More ‘maths as art’. Metal sculptures by Bathsheba Grossman. Lovely, but somewhat pricey. The Surface Evolver software used to generate the shape is pretty fun to play around with too.
A profile of John Piña Craven in Wired. Mad scientist extraordinaire.
A U.S.-made alternative to the aforementioned bamboo T-shirts. Also includes a long-sleeved version.
Giant marionettes, coming to [...]
Guinness ice lollies! Lucas Wolfen is my new Intarweb hero.
Boom!. 16 buildings being simultaneously demolished in Honk Kong using 1500lbs of explosives. One of the buildings actually remains standing and had to be ‘manually’ pulled down later. It’s a really odd feeling to see the 16 buildings, which are all about the same size as the tallest buildings here in Edinburgh, being completely dwarfed [...]
The world’s most advanced robotic hand. Another step towards producing the ultimate killbot. The fact that they’ve tried to make it look friendly by gripping an apple only makes it more sinister. In 5 years, that could be your skull!
Two Star Wars fans are in hospital after attempting to build light sabers out of [...]
Blimey. That was a bit exciting then.
Liverpool hospital A&E staff are quaking in fear as we speak.
A huge list of console RPG cliches. Most notable for the ‘old but still prescient’ rule 189:
The Moral Of The Story (Ghaleon Rule): Every problem in the universe can be solved by finding the right long-haired pretty-boy and beating the crap out of him.
A vi reference mug. Even managing to out-nerd ThinkGeek
Morse code beats SMS. [...]
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov. The devil comes to town as a stage magician in the atheistic 1930’s Moscow, accompanied by a choirmaster, an assassin and a giant cat.
There are a lot of different threads and viewpoints in the book, but it largely centres around the oppressive lifestyle in Russia at the time. [...]
A Commodore CBM 3032 with its workings replaced by a physical wireframe Utah teapot, which can be rotated around using the numpad on the keyboard. So, so awesome. (Although the stickler-nerd in me is disappointed that they modelled the bottom of the teapot, which isn’t present in the official dataset.)
A PSP version of Lemmings is [...]
Merriam-Webster has a compilation of words which aren’t in the dictionary, but are in common use.
To be honest, I’ve only ever heard two of these words actually used (’ginormous’ and ‘woot’,) but it does have one great entry:
cognitive displaysia (n): the feeling you have before you even leave the house that you are going to [...]
The Kills - at Liquid Room - This was just great. They’re a 2 piece girl/boy band who play really sleazy booze-soaked blues rock; imagine something between the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Mazzy Star and you’re almost there.
Since they play along with a drum machine, there were some awkward bits as they had to restart [...]
Some random photos taken around London, mostly while killing time waiting for a train out of Waterloo station.
A very short post to say that, whether you like the song in question or not, this article by Greil Marcus is an absolultely storming piece of writing.
I’ve been schlepping around London and Guildford for the last few days, going to various job interviews and spending far too much time travelling.
As a result, I’m not feeling overly coherent right now, so I’ll just quickly point out that I’m currently bouncing around the room in glee because of this.
(And yes, I probably have [...]
A quick public service announcement about two shows at which - if you’re in the Edinburgh area - your attendance is mandatory:
Dresden Dolls - 24/08/2005 at The Exchange
The Pixies - 28/08/2005 at Meadowbank Stadium
A cautionary tale for stressed out drivers everywhere.
Witch hunting is apparently alive and well in Hackney.
Finally, some more comics I’ve been using [...]
A neat ebay trick seen via BoingBoing and this guy’s blog: Search for ‘NTSA’ to find piles of stuff confiscated by TSA at airport gates. Ever wanted 30 Leatherman knockoffs or 50lbs of random household tools? Well, now’s your chance.
Top travel tip kids: Carry a padded envelope with lots of postage in your hand luggage. [...]