April 2007
143 posts
#296; In which Wendy learns Too Much
Thanks to everyone who submitted stories for Machine of Death! Ryan, Matt and I continue to be amazed at the volume of the response. We received well over six hundred submissions totaling around two million words, and we certainly have our work cut out for us. Submitters will be notified starting in June. (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
I Can't Believe I'm Actually Posting This On...
Holy crap, literally! The Turd Twister is one hell of a unique gadget. Remember those Play-Doh machines back in the day that would pump out spaghetti and other shapes in Play-Doh—well this is pretty much identical, but the dough is of a more home-made variety. Pop the Turd Twister of your choice into the poop chute and begin the fun! Anybody watch Sopranos last night? Yeah, Vito, Jr. could really...
New elevator technology
I had a chance to visit 7 World Trade Center today, the newest office high rise to open in New York.
Instead of having up and down buttons outside the elevators, there’s a numeric keypad, where you key in the floor number you’re going to. Then an LED display tells you which elevator to wait for. Once you get in the elevator, you don’t have to press any buttons (and there are...
Marmaduke may or may not have just gotten a...
Marmaduke may or may not have just gotten a tattoo. This upsets his owner-couple, who consider themselves to be extremely straitlaced (despite the fact that they apparently enjoy dry-humping in front of tattoo parlors in broad daylight). (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
WebFS
WebFS is a “web services protocol used to exchange files and associated metadata between web applications and services. It’s primary intentions are to allow the free-flow of files and data between web services and applications.”
I’m sitting next to Nick Cubrilovic of Omnidrive, who is developing this protocol as an interface to his service, and is working on an open...
The He/ She Ratio
A site’s he/ she ratio is measured by counting the number of pages on the domain containing the word “he”, then searching for the number containing “she”, and then looking at the two numbers in comparison. For instance, the Google search site:cnn.com he returns about 1,160,000 results, and site:cnn.com she returns 335,000 results, meaning “he” makes up around 78% of the CNN pages containing either...
pix of RATM @ Coachella, 2ND NYC RAGE SHOW ADDED +...
As you probably heard, Rage Against the Machine reunited and played the last set at Coachella last night…
And in related good news….
In response to the 20-minute sell-out of the previously announced Saturday, July 28 Randall’s Island/New York City date, Guerilla Union in conjunction with Live Nation have revealed they will add a second ROCK THE BELLS festival show at the...
POLITICS: Fuck John McCain
Volume 7 of the FTR series in which he puts the word “fuck” in front of a presidential candidate’s name.
At one point in time I was a big fan of John McCain. He was one tough son of a bitch. I was a bartender at a small McCain fundraiser (maybe twenty people) and I heard him speak. He was quite simply, the best politician I had ever heard. He was smart, honest and extremely...
Design Concept: Bubble Head Web Cam, The...
At first glance we thought these were pencil sharpeners, but this Webcam concept by Nanjing OIOI Design still has more functionality than just shooting video. These odd designs also incorporate a clock around the lens, and have stubby little flexible arms that can hold a pencil, pen or message.
Designed for the wee ones, we especially like the Superman design—check it out after the jump.
...
Want To Work At Google?
ramboando writes “In an article on the ZDNet site ‘chief culture officer’ and HR boss Stacy Savides Sullivan describes the kind of traits that she’s looking for in potential Google employees. If you’re thinking about applying, she also goes over what kind of questions one might be asked in an interview, Google’s ‘happiness survey’ and the best perks...
RAID 0 in a Macbook Pro
Putting a RAID 0 (striped) disk array in your laptop is a double edged sword. One the one hand, it’s twice as likely to have a disk failure. One the other hand, it can make disk-bound activity, such as uncompressed video reading and writing, much faster. Frankly, with processor, bus and memory speeds as fast as they are, disk IO is often times the weakest link… which makes that...
Jeremy Forson rips off Carson Ellis
All posts on Jeremy Forson’s website are from 2007.
I saw this on his portfolio website, and was immediately reminded of something.
Carson Ellis is an artist from Portland. She’s in a relationship with Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, and has done many album covers for the band.
Her artwork for The Decemberist’s 2002 release, Castaways and Cutouts:
(via Jason’s shared items in Google...
The Sea Organ
The Sea Organ in Zadar, Croatia, is the world’s first pipe organ that is played by the sea. Carved in the stone quayside, the movement of the sea pushes air through, and – depending on the size and velocity of the wave – musical chords are played. The waves create random harmonic sounds. Along with more pictures, this site has a sound file of the organ in action and it sounds surprisingly...
Twitter as coral reef
Calling a technology a coral reef is the highest compliment I can pay.
Here’s how the story goes. Scattered throughout tropical seas are coral reefs that started when a ship sank and sea creatures made it their home. Then the predators of those creatures started hanging out, and their predators, all the way up the food chain. Eventually, if the ocean climate was right, a coral reef...
Blood puddle pillows
These pool of blood pillows would be fun for Halloween sleep overs, the dog likes them too - Thanks numlok! Link.
[Read this article] [Comment on this article] (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
First Photos from Apple iPhone?
An unusual story has popped up on MobileGuerilla claiming to have found the first photos from an Apple iPhone on the web.
The search method seemed rather primitive… they simply searched for “taken with an Apple iPhone” on Google and … (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
Turn WordPress blogs into Commodore 64s
Cory Doctorow:
Rod McFarland’s “Commodore” theme for WordPress turns your blog into a command-line driven Commodore 64 interface. It’s endlessly fascinating and deliciously pointless.
Link
(Thanks, Rod!)
(via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
Director Ace Norton rips off Director Michel...
Scope out this blatent rip off Dir Ace Norton tries to pull off in his Norah Jones music video “Thinking of You” by shoddy attemps at executing everything Director Michel Gondry is known for. To start off with the entire premise is super similar to Gondry’s Bjork video “Bachelorette” where a soul female tells her story to a attentive audience which also is being watched by another audience...
CELEB: Calls After Midnight: Kurt Cobain Reached...
Before his death in 1994, Kurt Cobain once placed a late night call to Stooges frontman Iggy Pop and left the wiley singer a message asking if the pair could team up sometime soon for a studio collaboration. Pop claims he made repeated attempts to contact the Nirvana frontman but to no avail.
The 60-year-old says, “He called me up once at two in the morning. But this was when I was old...
Inside "Inside Facebook"
One of the nice thing about being a magazine writer who also has access to a clean, well-lighted space on the internet, is that I get to resurrect some of tasty tidbits of reporting which get cut in the… (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
New Beirut Video - "Elephant Gun"
Beirut should win honors with this vid for ‘best depiction of mustachioed debauchery set to a ukulele-accordion waltz.’ The clip’s preview pics had us expecting some fancy threads, S&M poses, and ticker-tape confetti, but the ensemble’s dance moves (save Zach) are an unexpectedly excellent touch. So is the can-dragging beachside stroll and festive elephant trunks (just...
Pi piano solo
Each digit of pi was assigned a note and then played to 1,000 places - it’s catchy! Link & more math songs here.
[Read this article] [Comment on this article] (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
Six Basic Truths of Free APIs
By Nat Torkington
Amazon and Google have recently shattered a common misconception: that free APIs are a commons of goodies to be built on top of for fun and profit, like open source software. If you think that, then here are six things you need to know about free APIs:
Free APIs are not a god-given right. Businesses offer them for their own self-interested reasons. If you build on...
Video: Who Can Tow A Plane Faster? An Elephant Or...
The age old question of who can pull a plane quicker, an elephant or a bunch of midgets has finally been answered. (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
The Human Machine.
Freddy Human Machine Man - video powered by Metacafe
This is a TV capaign for an Italian sportswear company, but it’s fun to watch. Link -via Ursi’s Blog (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
Sympathy for the Devil
There are few things as thrilling as the story of a dramatic escape, especially one with a happy ending. It is understandable, therefore, that the public is often disappointed and critical when a kidnapping victim found alive is revealed to have had seemingly enough contact with the outside world to make such an escape. Stories of survival can feel ruined when there turns out to have been what...
Mean Time Between Failures
Last week’s shooting tragedy at Virginia Tech brought back memories for me — memories I would rather had remained forgotten. Twenty-five years ago I was teaching at Stanford University and one of my students was clearly disturbed. I don’t want to dwell too much on the details, but from the beginning there was something odd about him. Then the women in the class began to...
The Big Lebowski Action Figures
Do we even need to explain how excited we are about these? The Big Lebowski Urban Achiever 8-Inch Action Figure Set ($34; Oct. 2007) features The Dude and Walter, along with extras like their bowling… (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
Funny coffee mugs to animalize your face
David Pescovitz:
Attua Aparicio Torinos designed a line of funny white coffee mugs with cartoon animal parts on the bottom. Also available in pig and rabbit for £10.00 from Thorsten Van Elten. Link
(via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
Helpful distortion at NYC & London subway maps
Eddie Jabbour, graphic designer for Kick Design, is obsessed with replacing the confusing NYC subway map (below: originals on left and Kick maps on right — click for larger versions).
The logic behind the changes “Can He Get There From Here?” profiles Jabbour’s quest. Here he explains the reasoning for his changes:
Mr. Jabbour pinned two maps to the wall, then pointed to the...
Map of the Day: Twin Towers Diaspora
Jeremy Olshan created this map, the Twin Towers Diaspora, which gives an interesting overview of where former tenants of the World Trade Center have moved after September 11, 2001. Some have stayed in Manhattan, but others have moved to the outer-boroughs and out of the state. You can click on the markers to see the company name and where the company was originally located in the WTC.
Tenant...
Highway Engineer Pranks
(via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
I spent 24 hours in NYC and all I got was an...
I went to New York City this past Thursday and Friday to find an apartment for the Summer. I met a broker through the SA Forums who worked for Citi Habitats in New York that helped get it all figured out. I ended up getting a place on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, furnished, for four months, at (what I consider) a reasonable price. So that’s good. Let’s take a tour: ...
Weird Kid Shines During Dissection Project
PONCA CITY, OK—Hollis’ crooked glasses and musty odor were all but forgotten as he briefly transcended his social awkwardness in a recent dazzling display of frog dissection. (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
Errol Morris' Miller High Life Commercials Are...
We like these Miller High Life ads by Errol Morris.
They’re simple and relatable and connect with certain quintessential, working class, Midwestern truths.
“Bounty” extols the virtues of having a meal of a uniform color. As an aside, the customer puts salt in his beer. When we saw that, we knew they had done their research.That’s what our grandpa does to put head on...
Video: Nazi Robot Attack
This animation is featuring a Nazi robot in WWII is of better quality than some Hollywood movies and I bet it didn’t cost $350m to make. [Thanks Russ] (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
Skybus - New Zero-Frills Airline With $10 Tickets
Skybus is a new airline launched today boasting $10 tickets, but you get what you pay for.
Want to check luggage? First two backs are $5 each. Next one is $50.
Outside food and drink are prohibited (good luck enforcing that one. I’m sorry sir, we’re going to have to turn this plane around if you don’t dispose of your sandwich).
Inflight entertainment: “Bring a...
Roger Ebert: I ain't a pretty boy no more and so...
This is truly inspirational.
Roger Ebert’s salivary gland cancer spread to his right lower jaw. Part of his mandible had to be removed. It’s not pretty and he can’t speak.
Tomorrow night his Ninth Annual Overlooked Film Festival opens at the University of Illinois at Urbana.
Most folks in this condition (especially public figures) would stay away from the event in order to hide from...
TWITTER: A history of blogging
Alex Haislip, of Private Equity Week, takes a break from venture capital tedium, to analyze the evolution of blogging. Twitter, the latest iteration of the medium, is less revolutionary than one might think. The new blogging platform from Evan Williams, inventor of Blogger, allows for easier and more frequent updates. But the subject matter is much the same. (via Jason’s shared items in...
'Kryptonite' Discovered in Serbian Mine
Rubinstien writes “A mineralogist at London’s Natural History Museum was contracted to help identify an unknown mineral found in a Serbian mine. While he initially thought the miners had discovered a unique compound, after its crystal structure was analyzed and identified the researcher was shocked to find the material already referenced in literature. Fictional literature. Dr. Chris...
Dojo Offline Toolkit Released
By Brady Forrest
On Monday, the Dojo Offline Toolkit launched. It’s a new addition to the Dojo Javascript Toolkit, an Ajax framework. Here’s their description of the Offline Toolkit:
Dojo Offline is a free, open source toolkit that makes it easy for web applications to work offline. It consists of two pieces: a JavaScript library bundled with your web page and a small (~300K)...
Gilbert and Sullivan's "Baby Got Back"
Cory Doctorow:
MPH Tower remixed some Gilbert and Sullivan film footage (Pirates of Penzance?) with a rousing, Victorian-style cover of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” and the resulting video is pure hilarity. They editing is really tight, and the song is really well done.
Link
(via Making Light)
(via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
Tourfilter
Tourfilter searches club websites and sends you email when your favourite bands come to town. The site covers around two dozen cities around the world with the majority in the US. [via] (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
Fuel
Imagine you could make fuel out of poor people. The only downside is that the poor people have to be converted to a combustible liquid in the process. Imagine that although there are many alternatives to using poor people as fuel, those alternatives cost way more. In fact, the alternatives are so much more expensive, widespread use would impact your standard of living by about twenty percent.
...
The OK Button
OK, that was easy. I may have finally figured out which is my favorite button.
The OK button.
It’s universal, ubiquitous, friendly, decisive, connected. It’s on your screen, it’s in your pocket. It’s everywhere. It’s you and the machine having a casual conversation. “How’s this?” “OK!” We probably say OK dozens of times each day without realizing it. It’s a word that requires two people, the...
21st century advertising
This is what I’ve been talking about.
In the future, advertising will be so entertaining that it will create its own pull. No need to intrude, to hitch a ride on other more compelling content.
8/3/06: “If it’s perfectly targeted, it isn’t advertising, it’s information. Information is welcome, advertising is offensive.” (via Jason’s shared items...
MUSIC: The Decemberists Go Orchestral
Despite the fact that the the Decemberists achieve a huge, full sound both recorded and live Colin Meloy and his band of merry pranksters have decided to take the next sonic step; play some shows with a full orchestra.
The idea for the orchestral shows was inspired by LA Philharmonic program manager Johanna Rees who’s put orchestral shows together for Dead Can Dance and Belle and Sebastian....
New International Trailer for "Harry Potter...
There’s a new trailer out today, originally only shown on AOL UK - but since when have Potter fans let that stop them?
Enjoy! (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
LET'S GO TO THE VIDEOTAPE
(via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)
Vatican decides not to believe in limbo any longer
Mark Frauenfelder:
A Vatican panel has issued a report that concludes that unbaptized babies go to Heaven, not limbo, as the Catholic church has been claiming for centuries.
In the 5th century, St. Augustine declared that all unbaptized babies went to hell upon death. By the Middle Ages, the idea was softened to suggest a less severe fate, limbo.
In his Divine Comedy, Dante characterized limbo...