February 2005

Monday 28 February

  • Hamster-Powered MIDI Sequencer (11:01) - In keeping with our brave new, hamster-powered world, Levy Lorenzo has submitted his contribution to society in the form of the hamster-controlled MIDI sequencer. "It's three note polyphonic. Each channel is controlled by two hamsters, one for the melody,...

Saturday 26 February

  • Jeepneys (23:46) - The most hilarious form of transportation in Manila and elsewhere in th Philippines is the Jeepney, old US Army Jeeps converted into public transportation. Open to the elements, and occassionally to armed robbers, at 5 pesos (about 10 cents) it's...

Friday 25 February

  • Road Kill Candy (15:08) - Mmmm tasty. It reminds me of a road kill cafe poster I used to have.. "flat cat: served single or as a stack"...

Thursday 24 February

  • *important* how to protect your t-mobile voicemail (23:54) - No, this isn't another Paris Hilton post. Turns out there is a major flaw in t-mobile's voicemail security. By default t-mobile accounts are set up to allow you to check your voicemail from your cell phone without entering your voicemail...
  • gDrive 0.6 (23:27) - A set of PHP files to store files of any size in yor gMail account. Other gmail drives are limited by gMail's max 10Mb/attachment. features - upload / download files of any size - delete files - keep regular...
  • Maybe this is part of the reason foreign students arent interested in coming to the US... (16:20) - This is a "supplementary" form that all males age 16-45 are requred to fill out when applying for a visa. My favorite part is the "Paperwork Reduction Act" which estimates that it will take 1 hr to gather the info...

Wednesday 23 February

  • The Honda Trunk Bike (09:38) - Looks like an early 80s Honda advertisement from Japan for a small scooter that folds up and can fit in your trunk. Or you can use it as a table and put a potted plant on it. I want...

Tuesday 22 February

  • 10x10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time (16:24) - Every hour, 10x10 scans the RSS feeds of several leading international news sources, and performs an elaborate process of weighted linguistic analysis on the text contained in their top news stories. After this process, conclusions are automatically drawn about...
  • Best-Dressed Homeless in the World... (12:29) - SEOUL (Reuters) - Some South Korean homeless are dressing in style after the government gave away thousands of fake designer garments confiscated by customs agents. ...
  • Paris Made Me Change My Number t-shirt (12:23) - For all the poor saps in her address book. ...

Monday 21 February

  • Is Wednesday the day for new iPods? (19:03) - Is Wednesday the big day for new iPods? For the past week or so we’ve been inundated with iPod rumors (that the iPod is going to come in a bunch of different new colors, that the iPod mini is...
  • I got Chris Rock's old cell phone number (17:29) - Very entertaining story about a girl whose cell phone number was Chris Rock's old number that Verizon had recycled. She wrote about her experiences of receiving calls for Chris from various stars and hollywood types. Eventually Chris Rock heard about...
  • Katamari Damacy reenactment in Play-Doh (12:47) - Cory Doctorow: This enterprising Katamari Damacy fan made his own Little Prince and Damacy out of Play-Doh and then rolled up lots of wee household objects with it in a splendid reenactment of a deeply weird video game. Link...
  • Paris (12:33) - Paris Hilton's sidekick hacked (NSFW) photos that were on it and her entire address book. I tried calling a number of people in her address book this morning (Lil John, Christina Aguilera, Ashlee Simpson, Ashley Olsen..) but all the...

Friday 18 February

  • Modest Mouse as sung by 7 year olds... (13:45) - I was watching some Scooby Doo yesterday when a commercial came on for Kidz Bop 7. The premise of the CD is little kids singing along in chorus to today's "hottest hits." I had recently come to grips with one...
  • What Larry Summers said (13:40) - On the insistence of Harvard faculty, Larry Summers, the president of Harvard has released the transcript of his contraversial Remarks at NBER Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce. Now you can decide for yourself if his remarks were...
  • The Somerville gates (12:13) - Often Hargo's "The Somerville Gates" has been compared with Christo's "The Gates", Central Park, New York City. These comparisons have been unfair; sometimes the media has exaggerated -- even lied -- about the similarities. Differences abound, and some of the...

Thursday 17 February


Wednesday 16 February

  • M-city stencils (09:18) - M-city provides an application for constructing stencil cities on your own, from the same elements as in the real world. The constructor came to life to prolong the life of Cities when they cease existing in the real world....
  • stop stop stop (09:00) - The “Stop Motion Studies” are a series of experimental documentaries that chronicle my interaction with subway passengers in cities around the world. Begun in the fall of 2002, the project currently includes 13 installments from countries including Sweden, the...

Tuesday 15 February

  • Tetris! (21:26) - What does this have to do with the video game? It is all resolved in the end....
  • How to pack a brain (13:40) - These instructions outline the procedures of packing a fresh brain for shipment to the New York Brain Bank at Columbia University. Mmmmmm, fresh brains! ...
  • Apple & Celebrities (10:31) - Melanie Griffith threw a tantrum when she was unable to buy a pink iPod mini early last year, according to the sales associate who tried to serve her. The associate, who asked to remain anonymous, said Griffith came right...
  • Satellite photo of The Gates (10:30) - Satellite photo of The Gates. Has anyone seen these yet? I think we are headed to New York this weekend to get a peek before they go away. ...
  • Bike Theif (10:18) - How easy is it to steal a bike in NYC? (qt mov) New York City is home to nearly 112,000 bicycle riders, unfortunately it is also home to some of the worst bike thieves in the country. A bicycle...
  • My kind of cat house (10:15) - Nekobukuro is a place in the Ikebokuro neighborhood of Tokyo where people without pets can pay 500 yen to hang out with cats. ...
  • watching america (10:14) - watching america reflects global opinion about the United States, helping Americans and non-Americans alike understand what the world thinks of current issues that involve the U.S.. This is done by providing [translated] news and views about the United States...
  • Currency Gallery (10:09) - Paper currency gallery. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. It's like being in Polamex's kitchen. (Polamex, take a photo of the money wall and send it to moblog.) ...

Monday 14 February

  • 2006 Civic SI Concept (10:20) - Polamex emailed me this one. 200hp inline 4, 6 speed (sounds like the RSX type-S), beautiful design. Honda could score huge with this car. The high-performance version of the 8th-generation Honda Civic returns to a coupe bodystyle. Honda says the...

Sunday 13 February

  • Can This Black Box See Into the Future? (23:18) - Deep in the basement of a dusty university library in Edinburgh lies a small black box, roughly the size of two cigarette packets side by side, that churns out random numbers in an endless stream. At first glance it...
  • Last of Children to See Fatima Virgin Dies at 97 (23:11) - LISBON (Reuters) - Lucia de Jesus dos Santos, the last of three children who claimed to see the Virgin at Fatima and who revealed a vision the Catholic Church said foretold the attempt to kill Pope John Paul, died...
  • Pro-Life Veganism (23:00) - This comment got me thinking about the pro-life/pro-vegan movement. I first encountered these folks at my local food co-op when I noticed some interesting bumper stickers. I was already somewhat aware of the "Consistent Life Ethic" movement, but they...
  • Using HIV to attack Cancer (22:56) - A University of California team found an "impotent" version of HIV, with the disease-causing parts of it removed, tracked down cancer cells in mice....

Saturday 12 February

  • London Underground (12:10) - London Underground Warning - very bad language and 750k but well crafted critique of the state of the transport system in London. ...
  • Love Coupons (11:55) - There are only 2 days left until Valentines. If you haven't done your shopping yet, you may be off the hook thanks to the Onion's Love Coupons. ...
  • German 'Homosexual' Penguins Spark Gay Protest (11:38) - BERLIN (Reuters) - A plan by a German zoo to test the sexual appetites of a group of suspected homosexual penguins has sparked outrage among gay and lesbian groups, who fear zookeepers might force them to turn straight. ...
  • Katamari Damacy live-action role playing (11:34) - dedicated fans [via]  ...
  • Opening the Gates (11:32) - Opening the Gates. Christo and Jeanne-Claude's The Gates opens tomorrow and many are excited about this potentially record-breaking public event. The finishing touches are now being put on the saffron-colored structures, which span 23 miles of path through New...

Thursday 10 February

  • Mind-controlled robot (21:06) - Spanish engineer José del R. Millán has recently been elected by Scientific American as one of the research leaders in 2004 for his experiences that allowed a small robot to move around a model house, while the bot itself...
  • Sleeping with the fishes (21:06) - Bruce Jones has $40 million invested to build a luxury hotel where the rooms will be submerged 50 feet under the sea off Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas. Unlike the Jules Undersea Lodge -- an undersea hotel located off...
  • Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! (20:58) - LONDON (Reuters) - A British woman was sentenced to two and a half years in jail Thursday for ripping off her ex-lover's testicle with her bare hands during a drunken brawl after he refused her sex. ...
  • Jobs says: Three PC makers are hitting me up for OS X (20:55) - Bombshell-lovin’ Stevie J. reveals plenty in a recent in-depth interview he did with Fortune mag, but the one that really got our juices flowing was when he drops that “three of the biggest PC makers” are trying to convince...
  • Drunk? Call (321) 600-1200 (20:43) - Safe Drunken Dialing: Its a fairly new and growing issue and we here at slackertown are tackling it head on with booze in hand. We've taken the liberty of setting up a number (321) 600-1200 for whenever the drunken...
  • Bar code design (11:34) - Design Barcode, Inc. has developed barcodes inspired by pizza, surfing or noodle (ramen). It's not just a pure arty stuff as some of these barcodes will actually be printed on popular bottled green tea products in Japan. Via RFID...
  • Seamful Game (11:34) - Seamful Game, by Matthew Chalmers from the University of Glasgow (Scotland), is a GPS and WiFi based game played in the streets using PDAs. To be successfull, two teams of runners must develop an understanding of the network coverage...
  • Estonian TV commercials from the 1980s (11:29) - supremely weird; don't miss Kanahakkliha [via] ...

Wednesday 9 February

  • The Brain on the big screen: films of patients in the neurology ward of a Romanian hospital circa 1899 (13:17) - The Brain on the Big Screen: films of patients in a neurology ward of a Romanian hospital circa 1899. Between 1899 and 1902, Gheoghe Marinescu perfected the use of cinematography as a research method in neurosciences and published five...
  • Art in Cities (13:14) - An art gallery called city Cities are like a huge art gallery with a permanently changing exhibition. Art is submitted everywhere and constantly. The art is not made by the direction of an institution or company, but are short...
  • Scan your handwriting, get a font (09:49) - At fontifier.com you can download and print out a form to get a sample of your handwriting. You then scan the filled out form and send it back to them and it is turned into a font of your...

Tuesday 8 February

  • Linux Virgin (13:18) - Artist -> Klara Hobza On February 14th 2005 www.linuxvirgin.info will begin hosting weekly installments of the linux virgin 1.1-1.5 series, an erotic and informative video series about learning to build a computer to run linux. This amusing series chronicles...
  • Lois Lane is a Drama Queen (13:13) - Superman is a Dick. The worst comic book covers. ...
  • Google employee Mark Jen fired for blogging? (13:13) - 99zeroes revealed some internal info, but nothing critical ...
  • Well, at Least He Won't Be Fathering More Fans... (10:59) - LONDON (Reuters) - A Welsh rugby fan cut off his own testicles to celebrate Wales beating England at rugby, the Daily Mirror reported Tuesday. Geoff Huish, 26, was so convinced England would win Saturday's match he told fellow drinkers...

Monday 7 February

  • England's changing voice (20:41) - In the same vein as our thread about American dialects, The Way We Speak takes a look at the changing English dialect from both a geographic and chronological aspect. Give a listen to the earlier recordings, some are nearly indecipherable...
  • Extreme Kite Flying (15:05) - Seventeen people, including four children, were killed and more than 600 injured during the annual kite-flying festival of Basant in Lahore on Sunday. The two-day festival marking the start of spring began on Saturday evening with thousands of revellers perched...
  • Why Superman, Why?! (13:15) - Police have released CCTV footage of three men they are still trying to trace following an attack which left a 23-year-old man with facial injuries. The victim was assaulted by a man dressed as Superman after a dispute over a...
  • Gigapxl Project (13:10) - Defining the upper limits of large-format photography, digital scanning and image processing, custom-built Gigapxl™ cameras capture images with unprecedented resolution. It would take a video wall of 10,000 television screens or 600 prints from a professional digital SLR camera...
  • Hokkaido installs musical roads (12:04) - Japan has already dabbled here and there with road surfaces that keep drivers awake by using appropriately-placed troughs to play rhythms through your tires. Now the Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute has gone a step further, with grooved sections of...
  • Court Docs Reveal Kazaa Logging User Downloads (11:53) - Dan Warne writes "The most explosive documents in the ongoing Kazaa court case have emerged today, including logs of discussions between parent company Sharman and the Estonian developer of the Kazaa Media Desktop. They include extraordinary admissions like: "Reporting...
  • iPod Shuffle RAID (11:45) - So, what do you do when you and some friends are all getting iPod Shuffles? You make a RAID array out of them, of course! ...

Sunday 6 February

  • 10 worst Super Bowl moments (14:58) -
  • build your own lcd projector (14:43) - Tom's Hardware has a guide to building your own XGA (1024x768) projector on the cheap (~$250) using a flat-panel lcd display and an old school overhead projector. It looks a bit fugly, but seems to do the trick. I'll stick...
  • the amazing einstein (14:22) - This parrot is great at doing impersonations....

Friday 4 February


Thursday 3 February

  • The Japanese sleep. (22:34) - Japanese people in suits who are asleep in non-bed places. ...
  • Britney Spears Nude On Balcony (22:29) - Remember the good ol' days when you actually wanted to see Britney Spears nude...? I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation as to why Britney Spears is walking around topless on her balcony, but I can't really come up...
  • Gizoogle (22:19) - ...
  • Self-amplified 1950s hand-powered record-player (13:34) - Cory Doctorow: This "self-amplified" 1950s promotional record for Skippy peanut-butter was played by inserting a pencil into the record-hole and turning the disc by hand, while a needle attached to a cardboard tone-arm transmitted the sound to the cardboard...
  • Death blamed on alcohol enema (13:29) - Investigators say a Lake Jackson woman caused her husband's death by giving him a sherry enema, leading to alcohol poisoning. Tammy Jean Warner, 42, was indicted on a charge of negligent homicide. ...
  • Street Fighter Online (13:27) - Do you like Street Fighter? Would you like to play it against others? Online? For Free? That's right. Online Multiplayer Flash Street Fighter! Looked pretty sweet up until it crashed Firefox on OSX for me. ...
  • 6 more weeks of winter! (00:48) -

Wednesday 2 February

  • Sleeping in Airports (12:40) - At sleepinginairports.net you can read nearly 3000 accounts/reviews/advice on sleeping in various airports around the globe. Find out where the most comfortable chairs are or the quietest corners of the airport you are stuck in....
  • NYC declares war on cyclists (11:14) - Cory Doctorow: New York has declared war on bicyclists. Last week, participants in the monthly "Critical Mass" ride were dragged from their bikes and arrested, their wheels confiscated (this amid a climate where city lawmakers are proposing to ban...
  • Xbox to 1979 toy Millennium Falcon mod (11:13) - Cory Doctorow: This is stupendously badass: an Xbox build into a 1979 toy model of the Millennium Falcon, for sale on eBay. ...
  • D'oh! 'Duff beer' sale a hoax (10:57) - BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- A woman has pleaded guilty to selling on eBay three nonexistent cases of Duff brand beer -- the favorite of cartoon character Homer Simpson.Prosecutor Gavin Burnett told the court Woodford was paid a total of...
  • Hide Your IPod, Here Comes Bill (10:50) - Microsoft's leafy corporate campus in Redmond, Washington, is beginning to look like the streets of New York, London and just about everywhere else: Wherever you go, white headphones dangle from peoples' ears."About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have...

Tuesday 1 February

  • sometimes you've got to do what you've got to do (14:35) - SIX Romanians have been jailed for digging up the corpse of a cancer victim, ripping his heart out and eating it because they thought he was a vampire.The men, who have each been sentenced to six months in jail, waited...
  • 30 things you didn't know about your office tech guy (12:19) - He does, in fact, have a girlfriend. And yes, they did meet once. He does, on occasion, have sex without the use of an avatar. Although he is well aware of the dangers, he still secretly wishes he had...
  • Ann Coulter gets schooled (11:41) - [via meat-eating leftist] In a recent interview with the investigative CBC news program, The Fifth Estate, Ann Coulter was put on the hot seat by Bob McKeown, a serious news journalist. In discussing the war in Iraq, Coulter tried to...
  • Pramulator: Bloblike baby carriage (01:03) - Now you can wheel your baby around in what looks like a atomic bomb. ...