The Army of Gnomes

Augmented Reality Applications and Future of Video Displays

2009-08-08T13:34:00.001-04:00

On Tuesday of this week, Augmented Reality actually trended on Twitter. This surprised me, as it meant that a large number of people have been exposed to this exciting technology. Even Google Trends shows the number of searches for "augmented reality" overtaking searches for "virtual reality".

Augmented reality is when artificial metadata or even 3d objects are injected into reality, usually as an enhancement. The most common example that most people have seen is the first-down line in football on TV. While a simple example and only viewable on TV, it does help express the usefulness and novel applications of this technology.

In September, it's rumoured that Apple will make augmented reality available to iPhone users, with the launch of the 3.1 OS. The addition of the magnetometer (digital compass) and live video on the iPhone 3GS are instrumental in allowing proper augmented reality applications. The compass allows developers to determine which way you are facing. If you combine this with the GPS and video capabilities, then you can overlay images, objects, text, etc. on top of things in the real world.

This alone would be exciting, but where it really starts to get interesting is when people get tired of holding up their phones in front of them all the time. The iPhone and iPod already brought back video glasses, such as the Myvu, from obscurity when Apple introduced video playback. Unfortunately, most video glasses make you look like a tool or a failed Star Trek rip-off castmember.

This is where companies like Lumus, Vuzix, Microvision, or even Sony come in. Using OLEDs or micro-projection components, they're actually creating glasses that are both small, see-through (in the optical sense, not the video method that older VR used), and what is probably oddly most important, fairly normal looking. These devices will continue to get smaller, more attractive, and more affordable for users rapidly. Vuzix's glasses are set to launch around fall of this year, while most of the other companies are planning on launching their glasses around 2010.

Of course, glasses are still fairly bulky and while most people are fine wearing sunglasses when it's bright out, there might be more objections to wearing glasses all the time, as current glasses wearers can attest. After glasses, contact lenses are likely to be the preferred method of wearing video displays, probably available around 2025 or so.

All-in-all, it's a very exciting time for augmented reality. Below are some videos of the various things discussed and a multitude of applications that either already exist or are being worked on today. Now if I could just convince some of these companies to send me some demo units so I can get to work on more applications...

Augmented Reality Toys.v2 (Work in progress) from Frantz Lasorne on Vimeo.

More Info:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/augmented_reality_heres_our_wishlist_of_apps_whats.php
http://trendplanner.com/2009/03/06/the-evolution-of-ar-5-of-the-best-augmented-reality-examples/
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/23940

The Election Special

2008-11-04T19:38:00.001-05:00

D90 on Amazon

2008-08-25T18:44:00.004-04:00

Looks like Amazon is ready to put up the Nikon D90 as well (which isn't surprising, since Target and Amazon are linked), typing in the ASIN (B001ENOZY4, gleaned from the cached Target page) into a search auto-fills in the title for the URL, which you can see here:

http://www.amazon.com/Nikon-D90-Digital-18-105mm-3-5-5-6G/dp/B001ENOZY4/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1219704235&sr=11-1 -- Currently a 404 page

The D90 has the impressive rumoured specs of:

Video recording
12.3 Mpx.
ISO 200-3.200 plus Lo1 (100) and Hi 1 (6.400)
3" 900.000 dots LCD
11 AF points
Live-View, AF contrast, Face detection
Matrix sensor for metering 420 pixels RGB
Powerful speaker (for video in review mode)

While the lens is a Vibration Reduction zoom with:

AF-S DX 18-105 mm f/3,5-5,6G ED VR
15 elements/11 groups
1 aspherical
1 ED
1 Hybrid Asph.
Minimum focus: 0,45 m
Diaph. blades: 7

As found here.

Amber's 21st Birthday Party

2008-07-04T12:56:00.002-04:00

Amber's 21st Birthday Party Photos

Kay's Graduation Photos 2008

2008-06-14T08:23:00.002-04:00

Kay's Graduation 2008

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

2008-06-02T14:41:00.002-04:00

Hmmm I knew there was a reason I disliked Rachel Ray, she supports terrorism by wearing scarfs! Ooo that is so evil. Dunkin' Donuts saw through this malicious plot and subsequently dropped her ads. What has the world come to these days... scarfs supporting terrorists? really?

Future of sporting Events on TV

2008-05-28T23:39:00.002-04:00

ok so save the nascar jokes but i had to post this. Very interesting article, and I saw a similar one of how this summer they'll be allowing you to view races from the computer by chosing from the same set of camera angles the director has access to.

Regardless of whether or not you're into nascar, think about the technology and potential of being able to watch a live sporting event by chosing the camera angle from your house (and the potential this has to spread beyond sports, to any live events! To me that's awesome!

Who Needs Mario Kart Wii when you got this?

2008-05-03T11:52:00.002-04:00

Awesome video of Mario Kart SNES being run with Force Dynamics. The new rollercoaster-like tracks on the Wii version would be awesome with this!!!

The Death of Google = Facebook?

2008-04-16T20:17:00.002-04:00

This popular mechanics article seems to suggest so saying that there is

a sea change taking place in the way people use the Internet—one that may leave the Web’s biggest players holding all the cards to a game nobody wants to buy in to anymore.

Someone should let Meyers know he shouldn't go to Mexico...

2008-03-28T09:45:00.001-04:00

Anti-Emo Riots

Google Reader Shared Items for 03.01.2008

2008-03-01T19:21:00.002-05:00

Gattaca 1997 720p BluRay x264-SEPTiC - Releaselog | RLSLOG.net

This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our site for full content.Ah, here is another old-timer released on HD: Gattaca (1997). This Sci-Fi/Thriller has nice ratings and Iâ€™ve checked this out myself too. It was decent, not top-notch. If you have nothing to do for the weekend (and...

It's the Pepsi Degeneration - Overheard in the Office

Assistant: I went to the grocery store this past weekend. Do you know my kids drank five two-liters of Pepsi since then? Three and a half kids drank five bottles of Pepsi.Sales guy: What'd you do with the other half a kid? ... That must have been awful!8220 England StreetCharlotte, North Carolin...

And Right Up Until Then, They'd Had No Idea She Was Retarded - Overheard in the Office

Susan*: What language was that?Office lady, hanging up phone: Croatian.Susan: Oh, wow, I didn't know you were black. [Entire office goes silent.]Boss, from his office: Susan*, you're fired.Garden City, New York

Alsome
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Thumbs up
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| wtf?

Link
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...

I Hear Metallica Is Going to Call Their Next Album "Butterfly" - Overheard in the Office

Male staff #1: Hey, check out that butterfly on the window sill.Male staff #2: Wow! That's cool. Man, I'm not trying to sound girly, but butterflies are beautiful. I have this bush outside my house that they just love, and it's so cool to watch them.Male staff #1: Yeah, man, seriously. I'm not go...

Nightmares - xkcd.com

RIAA Not Sharing Settlement Money With Artists - Slashdot

Klatoo55 writes "Various artists are considering lawsuits in order to press for their share of the estimated hundreds of millions of dollars the RIAA has obtained from settlements with services such as Bolt, KaZaA, and Napster. According to TorrentFreak's report on the potential action, there may not...

Ubuntu Brainstorm Launched - Slashdot

thorwil writes "Brainstorm is a new site where everyone can submit and vote on ideas for Ubuntu. It's inspired by Dell's Ideastorm. By default, you see the ideas submitted by the community sorted by popularity. Each idea is accompanied by arrows so you can vote it up or down (you have to log in first...

Military Steps Up War On Blogs - Slashdot

An anonymous reader writes "The military's war on blogs, first reported last spring, is picking up. Now the Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read. One senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so 'utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream.'"Read more of this story...

Woulda Been a Lot Easier Just to Say, "Sure, No Prob" - Overheard in the Office

Boss: Hey, can you make a calendar that looks like this? [Hands a paper to her.]Underling: Yeah. You know this is from [the other agency], right?Boss: Yeah, the client likes it. We have to go with that.Underling: But their calendar is a copy of the one I did for the client. The client just handed i...

Quick Link: How to recreate Silverbackâ€™s Parallax - DerekAllard.com

A stunning parallax effect, very nicely explained in a tutorial.Â How to recreate Silverbackâ€™s Parallax

...

This Is How #2 Gets His Proofreading Done for Free - Overheard in the Office

Coworker #1: Have you filed your travel voucher for that conference in Indianapolis? Coworker #2: Yes.Coworker #1: Let me see your copy so I can fill mine out correctly.Coworker #2: Here you go.Coworker #1: Let's see. You used the year '05 instead of '06, did not provide departure/arrival times, omit...

In Reality, Nobody Wins Existential Hockey - Overheard in the Office

Male worker #1, after a meeting: Wanna play hockey?Female worker: Where's the goal?Male worker #1: This is existential hockey. There is no goal. You win when you decide you've won.Female worker: Okay. I've won, then.Male worker #1: Okay.Male worker #2: They always win.Male worker #1: That's true. We ...

Wave Powered Boat to Sail From Hawaii to Japan - Slashdot

CaroKann writes "In the middle of May 2008, Kenichi Horie, an adventurer known for such feats as paddling a pedal powered boat 4,660 miles from Hawaii to Okinawa in 1993, will be sailing a wave powered boat from Honolulu's Hawaii Yacht Club to the Kii Channel in Japan. The boat, a 3-ton catamaran nam...

Firefox 3 Performance Gets a Boost - Slashdot

jason writes "Mozilla has been working hard at making Firefox 3 faster than its predecessor, and it looks like they might be succeeding. They've recently added some significant JavaScript performance improvements that beat out all of the competition, including Opera 9.5 Beta. And it comes out to be a...

NASA Looking For "Diamonds In The Sky" - Slashdot

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Scientist Charles Bauschlicher and his research team have found a new way to look for 'diamonds in the sky'. It may not be romantic, but diamonds shine especially brightly in the 3.4 to 3.5 micron and 6 to 10 micron infrared ranges, which should make NASA...

Dock Your Old Drives with the Hard Drive USB Dock [Stuff We Like] - Lifehacker:

Dock any internal SATA hard drive in this USB dock to turn any internal drive into an external drive on-the-quick. If you've got a few old hard drives hanging around that you'd like to put to good use but they aren't really worth installing in your computer's innards and you don't feel like taking th...

Opera's Mobile Browsers Return to Google - Google Operating System

For those who use Opera's excellent mobile browsers Opera Mobile and Opera Mini, there's a good news: from next month, Google will replace Yahoo as the default search engine. "With 2008 poised to be the year the mobile Web goes mainstream, Google and Opera are extending this collaboration to give our...

The Beckoning Promise of Personal Fabrication - Slashdot

posys noted an interesting talk from Neil Gershenfeld's called "The beckoning promise of personal fabrication". It's a TED talk which I've found greatly enjoyable in the past, and is worth your time, assuming you have 20 minutes to see something really neat.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
...

Enchanted DVDRip XviD-DiAMOND - Releaselog | RLSLOG.net

This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our site for full content.Once again DiAMOND are first pre a DVDRip this time of Oscar Winning Disney film â€œEnchantedâ€�. This movie is more for the family than anything else, like all Disney movies so it might not be for all of you. ...

The Trunk Monkey

2008-02-24T13:40:00.002-05:00

Boing Boing posted up this hilarious compilation video of Trunk Monkey Commercials:

the soundtrack to why’s (poignant) guide to ruby

2008-02-24T12:07:00.001-05:00

While you may have heard of Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby -- a cartoon guide involving foxes and other crazy characters that introduces you to the Ruby programming language -- have you heard of the soundtrack to it?

Regional Pizza Styles

2008-02-24T12:02:00.001-05:00

This large list of Regional Pizza Styles will probably make you a little hungry, especially if you haven't had anything to eat yet today.

The Geek ABC's

2008-02-24T11:52:00.002-05:00

I've had this page to be posted awhile ago, but without further ado:

The Geek Alphabet

Google Reader Shared Items for 02.23.2008

2008-02-23T11:06:00.007-05:00

... Anymore - Overheard in the Office

Office chick #1: Don't squeeze it! All the goo will come out!
Office chick #2, playing with stress ball: Why, what happened?
Office chick #1: I got a little too excited and squeezed it until it popped... That's why I don't hold babies...

Arlington, Virginia

100-MPG Air-Powered Car Headed To US Next Year - Slashdot

An anonymous reader sends us to Popular Mechanics for word on a New York automaker with plans to introduce a US version of the air-powered car, with which India's Tata Motors made a splash last year. Zero Pollution Motors plans a sub-$18,000, 6-passenger vehicle that can hit 96 mph and gets over 100 MPG, using an untried dual engine â€” the air-powered motor being supplemented by a second (unspecified) engine that would kick in above 35 MPH. The company estimates that "a vehicle with one tank of air and, say, 8 gallons of either conventional petrol, ethanol, or biofuel could hit between 800 and 1000 miles." The vehicle could be introduced to the market as early as 2009.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Leadership Is Having Him Ask for Seconds - Overheard in the Office

Project lead: It's like making a vegetarian eat a hamster.

Burton Drive
Santa Clara, California

Overheard by: Rob

"GiFi" â€” Short-Range, 5-Gbps Wireless For $10/Chip - Slashdot

mickq writes "The Age reports that Melbourne scientists have built and demonstrated tiny CMOS chips, 5 mm per side, that can transmit 5 Gbps over short distances â€” about 10 m. The chip features a tiny 1-mm antenna, a power amp that is only a few microns wide, and power consumption of only 2 W. 'GiFi' appears set to revolutionize short-distance data transmission, and transmits in the relatively uncrowded 60GHz range. Best of all, the chip is only about a year away from public release, and will only cost around US $9.20 to produce."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

IPv4 Address Crunch In 2 Years, IPv6 Not Ready - Slashdot

An anonymous reader writes "We've known for ages that IPv4 was going to run out of addresses â€” now, it's happening. IPv6 was going to save us â€” it isn't. The upcoming crisis will hit, perhaps as soon as 2010, but nobody can agree on what to do. The three options are all pretty scary. This article covers the background, and links to a presentation by Randy Bush (PDF) that shows the reality of the problem in stark detail."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Project Cat People Hits an Ethical Snag - Overheard in the Office

Lab worker #1: Murder only applies to humans. It's a term specific to us.
Lab worker #2: You can't 'murder' a dream?
Lab worker #1: You can't murder baby cows.
Lab worker #2: What about cats?
Lab worker #1: No. Cats can't be murdered... Unless they?re half-cat, half-person.
Lab worker #2: Then it's half murder.
Lab worker #1: Even if it's premeditated, it's knocked back to manslaughter. That?s probably why the cat people think we're biased against them, but really it's just that the legal system wasn?t set up with them in mind. [Silence.] I've thought about this a lot.

Durham, North Carolina

Mossberg Reviews the Lenovo X300 Vs. MacBook Air - Slashdot

genji256 writes "Adding to his first impressions, Walt Mossberg has published a full review of the soon-to-come Lenovo X300. As a bottom line he 'recommends the X300 for road warriors without hesitation, provided they can live with its two biggest downsides: a relatively paltry file-storage capacity and a hefty price tag.' Gizmodo lists all the comparisons with the MacBook Air that Walt inevitably makes. Final score: it's a tie, though certain points are arguable ('Doesn't use Mac OS X Leopard. Winner: MacBook Air')."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rubber material made from component found in urine self-heals - Boing Boing

The BBC reports that French researchers have invented a rubber made from urea (a component found in urine) and vegetable oil that rebinds when cut. They say immediate applications include self-reparing seals and kids toys.

The substance, described in the journal Nature, produces surfaces when cut that retain a strong chemical attraction to each other.

Pieces of the material join together again as if never parted without the need for glue or a special treatment.

The French researchers are already making kilogramme quantities in their Paris laboratories and say the process is almost completely green, and could be completely so with a few adjustments.

Link (Thanks, Sigsy!)

Tex Avery toon on the Future of TV, 1953 - Boing Boing

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Joel's spotted this classic 1953 Tex Avery toon about the future of TV:

Cartoon genius Tex Avery produced this short in 1953, showing off TVs for smokers, water drinkers, and those afflicted by airplanes overhead. The integration of real footage with the cartoon is fantastic.

Link,
TSA steals food from doctors' infant children - Boing Boing

Two doctors -- a married couple -- were flying with their kids from Chicago to Manchest NH. Given the record delays, snows, etc, they brought along a bunch of extra baby-food. When they got to the TSA checkpoint, the government stole their children's food, saying that if they wanted to bring that much food past the checkpoint, they'd need a letter from a doctor. So -- being doctors -- they offered to write the letter. No, the TSA said, you need a letter from a different doctor.

According to Dr. Soni, the T.S.A. officers said they would need a â€œdoctorâ€™s noteâ€� to bring on all of the food. He said he pointed out that he and his wife were doctors, and then offered to get a pediatrician colleague on the phone...

The T.S.A. officers confiscated some of the food. â€œThey divided it up. They took a jar of prunes and one of bananas, and I think a bottle of formula,â€� he said.

Link

(via Consumerist)

Kinetic steampunk submarine sculpture - Boing Boing

Argentine kinetic sculptor Pablo Lavezzari has a new creation called "Utopia" that's a kind of hand-cranked, tabletop steampunk submarine/fish. It's handsome standing still, and a total knockout when it's in motion.

Link to video, Link to stills gallery

(via Automata Blog)

Scientists Find Believing Can Be Seeing - Slashdot

Ponca City, We Love You writes "Scientists at University College London have found the link between what we expect to see, and what our brain tells us we actually saw revealing that the context surrounding what we see is all important â€” sometimes overriding the evidence gathered by our eyes and even causing us to imagine things which aren't really there. A vague background context is more influential and helps us to fill in more blanks than a bright, well-defined context. This may explain why we are prone to 'see' imaginary shapes in the shadows when the light is poor. "Illusionists have been alive to this phenomenon for years," said Professor Zhaoping. "When you see them throw a ball into the air, followed by a second ball, and then a third ball which 'magically' disappears, you wonder how they did it. In truth, there's often no third ball â€” it's just our brain being deceived by the context, telling us that we really did see three balls launched into the air, one after the other." The original research paper is available on PLOS, the open-access, peer-reviewed journal."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Astronaut describes what space smells like - Boing Boing

On NASA's website, ISS Science Officer Don Pettit describes the "smell of space" -- long a staple of science fiction stories.

Each time, when I repressed the airlock, opened the hatch and welcomed two tired workers inside, a peculiar odor tickled my olfactory senses. At first I couldn't quite place it. It must have come from the air ducts that re-pressed the compartment. Then I noticed that this smell was on their suit, helmet, gloves, and tools. It was more pronounced on fabrics than on metal or plastic surfaces. It is hard to describe this smell; it is definitely not the olfactory equivalent to describing the palette sensations of some new food as "tastes like chicken." The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space.

Link

(via JWZ)

Library starts to include CC licensed editions of books in collection - Boing Boing

The Nebraska Library Commission has begun to include Creative Commons licensed editions of books in its catalog -- so you can check out my novels in the Tor editions, or just nab a copy from the library's site.

About a month ago I was asked the following question: Why don't libraries start cataloging and offering CC-licensed works? Why not, I asked myself. Why doesn't the Commission try this. So, I spoke with others and everyone loved the idea. (At first anyway. We'll come back to that in a moment.) The basic idea was to take electronic versions of these titles, post them on our Web server, catalog them in the OPAC, then offer them up to those that wanted them. Additionally, for some titles the license allowed for physical printing of the works so we sent those files off to the print shop to turn them into spiral-bound books to be added to the physical collection. (A few days later the print shop called back to question our right to print these works. A few pointers back to the CC Web site and the relevant licenses straightened it all out.)

Link

Disneyland's new House of the Future will look like the boring recent past - Boing Boing

Disneyland is reviving its old "House of the Future" attraction -- originally, this was a wheel-of-gouda-shaped plastic house sponsored by Monsanto that opened in 1957, featuring futuristic technology like cordless phones, giant TVs, electric razors, and kitchen appliances that rose out of the countertops. It was inspriringly goofy -- and so indestructible that the wrecking-ball bounced off it and so the structure had to be disassembled with cutting torches and chainsaws.

The new version will look like a suburban McMansion and will feature stuff that sounds like rejects from CES: touch-screen home automation, automatic lights and temperature (oooh, a thermostat!), and assorted junk from HP, Microsoft, and a couple other sponsors.

I'd rather see Disney give us something built out of surplus shipping containers, filled with just-in-time blobjects that track their existence through spimes and gracefully decompose into the manufacturing stream at their end of life. Something that at least looks like the future, rather than the model home in a pre-subprime-meltdown housing development.

When a resident clicks a TV remote, for example, lights will dim, music will shut off and the shades will draw as the network realizes a movie is about to start.

The system will allow residents to transfer digital photos, videos and music among televisions and computers in different rooms at the click of a button. Other applications still in development could include touch-screen technology built into appliances, furniture and countertops, said Joe Belfiore, Microsoft's vice president for entertainment services.

In the kitchen, for example, touchpad software on the countertop would be able to identify groceries and produce recipes and meal suggestions. Similar programs could turn a desktop into a computer screen, allowing residents to load photos, music or e-mail onto a cell phone by placing it on the desk.

Link

(via /.)

(Image: Yesterland)

American waterboarding in times gone by: the Philippines water cure of 1901 - Boing Boing

The New Yorker has a good investigative piece on the history of the use of waterboarding by US troops in the Philippines in 1901-2 -- a scandal that rocked the nation.

A letter by A. F. Miller, of the 32nd Volunteer Infantry Regiment, published in the Omaha World-Herald in May, 1900, told of how Millerâ€™s unit uncovered hidden weapons by subjecting a prisoner to what he and others called the â€œwater cure.â€� â€œNow, this is the way we give them the water cure,â€� he explained. â€œLay them on their backs, a man standing on each hand and each foot, then put a round stick in the mouth and pour a pail of water in the mouth and nose, and if they donâ€™t give up pour in another pail. They swell up like toads. Iâ€™ll tell you it is a terrible torture.â€�

And let us not forget: after WWII, Japanese soldiers who'd waterboarded their American prisoners were put to death by the US military for committing unconscionable acts of torture.

Link

(Thanks, Ken)

I Wanna Be the Guy -- platformer game is a stew of 8-bit classics - Boing Boing

I Want to Be the Guy is an insanely hard platformer video-game that mashes together art, bosses, and other play elements from several 8-bit console cartridges from the golden age. Here's a video of someone running the game -- mesmerising.

Link
(via Waxy)

Infrared LEDs make you invisible to CCTV cameras - Boing Boing

This German exibition is showcasing bright infrared LED devices that overwhelm the CCDs in security cameras, allowing you to move through modern society in relative privacy. I used this as a gimmick in my story I, Robot -- now I want to own one!

The URA / FILOART developed device promises to the citizens of a more reliable protection against security measures of the state (and other Ãœberwachenden).

In addition to monitoring purposes organised systems interaction between man and machine is still IR.ASC an additional interaction between machines dar. This absurd accumulation of technology is symptomatic, because although the entire expense of the protection measures for the alleged safety of citizens is made, the person slips on the importance scale of the current security plan ever deeper down.

Link
(Thanks, Bill!)

Alice In Wonderland syndrome - Boing Boing

Alice In Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS) is an unusual neurological disorder that causes the person with the condition objects to sometimes perceive certain things as much smaller than they are. It's also referred to as "Lilliputian hallucinations," after the tiny folks in Gulliver's Travels. In The Guardian, Rik Hemsley describes life with the spatial distortions of Alice In Wonderland Syndrome. From his essay:
When it first happened, I was a 21-year-old undergraduate. I had been up late the night before writing my dissertation and drinking a lot of coffee, but on that particular morning I was stone cold sober and hangover-free. I stood up, reached down to pick up the TV remote control from the floor and felt my foot sink into the ground. Glancing down, I saw that my leg was plunging into the carpet. It was a disturbing sensation, but it lasted only a few seconds, so I put it down to over-tiredness and forgot all about it.

It wasn't long, however, before I started experiencing more extreme spatial distortions. Floors either curved or dipped, and when I tried walking on them, it felt as though I was staggering on sponges. When I lay in bed and looked at my hands, my fingers stretched off half a mile into the distance.

Link

Honor system wine-bars in Berlin: drink all night, pay what you think you owe - Boing Boing

JÃ¼rgen Stumpf's Berlin wine-bars in the gentrifying neighborhoods of Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte run on the honor system: show up, drink wine, and pay what you think you owe on the way out the door.

Each of Mr. Stumpfâ€™s three honor-system wine bars (a fourth, down some stairs on Kollwitzstrasse, is temporarily closed while it deals with licensing issues) carries a different assortment of red and white wines. Their owner hails from the north Bavarian region of Franconia, and more than half the wines are produced in Germany. Before you turn up your nose, German wines have been impressive of late, and the food is also good. The fare is mostly variations on German cuisine made with organic ingredients. Food prices, too, are on the honor system. Diners typically pay around 10 to 15 euros for an entree, salad and a few glasses of wine.

Fanedit.org - Custom Edits of Movies

2008-02-22T00:10:00.001-05:00

This site has a lot of awesome movie Fanedits. People take dvd's and cut/edit them with their own take on things. There are some pretty cool cuts in there, such as a darker version of Spider-man 3. Releases are available via RapidShare and Bittorrent.

Fun things to do in your free time...

2008-02-16T20:36:00.004-05:00

next time you're bored, try solving one of these 14 engineering challenges of the 21st century. My personal favorite: Reverse Engineer the Brain. To me it's the least probable to be solved, but most interesting, with so much potential (good and bad).

Super Mario World and Quantum Physics?

2008-02-08T13:04:00.000-05:00

This article has an interesting video showing quantum physics demonstrated on a hacked super mario mod.

Google Reader Adds External Page Viewing

2008-02-02T17:27:00.000-05:00

Looks like when you're on Google reader and click a feed that leads to an external page, it now opens within Google Reader as opposed to opening in a new window. Not sure if this feature was rolled out for everyone or if it's still in testing. It opens up in a 'Preview' pane and you can click a button to open other posts up in Google Reader as well.

UPDATE:
Just realised this is a part of the Better GReader extension, which can be found here. Guess I installed it on the laptop and not on my other computers, so I didn't realise it wasn't a new feature.

I'm Factoring the Time

2008-01-30T22:30:00.000-05:00

The militarisation of space

2008-01-21T14:03:00.000-05:00

Modern American warfare relies on satellites. They make America powerful but also vulnerable, particularly in light of China's new celestial assertiveness.

The Economist has a good (long) article about space and its benefits and weakness in war. A good read if you have the time

Snow-Eating Robot

2008-01-06T11:32:00.001-05:00

check out this

"snow-eating robot that poops ice bricks"

. Man, I have to find one of these before our next snow storm!!

Bluetooh phones and Linux

2007-12-11T20:21:00.000-05:00

found this very helpful guide if you're interested in using your bluetooh phone with linux.
That gives me one less reason to boot into windows.