drop

In 1927, Professor Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland in Australia set out to teach his students a lesson, and that lesson is still going on today and has at least another 100 years to go.

The physics professor wanted to demonstrate to his pupils that solid material could have viscous properties, so he used tar pitch, a derivative of coal once used to waterproof boats, in an experiment to prove his point.

At room temperature, pitch appears to be solid and can even shatter if hit with a hammer, but despite its look and feel, pitch can also flow at room temperature--just really, really slowly.

To conduct the Pitch Drop Experiment, Parnell melted some pitch into a glass funnel with a sealed stem and allowed it to settle for three years. In 1930, the funnel was unsealed, clearing the way for the pitch to flow freely, but it sure did take its sweet time. … Read more

iPad owners searching for software to create Microsoft Office documents now have a new and free app.

The iPad app CloudOn lets you create, edit, and view Microsoft documents using online versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Your documents are stored in the cloud via your DropBox account, letting you access them whenever you're online.

Although it officially hit the App Store on January 3, CloudOn was subsequently taken down when the company bumped into technical difficulties as a result of huge demand. But CloudOn has since caught up with its service issues and is once again ripe for download … Read more

Resizing images is one of those "quick and easy" tasks that can turn into a repetitive chore as you resize an image over and over again in an attempt to get it right. Is there a quicker, easier way? Absolutely, with Moo0's ImageSizer. This free tool quickly resizes images to a specified size, but it can also create multiple images in various sizes at once and save them to a new folder in your specified destination. You can quickly find just the right image and delete all the extras simply by deleting the folder.

ImageSizer has a … Read more

Have you ever wished you had a desktop icon that would do whatever you want it to when you want it to? Like saving different files to different folders based on their name or file type? Or creating custom associations that do everything from rename files to run scripts? And enabling multiple profiles? And is widely customizable, on top of it all? Well, DropIt. No, we're not telling you to give up the quest: we're recommending DropIt, a free, open-source desktop app that does all of the above and more.

We like simple user interfaces, but DropIt takes … Read more

With all the major touch-screen e-ink e-readers now priced at $99, we've been wondering when Sony would give a price chop to its $149 Reader Wi-Fi (PRS-T1). Well, now it has--at least temporarily--dropping the price to $99 till December 24.

I've always liked the Sony Readers and the Reader Wi-Fi received generally high marks in our review, but it's hard to recommend with any enthusiasm when competing products form Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo come in at $50 less.

If $99 still doesn't sound good enough, here's another deal sweetener: Sony will also … Read more

A lot has changed since the Xbox 360 debuted in November 2005. After what has seemed like dozens of upgrades, improvements, omissions, price drops, motion controllers, and bundles, the dust has settled (once again) and we're left with three competitively priced consoles.

Editors' note: This console buying guide was updated on November 23, 2011, for the holiday season.

Such an evenly matched trio of hardware brings up the ultimate question for prospective video game console buyers: which home console should you buy?

This question doesn't necessarily have a definitive answer. Quite frankly, the answer could be any of the three depending on what you're looking for. In other words, there is no default "best console." It's about finding the one that's right for you--and what will be the deciding factor in your case will ultimately depend on what you plan to use the console for. That said, in lieu of detailing every last bit of functionality that each console offers, let's discuss the type of person we think would benefit most from each console. … Read more

A judge dismissed the class action lawsuit against social reviews site Yelp, putting an end to a case filed against it by a group of unhappy business owners.

That suit, which was filed last February, claimed that Yelp was running an "extortion scheme" by asking businesses to pay the company in exchange for the removal of negative reviews, claims denied by Yelp.

"While we were confident that Yelp would ultimately prevail because we knew the allegations were false, it is helpful to have the matter resolved early so we can put these allegations behind us," Yelp … Read more

The next iPhone will be unveiled tomorrow, Facebook partners with Websense to check for malicious links, and a major security vulnerability in HTC Android phones reveals a huge amount of personal data.

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

Netflix launches a video streaming channel for kids, a Chrome extension called Google Related shows content tied to the currently viewed page, and Sony drops the price of all its PlayStation 3 models by $50.

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded: