‘A flying saucer which glides up to 10 metres off the ground and carries two people could be yours for £65,000.
The saucer is powered by eight engines and can reach speeds of over 50mph as it moves gracefully through the air.
The bizarre flying pod, which is the size of a small car, is even able to land on skyscrapers – should the need arise.
It can take off and land vertically, like a helicopter, but it is almost noise-free and has been described by passengers as being “like a magic carpet ride.”
US company Moller International has begun manufacturing the flying saucer and says it has completed more than 200 successful test flights.’
(6.9meg Flash video)
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‘One of the things you get no hint about before you come to Peru but then you find everyone assumes you should know about it once you are here is Chicha Morada.
Any restaurant in Peru will offer this deep purple colored beverage and the natives drink it like a southerner can imbibe Iced Tea. And, after you try it and get used to it’s taste, you’ll admit its damned refreshing. [..]
The drink is made from dark corn that is allowed to soak with the peelings of a large pineapple. Peruvians will use the ‘meat’ of the pineapple for a dish then save all the exterior cuttings as well as the core to use in this drink. Although the drink includes sugar, the pineapple adds a sweet zing to the drink that really sets it apart.’
‘You can have a sofa-bed in your living room, OR, you can have a MobelForm “Transformer” furniture.’
‘At the height of the cold war, amidst talk of radical changes in transportation, a battle cry could be heard from our Soviet neighbors: “We’re Russian, we don’t need no stinking bullet train … we have a jet plane instead” [..]’
‘This gum has no flavor. It is as pointless as life itself. As unsatisfying as your empty shell of an existence. Like everything else on this wretched planet, it is a dead end. A black hole. A bottomless pit of missed opportunity and shattered dreams.
If you agree with any of the above statements, then Nihilist gum is for you. (If you agree with ALL of the statements, then stop reading this page and seek professional help immediately.)’
‘A 75 year old woman from Karlstad in central Sweden has been thrust into the IT history books – with the world’s fastest internet connection.
Sigbritt Löthberg’s home has been supplied with a blistering 40 Gigabits per second connection, many thousands of times faster than the average residential link and the first time ever that a home user has experienced such a high speed.
But Sigbritt, who had never had a computer until now, is no ordinary 75 year old. She is the mother of Swedish internet legend Peter Löthberg who, along with Karlstad Stadsnät, the local council’s network arm, has arranged the connection.’
‘The virtual communities created by online games have provided us with a new medium for social interaction and communication. Avatar Machine is a system which replicates the aesthetics and visuals of third person gaming, allowing the user to view themselves as a virtual character in real space via a head mounted interface. The system potentially allows for a diminished sense of social responsibility, and could lead the user to demonstrate behaviors normally reserved for the gaming environment.’
(2.1meg Flash video)
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‘Last weekend, Kent Couch settled down in his lawn chair with some snacks — and a parachute. Attached to his lawn chair were 105 large helium balloons.
Destination: Idaho.
With instruments to measure his altitude and speed, a global positioning system device in his pocket, and about four plastic bags holding five gallons of water each to act as ballast — he could turn a spigot, release water and rise — Couch headed into the Oregon sky.
Nearly nine hours later, the 47-year-old gas station owner came back to earth in a farmer’s field near Union, short of Idaho but about 193 miles from home.’
A mechanical binary adding machine.
(11.3meg Windows media)
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‘Feast your eyes on the result of weeks of work using the various remains of over a dozen cars — from 80’s BMW’s to a 1990 Toyota Tercel — it’s the glorious Turbo II Junkyard Boogaloo boombox. For those of you who want the gearhead nitty-gritty, the full “How To” is here. For those who just want to see this baby in all of its radical goodness, below you’ll find some documentation of what the Turbo II is and does …
Ninety-two pounds of plywood and car parts joined together as an homage to the homemade car-battery boomboxes used by first-generation break dancers; if you’ve watched the video above you’ve already got the general idea of the Turbo II Junkyard Boogaloo’s features. Read on and we’ll fill you in on the details [..]’
‘The way Hollywood tells the story, if you step through a laser beam then you should expect and alarm to go off and everybody laughs or something. But the way the defense company Ionatron tells the story, if you step through a laser beam things are a lot worse than some bells ringing in your ears.
That’s because this laser is really a laser-induced plasma channel (LIPC) that can conduct electricity. You break the stream and—ZAP—you wake up behind bars to the smell of burnt hair and another man’s aftershave. And that’s what we are calling a best case scenario.
For those interested in purchasing units for home use, remember that all the really cool technology is controlled by the US government…and to stay clear of their buildings after 5pm.’
(1.1meg Flash video)
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These people seem to have rigged up some sorta robot to steer their motorcycle by remote control.
(10.1meg Windows media)
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This walrus has grown very attached to her trainer, and gets jealous when real women get too close to him.
(7.8meg Flash video)
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‘In the most conspicuous sign yet of India’s unprecedented prosperity, the country’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is building a new home in the financial hub of Mumbai: a 60-storey palace with helipad, health club and six floors of car parking.
The building, named Antilla after a mythical island, will have a total floor area greater than Versailles and be home for Mr Ambani, his mother, wife, three children and 600 full-time staff.
Draped in hanging gardens, the building will have a floor for a home theatre, a glass-fronted apartment for guests, and a two-storey health club. As the ceilings are three times as high as a normal building’s, the 173m (570ft) tower will only have 27 floors.’
‘Tim Fofonoff, a 31-year-old grad student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stands at the base of a 50-foot-tall, graffiti-covered rock wall just south of Boston. He’s clipped into the Atlas Powered Rope Ascender, a toaster-size battery-driven device that he and his three co-inventors built themselves. With it, he’s about to do something no one outside of a Hollywood script has done before: rappel up a wall at an astonishing 10 feet per second. He stares hesitantly for a moment at the craggy rock face, presses a small button, and darts off the ground as if he were wearing a cape. Halfway up, he lets go of the button and stops, dangling, a little out of breath–it’s been awhile since his last test, and he’s forgotten what it’s like to fly.’
(4.4meg Flash video)
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‘First, find a large patch of Clover, which isn’t hard to do if you have a lawn or live near a park.
Do not get on your hands and knees with magnifying glass in hand, individually examining each clover. From standing height, look over the entire patch, brushing the clover with your foot to ensure none remain unexposed. If you enjoy math problems, eye-spys, the game “SET”, or any pattern game in general, you’ll be in your element. Amongst all the sets of 3 leaflets, any mutation will stick out like a sore thumb.’
‘I am the leading NEE party senate candidate in Belgium. And due to popular demand, I will give 40,000 blowjobs to anyone who requests one on this page.
It started with our response to incredible claims that were made by other parties in Belgium, several parties promised new job opportunities in ridiculous amounts. We responded with a parody campaign for which I posed naked and promised our voters 400.000 new jobs.
This national campaign resulted in international media attention and I received hundreds of e-mails asking for 400,000 blowjobs. If this would get us even more media attention, I’m willing to give 40,000 blowjobs to make the statement.
According to my planning this would take me 500 days to tour around the world, visiting all the ones who signed up for a blowjob on this page, giving 80 blowjobs per day. So the offer is limited, sign up while you still can.’
‘Cult film production company Hammer Horror is set to be revived after being sold off to a consortium led by Dutch media billionaire Jon de Mol, the creator of Big Brother.
No official price was given for the deal. But sources at Hammer, which created gothic horrors in the 1950s and 1960s such as Dracula, the Curse of Frankenstein and The Mummy, said Cryte Investments, in which Mr de Mol is a major shareholder, got it for a “few million” pounds. The new owners plan to invest at least £25m initially to resurrect the popular British films – and plans are in the pipeline with a UK broadcaster to launch a Hammer Horror TV series.
Cryte also hopes to restart Hammer’s production division and create new films for the first time in more than 30 years.’
I used to love watching Hammer movies.
This is a Rube Goldberg device that makes use of lots of fire and explosions. I like it. 🙂
(15.5meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘These concrete towers were unique AIR RAID SHELTERS of Nazi Germany, built to withstand the destructive power of WWII bombs and heavy artillery. Their cone shape caused bombs to slide down the walls and detonate only at a heavily fortified base.
Cheaper to build above ground than to dig bunkers, they were quite effective, as it was possible to cram as many as 500 people inside. Plus the “footprint” of such tower was very small when observed from the air, so it was very hard for the bombers to ensure a direct hit.’
‘Fun at work?
A helter skelter is an amusement park ride with a slide built in a spiral around a high tower. Users climb the tower and usually slide down on a mat. It is thus similar to a waterless hydroslide…’
‘On January 16, 2007, a dazzling blue flame blasted across the sands of the Mojave desert. In many respects, it looked like an ordinary rocket engine test, but this was different. While most NASA rockets are powered by liquid oxygen and hydrogen or solid chemicals, “we were testing a methane engine,” says project manager Terri Tramel of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). [..]
The main engine, built and fired by the NASA contractor team Alliant Techsystems/XCOR Aerospace, is still in an early stage of development and isn’t ready for space. But if the technology proves itself, methane engines like this one could eventually be key to deep space exploration.
Methane (CH4), the principal component of natural gas, is abundant in the outer solar system. It can be harvested from Mars, Titan, Jupiter, and many other planets and moons. With fuel waiting at the destination, a rocket leaving Earth wouldn’t have to carry so much propellant, reducing the cost of a mission.’
Check out the video.
(3.3meg Windows media)
‘Roll up, roll up and prepare to be dazzled – unless you’re a car-hating arachnophobe. It’s the Spidercar.
Costing $15,000 and twice that amount in work hours, this novel creation took three months to design and six months to build.
Yes, there are some bugs – it’s not the smoothest of rides at the moment and it can only do a top speed of about 5mph.’
see it here »
‘Think your new $1,200 Vista-ready desktop is a bit pricey? Try this on for size: a keyboard that retails for more than $1,500. I’m not talking about your standard, plastic clickity-clak keyboard, mind you. Meet the Optimus Maximus, a much-anticipated — and long-delayed — masterpiece of a keyboard, which has tiny OLED displays on each key that change the layout of the entire keyboard depending on the application you’re running.
The Optimus Maximus first emerged almost two years ago as little more than a lofty concept and some clever graphic renderings of how the dynamic keypad might work. However, while the Maximus looks suspiciously like one of those much-ballyhooed products that never sees the light of day, Engadget is reporting that the keyboard will finally debut in November — albeit in very limited quantities.’
Followup to Optimus keyboard staggeringly expensive.
‘A stream of water is split into two streams and falls through two bottomless cans into two buckets. The falling water creates opposite electrical charges in the buckets, and high voltage arcs jump between them periodically.’
Generating 10-20kV potentials with a dripping pipe and some buckets. Kinda cool. 🙂
(14.4meg Flash video)
see it here »
