your choice of space hotels

Space, Technology

Galactic Suite designLooks like Bigelow Aerospace has some new competition. A company called Galactic Suite has plans to build an orbiting hotel by 2012. Details are a bit sparse, but they already have $3 billion in funding to make it happen:

Galactic Suite began as a hobby for former aerospace engineer Claramunt, until a space enthusiast decided to make the science fiction fantasy a reality by fronting most of the $3 billion needed to build the hotel.

An American company intent on colonizing Mars, which sees Galaxy Suite as a first step, has since come on board, and private investors from Japan, the United States and the United Arab Emirates are in talks.

The company’s blog has a few early design ideas, but no details on how they’re actually hoping to get to orbit.

overcoming shyness… with SCIENCE!

Personality, Science, To Help

Now why didn’t I think of that? An article in LiveScience talks about the roots of shyness and possible treatments.

Carducci says that despite beliefs to the contrary, shyness is not completely hardwired. This is because shyness requires a sense of self—which develops only after about 18 months of age. It involves feelings of excessive self-consciousness, negative self-evaluation and negative self-preoccupation, he explained.

“Shy people operate as if thy have a mirror in front of them all the time,” he told LiveScience.

[...]People might try imagining themselves in different social situations while taking slow, deep breaths to keep calm. They can also work to slowly expand their comfort zone, Carducci said. He suggested volunteering as a good way to do this. “When you volunteer, [people] don’t really care your level of skill; they’re just after your time, so there’s no critical self-evaluation,” he explained.

Okay, so it’s not exactly a specific regimen to follow, but there are still some great tips for sky people in there. I plan to try some of them out myself…

International Day of Awesomeness

Fun, Holiday! Celebrate!, Plain foolishness

March 10th, 2008 is the first NationalInternational Day of Awesomeness. I’ll let the awesome official site speak for itself:

What is The International Day of Awesomeness?

The International Day of Awesomeness is a celebration of awesomeness. People are awesome every day, frequently don’t realize it, and their feats of awesomeness are rarely recognized. We aim to fix that, with a special day to both perform and celebrate feats of awesomeness!

It’s the brainchild of Kevin Lawver, who knows a thing or two about awesomeness himself. So, what feats of awesomeness will you perform? You have a few months to decide.

UPDATE: It’s no longer just national, it’s INTERnational. And it’s on Eventful.

How walkable is your neighborhood?

Environment, Technology

Just found out about a site called Walk Score today. It uses Google Maps data to calculate a walkability score for any address based on how close it is to services like grocery stores, restaurants, schools, etc. For instance, my house got a “walker’s paradise” 91 (out of 100), while my work got only a 63. Still, not bad for San Diego.

It’s a simple but powerful idea; now I have a benchmark to use when deciding between hotels on vacation or (eventually) deciding which house to buy. Perhaps it’ll encourage more neighborhoods to become walkable…