time you are looking for something specific: Google Google is more than just a Spartan Web page that produces good search results. It also offers specific... [Read more...]

With all the talk about e-books in the media, you would think that print reading is about to go extinct. A quick review of the e-book world, however, shows an idea just in its first stages of development and a long way from replacing the venerable book. But, if you want to join the e-book revolution on its cutting edge, where should you start? Here is a quick review of the options to date: The most obvious place to start reading e-books is on whatever PC you happen to have handy. There are literally... [Read more...]

Sub: If you can’t read it, listen to it. I spend about two-and-a-half hours in my car everyday as I drive from home to work to school to home again, which cuts extensively into my reading time. While I enjoy listening to music or the news, I often long to use that time more effectively. Now, I can thank LibriVox.org. LibriVox boasts a catalog of more than 2300 titles in the public domain read by volunteers and is available to anyone who cares to download them for free. Available titles include... [Read more...]

With so much out there to read, the idea of borrowing or buying all of those books can be daunting, never mind coming up with space to store hundreds of titles. Plus, if you’re looking for obscure or rare titles, finding them can be a task, even with Amazon to help. It’s all enough to make someone want to give up. That’s where Project Gutenberg comes in. Located at http://www.gutenberg.org , the project boasts access to more than 100,000 titles available for download for free, with 30,000 hosted... [Read more...]

The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them. –Mark Twain So, you’re in college to gain some sort of knowledge or skill and maybe get “well-rounded” along the way, right? You may have heard that the person who is best read is best prepared for life, but even after all of the textbooks and required reading, you may not know where to start on your own journey into the world of the well read. Well, let me introduce you to thegreatbookslist.com. Sure,... [Read more...]