The Verge:

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels are a cornerstone of science fiction, but getting into a vast series about, among other things, mathematically predicting the rise and fall of entire civilizations isn’t always easy. In 1973, however, the BBC adapted Foundation into a serial radio drama, capturing the original trilogy in eight hour-long episodes. These are available on the Internet Archive, which means that you can listen to them online or download them in all their slightly scratchy glory.

I first read The Foundation Trilogy as a young teenager and loved them. I come back to re-read them about every decade. I’ve been thinking it’s about time to read them again but maybe I’ll just let the folks at the BBC entertain me this time.

Esquire:

Ever wonder what whiskey-industry insiders are drinking around the holidays? Us, too. Eat Like a Man’s 12 Days of Whiskey asks the craft’s most respected master distillers what bottles are on their holiday wish lists.

One of the great parts of the turning of summer into Fall/Winter is indulging in delicious and warming bourbons and whiskeys. They always seem perfect on a chill evening. In honor of the anniversary of the repeal of the 18th Amendment earlier this week, enjoy the “The 12 Days of Whiskey”.

NASA:

This book celebrates Earth’s aesthetic beauty in the patterns, shapes, colors, and textures of the land, oceans, ice, and atmosphere. The book features 75 stunning images of Earth from the Terra, Landsat 5, Landsat 7, EO-1, and Aqua satellites. Sensors on these satellites can measure light outside of the visible range, so the images show more than what is visible to the naked eye. The images are intended for viewing enjoyment rather than scientific interpretation. The beauty of Earth is clear, and the artistry ranges from the surreal to the sublime.

Your tax dollars paid for it so you might as well grab the PDF or the iPad app.

PetaPixel:

Check out this curious 25-second time-lapse/composite video that shows every airplane that landed at San Diego International Airport on Black Friday a week ago between 10:30am and 3pm.

The giant planes whiz by overhead as if they’re part of a fighter jet squadron heading off to battle — not something you’d expect to see with commercial planes at an airport.

USA Today:

If you have found yourself using Facebook and Twitter in the bathroom, you are not the only one.

Nearly one-third (32%) of the heaviest adopters of social networks — those ages 18 to 24— connect with sites such as Facebook and Twitter in the bathroom.

More than one-fourth (28%) of those ages 25-34 are bathroom social networkers, as are 15% of those ages 35-44. Both sexes are equally likely to use social networks in the bathroom, with 14% of them saying they do.

Guess where I’m posting this from?

BuzzFeed:

Only available from 1951-1952, this science kit for CHILDREN included 4 types of uranium ore, a Geiger counter, a comic called “Dagwood Spits The Atom” and a coupon for ordering MORE radioactive materials. One of the four uranium ores included was Po-210 (Polonium) which, by mass, is 250,000 times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide. “Merry Christmas Kevin, here’s that giant box of poison you asked for.”

That’s pretty bad but what might even be worse is the fact that, I’m sure like a lot of you, I actually had many of those old Hardy Boys books they talk about!

TIME:

The world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was retired from active service on Saturday. The Enterprise was the largest ship in the world at the time it was built, earning the nickname “Big E.”

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was the eighth U.S. ship to bear the name Enterprise, but it won’t be the last.

My dad was in the Canadian Navy for many years and I still remember getting a tour of the ship as a ten year old.

Top Gear:

In a special edition of Top Gear, Richard Hammond celebrates 50 years of James Bond films with a look back at 007’s legendary cars. He also talks to Daniel Craig and Sir Roger Moore, gets exclusive access behind the scenes of Bond’s latest adventure, Skyfall, and pays special tribute to 007 by attempting to turn a Lotus in a fully working submarine car.

This is the 50th anniversary of James Bond and of all the people jumping on the bandwagon, I’m most looking forward to the Top Gear take on some of the iconic Bond cars. Sadly, this show, while available on the iTunes Store, doesn’t include the full Top Gear complement – it’s just The Hamster.

Dogster:

Many people might call in sick from work to care for a sick and dying dog. But what if your job was going around to cities and singing heartfelt, cathartic songs in front of thousands of heartfelt, cathartic fans? Would you just stop all that to go home and care for your sick and dying dog?

That’s exactly what Fiona Apple did.

She writes, “I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love and friendship. I am the woman who stays home and bakes Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend.”

Anyone who has loved and known the love of a great pet, especially a dog, completely understands Apple’s decision. You can always go back out on tour.

io9:

Every era in science fiction’s history has shown us a new vision of the strange and futuristic, and one image can spawn a million reflections in your mind’s eye.Here are 21 unforgettable pictures that showcase the whole history of science fiction.

They really do a very good job of capturing each SciFi era in a single image.

Snopes:

Claim – Hostess Twinkies have an indefinite shelf life.

Fact – Twinkies have a shelf life of twenty-five days, not seven years, and certainly not fifty years. Even so, twenty-five days is an unusually long time for a baked product to stay fresh. The secret to Twinkies’ longevity is their lack of dairy ingredients: because dairy products are not part of the formula, Twinkies spoil much more slowly than other bakery items.

After the news of the shuttering of the company, this urban legend quickly made its way around Twitter. Like most urban legends, it turns out to have no basis in facts.

Mashable:

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blockquote>We take for granted how easy it is to get around these days. A decade ago, when my friends and I were turning 16 and getting our driver’s licenses, a big, fat Thomas Guide was the gift of choice — I mean, how else would you find your way around the city? Then TomTom, Magellan and Garmin came around. And now, with the proliferation of smartphones, maps of the entire world are in the palm of our hands.

But even when maps go awry, we tend to take the technology for granted. Here’s an explanation of how GPS navigation works — so you can appreciate it a little more the next time it gets you where you need to be.

It really is a wondrous and remarkable piece of technology.

The Wirecutter:

To make my picks, I spoke with experts who have been through every razor fad and tried every setup, including beard-trimmers. I then personally tested widely available non-disposable razors on the market. I asked several women test out “women’s” razors and cartridge men’s razors on their legs, bikini lines, and underarms, then got their takes.

I wish I had the skill (read “courage”) to try an use a straight razor.

50 Years of James Bond – The Movie:

Approximately five minutes from each of the previous 22 James Bond films have been cut together, in order and in sequence.

This new look at the “Bond Formula” begins with the first five minutes of “Dr No”, followed by five minutes of “From Russia with Love” followed by “Goldfinger” and “Thunderball” and continues on through the remaining 18 Bond features.

It’s an interesting experiment and shows how, for better or worse, each films follows the formula.

Wired:

Chances are you won’t be present in person during tomorrow’s total solar eclipse, which will only be visible on land from a tiny sliver of Australia. Not to worry — the internet has got your back, and there are plenty of ways to catch the action from the comfort of your own browser.Total solar eclipses over land are relatively rare, with any given region expected to have one every 375 years on average. The next total solar eclipse will take place over equatorial Africa on Nov. 3, 2014, though the region where it will happen in is notorious for clouds. A total solar eclipse will pass through the central and eastern U.S. on Aug. 21, 2017, ending a 38-year U.S. eclipse drought.

PandoDaily:

Best Buy recently announced that it will match Amazon on price this holiday season — a move that will likely further depress its margins at a time it can least afford it. 75 percent of the items offered by Best Buy are cheaper on Amazon, on average by 17 percent.Best Buy is trying to play a game it can’t win in a sport it doesn’t participate in — like a middling veteran basketball player suddenly switching to hockey.

Not many in the US retail market think this Christmas will being anything but bad news for Best Buy.

Spot The Station:

Did you know you can see the International Space Station from your house? As the third brightest object in the sky, after the sun and moon, the space station is easy to see if you know where and when to look for it.NASA’s Spot the Station service sends you an email or text message a few hours before the space station passes over your house.

This is kind of a neat idea, especially if the emails give you enough time to get outside and to a good, non-lit location.

Space.com:

Call it the ultimate absentee ballot.NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station have the option of voting in the presidential election from orbit.Astronauts residing on the orbiting lab receive a digital version of their ballot, which is beamed up by Mission Control at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Filled-out ballots find their way back down to Earth along the same path.

Wired:

Buckyballs are officially discontinued. If you don’t have any Buckyballs or Buckycubes and don’t get some soon, you never will.There are more than a billion of these magnets in consumers’ hands and only 24 reported incidents of children under 14 ingesting them. Skateboarding is statistically 890 times more dangerous than having Buckyballs.

As the story points out, you can still buy Buckyballs for a limited time and the company will continue to make other “Bucky-like” products.

The Verge:

From the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, Omni published dispatches from the world of science and some of the most iconic science fiction stories of the late twentieth century, including William Gibson’s “Johnny Mnemonic” (May 1981), Ted Chiang’s “Tower of Babylon” (November 1990), and Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made Out of Meat” (April 1991). The print magazine folded in 1995 — though an internet version lasted somewhat longer. Now, as of earlier this fall, the Internet Archive has a near-complete run of Omni, free for download or viewing online.

If you are “of a certain age”, you’ll remember Omni. It was kind of a precursor to Wired but much more out there.

This may be the most wonderfully demented and funniest thing you watch all day.

io9:

If you didn’t catch Pixar’s latest feature Brave in the theaters, you may have missed out on La Luna, Enrico Casarosa’s stellar short about the moon’s custodians: a young boy, his father, and his grandfather. Hit play and let yourself be transported to a magical world where you can sweep up the stars and a child must learn to find his own way.

DavidMahler:

One man’s quest to find the greatest headphones ever made!

Holy crap. This is without a doubt the single most exhaustive review of anything I’ve ever read in my life. Utterly insane the amount of time, money and effort this guy poured into this review. (hat tip to Dan Frakes for the link)

The Atlantic:

With Hurricane Sandy, the nation’s eyes are turning to its largest city. Photos of storms and flooding are popping up all over Twitter, and while many are real, some of them — especially the really eye-popping ones — are fake.This post, which will be updated over the next couple of days, is an effort to sort the real from the unreal. It’s a photograph verification service, you might say, or a pictorial investigation bureau. If you see a picture that looks fishy, send it to me at alexis.madrigal[at]gmail.com. If you like this sort of thing, you should also visit istwitterwrong.tumblr.com, which is just cataloging the fakes.

BroBible:

There’s a lot of really cool webcams on which to watch the impending doom of Sandy. Quartz found around 30, and we’ve highlighted 10 that we think will be worth watching tonight and tomorrow. Consider these your chance to watch a massive, historic storm roll in without having to see Anderson Cooper bravely squint in a camera while rain whips around him.

The Coney Island cam looks like it will provide some dramatic images.

Gizmodo:

If you had any doubts about the scale of frankenstorm Sandy, check out NASA’s latest image to see its size compared to the entire planet. It was taken by NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite this morning, October 28 at 9:02AM EDT.

Hoping everyone on the east coast of both the USA and Canada stay safe during this incredible storm.