Planespotting
This is the in depth story of how plane spotters found out about the secret CIA flights / torture taxis to detainee prisons based in Europe.
Author: Robin
Great media campaigns
Excellent images of some very inventive marketing campaigns.
20 usefull XP hints
Interesting things you can do to improve your working experience with XP.
Google Code Search oddities
Hardly surprisingly you can find easter eggs, customer data, backdoor passwords, nerd jokes and all kinds of other information in Google Code Search.
Odd Watches
Some watches were made with surrealist imaginations. This is a list of a lot of the more collectible ones.
Fighting in Grass is nasty
Canadian troops fighting in Afghanistan are unable to track Afghans through 10m high marijuana plants. The plants themselves are wet through and through, so they can’t be burned down using phosphorus. They tried putting fire to dryer outlying parts of the forest, but the wind turned and caused unexpected consequences on a troop concentration.
Spamhaus laugs at US insolence
Some US local court thought it had the power to put down Spamhaus as a result of a countersuit by e360 Insight – basically a bunch of spammers branded as such by Spamhaus – but no-one is cooperating. Spamhaus, which is UK based, refused to recognise the court’s legitimacy and ignored the whole proceedings. ICANN Read more about Spamhaus laugs at US insolence[…]
Tweel – a lame name for a cool concept
Michelin has invented the rather stupidly named ‘tweel’ – a wheel without air in it. The video in the link shows how it is mounted under a car, and has a few other applications for it as well. The airless wheel might take a bit of getting used to, but it helps with suspension, simplifies Read more about Tweel – a lame name for a cool concept[…]
Need a new desk for gaming?
This looks like it’ll handle it. Only $500,-. Ouch
Smacking kids is good for them
Putting paid to all those namby pambies who find smacking children cruel, a 32 year running study has shown that children that were smacked on the butt, arms or legs with an open hand do better in society than kids that weren’t smacked.
Out of body experiences
Can be caused by zapping parts of the brain with electricity.
Colour Palette Generator
This generator takes a picture and shows the colours it contains with the numerical codes.
Chinese space lasers blind US satellites
Ground based lasers from China hit lenses on US spy satellites with enough force to blind them temporarily but not enough to destroy them, the US has finally confirmed after a week or so of rumors floating around.
EU gives passenger data to evil empire
Yes, the USA will have all your passenger data. Untill June 2007, when they’ll “renegotiate”. Well done on the crumpling front, Europe.
Nuclear Holocaust
Well, the world’s media is in a buzzfuzz about North Korea’s upcoming Nuclear test ([sarcasm]who knew?![/sarcasm]), but let’s have a quick look at other nuclear states. The USA is the only country to have ever used a nuclear weapon (ok, two of them) in anger on another nation. France, Russia, Great Britain and China (with Read more about Nuclear Holocaust[…]
More broken voting machines
Not only Diebold has a monopoly on hackeable voting machines – the ones the Dutch government uses are hackeable to the point of being able to reflash them to play chess!
Folding T-Shirts
Sounds boring? Nope – a great way to save time.
Biological memory
Using tobacco virusses, you can apparently create very fast switching transistors. These guys have done it, and now need to find a way to link up all the virusses. This means your RAM may soon (the researchers think in around 4 years) be alive.
USB to SATA
For $34,- you can travel using your non-enclosed SATA HD and plug it into just about anything. This tiny gadget sits in between the cable and the USB port.
Google Code Search
With the EU software patents going to vote on Oct 12th, this could be controversial, especially if it indexes code left and right wildly. Slashdot also has links to a few other code searching sites.
European Software Patents Up For Bat Again
Yet again there will be a bill in the EU parliament for software patents, but there has been some sort of compromise which means it’s likely to be ratified this time. Just what the compromise is, I can’t really find out, except that it seems to make lawsuits on patent infringements more expensive, meaning IMHO Read more about European Software Patents Up For Bat Again[…]
The Taliban Returns
Frontline aired a programme about the Taliban, which is fully viewable online, about the return of the Taliban.
Teleportation II
Whilst we have been able to teleport single atoms and light for a few years now, finally another breakthrough has been made in Denmark, where they have managed to teleport a macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms half a metre. The scientists use light as a carrier of information using entanglement and Read more about Teleportation II[…]
Ig Nobel Prizes Tonight
The Ig Nobel Prizes are given by Harvard to scientists that is improbable yet thought provoking. Some of the winners might seem absurd, but past Ig laureates have made massive commercial successes out of their research or inventions. At 7.15 PM Boston time the event will begin, also viewable on a live webcast.
Tiny Gas Turbines
Gas turbines the size of a matchbox – an alternative to battery power, but I wouldn’t want something doing 500,000 RPMs coming loose in my pocket!