Offbeat posts

Blake Bevin is some kind of hero-person. I’ve never quite handled tying my own shoes – I mean, like, sure I can do it easily enough, but it’s always kind of sloppy, y’know? Nothing I’d wear to a fancy party. Actually, to be honest, I probably wouldn’t wear Blake’s design to a fancy party, either. But she’s certainly on the right track. Check it out! Apparently, these were in Back to the Future II or something – I only saw the film once, and I was, like, 11. But my failure as a geek aside, these shoes rule. Rocking the Arduino, Blake has replaced the knowledge required to tie one’s shoes with a force sensor that…

Remember growing up when people used to want to be astronauts? Well tomorrow’s people walk this planet today, and while space exploration budgets are cut and we still don’t have jet packs, today’s the day the NASA-developed ‘Moonbase Alpha’ game hits the Valve Steam servers for some PC gaming goodness. Announcing the title last year, the space scientists spoke about the power of games as educational tools, saying their game functions as a persistent environment, calling it “a massive visualization tools and collaborative workspace while simultaneously drawing users into a challenging,…

Once upon a time we’d take fast fairground rides to get a sense of it, nowadays we can actually, you know, just do it: head off into the wide blue yonder of zero gravity sensation. Sensation seekers these days have this new option on their itinerary, for when those picnics and beach holidays get a little tired, why not get a sense of life on Mars? Space.com talks up the holidays offered by Zero Gravity Corporation, who are taking people up and out in a G-Force One airplane to experience weightlessness. These are all part of the many ongoing 21st-Century experiments attempting to assess the scientific…

He may have written some classic hits, but Prince has no ‘Kiss’ to give in his latest ‘Purple Rain’ of vitriol against ‘teh internets’, which the diminutive pop star says ‘is finished’. Is this a ‘Sign of the Times’, or simply an attempt by the artist to propel sales of his latest album, 20TEN, which isn’t going to be made available in shops, instead it is to be given away in the UK with copies of the Daily Mirror. Speaking to the Mirror, Prince slammed, like, this whole Internet thing, saying it is over, finished, dead, last year’s number. At the risk of being a rock ‘n’ roll…

This morning it appears as though YouTube has been the subject of a malicious attack, with HTML in comments being used to insert code into video pages. The good news? The hacker only seems interested in targeting Justin Bieber videos. The hack employs a number of generally harmless exploits, such as showing javascript alerts and pop ups and redirecting users to other websites. One pop up falsely claims Justin Bieber has died in a car accident, and recommends users check cnn.com for more information. YouTube is deleting comments in an attempt to alleviate the problem while security is beefed up….

The news has been chock full this year about how China hates Google and Google hates China, but how does the largest country in the world feel about the rest of the internet? Well, not so hot either, in fact China has banned its soldiers from tweeting, blogging and online dating. Apparently, China is concerned that soldiers will be easier to compromise if they are overly available via the internet. “Soldiers should not take part in any Internet interaction, even if they try to cover up their military identities, because they cannot ensure they will not be revealing any information relating to…

This is both inspiring and terrifying. The National Federation of the Blind has been working diligently on creating a car that can be driven by blind people. Using a clever system involving vibrating gloves and puffs of air, the specialized car provides a way for the driver to interact with the car’s surroundings in a non-visual way. Currently the car is being tested and will debut as part of the pre-race activities at the 2011 Rolex 24 at Daytona. The innovation doesn’t stop there though. The team plans to take their car on the road, literally. The street-ready version, a Ford Escape Hybrid, comes…

Watch this. Study it. Chew on it for awhile. I’ll let the original source say his piece. I was emailed this video by my brother who lives in Canada. He told me that is shows (so he was told) a joint US/Russian expedition to mars in the late 1970′s. When I asked him where he got this video, I expected him to say some “friend of a friend of a friend nonsence”, etc. But he said a colleague of his downloaded it off some russian video site only 2 days ago. I have taken the liberty of creating a Youtube account and uploading this video so that I can get some input on this, as if this is proven to be real, there is going to be…

Cripes, people, it hasn’t even been a week yet. Apple’s working on a fix, alright? I promise. There’s no need to show this level of hostility right outta the gate. Jeez. Some people. I TELL YA. Anyway, the headline pretty much says everything that needs to be said – you came for some iPhone phuck-uppery, right? iPhone 4 versus sniper rifle. There you go. Just hit play. Bada-bing, bada-google. I’d complain that they should have hired a better sniper for a more interesting shot, but things look so pretty at 500fps that I’m willing to let it slide. But wait! I also brought an iPhone 4 being microwaved. You…

IDEA TIME: Let’s stop talking about iPads and shit for a minute, yeah? Yeah. Let’s just rap about this and then I swear I’ll show you a cool case or something, alright? Just settle down, we’ll get back to your regularly-scheduled mobile-and-mobile-accessories in a second. Y’know the Large Hadron Collider, that thing that was supposed to kill us and end existence (and, depending on your school of thought, may have already done so)? As much as the LHC is all about quantum death, it’s also about beautiful music. Check it, and behold a series of pieces performed by the LHC’s Atlas detector, which, in…