Marine life under the Antarctic Ice flows

Found this amazing photo essay of marine life living under the Antarctic Ice flows. The photographer, Norbert Wu, worked in Antarctica from 1982 to 1996. He took these off of the coast of Antarctica in partnership with the U.S. National Science Foundation. The photos in the slide show and more are available in his book, Under Antarctic Ice.
Check out the slide show at Time magazine: Life Beneath Antarctic Ice

If you want more photos of Antarctica, check out Dry Valleys of Antarctica

Cell phones save a life

I'm sure you have heard of people using the back light on their cell phone as a temporary flashlight. I've even done it myself. That back light can be pretty bright.

This apparently happened to a group of surgeons in Argentina. It seems that they were in the middle of an appendix operation when the lights went out. For some reason the backup generators didn't kick in immediately like they were supposed to. So a family member gathered up the cell phones of people in the hallway outside of the operating room and used them to provide light for the surgeons. The surgeons were then able to continue the surgery with the light provided by the cell phones. Pretty amazing.

Via EnGadget and Rueters.

What I'm listening to: Matisyahu - Youth

Lately, I've been listening to Matisyahu quite a bit. His music is a little different, and he doesn't fit any particular genre. Most of the music world can't quite decide what to classify him as. Because of that, you probably won't hear his music on any terrestrial radio stations. I would classify his music as reggae, with a little rap thrown in.
Despite not being played on the radio much, he is getting a lot of recognition in the music world for the quality of his performances, and the lyrics of his music. His songs are really amazing. Watch the music video of Jerusalem below to see what I mean.

Check out his MySpace Music page for more samples of his music: Matisyahu
Also, here is a link to the CD on Amazon: Matisyahu - Youth

The smile trainer

Do you have a strange or weird smile? If you do, then this is probably the product you need. From the land that brought you square watermelons and personal mech suits, comes the smile trainer. Just put this little strip of rubber in your mouth, and it will help train your facial muscles to have the perfect smile. This is one of those products, that could only come from Japan. I just can't see any American company selling this. LOL

Via TokyoMango: Rubber Gadget Teaches You How to Smile

The history of house cats

The Smithsonian magazine has a great article about the history of house cats. Cats have been around humans almost as long as dogs. The ancient Egyptians revered them as sacred, mummified them when they died and buried them in special cemeteries. Today there are about 90 million house cats in the US.

The best quote in the entire article was by Carlos Driscoll, one of the researchers studying the history of cats. He said,

"We think what happened is that the cats sort of domesticated themselves"

That single quote, so fits the image of a house cat.

Check it out: A Brief History of House Cats

Redheads protest Wendy's racist mascot

50 redheads in New York got together and rode the subway to a Wendy's to protest its racist mascot. Videos and pictures of the entire event are posted at Improv Everywhere. The entire event was staged the Improve everywhere group as a joke. Of course, no one but the "protesters" knew it was a joke. Some bystanders even got in on the action without knowing it was all staged. Pretty funny.
Via The Presurfer: Redheads

Harptallica: Harp renditions of Metallica favorites

Harptallica is a Metallica cover band with a bit of a twist. All of their music is done with harps. The video above is their rendition of "The Unforgiven," one of the classic Metallica songs from the self titled black album. The music actually is pretty good. Who would have thought that Metallica songs would sound so good as harp music.
Check out their official site for more songs you can listen to. Harptallica

Bionic Hands: Soon we will all be cyborgs

A company in the UK called Touch Bionics, has developed the first artificial hand with individually powered digits. The hand is controlled entirely by the nerves that remain in the patients arm. So a person who has this hand installed can receive almost the full use from the prosthetic that they had from their own original hand. Pretty cool.

Via Engadget: Touch Bionics i-LIMB bionic hand

FoneJacker prank call

This is seriously one of the funniest videos I've seen. Kayvan Novak, a comedian in the UK has created a hilarious video to go with a prank call he makes to an electronics store. In the call, he pretends to be a foreigner, who thinks he must pronounce the many acronyms used by the electronics industry just as they are spelled. So DVD comes out Doovde.
He so frustrates the store clerk, who had the bad luck of answering the phone, that the clerk ends up hanging up. Apparently the video is for a new show called FoneJacker.

Via Nothing To Do With Arbroath: Joovc Doovdé Player

Wooden Supercar made by furniture company

JapanProbe has a story about a Japanese supercar made entirely out of wood. Apparently it is a promotional vehicle made by a furniture company in Japan. The car has a max speed of 80km/h. It's pretty cool looking.
The video below is in Japanese, but it does show the car in action.


Via JapanProbe: Japanese Wooden Supercar

Obesity map: 1985-2004

CNN has a very interesting map showing the increase in Obesity rates across the nation. it's an interactive map. So to see other years besides the one from my screen capture above, you will need to click the link to the CNN website. It's amazing how fast our nation has put on the weight. Maybe it's time for the old US to go on a diet.

CNN: Obesity in the US

Diving the Blue Hole

I'm not really into diving, but seeing these pictures makes me want to get into it. The Blue Hole in the lighthouse reef system off of Belize is an almost perfectly circular sinkhole directly in the reef. The hole goes down over 400 feet, and is the entrance to an underwater cave system. It just looks absolutely amazing with the dark blue water surrounded by the lighter blue of the reef. You can read all about the hole and diving opportunities at the following site.



The Great Blue Hole at Lighthouse Reef

Power outages in San Francisco

Yesterday afternoon a major power outage in San Francisco took many popular websites down. Sites affected included CraigsList, TypePad, and LiveJournal. The most surprising thing in all of the outages, was not that the power went down, but rather that the backup systems for many of these sites failed completely. Companies spend fortunes to provide backup power systems and redundancy for their servers. To have all of that redundancy fail at the same time is unprecedented. It just shows us how fragile our information infrastructure is.
Power Outages In San Francisco Bring Down Major Websites

Blog image resources

A few people have asked me where to find free images and graphics they can use for their blogs. So I thought I would list a few of the ones I've found and use.

• MorgueFile: Tons of free images and pictures you can use for both personal and business purposes. All of the images are tagged for easy searching. And searches return easy to see thumbnails. This is where I usually go to find images. It's not required, but most of the images have an email address where you can email the the photographer who posted the image and let him/her know that you are using the image.
  
  
• Stock.XCHNG: Much like MorgueFile, stock.xchng has tons of images in an easily searchable format. Again, all images are available for personal and commercial use on your website or blog.
  
  
• YotoPhoto: This site indexes free images from many different sites, including the morguefile site listed above. You can easily do a search for any topic, and the results will be listed in thumbnail form along with the license the image was released under. Make sure you pay attention to the license, as some licenses are more restrictive than others. What I like about this site is that each license is listed under the thumbnail as a link to the license definition. So if you aren't sure about what restrictions a particular license has, you can simply click on the link.
  
  
• ImageAfter: Tons of images in an easily searchable format. ImageAfter also has many textures and patterns in its database that you can use. Again, all images are available for personal and commercial use on your website or blog.
  
  
• Wikimedia Commons: Wikimedia has images and graphics on nearly any topic you can imagine. Most of the photos on this site are public domain. So you are free to use them for anything you want. Again though, make sure you read the license before just using them.
  
  
• Uncle Sam's Photos: A massive index site of US government photos. All in the public domain. Very useful.
  
  
• Public-Domain-Photos: A huge collection of public domain photos in easy to navigate categories.
  
  
• PD Photo: Another large collection of public domain photos. All organized in easy to navigate categories.
  
  
• Flickr: If you go to the advanced search page and scroll to the bottom, you can select searching for images with creative commons licenses. Again, there are several different CC licenses, so pay attention to the license. But if you are using the image for a personal blog or website, you can usually use any CC licenses image. Just make sure you read the terms for possible restrictions.
  
  

Harry Potter release madness

Saturday the 21st was the official release date for the 7th book of the Harry Potter series. The above video is of the local Barnes and Noble bookstore in Pensacola Florida late Friday night as people waited for the book to go on sale. The three girls at the 5:40 mark are my little sisters. They made my Dad take them to the release and wait with them until midnight to buy the book.

Americans not the tallest anymore

It seems that many European nations can now claim the title of having the tallest people in the world. At one time the US held the title of tallest people in the world by a big lead. Look at the chart above. In recent times, that lead has decreased and at this point the US has fallen behind.
Scientists claim that a persons height is a complex combination of both nutrition and genetics. one of the reasons often cited for the lead that US citizens had in the height is good nutrition. As nutrition standards have decreased in the US, it isn't all that surprising that it would fall behind.

Americans once tallest — but not anymore

Mars Rovers stuck in a sand storm

It seems that the two Nasa explorer robots are stuck in sand storms that are hampering their ability to collect power from the sun. According to the Nasa report, 99 percent of the sun is being blocked out. If you saw my previous post about a sand storm in Iraq, you will have some idea of how hard it could be to get a clear patch of sunlight. The rovers were initially sent to Mars back in 2004. Their first mission being to find evidence of water on the planet. Both have gone through numerous software updates to increase their autonomy and fault tolerance. Currently both Spirit and Opportunity are stuck in the sand storms, though Opportunity is feeling the worst of it.

Check out the Nasa report here: Mars Rovers Caught in Severe Dust Storm
For a historical background on the rovers, check the Wikepedia article: Mars Exploration Rover

Rice Paddy art

Farmers in the town of Inakadate grow rice that has different colored leaves to make intricate pictures and paintings in their rice paddies. Some of the pictures are absolutely amazing. Inakadate is a small town in Japan that draws thousands of tourists each year with its intricate rice art.



For more pics go here

Copyright law boiled down to a simple drawing

Erik J. Heels, a patent and trademark attorney, drew this simple drawing to explain copyright law to the daughter of a friend of his. It's the most simple and straightforward representation of copyright law I've ever seen. So I thought I would re-post it here, and direct you to check out his site where he explains the entire drawing.

Drawing That Explains Copyright Law

Tiger attack with 12 foot leap!

The amazing video above shows a tiger leaping 12 feet into the air to attack a forest ranger who was sitting on top of an elephant. It seems that a rogue tiger had been reported in the area, and a team was sent out to deal with it. Tigers being a protected species, they were not planning to kill it.

The tiger was tracked to the field in the video, where an attempt to take it down with a tranquilizer dart was made. The ranger who fired the dart, missed. This so enraged the tiger, that it attacked.

After the attack, the video cuts off, but the rest of the story has the park ranger who was attacked and another park ranger falling off the elephant they were riding. At which point the elephant attacked the tiger in defense of the rangers on the ground. Eventually the tiger was driven off. The ranger who was attacked lost three fingers and had bad lacerations on his arm and side.

For the entire story, check out Terryorisms: Tiger Attack Video & Story

Comments

This is a post for those of you who read this site but never comment. I know you read this blog, because I see the hits, but I rarely get any comments or feedback. Comment! Tell me what you think. I really want to know. If you think a post is good, bad, cool, stupid, interesting, or funny, let me know. Comments and feedback would give me a much better idea of what people think of this blog. So if you don't mind, please comment.

Role Playing Flowchart

If you are into role playing games, the flowchart above should bring you some chuckles. Of course, if you have never played role playing games, you probably wont get it. Suffice it say, that if you rip out all of the extraneous eye candy and pompous mood setting words of any role playing game, you would be left with the above list of actions.

Via The Great Geek Manual: The Ultimate D&D Gaming Cycle Flowchart
You can download a much larger version of the chart to use as a background at the above site.

Roller coaster comic inspires real life

xkcd is one of my favorite web comics. One of the best strips in my opinion is the above one about roller coasters. We've all posed for the cameras when we are on a roller coaster. So this comic really hits home.
Now a group of people have followed the directions from the comic and have posted their own pictures imitating the strip. Pretty cool.



Check out the rest of the pics here: Roller Coaster Chess

Abigail and Brittany Hensel: One body two people

Found this fascinating article about Abigail and Brittany Hensel. The girls were born in 1990, and are conjoined twins. At the time they were born, they were not expected to live beyond a few days. Amazingly, they survived and grew. They are now 16 and lead a relatively normal healthy teenage life. They even managed to get a drivers license. Each of the twins manages one side of their conjoined body, controlling her own arm and leg, and receives no sensation and has no control over the other side. By coordinating their efforts, they are able to walk and run normally. They can even play sports! Doctors say that at this time, there is no reason why they would not be able to live a normal lifespan. There are a lot more pics of the girls in the article. So make sure you follow through the link.
Check out the article at: Eatnineghost
Also, check out their wikipedia page: Abigail and Brittany Hensel

Fog based screen projection

FogScreen is a company that makes screens for use with an ordinary projector. The only weird thing, is that the screens are made up entirely of fog. No special chemicals or ingredients are necessary. Simple water is good enough. Pretty cool. You can even walk through the projection without getting wet. No word on how much it costs, though I doubt it is cheap. I would love to get one of these for my house. Though, I probably couldn't afford it. Also, I don't own a projector. Still pretty amazing.

Check out the official site for some videos and more pictures of the screens in action.
www.fogscreen.com

Sand Storm Pictures

Found a group of pictures showing a sand storm in Iraq. Imagine seeing that coming for you. Seriously scary looking.
Sand storms are relatively common in desert and arid areas. Usually they don't cause any real damage, but occasionally they can be severe.
Check out the rest of the pictures here: Sand Storm in Iraq: April 26, 2005

Wealthiest Americans in History

The New York Times has an infographic that lists the wealthiest American in history on a scale that is adjusted for inflation. By far, the richest was John D. Rockefeller. Bill Gates comes in as the 5th richest American. Each of the people listed has a brief history of how they gained their wealth and what they did with it. It's a pretty cool list. Check it out.

Via New York Times: The Wealthiest Americans Ever

Strange watermelons from Japan

It seems that the square watermelons I posted about before, are not the only shapes you can get watermelons in. The above watermelon sells for about $650. How it is made is considered a trade secret.
It seems that you can get cucumbers in different shapes as well. Below is a picture of star and heart shaped cucumbers that you can buy to decorate your salad.


Via PingMag: Funny Shaped Japanese Watermelons

Happy 25th Birthday Computer Virus!

It was 25 years ago that the first computer virus was created. Ironically, it was designed to attack the Apple II. Kind of strange since one of the biggest selling points for Apple today is the relative lack of viruses and malware out there to attack your computer.
The first virus was called Elk Cloner. It was written by Rich Skrenta mainly to bug his friends. And it really didn't do much beyond annoying people who were infected with it. Every 50 boot ups it would display a simple poem.

Elk Cloner: The program with a personality

It will get on all your disks
It will infiltrate your chips
Yes it's Cloner!

It will stick to you like glue
It will modify RAM too
Send in the Cloner!

Viruses sure have come a long way since then. Elk Cloner could spread through infected floppy disks. Most viruses today can spread through multiple methods and can infect your computer in many different ways.

Via Machinist: The computer virus turns 25

English helmet cameras going nationwide

In a blow for privacy advocates in England, the helmet cameras that were previously only being used in only in limited trials are now going nationwide. So all of the Police officers will now be sporting a camera attached to their heads. Again, why is the UK so obsessed with putting cameras on everything and everywhere? I can sort of see the usefulness of this, but it would seem to me that information overload would begin reducing the effectiveness of having cameras everywhere.

Via Engadet: England's helmet camera initiative to go countrywide

Use a flashlight and an old floppy disk as a TV remote

Change TV Channels Without A Remote! - The best bloopers are here
This is a really cool video showing the use of a maglight and an old floppy disk to change channels. I don't know enough about how TV remotes work to understand why this method works, but it is cool anyway. I think I might just go out and buy a flashlight tonight to try this out.

Via Geeks Are Sexy: Change channels with a flashlight and a floppy disk

Robot mimics water skimming insect

Researchers Yun Seong Song and Metin Sitti at Carnegie Mellon University have created a new prototype robot that walks on water. It does this by mimicking the design of the water strider insect(pictured above). Water striders can effectively skim across the top of water using surface tension force to stay afloat. The new robot is the first of it's kind to do the same. The researchers hope in the near future to be able to deploy hundreds of these robots with sensors to monitor environmental conditions on lakes and shallow seas.
What caught my eye in this story is that like other recent advances in both nanotech and robotics, this design is based on an organic natural creatures design. Seems like more and more, scientists are attempting to mimic nature in their designs rather than start from scratch.

Via PhysOrg: Robot walks on water

Balloon lawnchair flight

Do you remember that fantasy you used to have of tying a bunch of balloons together and flying? Well maybe you never had that fantasy, but I did. Kent Couch, a gas station owner from Oregon, had that same fantasy. So he tied 105 helium balloons to a lawn chair and took off. He traveled over 193 miles to Idaho. With a GPS device in his pocket and a few other gadgets to measure altitude he was able to track his course and speed. The only other things he carried on his lawn chair were some plastic bags full of water to use as ballast. Oh, and I almost forgot. He had a parachute to use if something went wrong and he had to bail out. All in all, pretty cool.

Via CNN: Man flies 193 miles in lawn chair

Wow Russia

Found this very strange and absolutely hilarious site by Elena Marus an art student in Moscow. Check out this quote from the site.

"Russia is the biggest country in the world... Everybody knows there are two cities in Russia - Moscow and St. Petersburg... The rest of the country is called Siberia...

So what else do we have in Russia? We have bears, of course. Lots of different bears... We do have the biggest problems with the street bears. For they cause the greatest traffic jams ever, especially in Moscow. So we have the special bear-movement schedule and our government has to keep special shoulder strap werewolves on duty to control the bears."

Lots of other weird and satirical information on Russia, can be found on the site. You really should check it out.

Wow Russia

Tiny generator runs off of vibrations

Scientists at the University of Southampton, UK have created a tiny generator that can harvest electricity off of minuscule vibrations from its environment. It doesn't generate a lot of power, but it does generate enough to power sensors installed on heavy machinery and equipment. Eliminating the need to hook those devices up to a battery.
The scientists hope to be able to miniaturize it further. Allowing it to be placed inside of a human to power devices such as pacemakers. Pacemakers currently have to have their batteries changed periodically. A process that involves surgery. With a generator like this, all of the power needed for the pacemaker could be generated by the beating of the individuals heart.
Between generators powered by vibrations and generators powered by glucose in human blood, we are well on our way to being able to power all the cybernetic devices we might ever need. Using nothing but our own bodies.

Via BBC News: Good vibes power tiny generator

Caffeine Database

Well, I'm back from vacation and very tired this morning. At the moment I have a huge cup of coffee on my desk that I am sipping to try to wake me up.
In honor of my caffeine addiction, I thought it fitting that I post a link to a website that has a list of caffeine content in many popular drinks and sodas. Did you know that a 12 ounce can of coke has 34 milligrams of caffeine? Compare that to an 8 ounce cup of coffee with 107 milligrams of caffeine. The site also has a humorous side, where you can put in your weight, and favorite drink, and it will tell you how many cups/cans it would take to get an overdose of caffeine. For my drink of choice(coffee), it would take 82 cups to kill me.

Via Energy Fiend: The Caffeine Database