A new computer screen saver made available by the European Space Agency now allows computer users to watch spectacular, almost real-time images of our Sun. The images, coming directly from 1.5 million kilometres away in space, will flash on your computer screen courtesy of ESA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

Every time your screen saver kicks in it will look, via the Internet, for the most recent images SOHO has sent to scientists. A few seconds, and the show begins.

You get to witness exciting events as they happen on our star: huge expulsions of matter called Coronal Mass Ejections; sunspots, now growing in number as the Sun reaches the peak of activity in its 11-year cycle; and even the demise of the so-called sun-grazing comets, as they disappear forever into Sol.

Downloads below. You can also find this list below from the NASA site here:

Here’s a little more geek love for some fellow geek bloggers (you too could be listed here!). If you comment and would like a link to advertise your site, please holler.

Average Joe Blogger
Average Joe Blogger is the journey of one blogger on a quest to become a “Pro Blogger”. Oh, and he says he’s one handsome dude.

King Kong Blog
Because if a monkey with a keyboard can’t help you, no one can.

You may have seen me mention here before that I’m a big fan of the candy bar style smartphones, I just don’t like having a QWERTY keyboard mixed with my numeric keypad as the primary interface to the mobile device. The keys for that style are too small for my ‘Fred Flintstone like fingers‘, while I think I’d like to have QWERTY capability, it’s just not a must have for me since T9 on the numeric keypad works just fine thank you very much.

You probably have not heard me talk about how I’m an HTC snob, I’ve had really good experiences with their devices and I’d rather stick with them as opposed to moving to another manufacturer with everything else being equal.

Well, their latest device, HTC S710, is being reviewed at MobileBurn in a 6 page usage report and it’s looking like it may just be the ticket to get me onto a device with QWERTY, it’s a ’slide out’ so this appears to be a win-win for me.

It has a huge 2.4″ QVGA screen for a relatively smaller than average mobile device, has better than average battery performance for this class of device, great support for contact management, runs Windows Mobile 6, GPRS/EDGE/WiFi/BT (no 3G), 2MP camera.

Link to the report, it’s very thorough. 

(clicky)

[via Smartphone Thoughts]

Futurama Returns! (Watch the video promo!)
Speedbump Studios
Greetings Earthicans! As you may now know, the return of Futurama is officially imminent, barring any unscheduled Apocalypses, Second Comings or alien attacks from disgruntled lizard-like races (you know who you are). It’s true! Comedy Central will begin airing all new episodes in 2008 (or 3008, for viewers on Omicron Perseii Eight, so keep your capes on).

Mars Rovers on low-energy diet as global dust storm continues to rage
MSNBC
A global dust storm at Mars continues to veil the two surface rovers and their solar panels, the situation grew steadily worse after the first storm started in mid-June. NASA officials reported the other day they expect the robots are capable of weathering the tempest.

iPhone “Hello World” binary released
Tuaw, via Digg
The busy beavers of the #iphone IRC channel, whose collective efforts have built the first unauthorized iPhone GUI application (in true coding fashion, it displays “Hello World” and does nothing else), have released the source for the demo app, buildable with the community-built toolchain and UIKit.

Nepalese ‘goddess’ is reinstated
BBC
A 10-year-old girl who is worshipped as a living goddess in Nepal has had her title reinstated after defying tradition and visiting the US. Temple authorities at her home town say that she will not be stripped of her title because she is willing shortly to undergo a “cleansing” ceremony.

Job posting on Career Builder: Link.

Description:
Title: Web Developer (must have secret clearance)
Job Type: 3 month contract (could go shorter)
Salary: $20k per month
Location: Iraq
Start date: ASAP with 2 weeks training (one in Washington DC and another in Ft. Bening GA)
# of Openings: 1
Summary: A principal Department of Defense agency is looking for programmers, developers or coders to code, support field deployment and maintenance of a new database application which will be used by Army units in Iraq. Scope These are full-time positions (12/7) located at one of the major US Bases in IRAQ. Deployment will be period of 3 months. Training on the application software will begin prior to deployment and will take place in Virginia. These positions are available for full time employment or for independent contractors. These positions are available now

Requirements:
-A Department of Defense secret clearance within last 24 months
-Willing to work a 3 month contract in Iraq at US military bases
-2-4 programming experience preferably with JAVA or HTML
-US Citizen
-Knowledge of database systems preferably SQL
Plus:
-Familiarity with military networks and systems is desired, but not required.
-Relevant military background ( e.g. hands-on engineering background in S6 or G6 shop or MOS 25B or 74B is desired but not required.)
-AS or BS Degree in Computer Science minimum

If you’re qualified then this really is a great deal. Just because there’s a skirmish going on in the region, don’t let it weigh too heavily in deciding whether to take on the job and the adventure. Ajaxian has some interesting comments on this.

If you know CSS/XHTM and some PHP, then Authentic Jobs has another great opportunity to travel to Baghdad as a Front End Developer.

[via reddit / ajaxian]