moonbuggy

‘I just happened to be standing in the line of fire, when my mother hit my uncles arm with the wiimote, which then caused her to throw the wiimote at mii as I was filming.’

(1.8meg Flash video)

see it here »

see it here »

`A cell phone became a lifeline for a Detroit man who woke up inside a garbage truck that had begun compacting its load, Oak Park, Mich., police said.

The man, 41, was scavenging for cans and bottles in the city’s Dumpsters when he apparently fell asleep, Lt. Mike Pousak said. He was awakened after the Dumpster he was in was unloaded into a garbage truck at about 2 p.m. Thursday. The man, whose name was not released, used his cell phone to call 911.

Pousak said the man didn’t know where he was, but that he hadn’t been drinking, and he isn’t homeless. The man is, however, unemployed.’

`2. The part of the brain that regulates reasoning, impulse control and judgment is still under construction during puberty and doesn’t shift into autopilot until about age 25. [..]

6. Cheese consumption in the United States is expected to grow by 50 percent between now and 2013. [..]

8. The U.S. government has paid about $1.5 billion in benefits to thousands of sick nuclear-weapons workers since 2001. [..]

13. Ancient humans from Asia may have entered the Americas following an ocean highway made of dense kelp. [..]

50. Researchers from the University of Manchester managed to induce teeth growth in normal chickens – activating genes that have lain dormant for 80 million years.’

This robot manages to hit baseballs, which is pretty cool.

I wonder how many misses they had to edit out of the video though. [shrug] 🙂

see it here »

Apparently due to digital remastering of old movies, you can now see Sean Connery’s penis in what looks to be a James Bond movie.

Underwater stiffy. Haha!

I’m not entirely convinced it’s legit, and I don’t have access to the Something Awful forum where it orginated, so I don’t have any more details at the moment. It’ll be a mystery for now. 🙂

`THE next generation disk format has been settled once and for all. Thanks to the due diligence, hard work and unprecedented cooperation between the media companies, the hardware vendors and the OS vendor, we finally have a solution. It is quite easy, Piracy, the better choice(TM).

Yes, in a year where Sony rootkitted it’s customers, lied to my face about their actions (hi John, still have your number, kisses), and fell flat with anything related to Blu-Ray, things couldn’t get worse right? Well, the other camp, HD-DVD is only slightly less nasty, but still unacceptable. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they both failed in the market. [..]

In the mean time, Piracy, the better choice ™ flourishes. [..]’

`Pull back the red curtain and dim the lights. It’s the 9th annual presentation of the Wired News Vaporware Awards, our ode to the year’s top technology products promised, hyped and scheduled, but not delivered.’

`It’s Saturday night in Middlesbrough, England, and drunken university students are celebrating the start of the school year, known as Freshers’ Week.

One picks up a traffic cone and runs down the street. Suddenly, a disembodied voice booms out from above:

“You in the black jacket! Yes, you! Put it back!” The confused student obeys as his friends look bewildered.

“People are shocked when they hear the cameras talk, but when they see everyone else looking at them, they feel a twinge of conscience and comply,” said Mike Clark, a spokesman for Middlesbrough Council who recounted the incident. The city has placed speakers in its cameras, allowing operators to chastise miscreants who drop coffee cups, ride bicycles too fast or fight outside bars.’

`A one-month-old baby has been checked and cleared by a Los Angeles hospital after being put through an airport X-ray machine.

Authorities at Los Angeles International Airport say an inexperienced traveler mistakenly put her grandson through a carry-on luggage screener.

A startled security worker noticed the shape of a child and immediately pulled the baby out. A spokesman for LAX says the incident Saturday was an innocent mistake.’

‘Swiss man takes to the skies with wings and a jetpack. The dream of flight has dominated man’s imagination since time began. Now Yves Rossy from Switzerland says he has become the first person to gain altitude and maintain a stable, horizontal flight thanks to aerodynamic carbon foldable wings. The wings which have a 3 metre span have two kerosene-powered engines attached which propel the passenger.’

see it here »

`[An Australian] court ruling has given the recording industry the green light to go after individuals who link to material from their websites, blogs or MySpace pages that is protected by copyright.

A full bench of the Federal Court yesterday upheld an earlier ruling that Stephen Cooper, the operator of mp3s4free.net, as well as the internet service provider that hosted the website, were guilty of authorising copyright infringement because they provided a search engine through which a user could illegally download MP3 files.

The website did not directly host any copyright-protected music, but the court held that simply providing links to the material effectively authorised copyright infringement.’

`Everything on the desk was blackened with soot and burned either partially or completely. Three external hard drives, a digital camera, videotapes, papers, CD’s, etc. The floor, wall, and radiator cover were burned, along with the tabletop.

Every cable that was connected to the laptop, Ethernet, Firewire, Power, and USB, was forcibly shot out of each portal, and each portal covered with the black soot. Metal bits and electronic debris from the power cable hub and other cables was scattered around the room and some wires had split apart into copper shreds. Molten silver metal flecks are still lodged in the windowsill.

A supervisor arrived later that day and after surveying the scene and materials, conceded that their company had caused the accident. He noted, in particular, the internally fried coaxial cable.’

`The initial idea involved a pair of old sneakers, repurposed, to dynamically manipulate a sound file. Basically I wanted to build shoes that would BOOM! when you walked. The louder you stomp the louder the BOOM! In a sense — “giant” shoes.’

`Underground hackers are hawking zero-day exploits for Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system at $50,000 a pop, according to computer security researchers at Trend Micro.

The Windows Vista exploit—which has not been independently verified—was just one of many zero-days available for sale at an auction-style marketplace infiltrated by the Tokyo-based anti-virus vendor.

In an interview with eWEEK, Trend Micro’s chief technology officer, Raimund Genes, said prices for exploits for unpatched code execution flaws are in the $20,000 to $30,000 range, depending on the popularity of the software and the reliability of the attack code.’

`If you’ve ever had a great idea for a sexual aid, or wondered where new sex toys come from, you should check out some of the patents on file with the United States Patent Office. Here we’ve collected some of the best. With many of these items, you can discern their roots in household items and basement workshops and see the DIY ethic in action. Let them be an inspiration to us all!’

`The CALM-COW® is a device for immobilization and anesthetization of cattle. The CALM-COW® is not an electroshock device. Weak electromagnetic waves are generated, whereby the animal is gently and safely immobilized – without harming the animal and without side effects. Watch our video to see for yourself. [..]

As soon as the rectal probe is removed, the animal returns to normal. ‘

The video is probably NSFW, the rest is fine.

(3.7meg Windows media)

Honda’s little humanoid robot doesn’t like the stairs so much. 🙂

see it here »

`What’s it for? Good luck answering that question. There is scientific research to be done on the moon, but this could be accomplished by automatic probes or occasional astronaut visits at a minute fraction of the cost of a permanent, crewed facility. Astronauts at a moon base will spend almost all their time keeping themselves alive and monitoring automated equipment, the latter task doable from an office building in Houston. In deadpan style, the New York Times story on the NASA announcement declared, “The lunar base is part of a larger effort to develop an international exploration strategy, one that explains why and how humans are returning to the moon and what they plan to do when they get there.” Oh–so we’ll build the moon base first, and then try to figure out why we built it.’

`Need a hug? Well scientists have developed a Hug Shirt that can cuddle and hug. The shirt employs new technology that lets the wearer remotely hug another user via use of Bluetooth.

Nominated as one of the best Inventions of 2006 by Time Magazine! the device is activated when a friend sends you a virtual hug. The wearers cell phone notifies the shirt wirelessly, via Bluetooth technology and then re-creates that person’s distinctive hug, replicating his or her warmth, pressure, duration and even heartbeat.’

`A lawmaker in this firearm-friendly state wants to help more people get the chance to shoot live animals – even if those people can’t see.

A bill filed for the 2007 legislative session would permit legally blind hunters to use laser sights, or lighted pointing instruments.

“This opens up the fun of hunting to additional people, and I think that’s great,” said Republican Rep. Edmund Kuempel, the bill’s sponsor.’

`Bihari: most officially dead person

Lal Bihari (born 1961) is a farmer from Uttar Pradesh, India who was officially dead from 1976 to 1994. He founded Mritak Sangh or the Association of the Dead in Uttar Pradesh, India. He fought Indian government bureaucracy for 18 years to prove that he is alive. [..]

Bawden: the self-elected Pope Michael I, from Kansas

[..] Sedevacantists argue that if the College of Cardinals will not or cannot elect a valid pope, ordinary Catholics can do so, under the principle of “Epikeia” (Equity). Acting on the basis of this, David Bawden was elected Pope by six people on 1990 (including himself and his parents). He is still on the job to this day.’

`The CSIRO ICT Centre today announced that it has achieved over six gigabits per second over a point to point wireless connection with the highest efficiency (2.4bits/s/Hz) ever achieved for such a system. [..]

Dr Jay Guo, Director of the Wireless Technologies Laboratory at CSIRO said that this breakthrough is just a first stage towards direct connections of up to 12 gigabits per second. [..]

The system operates at 85GHz in the millimetre-wave part of the electromagnetic spectrum (above 55 GHz) which offers the potential for these enormous speeds and is not yet congested by other uses.’

`Brain scans could help predict schizophrenia, research suggests.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans have revealed key changes in the brain’s grey matter in a small group before they developed symptoms.

The finding suggests tracking these changes over time, combined with traditional assessments, could help doctors to predict illness.’

`After being invited to take part in a design exhibition on the theme of a Bordello, Dominic Wilcox came up with his own take on the subject.

This Leather clad washing machine and saddle aims bring the fun back to housework.

Instructions: After turning the dial to the required setting, press the ‘on’ button and climb into the saddle with your legs at the front of the machine.’

`The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone’s microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a “roving bug,” and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia.’

`Australian technology users have rated Telstra as the worst tech company in the country, a survey has found. [..]

According to Ross, 1600 Telstra Bigpond customers were surveyed for the best internet service provider (ISP) category, but only 54 per cent said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the company’s customer support.

Further, half of the Bigpond customers surveyed said they wouldn’t recommend the ISP to a friend.

By contrast, the winner of the best ISP category, Internode, received a 97 per cent satisfaction rating and 97 per cent of its customers said they would recommend the ISP to a friend.’

`Israel is using nanotechnology to try to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase, photograph and kill its targets, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.

The flying robot, nicknamed the “bionic hornet,” would be able to navigate its way down narrow alleyways to target otherwise unreachable enemies such as rocket launchers, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth said.

It is one of several weapons being developed by scientists to combat militants, it said. Others include super gloves that would give the user the strength of a “bionic man” and miniature sensors to detect suicide bombers.’

`The design studio behind the famed Optimus keyboard, Artemy Lebedev, has unveiled the initial price of the cut-back Optimus-103. It will cost US$1,200.

“RIP,” states one participant of the official Optimus keyboard log. “You mean $120?” one hopeful suggests.

Others seem to echo these feelings of doubt, one fan saying “I am in total shock,” and another declaring this as the last straw “That’s it. I’m out.”‘

Followup to Optimus keyboard.

So, that new Nintendo Wii apparently comes with some wireless controlling device. Already many people have managed to throw their Wii controller through their television screen or house windows. And here’s some pictures of damage done. 🙂

e.g. `We were playing Wii and drinking at a friend’s house whose parents were out of town. My friend wanted to play. She is a shitty drunk. Only after one drink. Swung the controller in home run derby… lost grip. Strap broke. TV cracked. Remote still works…. I’m impressed.’