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PROTIP: Firefox Keyboard Search

Arifureta: Protip: F6 highlights your address bar.

ghelmstetter: Warning: The following protip will give you true search superpowers that will blow away your co-workers and make you feel almost omniscient:

Next to the Firefox search bar, click on the dropdown box and select "Manage Search Engines." Click on "Get more search engines" to find the ones you want and then set up 1- or 2-character keyboard shortcuts for performing searches directly in your address bar, for any site where you search frequently. For example:

g = google

gi = google images

gm = google maps

gf = google finance

w = wikipedia

d = m-w.com (merriam webster dictionary)

a = amazon.com

i = imdb.com

etc.

This way, say you want to look up the definition of 'phalanx'. Without lifting your hands from the keyboard, you'd type:

CTRL-L d phalanx

and whammo, there's your definition. (CTRL-L highlights the address bar.)

You've just shaved 90% off the marginal cost/effort of doing a search. You'll find yourself searching much more often because it's almost instantaneous. This will make you smarter about everything you do, looking up things you wouldn't have bothered with before.

IMDB is particularly fun at work, etc, because you can have answers to "who's the guy in that movie..." type questions before the question is even done being asked. It's so blazing fast, it appears to others that you just have perfect recall of such things. They won't even know you accessed your prosthetic superbrain.

Reddit: What is your best PROTIP?

Transparent Aluminium

(PhysOrg.com) -- Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser. 'Transparent aluminium' previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion.

In this week’s Nature Physics an international team, led by Oxford University scientists, report that a short pulse from the FLASH laser ‘knocked out’ a core electron from every aluminium atom in a sample without disrupting the metal’s crystalline structure. This turned the aluminium nearly invisible to extreme ultraviolet radiation.

''What we have created is a completely new state of matter nobody has seen before,’ said Professor Justin Wark of Oxford University’s Department of Physics, one of the authors of the paper. ‘Transparent aluminium is just the start. The physical properties of the matter we are creating are relevant to the conditions inside large planets, and we also hope that by studying it we can gain a greater understanding of what is going on during the creation of 'miniature stars' created by high-power laser implosions, which may one day allow the power of nuclear fusion to be harnessed here on Earth.’ [link]

Mario Marathon raises over $28,000 for Child's Play Charity


This past weekend Mario Marathon 2 raised over $28,000 dollars for Child's Play Charity (a charity started by Penny-Arcade to buy videogames and books for children's hospitals)! They played over 96 hours and completed all available Super Mario Games at 100%! Amazing work guys! An inspiration to the entire internet.

Mega Man 2.5D


just totally freaking awesome. Mega Man 2 was the best game ever. I even still love the soundtrack (especially as performed by the Minibosses)

10 Ways Microsoft's Retail Stores Will Differ From Apple Stores

Microsoft announced plans to open retail stores, hoping to boost visibility of many of its products and its brand. The move seems to be an effort to mimic the success that Apple (like all M$ ideas) has had with its retail stores. The news is just too tempting not to have some fun with. So here are some yet-to-be-officially-revealed details about the Microsoft stores.

1) Instead of Apple's sheer walls of glass, Microsoft's stores will have brushed steel walls dotted with holes -- reminiscent of Windows security.

2) The store will have six different entrances: Starter, Basic, Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. While all six doors will lead into the same store, the Ultimate door requires a fee of $100 for no apparent reason.

3) Instead of a "Genius Bar" (as Apple provides) Microsoft will offer an Excuse Bar. It will be staffed by Microsofties trained in the art of evading questions, directing you to complicated and obscure fixes, and explaining it's a problem with the hardware -- not a software bug.

4) The Windows Genuine Advantage team will run storefront security, assuming everybody is a thief until they can prove otherwise.

5) Store hours are undetermined. At any given time the store mysteriously shuts down instantaneously for no apparent reason. (No word yet on what happens to customers inside).

6) Stores will be named Microsoft Live Retail Store with PC Services for Digital Lifestyle Enthusiasts.

7) Fashioned after Microsoft's User Account Control (UAC) in Vista, sales personnel will ask you whether you're positive you want to purchase something at least twice.

8) Xbox 360 section of the store will be organized in a ring -- which will inexplicably go red occasionally.

9) DreamWorks will design a scary in-store theme park ride called "blue screen of death."

10) Store emergency exits will be unlocked at all times so people can get in anytime they want even if the front doors are locked.

[PC World]

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