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Many thanks to Oomph Software with Sidekick for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop.

Sidekick is a stealth little Mac app that automatically updates laptop settings based on where you are. It takes care of annoying tasks so you can focus on what you need to do.

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Bad Astronomy:

On Google+, Michael Interbartolo — who worked for ten years on the Space Shuttle Program in Mission Control in Houston — just posted about this amazing video from cameras mounted on the Shuttle solid rockets as they rode into space.On the upper left is elapsed time, and on the upper right is the air speed as calculated using on board instruments. Watch as the speed increases… and then the increase increases!

Om Malik:

When did we stop talking about ideas, technology and instead started focusing on you know… names and investing.

It’s been my experience that those that can name drop don’t.

Former Britannica.com editor Charlie Madigan:

This was inevitable. As a senior editor at Britannica.com, where I went to work after decades as a newspaper editor, I had high hopes for the idea of giving away knowledge.Talking about the public’s right, and need, to know with some of those folks was like talking to frogs about poetry.

Does this signal the beginning of the end of these kinds of books?

A new Kickstarter project hopes to build ‘digital Bolex cameras’ that resemble 16mm movie cameras but record digital video in high-quality RAW format.

Copyright troll Righthaven, which tried to sue people who used content from newspapers on their blogs or Web sites, has been told by a judge to forfeit all its copyrights.

A Goldman Sachs executive is leaving, but not before he very publicly, very viciously gives the investment bank a piece of his mind.

The US, EU and Japan have filed a trade complaint against China for its handling of rare earth minerals, which it has almost monopoly control of.

Ben Brooks brings up some good points about this “via” and “hat tip” debate.

Om Malik:

It is my belief that in modern times, no success goes unpunished. Infographics, too, were “punished” for their success.

Agreed.

A stunt to give SXSW showgoers 4G hotspot access using homeless volunteers has backfired, thanks to good ol’ fashioned white liberal guilt.

Gadling:

In honor of its upcoming 100-year anniversary, the Château Laurier Hotel in Ottawa is offering an amnesty for anyone who has pilfered something from the hotel over the last century. The historic, castle-like hotel in the Canadian capital has already received more than 60 items from people all over North America.“The amnesty part means there are no questions asked,” said Deneen Perrin, the hotel’s director of public relations. “It doesn’t matter whether your grandmother took a silver spoon and put it in her purse or if someone’s parents maybe worked in the hotel and took something, we’ll take it back.”

Shows how nice Canadians are.

The (unofficial) SXSW Torrents:

This torrent includes all the tracks that could be previewed on the SXSW website for SXSW 2012 as of March 6, 2012. This year’s collection includes 1,219 files totaling 7.52GB. Torrents for 2005-2011 are also available.

Would you like a buttload of free (and legal) music, from (mostly) undiscovered bands? These torrent files are your ticket.

Posterous has been acquired by Twitter, according to founder and CEO Sachin Agarwal.

AT&T is continuing to expand its 4G LTE service network with 11 new markets online by early summer.

All told, STAR went through almost a thousand rumor stories over the past six months.

The only problem I have with this is including Mac Rumors and AppleInsider.I know that sounds strange, but you expect to see rumors on those sites. They report and aggregate rumor stories for us, which is they’re whole model.

What I’m more interested in is the sites that publish rumors that don’t say they are rumor sites.

Still, fascinating findings.

Location check-in service (and Foursquare competitor) Gowalla has shut down, three months after its acquisition by Facebook.

This is just classic from Matt Thomas.

It’s possible, notes a researcher, that beards are meant not to attract women, but to “fend off other males.” Perhaps that makes sense: Males described the bearded men as older and tougher.

Women love the beard.

Time:

Do you ever have those days when you just can’t decide between an iced tea and a beer, and you think, If only I could combine them?No? Seriously, you don’t? Well, that’s not going to stop Molson Coors from launching Coors Light Iced T. The beer giant announced Tuesday it will roll out the new product in Canada next month, followed by a likely debut in the U.S. The iced-tea-flavored brew will contain 4% alcohol and no caffeine

Do. Not. Want. But I bet it still tastes better than Heinken.

Consumer Reports is looking at the Fisker Karma – an expensive electric car – and the thing broke down during the test.

Many thanks to Rogue Amoeba for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week.

Say “hello” to Piezo!

Whether you want to record a Skype conversation, save a streaming radio program, or just record a quick voice memo, Piezo can do it. It runs on Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7 and it can capture audio from any application (yup, even sandboxed App Store apps).

Download Piezo free, then buy it in the App Store or directly through our store.

Anthony Kay:

680 News is a local AM station in Toronto that does all news all the time. They started a Twitter feed back in 2008 that alternately informs and annoys. Then there are times you wonder if the person tweeting is actually lucid.

A blogger at a Chicago Tribune-owned site claims the newspaper’s reporters are stealing story ideas for the print publication.

Wonder why Apple isn’t using Google Maps in iPhoto for iOS? Geoff Duncan thinks it’s because Google is insisting that new services which rely on the data let it display ads.

TECHi:

Space may or may not be the final frontier, but the television and movie series Star Trek and its subsequent incantations have sparked the imagination of sci-fi fans across the ages. From Kirk and Spock to Picard and Data, then back to a new Kirk and Spock, Star Trek has become one of the most influential fictional concepts of the modern era.From nerds to geeks to hipsters and beyond, the dreams of millions have been guided by the ideas of particle transporters, warp engines, and photon torpedoes. It is an icon of pop culture and road map towards a better distant future.

Time to get your geek on!