UNCONVENTIONAL WORLD RECORDS

It’s only fitting that that person is Prof Stephen Hawking, 65, the world’s leading expert on gravity. On 26th April 2007 he went up on a specially modified plane (vomit comets) that flew a parabolic flight 2 hours over the Atlantic from the space shuttle’s runway at Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. For the first time 40 years, he moved freely beyond his wheelchair. The usual fee of of USD3,750 for 10-15 plunges was waived. The flight he was on plunged 8 times, meaning he experienced zero gravity eight times in 4 minutes, in 25-second spurts.

video:

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Someone tries to sell Windows XP licenses on eBay but somehow shows it in the picture:

As of the time of writing, the pictures are still available on ebay.

Full screen capture of auction:

Someone commented:

…actually, this is not so uncommon. Browse for laptops on e-bay. Many people post high-res pictures of them at the auction. What they don’t realize is that most laptops have the OS license key right on the cover. You can collect about 10 windows keys a week that way. Not just the basic XP, but also media edition and sometimes a tablet edition. Check it out yourself. People are dumb!

In fact, you don’t even need to go to ebay. A plain google search can turn out many such keys.

… Perhaps he’s in too deep about selling hardware like a laptop memory module…

source

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The F501 PC casing / housing from AOpen is touted as revolutionary, since it claimed to be the first housing that folds and flattens for easy transportation and saving space.

Why didn’t anybody think of this before? It’s definitely a godsend for retailers and customers alike. (more…)

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The greatest must be the talking vibrator, patent number 5,928,170. (more…)

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…is not a Bugatti or any car exotic supercars like these:

A Bugatti Veyron (above) costs about 850,000 pounds, but Andy Frost, 45 in Wolverhampton, United Kingdom customised a 1972 Vauxhall Victor for a total cost of 100,000 pounds, resultiong in the world’s fastest street legal car, christened Red Victor One: (more…)

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To qualify, this gadget must be able to do “everything” and small enough to slide casually into a back pocket:

• smartphone,
• shoot and store photos,
• surf the Web,
• check e-mails,
• listen to music files (more…)

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Courier-journal.com reports on 11th October 2006:

Imagine a home-theater system with images so crisp they surpass those in a movie theater.

Or envision sitting in a classroom surrounded by movie screens and taking a virtual trip inside Egyptian pyramids. The images are so clear they blur the line between video and reality. (more…)

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According to bit-tech.net, Katamari Damacy is king of the crazy games:

At first glance, it seems quite normal, revolving around a King and a Prince, who are trying to put the universe back together after accidentally destroying it.

The fact that the son builds stars by rolling a big ball of junk around around does not, apparently, detract from the plotline or even make the idea of a story here unfeasible. Rolling around the world rolling up everyday objects in to a large ball of katamari results in a pile of junk large enough to make a star. The developers even decided to expand the story in the PSP game Me and My Katamari. The King and the Prince decide to go on holiday to a tropical island to take a break from all their star constructing.

However, as can be expected when dealing with the King of All Cosmos, everything goes wrong (how did this guy actually become King?) and his son has to go about rectifying things by building custom planets for the islands inhabitants, such as a tortoise and an ant. Arguments ensue, but eventually the 5cm wonder child is sent off the Sunflower Continent as that’s the best place to build planets from… Apparently. That’s without counting We Love Katamari, which has a self-referential plotline dealing with how the King reponds to his new-found fame on Earth.

The music adds to the sense of insanity, as a strange Japanese chap recites “Da dum, dee dee da da dum, dar dar, dee Katmari Damacy…” repeatedly.

source

Tags: gaming, games, videogames

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A composite photo of the “Parete Gaudenziana” a fresco painted by Gaudenzio Ferrari, dated 1513 is claimed to be the largest digital photo on the Net, at 8.6 Gigapixel.

To be precise, 96,679 pixels x 89,000 pixels! (more…)

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PC World reports recently that the worst computer game of all time is E.T: The Extra Terrestrial (1982) which runs on an Atari 2600.

The author of the article, Emru Townsend said that a third of the people he quizzed came up with this title almost instantly. Wow, it must be a very very bad game indeed.

Well, I wonder too, how could someone screw up an apparent guaranteed winner: the year’s most popular movie and the number one video game console at that time?

Townsend outlines 2 reasons for the debacle: a combination of poor planning and unbridled optimism. First, Warner Communications, then Atari’s parent company, gave programmer Howard Scott Warshaw only five weeks to pull the game together. Then the big bosses came in: expecting huge sales, Atari produced 4 million cartridges.

The game in action

The rest of the report:

Unfortunately for Atari–and the collective psyche of anyone who ended up buying the cartridge–the rushed development was apparent on the screen. Everyone I spoke to who singled out particular gripes mentioned the pits that the player, as E.T., fell into and would then have to slowly levitate out of, which led to horrendously monotonous game play. None of the qualitative comments I received about the game are printable, except for one: “Famously bad.”

Atari’s big gamble didn’t pay off. Less than 40 percent of the cartridges sold, one of the major financial blows that resulted in Atari’s bankruptcy in 1984.

More bad games of all time can be read at the source.

Tags: games, videogames, atari, ET, computer games, computers, computing

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A nightmare scenario for network administrators is taking over from a well-worn, years-old cabling closet which have had many people in charge. One thing that has to be done is determining where all those cables go to, or linking what and what.

Consider this one, which might look a totally hopeless case:

Hair-tearing stuff? But to me, this one looks even scarier, possibly due to the Alien-black wiring:

Click here to see more pics

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According to wired.com, the best accidental discoveries include none other than Viagra: (more…)

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Don’t be fooled, apparently this thing can kill.

Reminds me of Paladin in the Have Gun Will Travel TV series.

source

Tags: revolver, gun, ammunition, pistol, weapon, paladin

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Ivan aka Tsar Bomba aka King of Bombs aka Emperor Bomb

Constructed by the Russians at the height of the cold war in 1961

On October 30, 1961 a Tu-95 plane dropped Ivan from altitude 34,500 feet over the Mityushikha Bay Nuclear Testing Range at Novaya Zemlya island in the Arctic Sea. The weapon’s on-board barometric sensors detonated the bomb at approximately 13,000 feet at 11:32am.

And what an explosion it produced.

• 50 megatons [originally planned 100, but deemed too risky]
• 3,800 times more explosive energy than the Hiroshima bomb
• equivalent to 50 million metric tons of TNT
• fireball reached 34,000 feet into air
• mushroom cloud reached 60km into sky, with diameter of 40km
• area of complete destruction had radius of 25km from ground zero
• 100km from ground zero the heat would’ve inflicted 3rd degree burns
• flash of light visible as far as 1,000 km away
• Generated shockwave travelled aroubnd the earth 3 times before dissipating

We should be thankful that no other weapon with the massive destructive power of Tsar Bomba has ever been built.

source

Tags: weapon, Ivan, Tsar Bomba, King of Bombs, Emperor Bomb, bombs, weapons

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According to informationweek.com, it is Unix. More specifically: The single Greatest Piece of Software Ever, with the broadest impact on the world, was BSD 4.3. Other Unixes were bigger commercial successes. But as the cumulative accomplishment of the BSD systems, 4.3 represented an unmatched peak of innovation. BSD 4.3 represents the single biggest theoretical undergirder of the Internet. Moreover, the passion that surrounds Linux and open source code is a direct offshoot of the ideas that created BSD: a love for the power of computing and a belief that it should be a freely available extension of man’s intellectual powers–a force that changes his place in the universe.

This is Beastie, the BSD daemon:

source

Tags: software, unix, bsd, beastie

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The IRC transcript I found at crisscross.com

Apparently real – but seems to be too good to be true??

As for myself – fake or not, just enjoy the script

Originally in German, or so I’m told, way back in April 2005

More hilarious IM exchanges at bash.org

Tags: hacker, cracker

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Not content with autoraising and heated seat, the Japanese has come up with an extra feature – a toilet set that comes with an SD slot and an mp3 player.

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Tags: japan, japanese, toilet, mp3. music

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Tech entrepreneur Mrs Ansari, 40 became the 4th space tourist, and the first woman, and of course the first Iranian.

Like the previous 3, she reportedly paid USD20 million (16 million euros) for the privilege.

But what interested me more was her life story which is truly inspiring:

She arrived in the US at age 18 totally unable to speak English.

But she proved to be a wizard at electrical and electronics engineering, and went on to earn her Master’s.

And she proved to be an even bigger wizard at being a techpreneur: founded a company making software for switching signals on phone networks. Knowledge gained at first and postgrad degress put to good use. I guess that would be good enough for a PhD, if she went for it.

But she reserved her best for last: selling her company for more than USD500 million at the height of the dot com boom just before the bubble burst.

So I think it’s safe to say she can afford to go up there.

Her quote is worth putting up: “People think they reach the height of their life at age 40. I’m hoping this is just the beginning of another hill that I will be climbing.”

source

Tags: anousheh ansari, ansari, space tourist

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Dutch Architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars has worked the past 6 years for the development of the world’s first floating bed. It works by using the principle of magnetism.

It can carry a weight of up to 900 kilograms.

Costs more than a million euros. Heck, with that kind of money I might as well buy myself a nice car.

sources:

• yahoo.com
• universe architecture (with some more pics at “floating bed” section)

Tags: floating bed, levitating bed, bed, beds

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This was done sometime in 2006, but until now I have not encountered any other better PC case mod.

How many persons can make their PC look like a weapon of mass destruction?

Or perhaps the more pertinent question: how many people care about the look of their PC so much that they’re willing to invest more resources into it than the vast majority of people (geeks included)?

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Fish4 is a collection of local small ads sites for houses, jobs and cars in the UK. It is owned by local newspaper groups and has over 1 million page impressions a day.

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Tags: world’s greatest error message, website, error messages, website error messages

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According to Top Gear magazine‘s September 2006 edition, a dumpy little Fiat has dumped the Lotuses, Lambos, Ferraris and what have you to the title.

In case you’ve never heard of the mag, Top Gear is Britain’s, and possibly the world’s top TV show on cars, and Top Gear mag is its accompanying hardcopy publication. The Top Gear TV show is estimated to enjoy a 350 million audience worldwide.

Of course sexiness, especially cars’ sexiness is a highly subjective matter. But that aside, I tend to agree:

The Fiat 500 looks like a cross between a Mini and a VW Beetle, and may I add: one of Malaysia’s own cars.

It topped a list of 100 sexiest cars because the mag claims anyone behind the wheel “looks sexually charged” — even a nun.

Bizzare choice?

Contributing editor James May defended the choice: “The Fiat 500 advertises nothing about its owner, except that it’s someone who doesn’t need to try.”

Rounding up the top ten:

2. Aston Martin DBS; 3. Maserati Quattroporte; 4. Chevrolet Camaro; 5. Citroen C6; 6. Lincoln Continental; 7. Bentley Continental S1 Fastback; 8. BMW M1; 9. Rolls-Royce Phantom; 10. Sally the Porsche 911 Carrera (from the animated film Cars).

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Tags: top+gear, sexiest+car+in+the+world, fiat, fiat+500

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In April 2006, the Infernoptix was unleashed by its designers at Nao Engineering.

It’s a 96-inch ‘screen’ that uses computer-controlled bursts of fire to create scrolling text, simple animations & freehand sketching in a 12 x 7 pixel array.

More hype: “There’s even a percussion mode, which takes advantage of the concussive nature of each burst to allow scripting and playback of complex rhythms. Custom software ties it all together to allow precise and convenient control of all screen functions.”

Its makers boasts that as far as “high-impact visual & audio entertainment” goes, this kicks the ass of big screen and flat panel TVs.

Instead of a pixel on a conventional display, one should imagine a 6 inch fireball, and that image jumps from the screen in licks & bursts of flame.

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Tags: infernoptix, world’s first computer-controlled fire display

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http://www.diggfiltr.com

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Only takes a few seconds to charge and never need to be replaced.

That sounds like something that’s unlikely to happen in the near future, but the guys at MIT are hard at work turning this into reality.

How do they plan to do it? By improving on old technology. The capacitor, to be more specific. It was invented 300 years ago. Current, chemical based batteries do not use this technology anymore because even today’s most powerful capacitors hold 25 times less energy than similarly sized standard batteries.

Research team leader Joel Schindall says in essence: ” we used nanotechnology to create capacitors in a new way.”

Nanotube filaments on the battery’s electrodes:

source

Tags: world’s fastest charging batteries, battery, batteries, nanotechnology, nanotubes

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This is Google’s latest and greatest datacentre in construction.

It is a component of the googleplex – 25 datacenters around the world with a total of 450,000 servers; all interconnected with fibreoptic cables.

This latest datacentre has 2 buildings used as datacenters; each as big as a football field.

Main reasons why google chose this site: a mere 5 km away is a hydroelectric powerplant – so cheap power. And there’s a surplus of fibreoptic cables laid out around the area.

The hydro dam upstream’s supposed to stop any flooding – but to me, it’s situated on grounds that are too low and too near a river for comfort.

Tags: google data center, data center, googleplex

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10 years.

A former handyman has won more than $400,000 in a lawsuit over a penile implant that gave him a 10-year erection.

Charles “Chick” Lennon, 68, received the steel and plastic implant in 1996, about two years before Viagra went on the market. The Dura-II is designed to allow impotent men to position the penis upward for sex, then lower it.

But Lennon could not position his penis downward. He said he could no longer hug people, ride a bike, swim or wear bathing trunks because of the pain and embarrassment. He has become a recluse and is uncomfortable being around his grandchildren, his lawyer said.

source

Tags: world’s+longest+lasting+erection, erection

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There’s a website with a webcam to watch grass grow.

That sounds pretty boring isn’t it?

But that isn’t half as boring as watching water evaporate.

But at least, over a couple of weeks, or even days, you actually see some growth on grass and after some hours, you actually see the water in its container getting less as it evaporates.

Well, I think the only thing more boring than those two is the pitch drop experiment. I also didn’t know what it is, but in essence, it measures the flow of a piece of pitch over many years. The words "many years" should give you a hint.

Pitch = any of a number of highly viscous liquids which appears solid, most commonly bitumen, the stuff that makes roads/asphalt, I think.

In Australia, the experiment was started in 1927, and 73 years later, the 8th drop fell. This allowed experimenters to calculate that the pitch has a viscosity approximately 100 billion times that of water. How exciting!

Needless to say, the originator of the experiment had died long before its completion.

Now, Really Magazine is currently attempting to replicate the experiment which can be followed via a live webcam. Yes, we can barely breathe due to excitement.

WARNING: only attempt this if you are *really* bored.

Click here to see the webcam in action.

Tags: world’s+most+boring+website, pitch+drop+experiment, webcam, boring+website

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All this while I go to housing shows, car shows, IT shows, why not this time go to a medical equipment show??

Apart from learning about the latest medic gadgets around, you can get ideas of what to put in your house to scare off naughty kids or would-be burglars:

Screaming voice optional.

Heavy, laboured breathing included.

The International Modern Hospital Show 2006 is held at Japan.

Source:

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2006/07/face-to-face-with-high-tech-medical-devices/

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Interesting article from smh.com.au. I’ll do the summary later.

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Drexel University outlined a way to enable even bigger data storage sizes, this time using water.
Just how much? Get this: a cubic centimeter of water holds 12.8 GB!!!

Full article at: drexel.edu

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Telematic Research Group (TRG), an automotive industry market research firm, recently proclaimed the new 2007 Lexus LS-460 that will be available later in the year to be the most technology-loaded of all cars available in the North American market.

Lexus beat other eminent car makers like BMW and Mercedes-Benz in this respect.
Features include:

• a factory-installed 30GB hard disk drive factory partitioned for music and navigation;
• three cameras for lane departure warning and park assist;
• touch-screen and voice activated navigation system;
• Bluetooth phone control;
• monitored telematics;
• live traffic reports;
• a 19-speaker audio system that reads compressed audio formats (i.e. MP3) [and I thought 5 speakers are enough for anybody?]
  

Ref:

digitaltrends.com

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Well, that is my own opinion.

The CD first came out in the early 80′s. Why the hell didn’t they cover it with some kind of protective mechanism, like diskettes?

I personally like the Minidisc design – it’s smaller and has a sturdy, childproof protective mechanism.

Of course we’re probably heading towards solid-state storage, but that seems to be some years away.

With all this talk about next generation portable storage medium after DVDs i.e. DVD-HD and BluRay discs, I am amazed that the industry’s movers and shakers still hold on to the same old concept.

How many times have you shrieked to your 2-year old son holding a DVD: “don’t touch thattttttt”, then you have to wipe his fingermarks before you can use the damn thing? I know I have, and I know that would not happen if he were holding a thumbdrive or a Minidisc instead.

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I have been experimenting with pageflakes for a few days, and find it much better a startpage than any of the offerings by the other players in this field.

The AJAXified environment means Windows-like interactivity level and feel is very high. I hardly felt like I was using a browser. Drag and drop, point and click, every customisation can be done very quickly.
And you can have multiple pages – I havent checked how many is the limit, I’ve only tried up to 3 pages.

The only thing missing seems to be a calendar feature – the to-do list seems to limited.

And yes, pageflakes has an affiliate program!

Check out pageflakes.

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Excellent list from pcworld.com. Scope is downloads, sites and services: offline and online tools, even blogging tools.

As the article author write: “the best things in life aren’t just free, they’re indispensable.”

I’m already using some of them, and probably some of you are already using a lot of them, especially well-known ones like delicious, flickr and bloglines.

Some are not so well known, like that Adobe Acrobat Reader killer.

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The above stapler is not a new invention, it was made by the Lihit Industrial Company of Japan in the mid-1980s.
Instead of using staples, it cuts a little flap in the paper while also cuts a slot, and it then tucks the flap through the slot. You use it as you might use a normal stapler – just push the stapler down as if it was a normal stapler – it will do the rest. Apparently can staple up to 5 pieces of paper.
A video of it (WMV) in action available at grand-illusions.com

I am not sure if it’s still available, but a modern equivalent could be this:

Available for USD8 (arnd RM30) online at cyberguys.com. They have an affiliate programs, but there seems to be too much paperwork involved to join them, so I defer for the time being.

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Samsung Electronics has claimed this first, which it says will be released next month.

In this case, stick to the usual rule: don’t go for first generation tech, unless you have money to burn.

Points for it:

• the wow factor
• claims to runs in complete silence
• claims to boot 25-50% faster than hard disk based notebooks

Points against it: (more…)

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In two words, world class!

http://www.digitalair.com/techniques/index.html

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