SatelliteAR Android app now tracks falling UARS, helps you avoid being smooshed

You may have a better chance of winning the lottery or running into Captain Kirk at the mall, but when it comes to being impaled with pieces of the now defunct Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite as it plummets towards Earth, it's better to be safe than sorry. The SatelliteAR Android app has added a temporary feature that gives stargazers the ability to monitor this space junk's trajectory to avoid impact when it re-enters the atmosphere sometime later today. NASA has assured us that the bus-sized satellite won't land anywhere in North America, but if it touches down at night, people on the ground could witness a pretty sweet light show wherever it does land. Android users determined to avoid a Wicked Witch of the East-like fate can download the app at the source link below and check out the video demo after the break.

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New Daniel Pinkwater novel being serialized online in weekly chapters

Zack sez, "The author of such surreal delights as LIZARD MUSIC and THE HOBOKEN CHICKEN EMERGENCY has gone to the web to premiere his latest work before it heads to hard-copy. Daniel Pinkwater's BUSHMAN LIVES will update with a new chapter every Monday, with the first already online. So far, it involves a giant gorilla and a sacred order of hall monitors. Pure Pinkwater."

Just in case it's escaped your notice, I happen to think that Pinkwater is one of the greatest novelists alive, and I credit him with a large part of my sanity and outlook.

I must have been asleep for an hour or two. I woke up sensing there was someone in my room.

“Geets?”

“Ook Ook, Bushman lives,” Geets Hildebrand said.

“Ook,” I said. I switched the light on.

Geets was sitting cross-legged next to my bed. He had done this before. Sometimes I would wake in the morning and there he would be, sleeping on the rug. I could never get him to tell me how he got in–how he got into a building with a doorman, into a locked elevator area, into our locked apartment, and into my locked bedroom. Had he slipped past the doorman, and picked three locks? Had my father, who disliked and mistrusted all my friends, let him in and for some reason agreed not to say anything about it? It was a mystery.

“Drink to Bushman,” Geets said. He pulled four bottles of Guinness out of his jacket, and two bananas. This was our ritual. We would drink to Bushman the Gorilla at the Lincoln Park Zoo, and eat bananas, which actually went quite well with the thick, bitter Guinness.

Bushman Lives | A novel by Daniel Pinkwater (Thanks, Zack!)

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How not to keep your wire-cutters from being stolen

If you want to keep your wire-cutters from being stolen, attaching them to something heavy might work -- but not if you attach them with wire.

My boss was tired of our wire cutters getting stolen. I'm not sure this will solve it (via Schneier)

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An appreciation of “John Cusack and the art of being yourself”

At Indiewire's "Press Play" blog, Masha Tupitsyn ?has an essay on the life and work of John Cusack, and thoughts on the art of being yourself. Cusack, as regular Boing Boing readers may recall, is a periodic guest contributor to our blog.

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