India has become a scene from Mad Max

Wall of Deaaaaaaath

Zoobooks!

Man bijt hond - Mijn dorp

Weer een superstuk van "Man bijt hond", ditmaal over Eugène die al 59 jaar iedere dag zijn auto binnen en buiten rijdt. Niets speciaal zij het niet dat hij maar 3 cm langs iedere kant over heeft en in en uit moet stappen via het salon. Gelukkig bestaat er de Fiat Panda.

The Most Useless Machine EVER!

This is the most hillarious thing I've seen in a while:


The Most Useless Machine EVER!


(thanks tina)

Enhance!

Enhance, zoom in and rotate.



(from here)

The Tetris God

Awesome:
The Tetris God



(thanks venter)

How to Shoot an Anvil 200 Feet in the Air

How to Shoot an Anvil 200 Feet in the Air

(thanks turtle)

Seeing Through The Eyes Of An Armadillo

This is so cool I can't even find the words for it... just watch:

Science Friday: Seeing Through The Eyes Of An Armadillo



Helps if you are sort of a biology nerd.

Stupidity on an Epic Scale

The stupidity.. it just keeps going, and going, and going...

(from autoblog)

Leopard Hangs Out Car Window

(from autoblog)

It's Good to be Lucky

Many more here.

Korean Human LCD

What Gamers Do With Their Time

'You are being shagged by a rare parrot'

'You are being shagged by a rare parrot'

Android Mod Community Routes Around Google's Lawyers

Following up on my previous rant it looks like the community's plan to route around the Google legal team's attempt to sabotage any good will Android had gained in the community has come to fruition.

Cyanogens first post legal scuffle release is now out:

[ROM] CyanogenMod - Keeping You Legal For Less (BETA) [UPDATED 10/4 - v4.1.99] - xda-developers

They came up with a very smart solution. In short, instead of shipping the proprietary bits in the ROM that got Google all grumpy, the installer now rips those bits from the existing ROM on your phone (the binaries you legally own since you bought your phone) and rolls them into the community modded ROM before it installs it on your phone.

The Android devices we own come with many files that can't be redistributed legally, and as you all probably know, I can no longer include these with my ROMs. So, in order to get up and running, you'll need a compatible device with a compatible ROM. Please visit the appropriate site below, read and agree to the license agreement, and download the "1.6 Recovery Image" for your device. You'll need to flash this before installing my ROM. Note this is NOT the same as what we all think of as a "recovery image", it's just what HTC calls the version you can flash as an update.zip from recovery mode. Optionally, you can download the fastboot version and just fastboot flash the system.img first. You only need to do this the first time, upgrades shouldn't require reflashing. You don't even need to boot it, just flash it, then flash my ROM. After that you can just use CM Updater. The install process backs up your proprietary files and applications and restores them afterwards.

Very smart.

Google Moves to Kill Android Community Right as it is Warming Up

Looks like Google's legal department have gone and decided to screw any good will that the amazing Android development team has managed to earn with the community that has been organically forming around their new mobile OS. This seriously could be the moment where what was looking to be the best tech story of the next 5 years sputters and dies due to lack of a thriving community built around it.

If anyone within Google has any sense they'll pull back their attack dogs and do it fast.

CyanogenMod in trouble? – Android and Me

[20:03] cyanogen> google just cease and desisted me
[20:15] cyanogen> cyanogenmod is probably going to be dead
[20:16] cyanogen> i’m opening a dialogue with them
[20:20] cyanogen> no they are talking specifically about the closed-source google apps
[20:20] cyanogen> and how i am not licensed to distribute them
[20:20] cyanogen> my argument is that i only develop for google-experience devices which are already licensed for these apps
[20:20] cyanogen> so we’ll see what they say
[20:20] cyanogen> maybe we can work something out
[20:24] cyanogen> maps, market, talk, gmail, youtube

Cyanogen is just a guy working in his free time, without pay to make the best, most widely used community ROM for the G1 available right now. If Google smacks down these community ROMs and makes the Android the exclusive domain of the dry corporate interests, kiss the momentum goodbye.

Indoorcycling: Full On Gymnastics... On a Bike.

These girls are so far beyond badass there needs to be a whole new word created just for them:

European Junior Championships Indoorcycling

The Best 1:21 of Film Ever Shot

(thanks autoblog)

High Speed Robotic Hands

Jiiiimyyyyy!!!!!

"Never try to get toys back yourself, otherwise you might not live to play with them again!"

I Totally Identify with This

(thanks vernon)

Sarah Palin's Speech Writer Breaks His Silence

Sarah Palin's Speech Writer Breaks His Silence

Real Life American Psycho

FEEL THE POWER OF THE DRONE MACHINE

DRONE MACHINE DOES NOT CARE HOW MUCH YOUR EARS BLEED



(from engadget)

Video Game Industry Rant

Video game manufacturers may pressure resellers

Video game manufacturers have long tolerated the practice of retailers reselling used games without any of the secondary sales going back to publishers and developers.

But the tough economy and the increasing number of retailers in the used games business are bringing a sore subject to the fore and contributing to a migration toward more downloadable content and full digital distribution of games.

...

Video games are different from movies or CDs, which often hold more sentimental and replay value over games, which can be played through in 10 hours and then discarded. The challenge for the industry is to get consumers to buy games they'll want to hold on to.

This exposes that some people in the industry just don't get it. If you make a good game, like Bioshock, GoW, Halo, L4D, R6V, it will become a classic that people keep in their collections forever as a badge of honor. Something they come back to play with their friends over and over.

Take "Fallout 3" for example, the *used* price is still 80-90% of the full new price 3/4 of a year after its launch. This is because no one is selling their copies back, so the demand outstrips the supply by a large margin. This is because the game is a classic that the Bethesda Game Studios clearly cared a lot about when they made it.

Make throw away 3rd party Hollywood tie in titles and yes, people will treat it just like you do: Play it and sell it back like the trash it is.

This is exactly how it works in all media. People buy the latest trendy pop album, listen to it to death for a couple months, then when they find they just don't listen to it anymore because they are on to the next big thing, they take it and sell it at a used CD store for 10-20% of its cover price. This *increases* the total sales in the system, if you don't get this you need to learn some econ 101.

I'm sorry you guys seem to think you deserve more cash, but your failed understanding of the free market. Your failing business modeling is not my problem. That is your problem to figure out. And if you take a look at the companies who DO get it (lets see... Valve, anyone?) you'll see that they keep their titles alive through a constant flow of new, free updates... why would I sell my copy of the organge box when I know Valve released a new update every few months?

/rant off.

My skin just came off my body and ran away

(from a tech demo of animation from a still image)

Bubb Rubb Rides Again

The whistles go: WOOOOO!

This post on Autoblog about aftermarket clip on tail pipe whistlers brought up all kinds of good memories:

Vitriolix - Whistler (mp3 download)

Which was my remix of:



I hella <3 Oakland.

I've conclusively determined that Waggy is the faster Josh

This morning Josh Waggy and I rode out to Alameda and wandered aimlessly until we found this tiny little sub-island that forks off the main island. It was really pretty out there, slightly foggy views of SF and Oakland and the Peninsula. It's the little hook on the south-western side there:



That strip of road along the beach on the south side of the main part of Alameda is still my favorite bit of road hands down. It's so smooth and fast, very scenic and there are two not heavily trafficked lanes each direction, so I don't feel bad about taking a whole lane for myself. Though in the evening there are so many people cruising, bbq'ing and walking on the beach and hitting up the awesome Sushi restaurant near there, it's not fun to ride there at all. I always put the hammer down and try to sprint the whole length there to see what my top limit is these days. This time we sustained 27.5 mp/h for a quite a bit.

I've conclusively determined that Waggy is the faster Josh... this will not stand.

I also just realized that I passed 500 miles on my bike sometime this month:

Member Since: 10/12/2008
Total Maps: 42
Total Workouts: 39
Total Distance: 527.23 mi.
Total Burned: 29,065 (kcal)

Hooray for lungs and leg muscles.

Two-Stroke Rhythm Section Looks Exhausting*

This reminds me of a wonderful duet for trombone and tractor I once heard at the SF Contemporary Music Players, I wish I could remember who that composer was.

Tractor Used As Drums For Sweet Georgia Brown





(thanks steve)

* apologies for the pun, I couldn't resist.

Swine Flue

My creosote smells like bacon, does this mean i have swine flue??