This clip gives a few good reasons why a romantic relationship between a human being and a dinosaur is just not a good idea.
[Via Korben.info (French)]
Amazing Tilt-Shift Video of Swiss Landscape and Trains
An absolutely stunning tilt-shift video of various trains passing through the Swiss villages of Sisikon and Göschenen. This project was filmed by Andi Leemann and Jeri Peier using two EOS 5D Mark II cameras, a Canon 90mm TS-E f/2.8 and a Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5 combined with a 1.4x converter.
[Via Videosift]
Ames Window Optical Illusion
An Ames Window is an object that looks like a rectangular window, but in reality, is a trapezoid. As the window rotates on a vertical axis, it first looks to be going in a certain direction, but after turning 180 degrees, it gives the illusion of stopping and reversing its course. Observe as the rod inserted in the middle seems to be passing through the frame as the device appears to be reversing its rotation.
Sims 3: A Closer Look
Given the response to our review of Sims 3 from the other day, I decided to dig through the screenshots I’ve been collecting to give you a closer look at the some of the neat (or just pretty) things in the game. These are all from my personal gameplay, not official promotional shots from EA. Feel free to use them if you like, but please link back to this post!
Deadline: A Post-it Stop-Motion Short
Produced by Bang-yao Liu as a senior project for his degree at Savannah’s College of Art and Design, Deadline is a 1:54-minute short featuring Bang-yao’s thought process as he is busy meeting his various work deadlines.
New Element in Search of a Name
Officials have agreed to add a new element to the periodic table. But they won’t do so until the team which discovered it comes up with a permanent name.
The element will become the 112th to appear on the table (in the gap below mercury), as determined by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). It’s made from a fusion of zinc and lead. Although the first atom was created in 1996, it took several attempts to produce enough evidence to earn IUPAC approval last month.
The process of creating the element, which involves using a particle accelerator to fire charged zinc atoms at lead atoms, is extremely difficult and only four atoms have ever been created.
The new element currently has the temporary name ununbium, adapted from the Latin for 112. However, IUPAC is asking for a permanent name to be chosen by Professor Sigurd Hoffman of the Centre for Ion Research in Germany, which discovered the element. The centre was also responsible for discovering the previous four elements which now reside in the period table.
The element is one of a group categorized as transuranium, also known as superheavy. These are elements with more protons than the 92 found in uranium, and are characterized by being radioactive and rapidly decaying into other elements. The best known is probably plutonium.
The superheavy elements are split into two sub-categories. The new element, as with all with atomic number above 103, fits into the transactinide group. These are ones which have never been found occurring naturally and have instead been created in labs. Because the decay starts just milliseconds after creation, scientists don’t yet have a way of creating atoms which can serve any practical purpose.
Elements with atomic numbers of 113 to 116, as well as 118, have already been confirmed to exist, but have not yet been demonstrated to the satisfaction of IUPAC.
So what do GeeksAreSexy readers suggest for naming the new element? I’m proposing emergencium, in recognition of 112 being the number for calling for emergency services in both many domestic landline networks and on three billion cellphones worldwide.
Brute Force ATM Attack
The security gurus among you will probably assume that we’re talking about cracking into an ATM via some kind of custom hardware and software solution here (à la John Connor.) But no, in this case, brute force truly means brute force. Check it out:
[Via Gizmodo]
The Extreme Sport of Cheese Rolling
Yeah, I can already hear your thoughts from here: “Cheese rolling? Are you kidding me? How can cheese rolling be an extreme sport?” Well my friends, I can well understand your skepticism, but only because you haven’t seen the following video yet.
Filmed on Monday May 25th, this event took place in Gloucestershire, England, where competitors threw themselves down a ridiculously steep hill in order to be the first to get their hands on a coveted piece of Double Gloucester cheese. Needless to say, cheese rolling is not for the weak of heart, considering the amount of people that leave the event by ambulance.
[Via The Presurfer | Picture Source: Flickr (CC)]
Expialidocious : Mary Poppins Electronica Remix
Created by remixer/virtuoso Nick Bertke, Expialidocious was composed using a sine wave bass, custom drum sequences, and sounds recorded from the classical Disney film Mary Poppins. The final result is, shall we say, quite hypnotic. Check it out!
The MP3 of the song is available for download right here.
[Via Neatorama]
How to smarten up your electrical outlets
In the following video, long-time electronics inventor John La Grou unveils an ingenious new technology that will smarten up the electrical outlets in our homes, using microprocessors and RFID tags. The invention, Safeplug, promises to prevent deadly accidents like house fires — and to conserve energy.