Offbeat posts

Who said the internet was a sunshiney liberal wonderland of free speech? In an attempt to steer the internet, a group of conservatives calling themselves the ‘Digg Patriots’ have taken it upon themselves to decide which submissions deserve to be lost to the ever-shifting sand of content. These submissions are, of course, anything at all liberal or progressive. I’m going to assume you know how Digg works: a page hits the site and can be voted up (digg’d. Dugg?) or voted down (buried). A simple, democratic concept, and one that regularly sees websites shut down due to the volume of traffic received…

Click the image above for a larger version. Check out also the Facebook, YouTube and Skype advert here: http://i.imgur.com/xyr0x.jpg…

Hey, remember that scene in that movie, where the guy filmed that plastic bag? That was American Beauty, right? I can’t recall. Anyway, this is that, with a techie twist. One hundred and eight is an installation by artist Nils Voelker that sees 108 plastic bags become… well, this. Each bag is attached to two CPU cooling fans – one to inflate, the other to deflate. The resulting wall of lungs is nothing short of hypnotic. While the re-appropriation of computer parts is cool on its own, this is one installation piece that’s simply begging for social integration. Tweetbag….

For the gentleman who is just too hot for his own good, Thanko has been gracious enough to supply the most ridiculous hunkalicious gadget the tech world ain’t never seen. The USB Necktie Cooler 3 doesn’t do anything you’re not expecting by title alone – except of course for turning you into an inescapably sexy lust magnet. You thought the ladies were attracted by your regular tie? What kind of pathetic ignoramus are you? Just plug this blinding sex symbol into a USB port, strike a manly pose, and attract female coworkers and passers-by alike with the gentle whirring of your love tie. All from the comfort…

“Steve Jobs has his own idea and he’s a brilliant guy,” says Yoko Ono of that guy with the sweater. “There’s just an element that we’re not very happy about, as people.” She’s referring, of course, to the Beatle’s continued absence from the iTunes Store. It’s almost ludicrous that the band’s catalog hasn’t reached the store – this is the goddamn Beatles we’re discussing. But Yoko doesn’t sound very optimistic. “Don’t hold your breath… for anything,” she says. Frankly, one has to wonder: it’s safe to say at this point that the Beatles’ appearance in the iTunes store would primarily benefit…

I don’t own a printer because, frankly, I don’t want to deal with the cost of ink. Ink is hella expensive, and besides, if and when I need to print, a pro will generally do a better job than the streaky bullfart a home inkjet produces. Imagine my chagrin at these Epson employees, who have taken it upon themselves to print a 1:1 scale model of an Acura NSX Super GT racecar. The ‘car’ is, of course, sponsored by Epson, and when built, actually looks pretty bitchin’. But I can only imagine the printing cost wasn’t much less than the actual car. More pictures after the jump! Personally, I’ll continue to limit…

I’ve always found SteamPunk a little bit of an enigma. Who are these people combining antique items and old world look and feel with cutting edge technology? Is it art or science? Do I need to follow the Antiques Roadshow to understand the whole thing? Either way, it’s awesome to see some of the contraptions, particularly when it’s not just contemporary computer equipment dressed up in a corset. This thingamajig actually works and actually combines old world and new world. The video shows the work so far, which is basically a globe tied into Google Earth using RFID tags. The man responsible for this…

This is plain silly, and not entirely relevant to, well, anything. But it’s fun to see people destroy expensive things for little or no good reason. The washing machine was apparently faulty and beyond repair, but after many years of loyal service surely our electronic devices deserve a more dignified end than this. Faulty or not, when the dullard throws the brick in and the machine goes haywire, it’s almost as if a million washing machines cried out in pain and were immediately silenced. Or slowly and agonizingly silenced….

Nobody likes the companies the RIAA and MPAA are using to chase Peer-To-Peer file sharers, but I was particularly tickled to see this pop up in my RSS feed. The US Copyright Group has filed more than 14,000 lawsuits against P2P users, but apparently they’re not above a little copyright infringement themselves. Their own website is shown to be a rip off of a competitor’s website, Copyright Settlements. TorrentFreak details the story, no doubt rubbing their hands together with glee at the same time. So what does all this mean? Well, obviously the organizations suing consumers on behalf of the RIAA…

Straight outta the wish-I’d-thought-of-that department comes François Vautier, a video artist unafraid to sully precious technology with soil and insects. After filling his scanner with ants, Vautier proceeded to scan the colony each week for five years. The result is a fascinating time-lapsed trip through an almost-surreal biotechnical landscape. Personally, I don’t understand how he shot the video from BELOW the scanner, but life’s full of questions….