"The Mars Rover's direct-to-Earth data rate peaks at 32kbits/sec. In off-peak periods, the rate is as low as 0.5kbits/sec. As for latency, the round-trip distance is currently just under 28 light minutes, or roughly a light half-hour."

"The full-sized image is approximately 48 by 36 inches @ 150dpi, but the form factor will scale down to fit on US letter-sized paper. I hope you enjoy it. I, for one, will be plastering it all over my place of employment."

"It's a monstrous task with gigantic answers."

"The Chrome Experiments website is a showcase for all things new and exciting when it comes to web technologies and browser advancements, with a focus on JavaScript. HTML5, canvas, SVG and the 3D WebGL engine all feature prominently in little sparks of creativity that are paving the way to a prettier and more interactive Internet."

Jeff Atwood, co-founder of question-and-answer site Stack Exchange, has a huge list of 30 new pieces of programming jargon that have emerged on the question-and-answer site.

We've all been there. The deadline is looming, everything is behind schedule, and you're in a rush to finish the FooBar module. You're puzzling over one last glitch. You know how to fix it, but it looks like it will take a minor redesign of the module... probably 4-5 hours of work. You just don't have that kind of time.

Throughout the year I try to share resources and information with you that I think will be helpful for you. Often times these resources will include links to free eBooks that we make available on a variety of topics. Today, I thought I would post a large collection of eBooks for you here so that you can find them in one place and consume them as you see fit. Also, if you find this list helpful, please share it with your peers and colleagues so that they too can benefit from these resources.

lately the technology has become cheaper and consumerized thanks to companies like MakerBot, which sells 3D printers for as little as $1,800.

HTML5 is sure to be a big hit this year as far as web design trends go, and rightfully so. It aims to improve upon its predecessors by enhancing the language and support. It's new, exciting, easy to understand and better than anything that has come before it while still being compatible and understandable by current media devices and web browsers.

How nerds see 50 Shades of Grey

If Programming Languages were cars, C would be a rough and tumble sports car crossed with a jeep. Not for everybody, but damned good to have when you want one

Google Plus has a really nice image gallery. They somehow managed to display all the photos without cropping, without reordering and without any holes. We are going to see how they did it in this blog post.

Can We Fix Computer Science Education in America?

Computing in the Core is a non-partisan advocacy coalition of associations, corporations, scientific societies, and other non-profits seeking to elevate the national profile of computer science education in K-12 within the US and work toward ensuring that computer science is one of the core academic subjects in K-12 education.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Turing's birth, a team of geeks from the Netherlands decided to explain to the world just what the heck a Turing machine is--by designing and building one of out Lego. Check it out:

Here's something that could be useful in coin-toss moments, assuming that you take the Rock, Paper, Scissors route to settling things (and have a 'friend' to help out).

We're building a generation of webmakers. First step: invite people everywhere to MEET up to MAKE something cool and LEARN how the code behind the web works. It's called the Summer Code Party and it starts June 23rd.

Anyone who has used Microsoft Excel since 1993 has likely dabbled at least once with VBA, or Visual Basic for Applications, scripting: That's the year Excel 5.0 arrived with VBA support. The feature allows users to create automated tasks and functions in the spreadsheet application, extending the software's potential.

Last week Doug Peterson pointed me to an article called "Let's not call it computer science if we really mean computer programming." My initial reaction was "Let's not call it computer programming if we really mean software engineering."  Really the author was talking more about the difference between CS and SE than much else.The ACM has a great Computing Careers web site which lists a number of computing fields and degrees. I recommend this series to teachers and guidance councilors all the time. They list five different degree paths:

Blockly is a web-based, graphical programming language. Users can drag blocks together to build an application. No typing required.