CNN - 29/01/2007
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Brian Emmett’s childhood fantasy came true when he won a free trip to outer space.
But the 31-year-old was crushed when he had to cancel his reservation because of Uncle Sam.
Emmett won his ticket to the stars in a 2005 sweepstakes by Oracle Corp., in which he answered a [...]
Every Massively Multiplayer Online Game - once it reaches a certain level of popularity - starts inspiring a certain kind of news article. You know the one I mean, the one where the game’s economy is compared to the Gross Domestic Product of some small country that you wouldn’t be able to point to on [...]
Lothian and Borders police are considering a new scheme to reduce the incidences of traffic speed cameras being vandalised in the region: By installing CCTV cameras to monitor the speed cameras.
The world is insane, we’re all doomed, yadda yadda yadda…
BBC News - 24/01/2007
Speed cameras in the Scottish Borders may soon be monitored by security cameras [...]
Piano Hero is a low-polish, but potentially much more useful spin on the Guitar Hero idea.
It takes any MIDI file as input and translates it into a GH-esque graphical form for you to play along with on a real MIDI keyboard, even letting you set the speed of the song and practice the left and [...]
As Fabio put it when I showed him this video: “It’s like Goatse and Tubgirl… but worse.”
Anyway, my brain had to deal with this, so now you get to experience it too: Celine Dion and Anastacia singing AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”
I say we take off and nuke Vegas from orbit. It’s the [...]
Hobbits are taking over Wales! (and for only £3000 + labour, in a lovely contrast to that £170,000 toilet in Chelsea.)
Another entry in the “Londoners are utter morons” file: The picture below is of a flat currently for sale in Chelsea. It’s the size of a snooker table (no, really, it’s 11ft by 7ft) has a cupboard which could be used for a shower area, is full of rubble and has no lighting.
The price? A [...]
Metro - 16/01/2007
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Doctors’ unions in Romania have criticised a decision to make a surgeon pay £100,000 in damages after he lost his temper and hacked off a patient’s penis during surgery.
Surgeon Naum Ciomu, who had been suffering from stress at the time, had been operating on patient Nelu Radonescu, 36, to correct a testicular malformation [...]
Sachiko Kodama having more fun with ferrofluids, this time by (I presume) embedding electromagnets inside a corkscrew-shaped tower. There are a couple of videos too: Vid 1 (fun starts around 1:05), Vid2.
BBC News - 16/01/2007
An East Lothian postwoman kept thousands of parcels in her home and car because she was “too lazy” to deliver them, a court has heard.
Coleen Brodie hoarded 5,820 parcels in Musselburgh and opened 12 at Christmas time because she was “hard up”.
Brodie, 39, of Prestonpans, pled guilty to stealing 12 packages between [...]
This Morissey quote may be apocryphal, since it’s gone round every website in the world with no trace of the original source, but it’s a fine sentiment nonetheless:
Interviewer: Did you hear t.A.T.u.’s version of “How Soon Is Now?”
Morissey: Yes, it was magnificent. Absolutely. Again, I don’t know much about them.
Interviewer: They are teenage Russian lesbians.
Morissey: [...]
I’ve just got back from seeing Alegria by Cirque du Soleil, and as amazing and as wonderful and as “I’m going to see it again before the end of the run” as it was, my main thoughts throughout the show were along the lines of:
Human spines aren’t meant to do that.
If I tried that, I’d [...]
Some really, really impressive 3D face morphing tech:
A series of photos showing the closest any human has come to re-enacting a Wile-E-Coyote cartoon. I’d post one of them here, but you really have to see the series of increasingly zoomed-out views to get the full effect.
UnSuggester, is the opposite of those “If you like this, then you’ll like this” sites. You tell [...]
Ah, dear reader. You find me looking over the burning wreckage of 2006 and flicking it the V’s whilst holding an emptied petrol can and flaming torch. Come, let us reminisce!
Favourite books of 2006 (that mostly didn’t come out in 2006):
World War Z by Max Brooks
The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Nifenegger
Fragile Things by [...]