Fun with Gravity

Neil Fraser wondered if a lava lamp would still work in the higher gravity environment of Jupiter. How such a question ever occurs to anyone is a matter of wonder in itself, but Fraser went ahead and built a ten-foot centrifuge in his living room to conduct an experiment to answer the question.

The centrifuge is a genuinely terrifying device. The lights dim when it is switched on. A strong wind is produced as the centrifuge induces a cyclone in the room. The smell of boiling insulation emanates from the overloaded 25 amp cables. If not perfectly adjusted and lubricated, it will shred the teeth off solid brass gears in under a second. Runs were conducted from the relative safety of the next room while peeking through a crack in the door.

Highlight this text for a spoiler: Yes, the lava lamp worked in 3G.

[via Digg]

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Forget the iPad, This 1984 Macintosh Runs OS X Snow Leopard

Now this is hard core geek awesome. As a long-time Mac user, myself, I was absolutely floored by this Instructables piece by gmjhowe. Here were his guidelines—the end result is nothing short of gorgeous:

1.  Do not alter, cut, deform, change, or break the original Mac in anyway, I wanted to be able to return it to its original state if I chose to.
2. Not to let myself cut costs on the project just to make it more ‘amazinger’ (cheap instructables are great, but we do see a lot of ‘wow make an awesome uber computer for like $10 dollars yeah’. This was an epic project, I cut costs where I could, and used recycled parts, but I spared no expense in making this the best I could. This 1984 Macintosh deserved no less.

[Upgrade your original 1984 Macintosh to run OS X Snow Leopard]

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3DTV hits US with major discounts

Three-dimensional television is hitting BestBuy this week — and it’s coming in cheaper than expected.

Sales and demos begin this Wednesday with Panasonic’s VT25 bundle. That includes a 50 inch plasma screen, a Blu-ray player, and a pair of active glasses. The system works by the glass lenses alternately dimming (hence “active”) in sync with the screen alternating between images aimed at the left and right eye.

The package only comes with one pair of glasses. That may seem mean, but the logic may well be that early adopters are likely to be single people who have disposable cash to spend on gadgets rather than bringing up children. (There are plans for 3D technology which doesn’t need glasses, but at the moment those systems severely limit the viewing angles.)

The big news is that while an equivalent package currently retails in Japan for 43,000 yen (around US$4,800), the US price is expected to be in the $2,500 to $3,000 range. The Wall Street Journal believes it’s a Panasonic strategy to try and spark interest in the technology. That certainly seems to make sense as a broader user base will help get over the chicken-and-egg situation of content providers being hesitant to produce 3D footage until there’s a big enough audience, but users being wary about getting sets until there’s enough footage to make it worthwhile.

The Best Buy displays will initially be in around 100 major stores before being rolled out to 1,000 stores across the country. Panasonic hopes to sell a million 3D sets this year, half of them in the US.

Samsung is also set to unveil sets at Best Buy from 21 March, with LG and Sony also planning US released in 2010.

Breaking News: The “Star Wars Kid” – Where Is He Now?

His image is now the stuff of legend: Ghyslain Raza, the Star Wars kid, aged 15, got the attention and ridicule of the Internet—especially its geek contingent—when footage of him wielding a golf ball retriever and fending off a horde of invisible vicious enemies surfaced. Granted, we geeks were a little less harsh. But unfortunately for Ghyslain, the sudden—and often cruel—Internet fame was far from intended. His performance became an Internet phenomenon after four of his schoolmates uploaded his video for the world to see. It has since inspired thousands of remixes. By November of 2006, the video had been viewed over 900 million times.

But now that eight years have passed, have you ever wondered what happened to the famed Star Wars Kid? Here’s a bit of a timeline to fill in the years since the video went public:

In July 2003, Ghyslain’s family filed a $250,000 lawsuit against the families of his schoolmates, mainly to pay for psychiatric therapy for their son due to the derision he received at the hands of a very unforgiving public. Although the suit was dropped in April of 2004, it was settled out of court.

However, these days, Ghyslain certainly is having the last laugh. After climbing what must surely have seemed like an insurmountable mountain, he is currently completing his law studies at Montreal’s McGill University and recently took a position of president of Patrimoine Trois-Rivière, an organization that aims to defend Trois-Rivière’s historical real estate against the city’s frenetical urban expansion. The Force is surely strong with this one.

So, if you ever find yourself in a similar situation someday—your most private fantasies aired to the world (something which is becoming more and more likely in this age of instant news and technology)—consider Ghyslain’s amazing journey. Though things may seem desperate, though you may feel as if the whole world is laughing at you, there is always hope at the end of the tunnel. And through hard work and persistence, it’s attainable for anyone. Here’s to you, Ghyslain.

For nostalgia’s sake, here are a few of the best remixes of the famed Star Wars Kid. We hope that someday Ghyslain can smile when he sees these, too. Because really, he’s just one of us.

The Drunken Jedi

Star Wars Kid- Agent Smith Fight

[Via Branchez-Vous (French) | Picture Credit: Sylvain Mayer]