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Buzz Out Loud Show Notes: I want my space elevator

Buzz Out Loud Show Notes: I want my space elevator

Veronica Belmont
3 min read
Well, we don't have our lunar lander or our space elevator, but that doesn't mean that people aren't trying! The X Prize Cup has been in full swing for a while, but it seems like more people are being disqualified, or having their projects explode, than are making any real headway. But they're still rocket scientists, so I can't really say anything, can I?
EPISODE 339
TODAY'S LINKS:















TODAY'S VOICEMAIL:
A high-school student from Seattle
Tom said he had to look up a word in a quote, and I don't know if you guys know this, but on a Mac, if you hover the mouse over a word and hit Ctrl+Cmd+D, you'll get the definition.

Isaac in Minneapolis
One of your callers asked about getting DVDs on PMPs. A company called PQDVD makes an iPod, PSP, and Zen conversion software. Your computer needs a DVD decoder, but it plays it in a window and then captures it. You can customize bit rate and convert to Divx, and I think it's even legal!

Anon: Is Leo pulling the plug on TWiT?
No TWiT Today
Submitted by Leo Laporte on Sun, 2006-10-22 22:18.
It's about 80 degrees out, in all likelyhood the last nice day of summer in Northern California, so all the TWiTs decided to play hookey. At the same time. Unfortunately that means there will be no show tonight. It's my turn to play hookey next week. I'm off on a geek cruise next Friday and will be gone through November 4, so there will be no TWiT next week either. I'll decide what happens to TWiT, the show, when I come back, but at this point it looks like it's on life support and the heart monitor is flatlining. Meanwhile, enjoy our first this WEEK in LAW with Denise Howell, and thanks for listening. I'll put it up on the TWiT feed in place of TWiT later tonight.


TODAY'S E-MAIL:
Doctor Beren
I could not resist, so I installed the Firefox 2.0 RC3 a few days before its official release. I'm really loving it. Everything seems to be working well except my Yahoo Photos upload tool. Because of this, I did the unthinkable, I clicked the Internet Explorer icon and launched IE 7. Although I really do not use IE, I upgraded it to the latest version for security purposes.
When I went to the Yahoo Photos Web site, I was greeted by something that I rarely encounter: advertisements! So I thought I'd try using IE 7's add-ons. As I was going through the list of add-ons, I realized something. A lot of them were for sale!
I got over the shock and downloaded the Yahoo Photos upload tool and installed it. When I reopened my browser, I was shocked to see that Yahoo, without my consent, also installed the Yahoo toolbar for IE. What's going on? I never wanted to install this. Worst of all, I was finding it hard to uninstall the toolbar using that option from the toolbar itself.
I just can't help but say "boo!" to Microsoft for deciding to make money on add-ons and "boo!" to Yahoo for forcing its toolbar on unsuspecting users.