Offbeat posts

Anyone who knows me knows that Jenga holds a special place in my heart. I adore the game and – not to toot my own kazoo or anything – but I’m kinda awesome at it. There is, of course, no way I’ll ever be able to prove this to you, but take my word for it. Jenga and I are tight, yo. Anyway, pursuant to Jenga being totally wicked – and my wickedness at it – check out this equally wicked device by Matthias Wandel: the Jenga Pistol, which you’d probably want to use in a match against a player such as myself. Even single central blocks are no match for the pistol, which unceremoniously deletes blocks from the pile faster…

When I first heard of Blekko in my local news, I was pretty unimpressed. I already was using Google, the best search engine, and occasionally Bing, another solid contender. However, when I saw that Blekko utilized something called Slashtags to help narrow down your searches, I was pretty interested. Let’s say I wanted a liberal view of Barack Obama. To do that, I would search “Barack Obama/Liberal”. If I wanted a meaty salad, I could search “Salad/Meaty”, and so on. After looking at the picture above, you can tell there are a few problems with this service. When Slashtags are actually created for…

Many of you in the know have seen these pumpkins before. Those of you know what these pumpkins mean. They symbolize theft, infringement, and moreover, complete idiocy. The rest of you may or may not remember, a couple of weeks ago, the tale of Cook’s Source – a magazine specializing in the plagiarism of writers the world over fun recipes and stuff. Either way, let me whisper all of you a sweet earful of rad: due to the Internet’s apparently vaster knowledge of the copyright of intellectual property than Cook’s Source editor Judith Griggs, Cook’s Source (which Grigg’s erroneously spells without…

I’m gonna spare you the obvious ‘eyes in the back of your head’ joke, except for this sentence, where I make reference to the joke I didn’t just make. But I swear, that’s it. The ‘guy’ to which the headline is referring is Mr. Wafaa Bilal, an assistant profressor of photography at NYU, and the ‘art’ in question is the installation “The 3rd I” at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar. Bilal will have a camera implanted in the back of his head for an entire year, in order to beam images to Qatar. For real. Frankly, I don’t see why he couldn’t have just rigged some sort of stylish accoutrement to wear – cheap,…

I’m one of those who denies the iPad’s usefulness as a creative tool. Sure, there are cute little apps for that let you make cute little tunes, but despite a few notable, robust apps, there’s not much real use a serious musician can get out of an iPad. Apparently, Gorillaz creator Damon Albarn doesn’t agree with me, and is planning to release a new Gorillaz album before Christmas – the second one this year, following the celebrated Plastic Beach. The schtick? “I’ve made it on an iPad,” says Albarn to NME. “I hope I’ll be making the first record on an iPad.” As far as we know, dude, you will be. “I…

Illustrator James Gurney has found a prototype of Apple’s next big release: the iBox. This is big, guys. I can’t say anything that James can’t say better than I can, and since he’s the maker of this discovery, I’ll let him have the floor. Look what someone accidentally left in a laundromat in Italy—a working prototype of Apple’s much-rumored new iBox, ahead of the official launch. It’s a lot smaller than the MacBook Pro, and even a bit narrower than the iPad. The design of the outside is very simple, with no connection ports at all. It keeps to the same simple brushed aluminum look with rounded…

I’ve never used nor liked the term ‘nerdgasm’, but I feel the need to point out that I’ve just experienced one – so for the purposes of this article, the term is appropriate. Courtesy of Furious Fanboys is a blueprint of the Millenium Falcon, in its entirety. You can thank me later. Unless you’re not much of a Star Wars fan. You don’t have to thank me, then. Click to enlarge that bad boy….

These laptops sure are warm, aren’t they? Mine gets absolutely unbearable sometimes. Turns out, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the intense heat could have an adverse effect on the contents of your… you know, nethers. Reuters reports, in the no-nonsense frowny-faced way that only Reuters can, on a study which sought conclusive results on the effects of laptop heat on sperm quality. That’s right. Somewhere, there is a man getting paid more than you are to provide data on ball temperature. Think about that for a second. Long story short, it turns out warm nuts are unhappy nuts. “Millions and millions…

What could have been a simple copyright infringement has become a full-blown circus after the internet got a hold of the tale of Monica ‘illadore’ Gaudio, who had an article published in Cooks Source magazine – without her knowledge any such magazine even existed. Upon contacting the publication, she was told she should be considered ‘lucky’, and that she should pay the magazine for running her story. Dear Cooks Source: What kind of learning disability do you have? This is the internet. We’re gonna find out. “I first phoned the magazine then sent a quick note to the ‘Contact Us’ information page,…

I’ve been using PCs for the better part of two decades, and in all that time, I’ve used Windows’ calculator maybe four times. As such, that the following has never been noticed by me isn’t exactly surprising, and if the breadth of your experience with the program is anywhere as vast as mine, it’s not surprising that you haven’t noticed, either. But apparently, Windows’ calculator is lying to you. According to Windows calculator, two minus two doesn’t equal zero. That’s not exactly true, but kinda. Be a peach and open up Windows’ calc for a second, would you? Thanks, you’re the best. Alright, find…