Project Blue For Alpha Centauri.

Here’s are some Websites to Explore.  

These websites could change your life

I asked Kottke.org readers if they had ever seen, heard, or read something on the web that literally changed their lives.

Fourteen people said no. Sixteen said maybe. Thirty-eight people said yes. These are some of their answers. Everyone is anonymous. Some said more than others.

Four different people listed pages from Metafilter:

Ask MetaFilter

;Where’s My Cut? –: On Unpaid Emotional Labor

For the person who’s got everything: “I read this post, applied, and had a play made for me.”

[creepy filter] Is it normal to become this distracted from seeing an attractive person in public?: This reader pointed to a comment in this thread “that describes the grinding reality of daily low-grade sexual harassment.”

Five readers listed works of journalism.

The Lilly Suicides by Richard DeGrandpre.

The Overprotected Kid by Hanna Rosin “persuaded me to be a far less uptight parent.”

Is This Working? on discipline and punishment in the school system.

The Blissfully Slow World of Internet Newsletters. (I hope this person now does something with newsletters.)

Don’t report sexual harassment (in most cases) by Penelope Trunk.

Five listed personal essays or advice.

Ten Things I Have Learned by Milton Glaser [PDF]

Mindfulness in Plain English by Ven. Henepola Gunaratana.

Encountering the Gifted Self Again, For the First Time “made me realise that I’m not just a weirdo, but all of my "quirks” actually fit together under a label, and that has made me understand myself about 10000x better.“

Pixel Poppers: Awesome By Proxy: Addicted to Fake Achievement: "an essay on performance orientation vs. mastery orientation, as applied to videogame genres.”

DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #77: The Truth That Lives There.

Five listed videos or video series.

“Almost any woodworking video by Matthias Wandel.”

Vsauce.

The School of Life

The power of vulnerability by Bren Brown.

Kid President’s Letter To A Person On Their First Day Here:

And ten listed entire websites.

“Josh Davis’s www.dreamless.org message board, now defunct.”

“Violet Blue’s writing, which lead to me realizing sex is a much deeper and more interesting topic than mainstream news coverage would have me believe.”

“The website MathPuzzle. It was the first time a website caught my attention and I corresponded with the owner/webmaster, and it opened me up to the online and offline community of puzzlers around the world. Working as a puzzle author got me through college and helped me establish a name for myself.”

Bullet Journal.

YearCompass.

“Jeph Jacques’s Questionable Content, particularly how he dealt with suicide, depression, and the concept of people from different backgrounds so elegantly. I like to think it increased (and continues to increase) my empathy in the world.”

National Novel Writing Month

“Radiolab made me want to be a journalist.”

l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi: “In 2005 I was trying to get information on how to study abroad for a year. Everything I read was on the Internet, and I then spent 9 months between 2006 and 2007 in Chicoutimi, Quebec.”

Pixel Envy. “Not pandering. Started reading Kottke, DF, and Metafilter, and realized that I could try doing the same thing. I’ve had a modicum of success since, and met a bunch of really cool people as a result.”

Now pick up your instruments, and go start a band.

Here's a Good Look at Alien Aerospace Engineering.  

This is part one of a Science Documentary about:  UFO Propulsion.  

I would sure like to see something like The Hyperloop or Evacuated Tube Technology come to be a common form of Long-Distance Travel someday!  

MIT Reveals its Version of Hyperloop Transit Pod 

Tired of being stuck in traffic on the highway or waiting endlessly for a delayed subway? Almost three years ago, Elon Musk envisioned the Hyperloop, a new type of public transit that would whisk commuter-filled pods efficiently across hundreds of kilometers in a matter of minutes via tubes; and of course, only second to teleportation in terms of overall coolness.

Among a number of startups trying to get in on the competition sponsored by Musk’s company SpaceX, a student team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology emerged earlier this year as the front-runner when it won the competition’s design phase. On Friday, MIT finally unveiled the prototype pod that it will test this summer at a 1-mile racetrack near SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. 

Photograph by MIT

There could be other universes out there in The Cosmos. 

Here’s what David Brin has to say about:

The Rise of The Internet.

Peace Corps.

Colorin colorado, este cuento se ha acabado

July 1, 2016

It feels like an impossible task to condense all that I’ve learned and experienced and become in the last three years into one final blog post, especially since I’m sleep deprived and feeling all of the feelings. Maybe in the next days or weeks or months I will attempt this. But in the meantime, I leave you with this poem, which begins to speak to my feelings toward Peace Corps and toward the Dominican Republic.

Children Running Through

by Rumi, Translation by Coleman Barks with John Moyne

I used to be shy.
You made me sing.

I used to refuse things at table. 
Now I shout for more wine.

In somber dignity, I used to sit 
on my mat and pray.

Now children run through 
and make faces at me.

Thank you for following my journey!

Futurism

If you're not already using a VPN, you haven't been paying attention

We can do more to protect our data.

Is it really all that important to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) for most of Your Communications?

Here's some advice from off of Wrong_Planet about how to thrive as a Special_Needs Family. 

"The Science of Star Wars: An Astrophysicist's Independent Examination of Space Travel, Aliens, Planets, and Robots as Portrayed in the Star Wars Films and Books" by Jeanne Cavelos