The Unclutterer blog posts a neat productivity tip that also serves to also keep the dreaded Paper Monster at bay. By printing out tiny “To Do,” “To Pay,” and “To File” labels for binder clips and then hanging them off hooks inside a closet door, blogger Christine manages to both keep on top of her paper-related tasks and keep her counters free of that flat white stuff. She also suggests possibly color-coding the clips, or keeping oft-referenced paperwork in an easy-to-access location, for further gravity-defying organization. One more idea: What better way to keep your bills (if you haven’t entirely converted to e-billing) together and in plain sight?

Reader suggestion: Staying organized with binder clips [Unclutterer]

In a clear effort to electrocute himself with powerlines or just cut his head with a traffic light, someone has created a 12-foot tall bicycle from scratch. Called the SkyWalker TallBike, these bikes are not for the faint of heart. In fact, they are build for absolute lunatics. In other words, I want to ride one. Details and pics after the jump.
According to Koolkat, the 12-foot SkyWalker is so strong that it can easily take a 500-pound pilot, a little trivia fact that makes me imagine a Fantasia hippo driving one. The bike hasas a built-in ladder that stops just bellow the seat, obviously to get to you to the top while giving you enough space to pedal comfortably. The distance between the seat and the pedals makes it suitable for most people between 5′-8″ and 6′-4. [Atomic Zombie and Instructables]

Our friend the animated USB dog has returned, this time with more of a healthy G- rather than a rampant R-rating. Just plug him in, and watch him do sit ups all day long. It may inspire you to head down to your gym, or perhaps find a bar because the sight of all that abdominal exercise has mads you thirsty. Available for about $14. [TFTS]

Sintex Industries’ aptly-dubbed biogas digester is most certainly not the first of its kind, but it is somewhat commendable that its maker is making no bones about this thing’s purpose. Destined to “solve India’s energy and sanitation problems in one stroke,” this concoction can convert “human [waste], cow dung, or kitchen garbage into fuel that can be used for cooking or generating electricity.” Reportedly, a one-cubic-meter digester would sell for around $425, but could pay for itself in energy savings in under 24 months. Excrement to energy — now there’s a concept.

MyBlogLog, a blogger social network acquired by Yahoo about a year ago, launched v.2 of their service tonight, with a significant new feature. You can see the MyBlogLog widget in the right sidebar of this site - it shows pictures and names of recent visitors.

The new feature is an activity stream of recent activities by all users on various social networks - blog posts, new photos, bookmarks on Delicious, Facebook updates, Twitter updates, etc. The image shows the new profile page - mine is here, and I’ve added a summary widget below.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the startup feature du jour. Facebook first popularized the news feed in late 2006. Later others took the idea and opened it up, creating a news feed around activities on a variety of social networks. FriendFeed is the most popular, and recently raised a $5 million round of financing. Plaxo, Soup.io, Iminta, Spokeo, ProfileLinker, MyLifeBrand, Fuser, 30Boxes, Mugshot, Readr and Second Brain all have variations. And now, Facebook is planning to open up their NewsFeed and allow users to add other services as well.

Yeah, I know. That’s way too many similar services to test out. If you’re a casual observer and just want to try out one service, go with FriendFeed. People are flocking there, and starting to use it as a hub to leave comments and other content. If you’re already a Plaxo user, their Pulse product is just as good. Facebook isn’t open enough yet to really be called a competitor.

The new MyBlogLog features are a great addition to the product, but it’s not innovative enough to make a big impact. They do have a large community of loyal bloggers using their service, however (including me), and I’ll certainly keep an eye on the activity streams of the people I follow there.

NASA is planning to intentionally smash two spacecraft into the surface of the moon, hoping to reveal some water ice under the surface of the moon’s south pole. Hey, where’d they get this idea? Hmm, it seems pretty familiar…
Regardless of whether or not NASA is now taking cues from my favorite sketch comedy show, they’re hoping that the lunar explosions will reveal frozen water that could possibly be tapped as a resource for future moon missions or bases as well as revealing much about the history of our solar system. The mission is planned for February 2009, and here’s how it’ll go down:

LCROSS will piggyback on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission for an Oct. 28 launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket equipped with a Centaur upper stage. While the launch will ferry LRO to the moon in about four days, LCROSS is in for a three-month journey to reach its proper moon-smashing position. Once within range, the Centaur upper stage doubles as the main 4,400 pound (2,000 kg) impactor spacecraft for LCROSS.The smaller Shepherding Spacecraft will guide Centaur towards its target crater, before dropping back to watch — and later fly through — the plume of moon dust and debris kicked up by Centaur’s impact. The shepherding vehicle is packed with a light photometer, a visible light camera and four infrared cameras to study the Centaur’s lunar plume before it turns itself into a second impactor and strikes a different crater about four minutes later.

Sounds good to me. I’m baking a cake in the shape of the moon exploding! [MSNBC via Slashdot; Image via Orange.Edge]

By now you know waaaaay too much about Toshiba’s format-war surrender, the death of HD DVD at the hands of the larger Blu-ray armada. You may even be eying the Blu-ray players mounted proudly in point-of-sale displays at Best Buy or Wal-Mart. Pricing hasn’t come down to HD DVD player levels—and with those sinking even further, it’s unlikely they ever will—but the need to get in on the action might provoke you to spend some extra dimes. All we’re saying is DON’T! Not yet. If you don’t know why, let us explain.We’re not going to tell you that HD DVD will somehow come back from the grave to eat Blu-ray’s brains or anything Romero-esque like that. Even China’s CH-DVD—an easily mass-produced sibling to HD DVD—once a looming HD DVD mercenary force on the horizon, now seems to serve the opposite purpose. By keeping Chinese firms busy with something other than Blu-ray, Hollywood’s movie content may be kept safe from piracy, and big electronics brands may be able to hold onto their profit margins—at least for a short while.

No, the earth is Blu, and we are at least grateful for having a winner. Now begins a different kind of shakeup, where once friendly compadres like Sony, Pioneer and Panasonic start to lock horns with one another. This will bring multiple benefits, but here’s what all parties involved need to accomplish:

1. Get the Spec In Order
Now that Blu-ray is fully in the spotlight, it’s got to get its act together spec-wise. You may recall that we lambasted many Blu-ray supporters for only building 1.0 spec players, including the $1000+ home-theater flagships from Sony and Pioneer. Except for Panasonic’s DMP-BD30 and the PlayStation 3 with up-to-date firmware, no current Blu-ray player can even handle the 1.1 spec with picture-in-picture, already appearing in certain Blu-ray discs (and quite the handful of HD DVD titles—but we’ll get to that).

The place to be is spec 2.0, referred to as “full profile.” Suddenly, it’s Sony who is looking the best here, with not only the amazingly upgradeable PS3 but two new players announced this week, the BDP-S350 and S550. For $400 and $500 respectively, they are set to deliver all of the features promised in the Blu-ray palette, including both picture-in-picture and BD-Live internet connectivity (with USB storage for downloaded content). Nobody else, with the possible exception of Daewoo, has even muttered about a 2.0 spec player.

Samsung’s BD-UP5000 dual-format player is purportedly compatible with 1.1, but besides the fact that it’s pricey even at $550 and requires a firmware update for full compatibility, it’ll soon be discontinued. Given our initial experience with it, we say that it’s best to wait and see what its successor, the BD-UP5500, can do. Heck, dual-format playback may not be all that necessary for long. But that brings us to another reason why you should wait…

2. Finalize the Video Library
We only need dual-format players as long as the library is split down HD DVD and Blu-ray lines. We are waiting for Universal, Paramount and DreamWorks to jump to Blu, and even once they do, it’s not a certainty that they can simply re-release everything currently out on HD DVD. Universal claims 150 titles—surely the Bournes will go Blu as soon as Uni does, but how long do I have to wait for a Blu-ray of The Big Lebowski? Hell, it’s almost worth scooping up an ultracheap HD DVD player now just to enjoy that one movie alone, 47 or 48 times in a row. At any rate, some speculation suggests that the remaining HD DVD studios may not even come around until summer or fall, depending on weird smoke-filled-backroom negotiations with Toshiba.

Even when all the studios are on the Blu-ray tip, though, a new problem begins to surface: second-edition releases of movies already on Blu-ray. Think about it: a handful of big Warner titles like 300 and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out with more deluxe HD DVD versions which include picture-in-picture and certain online capabilities. Who’s to say Warner won’t re-release their 300 and Harry Potter Blu-ray discs with the same compelling extras, now that it’s feasible on the Blu-ray platform? Warner is easy to single out because we have that comparison, but who’s to say that half of the blockbuster movies out on Blu-ray now won’t get a re-release with more interactive content when the spec 2.0 players saturate the market?

3. Bring On the Old-Fashioned Electronics Store Competition
Sony’s more affordable new Blu-ray player will hit the market this summer for $400. Nothing built by Sony or anyone else should be considered before then, the one exception being the PS3. But even the Sony standalone at $400 is expensive, especially for a player whose capabilities are more or less the same as Toshiba’s HD-A30 HD DVD player, now (in a price nose dive) selling for around $130. Only when Panasonic, Samsung and LG announce their own Blu-ray 2.0 players, will true competition finally exist. (Pioneer will launch a 2.0 player too, but it probably won’t get involved in a price war.) It surely wouldn’t be long after that that we see a full-spec Blu-ray player for $200 or maybe even less. Our bet is Christmas, since Sony doesn’t seem like it will have anything on the market until “summer” and no one else is talking about their next Blu play.

There you have it, the three big reasons why you need to hold off on buying a standalone Blu-ray player, and amassing a library of Blu-ray to rival your intimidating DVD collection. Don’t worry though. Your patience will have its rewards. And Christmas will be here again before you know it.

[Blu-ray on Giz; image source for “halt” parody graphic]

Look, we’re sorry, but 1,420 LEDs just isn’t cutting it anymore. Maybe back when we were children a touchable 14-foot by 6-foot wall lit up by a myriad of magical blue lights would’ve managed to pull us away from our Lincoln Logs for a minute or three, but the kids of today grew up on Baby Einstein and a post-Steve Blue’s Clues — they aren’t easily impressed. The Philips “Imagination Light Canvas” is being shown off at the Mercy Medical Center in Rogers, Arkansas, and allows visitors to touch the wall and “paint with light.” Whatever you draw slowly fades over time, and apparently you can draw using a bunch of different colors and shapes, though we’re only seeing blue squares here. The wall can accomadate six people drawing at once, and pulls about as much electricity as a regular toaster. It’ll be unveiled on March 16th.

Want to read a printed copy of a PDF that’s portable and staple-free? BookletCreator is a free PDF conversion webapp that creates documents that can be printed and folded into an easy-to-read booklet. Assuming your PDF is oriented to “portrait” layout and is less than eight pages, you can get what appear to be pretty decent-looking booklets from your document. Got more than eight pages? Tell BookletCreator to split the file into so many pages per booklet, and spread your words and images across multiple copies. BookletCreator is free to use and doesn’t require a sign-up.

BookletCreator [via MakeUseOf.com]

We will have to wait until its released to see how it works into a humble PC, but I can’t witness the power of the fully operative Microsoft WorldWide Telescope, as Roy Gould and Curtis Wong walks the audience at TED through this stunning software effort. The WorldWide Telescope puts together terabytes of information from telescopes all over the world to make a seamless rendition of the entire known Universe. We will have to wait until its released to see how it works into a humble PC, but I can’t wait to turn my three-meter-wide projection screen into the bridge of the Enterprise. [TED]