Oddball Tech: Go to Mars for free, topless nun on Facebook, and tweeting during a heist

Go to Mars without even leaving your couch

There is a Mars Science Laboratory rover going to — guess where — Mars in 2011. To build interest in this latest space exploration endeavor, NASA has put together a site where you can type in your name and your zip code. That information will be stored on a microchip and will be on the Mars Science Laboratory rover.

Checking out the U.S. participation map, California and Texas are sending the most names to Mars. Those numbers shouldn’t be taken to mean one name per submission. I’ve seen some silly requests sent to NASA including the one above. Looking around the world, the U.S. is sending plenty of names followed by Brazil. The country least interested in sending names to Mars? A country with the code “MQ” which I think is Martinique or “Master Quest” from Zelda.

Congratulations, Gadgetell Readers — you are going to Mars. [Source]

Topless nun on Facebook

The problem with technology is that even jerks can use it. So here’s the story: boy meets girl. She goes topless on the beach. A picture is taken of her. Boy puts picture on Facebook. Couple breaks up and girl wants to become a nun. Girl wants to have picture removed. Boy says, “No.”

The moral of this story: steal everyone’s passwords so you can delete images of yourself from their Facebook pages. [Source]

Prove you’re oblivious in 140 characters or less

“my bank was just held up- with me in it. HSBC 34 and 8. also my whole trackball is GONE!!! im locked in the bank still.” Due to a BlackBerry trackball issue @TravelingAnna was unable to call the police when her bank was the victim of a robbery. So what did she do instead? She tweeted about it. What makes this story strange is that she was tweeting the entire time the bank was being robbed and actually missed the robbery taking place in front of her. “no i didnt hit the floor. i didnt even notice and he was two people in front of me. i suck.”

I’m not sure when typing a message equated into ignoring the rest of the world. (Oh no, my car is being towed as I type this in a coffee shop.)

If this sounds like you and you have an iPhone, maybe you should get “Email ‘n Walk” which activates the iPhone’s camera and overlays your text on what your camera sees. Write and see what’s going on at the same time. [Source] E-mail ‘n Walk: [iTunes link]