Everyone has them from time to time, and if we keep our frustrations inside for too long, the following video shows what can happen. Enjoy!
The best geek hotels in the world
By Mark O’Neill
I don’t like to go on holiday much these days for a variety of reasons, one of them being that if I am offline for more than a hour I break out in a cold sweat. So an article on the best geek hotels in the world caught my eye because they are all fitted out with wi-fi internet access (among other things).
Candidates range from the hotel within a stone’s throw of the Googleplex to the hotel where the Matrix movie was filmed (the Deja Vu scene).
But the weirdest candidate has to be the Pod Hotel in New York, nicknamed the “Facebook Hotel”. It’s supposed to be for the social media junkies and the hotel has its own social networking site where you can leave messages for people to meet up with you for drinks, dinner, shopping and so on.
As I was reading this, I thought to myself – why are all these unique hotels in the US and not in continental Europe? The last time I stayed in a German hotel room, I almost had to declare war to get some hot water to make a cup of tea. But US hotels? “You’d like a social network user ID? No problem sir!”
AIR + AOL = One nice little desktop music widget
By Mark O’Neill
I am normally rather wary of anything coming from AOL, but I have to admit that their free little music desktop widget, which runs on Adobe AIR, has impressed the hell out of me. It’s a nice little program to have running while you’re surfing away on the net.
If you download it, it will also download the latest version of Adobe AIR (if you don’t already have it). AIR is rapidly becoming THE application to have on your computer right now as more and more apps are being made for it, the best one in my opinion being Google Analytics.
This music widget, upon opening, asks you what music genre you want, and when you’ve chosen your genre, gives you the top 100 music videos on AOL Music. You can then listen to them immediately inside the application. Some of the videos are apparently not available, which must mean that the player is not updated as fast as the site.
You can keep the app on top of all browser windows, create custom playlists and share videos with other people by emailing them the links.
Along with the fact that AOL has opened up their AIM chat platform to developers this week, I am starting to develop a new respect for AOL in general. Long may it continue.
Silver TAG $100,000 Shower will wipe your butt clean in no time
If you think that your “working-class” shower isn’t quite as effective as you’d like it to be, then you’ll want to have a look at the $100,000 Silver TAG Shower. This baby comes equipped with 18 computer-controlled showerheads, including one that looks to be specially made to clean dirty derrières, and features six zones, which can be individually customized for temperature and water pressure. The whole thing is controlled via a touch screen that is located right outside the shower. Come on, you know you want it! Having the world’s cleanest butt is definitely worth $100,000!
LifeGem: From Cremation to Diamond
It’s a fact: Nobody likes to think of death. Whether we’re talking about ourselves, our loved ones or our favorite pet, most people prefer to avoid talking about the subject. And when death comes knocking upon our door, decisions have to be taken.
How do you want your body to end up? Eaten away by Mother Nature under 6 feet of soil or reduced to a pile of ashes? If neither interests you, a new alternative exists: The LifeGem.
The LifeGem is a small diamond that is made with the carbon that is extracted out of a cremated body’s ashes. Once the carbon particles have been collected, they are purified and put inside a high temperature carbon press. The result? A small “real” diamond of the weight and color of your choice.
The price? Expensive. A basic LifeGem will cost you approximately $2700, and if you want something that weights over 1 carat, you’ll have to shell out over $25000.
A bit pricey, but hey, spending eternity trapped inside a diamond has to be expensive!
World’s Most Powerful Air Vortex Cannon Will Blow you Away
To celebrate their twentieth anniversary of sandwich making, the folks from Erbert & Gerbert built what they call “the world’s most powerful air vortex cannon”. Enjoy!
No idea on how large this thing really is, but according to the cannon’s official website, it’s about as big as the Appolo space capsule, and a little bit smaller than three ninjas.
Bill Gates Dethroned As World’s Richest Man
After 15 years in a row of being the world’s richest man, Bill Gates finally had to step down from the podium and take the 3rd place. But please, don’t start sending donations to Mr. Gates yet, his fortune is still evaluated at over $58 billion.
The new world’s richest man is Gates’ friend and investment mogul Warren Buffett, according to Forbes magazine’s annual ranking of the world’s wealthiest people, which was released Wednesday. The magazine estimated Buffett’s worth at $62 billion, and Gates’ fortune not too far behind at $58 billion. But that doesn’t mean he only slipped one notch: Carlos Slim, a Mexican telecoms tycoon, came in second with an estimated worth of $60 billion.
Gates dethroned as world’s richest man (News.com)
Defeating Hard Drive Encryption Using Ice
Horror stories about how corporations get their important data stolen from mobile devices have been plentiful in the past few years. To fight the problem, most companies now require that hard drives inside their mobile fleet get encrypted before leaving in the hands of employees. Normally, such a means would be more than enough to ensure data privacy in case of theft, but according to a group of researchers from Princeton University, it isn’t the case anymore.
Like most people, I always thought that RAM modules couldn’t retain their information after being powered off, but guess what? We’re wrong! DRAM chips can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to lose their stored content, which incidentally can include a drive’s encryption key. Now extracting this key in just a few seconds makes the task downright impossible, but by putting a computer’s memory modules on ice (Yes, ICE!), you can extend their memory retention capability by a few times.
Using this technique, the researchers from Princeton were able to decrypt drives protected by three of the most popular encryption software out there: Linux’s TrueCrypt, Vista’s BitLocker and OS X’s FileVault.
Obviously, protecting yourself against “memory chilling” is very easy. All you have to do is to never leave your computer in sleep or hibernation mode, and to ensure that you power it off a few minutes before leaving it alone.
The following video explains the technique in much more details.