Sorry for the lack of posts the past few days. Things will pick up again once the evil germs have left my body. Until then, feel free to browse around our archives and catch up on the past eight or so months of Nerdism at it’s best.

After the very public breakdown of astronaut Lisa Nowak U.S. media, missing anything of more substance to cover, have shined a bright spotlight on NASA and their policies regarding astronauts and their mental health. Recently, it has surfaced that NASA has detailed instructions on how to handle crew that become unhinged during a mission. Those are to bound the crewmates wrists and ankles with duct tape, secure them with a bungie cord and drug them with tranquilizers, if necessary. After seeing countless science fiction movies where unruly crew mates lose it in space, I for some reason never imagined NASA needing such measures. NASA went on to elaborate that they’ve determined the need for weapons in space modules isn’t necessary, at least not until we can fight wars in outer space.

Read more: Unruly astronauts in space to be bound and drugged

…and it appears that all of them are supposed to be watching you. The New York Transportation Authority’s security campaign seeks to turn normal citizens into spies by encouraging travelers to keep their eyes and ears open, spotting terrorist activity on buses and subways around the city. There must be a less-creepy way of encouraging self-awareness among citizens without hints of neighbors spying on neighbors?

See the posters after the jump..

Read more of “There are 16,000,000 creepy eyes in NYC..“

Everyone had marbles as a kid, but did you ever stop to think for a second exactly how these weird little glass nose plugs were made? No, of course not, you were too busy throwing them at people or trying to stick them in places they didn’t belong…

Watch how marbles are made, after the jump..

Read more of “How marbles are made“

Geez, took you guys long enough. I remember thinking to myself years ago that the satellite radio market wouldn’t roll out as quickly as these two were hoping for. The two satellite radio giants today announced that they will merge, creating one mega-satellite radio station to rule them all, providing a pick and choose al a carte menu of radio shows featuring Martha Stewart, Bob Dillon and Howerd Stern. It remains unclear whether stockholders and the FCC will allow the merger, seeing as how the FCC frowns upon monopolistic behavior.

Read more: XM and Sirius merge | Sirius | XM Radio

It’s been awhile since I was into cute little rubber covers for my house keys, but damn if I’m not thinking of getting back into it. Courtesy of Goldie Garage, a great biker shop (!?) in Japan, come the skull/heart key covers for everything from your hog’s ignition key to your Honda’s gas cap. Even while looking tough, Japanese design still looks so damn cute.

Read more?: Skull key covers (In Japanese)

So imagine you’re living in Portugal, find a nice abandoned farm (for over 15 years) which you decide to purchase and live out your days on a sunny porch, watching whatever crop you decide to plant grow. Then say you decide to tour the property after you’ve moved in and come upon a large, decrepit barn which was padlocked shut with rusty locks. You cut the locks, open the doors and find one of the most exciting collections of abandoned vintage automobiles discovered in awhile, sitting there on your property. 100+ extremely dusty, some rusty, some full of pigeon crap, vintage and collectible cars ranging from the early 1900s to what looks to be the late 60s or early 70s. The collection includes a nice batch of vintage Lotus’, some beautiful Porsche 356s and a huge collection of Datsuns. Upon opening the door I would have passed the fuck out. Then woke up, jumped around a little and instantly started spending what will be a very long life restoring beautiful classic automobiles, pulling out and washing down a new surprise everyday.

See more: Man buys abandoned farm, finds surprise

Once again, my mind is blown. As most travelers know, in Italy, two things you can always find are pizza joints and ice cream shops. I’ve even read these are two of Italy’s most famous “cults”, a stereotype I’m starting to believe in more and more, especially after seeing the Konopizza. An Italian company has taken the countries two loves and combined them, creating a cone shaped dough ‘pocket’, adhering to the old artisan tradition and creating the Konopizza Oven, a special rotary oven than bakes the Konopizza within 3 minutes, giving the eater a hot, crispy pizza, in a cone, that they can take with them on the go, without making *too* much of a mess. Unfortunately, Konopizza and their patented oven are only available to franchises, but, here’s to hoping a Konopizza opens up nearby soon.

See more: Konopizza

Are you, or do you know a sleepyhead that constantly misses school, meetings or doctors appointments? Then a Clocky is all you need. An awesome little wheeled robotic nuisance, Clocky is an alarm clock for your bedside table, only, it’s on wheels. Clocky gives you one chance to wake up when it’s alarm goes off, if you snooze, it takes off, wheeling around your bedroom bumping into things and causing havoc while still blaring the latest horrible single from Fergie. That is, until you wake up and stop it, either by catching it and turning off the alarm, or hitting it with a golf club.

Read more: Clocky

Located in Norther California, the Monticello Dam’s spillways are the largest in the world. Shaped as a funnel, the spillways allow water to bypass the dam when capacity is reached, preventing flooding and possibly saving a life or three. The Monticello spillways can swallow up to 48,400 cubic feet of water PER SECOND, creating some killer rips, dude.

See more: Photos of the Monticello Dam spillways and more | Monticello Dam entry @ Wikipedia