it's amazing what some people can do with those little bricks

this really looks like you could put strings on it and play it... that is, if you knew how to play such things...

nef's gallery :: Lego Guitar

where's mark hammel when you need him

this moon-sized, ummmm, moon bears a striking similarity to something luke skywalker destroyed in a galaxy far, far away...

Cassini-Huygens-Multimedia-Images

i want me one of these

how cool would that be to live in a house that's a spherical bubble floating on the water...

just one thing, though... i think i'd like at least a couple rooms to be not quite so transparent... you know, like the bedroom and bathroom... some things i'm just not ready to share with the world yet...

ThisisLondon

gross!!

have you ever thought to yourself "gee, wouldn't it be nice to have clothing and accessories made out of (hopefully) fake human skin"?

if so, you and these people need to get far away from me, cause i think i'm going to spew...

SkinBag

the REAL big brother

this has nothing to do with that lame reality tv show i know you watch (or does it?), this is related more to the unadulterated form of the concept that that reality show bastardized...

coming to a country called the united states near you...

ACLU - Pizza

great observation...

i just overheard an observation on tv that really bears repeating...

a difference between adults and kids when it comes to new things - adults often are unhappy with their beginner skills, they expect more from themselves than they're able to deliver while kids are generally happy with everything they do...

now i happen to know i was a perfectionist kid (to the point of not talking around other people until i had practised and perfected normal human speech) but i can definitely see where this sort of thing can inhibit one's enjoyment and personal growth... it's important to have realistic expectations when it comes to things we've never done before and it's important to not beat ourselves up over our failures...

the future i want no part of

i guess genetic engineering is probably unavoidable but hopefully we can do it with a little more taste than is displayed here... that one with the tongues is just sooooo creepy...

GenieCorp (TM) | WE ADD SPLICE TO LIFE (TM)

i like the way micheal moore thinks

maybe you've read about it but now you can see and hear him say it... micheal moore doesn't have a problem with file sharing...

micheal moore on file sharing

you're off to see the wizard . . .

ok... apparently it's not entirely clear to some people that when a cop asks you your name and why you hit someone with a battle axe you should put your dice down and leave your dungeons and dragons attitude at the door...

the wizard

sad... very sad...

microsoft patents the idea of making us want to watch more tv - the clear and overwhelming lack of prior art (everybody else seems to be driving us away from tv) must be the reason this patent was granted...

all hail microsoft...

United States Patent: 6,766,524

somebody just doesn't get it

first the preamble - google owns blogger (this free blog hosting service)... google bought picasa, a company with an image hosting service and p2p software to allow you to share images, add them to your blog, etc...

but come on... installing p2p software in order to add pictures to a blog?

these folks have much simpler solution... a simple web page for uploading pictures that you can direct link to or whatever you want (they even provide you with the code for the most common types of image linking)... see my previous entry for an example...

ImageShack (TM) - Hosting

the only downside i can see is the problem of organizing your images... no folders, no way to rename the files, just a flat list of numbered filenames... still quite usable, though... this is the kind of simplicity an image hosting service should have...

and y'know what? that's just one of many free, simple, web based image hosting services... check out this directory of free image hosts with descriptions and reviews...

he's not a cat, he's a chicken

never have i ever seen a cat back away from a squirrel... never until peeler...

he doesn't back away from me, though...

ummm... if she has a baby bipedal monkey, can we name him ceasar?

it's like something out of the movies, with a twist... a monkey who walks upright on 2 legs because of suspected brain damage...

so that's what happened to us...

Yahoo! News - Monkey Apes Humans by Walking on Two Legs

well what do you know...

y'know, i've seen the odd picture that tries to test whether or not you have a dirty mind and i've always managed to see the dirty image first until now... apparently the dodge truck logo is really a representation of the female reproductive system with nostrils...

Dodge's Vagina Emblem

wow...

for $100 you can have your very own walking/running/dancing/throwing/farting/belching robot...

interesting movie preview of the toy, but why make a robot that farts?

ThinkGeek :: Robosapien

this man scares me

[cartman voice]he has warped my fragile little mind[/cartman voice]...

go ahead, view the site, but don't do it just before bed - i can't be held responsible for any nightmares that might ensue...

The Ligher Side of Trach Life

and the future of robots is . . .

. . . tim burton?

wow, that looks so much like something out of "The Nightmare Before Christmas"...

Living Creatures Homepage

here's another gadget

i like it when someone comes along and turns traditional design on it's head... here's a printer that prints on partially rolled up paper in order to significantly cut down the form factor of the printer... it looks to be about the size of a coffee mug... i'd definitely call that a portable printer...

Design Explorations

don't you love skirting around the issue?

so there's this 'ray gun' that can stop newer model cars by disrupting the electronics in them... it shoots 'radio' waves that induce electrical surges in the electronic components...

have i heard of this before? sure - it sounds an aweful lot like an electro-magnetic pulse (radio waves are part of the electro-magnetic spectrum)... so they've developed an EMP gun but they don't want to call it an EMP gun because? maybe it has something to do with the perceived connection EMP weapons seem to share with weapons of mass destruction...

Car chase zapper to end OJ-style chases - Engadget - www.engadget.com

i never thought they'd try this in the 'civilized' world

the science museum in london is thinking about generating it's own electricity using poo... (no pictures, i promise)

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

it's a great idea and i hope they go through with it... i just never thought i'd see anything like that outside of a 3rd world country... poo is generally something no one in the industrialized world wants to deal with... we're mostly too full of ourselves to get our hands that dirty...

i wonder

you remember that jackie chan movie, not too long ago, called "tuxedo"? i wonder if that tux came with a pair of these...

Cufflinks World Compass and Thermometer Cufflinks

i love gadgets

ok, so maybe it's just me but it seems like earphones that can be turned into speakers (*earphones* remember, not headphones or something big a clunky) seems like just about the ultimate in portable speakers...

now if i could only figure out why they called them "earhorns"...

Earhorns! - Engadget - www.engadget.com

braille t-shirts - what could possibly go wrong?

i wasn't trying to cop a feel, really i wasn't... i was just trying to read your t-shirt...

notvanilla braille t-shirts and wearable art; provocative, touchable and interactive.

i like me some optical illusions

Backwards City: Our Brains Don't Work

yum... i wonder what happens when you put these CD's in the microwave...

PCWorld.com - Corn-Based CDs Delayed

in other news, hungry dogs give chase to edible cars...

holy starwars, batman!

what do you get when you cross a motorcycle and a hovercraft?

Get your real live jetbike right here - Engadget - www.engadget.com

wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?

well i think we all know what happens when you leave a tooth in a cup of pepsi or coke for an extended period, but this is just bizarre...

dr. pepper safety warning

this goes out to all you people who think superman is just the greatest . . .

Matthew Craig - The Blog!: SUPER-DUDES!!!!!!!!!!!

[edit]
ack! the link died... ok, try this...
[/edit]

watch your head...

when you're driving around in some sort of crane-type contraption, don't you think it would be a good idea to be careful while driving under power lines?

nbc4columbus.com - News - Vehicle Becomes Tangled In Power Lines

what's a good way to say . . .

. . . something that isn't quite so good? with a euphemism of course...

The Always Amusing Euphemism Generator

i am research man!

i've been spending some late nights, recently, trying to find some useful information and tools with regards to RSS and related technologies...

so one of the problems i've encountered with RSS is finding a feed for a particular site, so imagine my excitement when i found an online service that performs RSS Discovery when given a url... very cool in theory, unfortunately it doesn't seem to find the feeds for sites even when i can...

a worse problem one faces is when there is no feed for a particular site... does that mean we give up? heck no, it means we need to find a way to make an RSS feed for a site that doesn't have one - it's called 'scraping'... MyRSS.com has an automated service for generating feeds for sites but so far the one i tried hasn't been very successful, probably because it's completely automated - i could pay to have the scraping hand-optimized, which should definitely improve the situation, but i haven't given up on finding a free solution yet... ScrapedFeeds.com seems to be that solution, though i haven't tried it yet - but it is a manual operation and it's free (though the guy behind the operation could definitely use some donations)...

in the process of looking for feed scraping services i found RSSgenr8 which generates an RSS feed for a user specified site if that site contains suitable tags for picking out individual items... it's not much of a help so far as scraping arbitrary sites is concerned, but it should allow one to create an RSS feed for their own web pages since one generally has some degree of control over the tag content of your own page...

no discussion of RSS would be complete without talking about RSS readers/aggregators... i've tried some applications for reading feeds but ultimately was unimpressed... then it occurred to me to look for online aggregator services and i found Bloglines.com (and a few others but i liked this one best)... Bloglines has a lot of nice features like the ability to save news item clippings or the ability to do RSS discovery, it even does free blog hosting (though i think i'll stick with blogger.com)... the best part is that i can read my subscriptions from any computer, not just one where i have a reader installed... the benefit of running an RSS aggregator locally is that i could use it to read feeds that i scrape myself (using something like this) but for me that just doesn't beat the convenience of web based aggregator services...

future darwin award contender, i'm sure...

how many wrong things can you do in the same place at the same time? this guy went for gold by driving the wrong way on a one way street while naked from the waist down while watching kiddie porn on his laptop that he was downloading over stolen wireless network access...

if life imitates art then this was a comedy of errors, starring a very flawed individual...

Winnipeg Sun: NEWS - Man takes wrong turn

wow, it's a robot!

wait, no, it's a kit... wait, no it's a robot kit!... build your own android, how cool is that?

Wow Robot KHR-1

an idea whose time has come (i hope)

why don't we see more japanese designs in north america? i think we're really missing out... take this one for instance, this is a seriously good idea for redesigning power cord plugs... and i'm certain it could be done in north america... so what are we waiting for?

ring plug

leonard nemoy sings!

some things just don't stand the test of time... this is definitely one of those things... leonard nemoy music videos, oh my...

The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

need something to kill time with?

then you're reading the right blog entry... try this simple game for size..

GameRival - Free Online Games!