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

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

Sarcastic E-cards

Found an ecard site that has some hilarious ecards you can send people. Some of my favorites are: "I send pointless emails late at night to impress coworkers", "I'm glad we stay mildly interested in each others lives", and "When work feels overwhelming, remember that your going to die." I do recommend going to the site and checking them out. Though I should warn you, that not all of the cards are appropriate for "polite" company. So you might not want to do it when someone is around who is easily offended.

Official Site: Some Ecards - When you care enough to hit send

Found via Cool Hunting: Some Ecards

We Feel Fine

I realize this isn't new, the site has been around since 2005, but it's new to me. So if you've seen this before, you can just skip over this post.
I was browsing del.icio.us last night and found We Feel Fine. The site is a social artistic experiment in human feelings. Did that statement make any sense to you? It didn't really make any sense to me either. I'll explain, but to truly understand you are going to have to go to the site yourself.
Basically the site crawls blogs all over the Internet looking for comments that have the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling." When it finds a phrase, it will copy the entire sentence it found the phrase in, and attempts to identify the sentence based on the "feeling" expressed(sad, happy, mad, depressed, etc.). It then attempts to extract any other info it can find about the commenter such as age, gender, location, and local weather conditions. All of these variables along with the sentence are stored in a database for statistical analysis. At this point, you are probably wondering why this is interesting.
What makes it interesting is the amazing fluid interface that this data is presented in. I really can't even describe it. You just need to go there and check it out yourself. Go to the website and click on the big heart to load the browser. Once it loads, start off just clicking on the dots at first. Then you can start customizing it.

Check it out We Feel Fine

Cardboard Sound Room

I have no idea who made this, as the article doesn't say. But I guess you could make it yourself if you had a large quantity of cardboard sheets. Basically it's a stack of cardboard sheets that has had a room hollowed out of it. Then a stereo system and speakers installed in it. It seems that the acoustic properties of corrugated cardboard make for a good listening experience.
But I think it is just cool to have a adult sized cardboard room to play in. Remember when you were little and you used to take the cardboard boxes from large appliances to build rooms and houses? Well, if you didn't you really missed out. My siblings and I once built an entire maze out of discarded boxes left over after moving into a new house. We had tons of fun with it until Mom made us throw them out to make room for our furniture.

Via The Cool Hunter: Cardboard Sound Box (A place for listening)

Touch driven computer interfaces

Someone sent me a link to this YouTube video of a touch driven computer interface.



This is seriously the coolest interface ever. I love the 3d aspects of it, and the lack of any interface devices except the display screen. An interface like this is so much more intuitive than using a standard keyboard and mouse.