Geeks and techies around the globe are looking forward to the release of Mozilla’s Firefox 3 web browser, scheduled for official release on June 17th. In addition to the rollout, the Firefox marketing community at SpreadFirefox.com (which I am conveniently a member) is looking to set a Guiness World Record for most software downloads in 24 hours (since no previous record of that kind has been set, it shouldn’t be too hard to achieve).

I’ve been using a portable version Firefox 3 RC2 for the past few weeks and I must highly recommend the download. All of my friends and family are faithful Firefox converts, thanks to me, and I’m sure to be installing this latest major release for them as well. When its finally released tomorrow (June 17), head on over to GetFirefox.com to upgrade!

SpreadFirefox.com Download Day 2008

Some generous humanitarian has posted fourteen pages of some of the best Tonight Show “Headlines.” They are best read all at once, and in order… by page three I was rolling on the floor with laughter-tears streaming down my cheeks… in the office… during business hours.

Link [via BoingBoing]

This is surveillance footage from inside and outside a bank as an F5 tornado ripped through Parkersburg, Iowa Memorial Day weekend with winds exceeding 200mph. Several angles from the interior of the bank show windows exploding and debris flying in every direction. The exterior security camera captured the tornado leveling a house that was located across the street from the bank. No one was inside the bank at the time, though this series of storms killed eight people in the Parkersburg area.

Interior Bank Security Camera Footage - Weather.com

Exterior Bank Security Camera Raw Footage - Weather.com

Sigur Ros, the Icelandic band best described as what Radiohead would be if they were even more innovative, has announced the release of their newest album Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (English translation: with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly) due to hit shelves on June 24th. If you can’t wait until then, they have also kindly released the first track from the album called Gobbledigook as a free mp3 download availiable at SigurRos.com. There you can also watch the NSFW music video for the track, featuring the same tree-dwelling nudists that grace the cover of the new album.

From the Sigur Ros MySpace bulletin:

Inspired by the unfettered feeling of the acoustic performances filmed during Heima [their most recent Live album and concert film], Sigur Rós decided to adopt a looser approach in the writing and creation of their brilliant fifth album. The material for the album was written, recorded and mixed entirely in 2008 and is being released just one month after its completion. The album glows with the perfect imperfection of live takes, the sounds of fingers playing guitar strings, cracked notes, and a stark, upfront presence not found in previous Sigur Rós recordings, moving away from reverb-soaked guitar sounds towards something altogether more affecting. The record also contains some of the most joyous music the band has ever recorded.

www.sigur-ros.co.uk - Official Sigur Ros Site
sigurros.com - Free Download of Gobbledigook
myspace.com/sigurros - Sigur Ros MySpace Profile

theslip.nin.com

View Video [USA Today]

Additional videos from the studio [WAVE-TV]

Sure, a bunch of the freebies are duds, but with some patient searching you can find a gem. Case-in-point, I urge everybody to grab a copy of “Dead Sound” by The Raveonettes from their newest album Lust Lust Lust. I first heard this duo on Letterman and got hooked to their distortion-laden ’50s style rock-n-roll mixed with a modern Indie sound and vocal harmonies. See kiddies, I can sound like I’m hip to the music scene, too.

Our first entry from Japan is a bulky, human-shaped robot that can jump up to its feet from lying flat on its back, all Jackie Chan-style. Unlike Jackie, this robot hasn’t quite mastered the standing-up and kicking ass part, to which we should be thankful.

Are people with Ophidiophobia (the fear of snakes) equally afraid of robot snakes? Now is the best time to find out, since the Biorobotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon University have developed just that: robot snakes! These wriggly guys can shimmy up walls, swim through water and even scale the inside of a drain pipe. The best part in the video comes when it climbs a dude’s leg!

Finally, as the creepiest of the creepiest, comes the BigDog developed by Boston Dynamics for the US Department of Defense. This four-legged robot is more of a mule then a dog, in both size and function, designed with the idea that it will help soldiers carry heavy loads over rough terrain. And rough terrain it can handle, indeed! Its advanced sensors help it stay upright under any condition, even when forcibly kicked in the side by someone in this demonstration. Skip to the middle of the video to see it slip and slide over a patch of ice, to which I could not stop laughing simply because it looks like a real animal! You almost feel bad for it as it struggles to regain its footing!

Via Gizmodo, Gizmodo, Gizmodo

Add another desktop wallpaper site to the pile: Social Wallpapering is a community desktop background site featuring almost 3,000 (and growing) high quality images for standard, widescreen and dual-monitor setups. Most images are photographic, with a few digital and 3-D illustrations thrown into the mix. Social Wallpapering is a cut above the rest, featuring easy to use filtering and even an RSS feed to subscribe to the latest uploads.

www.socwall.com

On Wednesday, February 20th, sometime around 9:36pm CST, (coincidentally, nearly the same exact time as the total lunar eclipse) the Navy successfully hit the decaying spy satellite USA-193 with a missile launched from a ship somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

45-minutes ago from the AFP:

The US Defense Department said late Wednesday it had successfully used a ship-board missile to shoot down an out-of-control spy satellite before it plummeted to Earth.

“At approximately 10:26 pm today (0326 GMT Thursday), a US Navy Aegis warship, the USS Lake Erie, fired a single modified tactical standard missile 3, hitting the satellite approximately 247 kilometers (133 nautical miles) over the Pacific Ocean as it travelled in space more than 17,000 miles (44,000 kilometers) per hour,” the Defense Department said in a statement.

The Pentagon reports that it could be 24 hours before they know if their primary objective, to destroy the large fuel tank full of toxic hydrazine propellant, was successful or not, though they do report viewing an explosion on impact.

Debris from the explosion will begin falling and burning up in the earth’s atmosphere immediately, and could continue for days. I don’t know about you, but if you’re in the projected ground path of where the satellite should have been, thats a ripe invitation to head outside and watch for an impromptu meteor debris shower over the next few nights.

On any accord, let’s pray to the Gods of All Things Awesome that somebody is going to share some video of the missile-on-satellite action. Please!

US shoots down rogue spy satellite - AFP