I just ordered this today for my son from Thinkgeek. Ok, ok, not ONLY for my son. God, I can’t believe I’m 34 and still buying toys like these. I think I’m a lost cause.
This battery powered wand features a mini Van de Graaff generator inside. Push a button on the handle and the static charge built up in the wand causes the included 3D mylar shapes to levitate at your command. You can also do some cool tricks causing the shapes to jump back and forth from your hand to the wand. Not quite Harry Potter… but hey, we do our best for you.
Now all I can say after seeing this is: Wow. I have no idea how much building this automated underground garage must have cost, but I’m sure it approaches the cost of a small house, and this is without mentioning the value of the cars hidden inside.
No this is not a fake picture; it’s a real shot, taken by a radar camera, of Animal (From the Muppets), driving a British Audi, and driving the German police absolutely crazy.
At first, I’m sure the policeman thought this was an amusing situation, but the culprit continues to appear on camera again, and again, and again. The reason these pictures can’t be used to find the driver is because according to German law, clear evidence of who is driving a car is needed before someone gets fined for speeding. The problem with these photos is that the German radar cameras are calibrated to take pictures of a driver sitting in the right side of a car, so in this case, the driver’s face is out of focus and makes the shots useless for prosecution.
I don’t know about you, but there’s just something about this picture that cracks me up. Kudos to the British driver for a great sense of humor. Now let’s just hope he doesn’t go and kill anybody because of it.
Robotics engineers at the University of Bristol, UK, have developed a super-creepy robotic talking head that can mimic many “human” facial expressions as well as generate synched speech lip movements. Fortunately for humanity, the bored robot doesn’t have a body yet. This is a good thing because, as it says below, it wants to wipe out humanity.
TMCO, a manufacturer of metal products from Lincoln, Nebraska, recently held an open house party where they used one of their factory robots to pour beer to guests. If you keep on watching till the end, you’ll even see that the robot encourages tipping! A hat tip to the guys at TMCO for finding such a noble use for an industrial machine.
No doubt Arrington makes some good points — and certainly the web is inhabited by many trolls in various shapes, sizes, and political affiliations. But rather than giving them all the attention, I think we should “accentuate the positive” and talk about the comments that really are cool and insightful. Besides, we get more of those kind anyway here at [GAS].
So, here are eleven categories of comments that we like to see on Geeks Are Sexy, linked to examples from you, our cool and insightful readers:
In the following video, “human beatbox James “AudioPoet” Burchfield performs an intricate three-minute breakdown — sexy, propulsive hip-hop rhythms and turntable textures — all using only his voice.” Enjoy the show!
Epsilon Eridani was already special, even before today. It is one of only four stars that scientists have found to have an icy ring of debris, which indicates that it has begun the process of forming planets. Additionally, at about 62 trillion miles away, it is our closest known solar system, and was borrowed by Star Trek creators as the home of the fictional planet of Vulcan (Mr. Spock’s home planet).
But it just got even more interesting… NASA announced today that the star, only 10.5 light-years from the sun, has two inner asteroid belts as well as a Jupiter-like planet in a very familiar orbit. Basically, Epsilon Eridani resembles a younger version of our own solar system.
Some astronomers postulate that if the solar system is like ours, then it’s likely that there are planets like ours as well. Others point out that it isn’t really a twin, but a different beast altogether; there are three belts of comets and astroids whereas our system has two. Scientist Jane Greaves makes an interesting point: “This implies that planets can shape systems very differently, and if life emerged in this system in the future, the environment could be very different. [For instance, comets and asteroids could pummel a habitable planet] from all directions, so life might have to evolve very fast to survive.”
Of course, the real question is, if there is a habitable planet there, is it anything like Vulcan? As a Star Trek geek, I know this about the fictional planet: (1) it’s hotter than Earth, (2) the atmosphere is thinner, and (3) it has stronger surface gravity. This is why the human Captain Kirk had so much trouble in his fight to the “death” with Spock in the episode “Amok Time.”
Though what every Star Trek geek also knows is that the Vulcan civilization is much, much more advanced than humankind… which doesn’t make a lot of sense when you consider how much younger Epsilon Eridani is than our own sun. However, maybe Ms. Greaves’ point is an important one: who knows how fast life on other planets might evolve, given the right circumstances. Maybe Vulcans crawl out from the primordial ooze in the time it takes us to develop warp speed.
Why choose between science and science fiction when you can have both?
Today I stumbled across this collection of 17 of the Most Visually Beautiful HDR Images, and found myself staring at some of them for quite a while. I wish I was on a nicer monitor instead of my laptop so that I could fully appreciate them.
The definition of HDR, according to the poster: “High Dynamic Range. An HDR image aims to store pixel values that span the whole tonal range of real-world scenes. In order to create such an image several low dynamic range (ie ordinary digital photos) taken at differing exposure values are combined.”
It looks like he did a search for HDR images on Flickr and found the best ones. Needless to say, this is one of the reasons I love Flickr. Not only can you find such amazing amateur photography, but a great deal of it is licensed under Creative Commons, so it can be shared with the world!
The image pictured here is my favorite. As described by the source: “I made it to the heart of Ta Prohm, an undisturbed Bayon ruin out the outskirts of Angkor Wat. It was late in the day and there was a break in the afternoon summer showers.” To me, it looks like something straight out of a fantasy film.
Automated Assets, a short movie by James Dastoli and Robert Datoli, exposes the real faces behind automated phone support systems. From now on, when you call in for support at Dell and get asked for your “express service code”, you’ll now know with whom you’re having to deal with. Enjoy!
