News-o-matic of Doom
October 17, 2006
- Director and ex-Monty Python dude Terry Gilliam recently begged for change in the Daily Show queue. He even had a sign that said "Will direct for food".
- Drow pointed out the Aeon, a super-sexy mobile phone concept from Nokia. Just the possibilities for funky porn screensavers are enough for me to want one.
- Tech Report have their System Guide for October 2006 out, and there's lots of interesting techy guff in there, including some Core Duo loving and a monster dual Opteron rig.
- You've probably already heard about this, but Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock. I guess this makes them... GooTube?
- Scientists have found a part of the brain that might just suppress selfishness. It would be very interesting to discover that all higher society is based off that little cortex.
- Italian boffins have come up with a strange but rather funky wind generation system that looks like a carousel with kites tied to it. If their numbers are right, it could produce significant amounts of power quite cheaply, which would mean that its odd appearance would probably be quickly forgiven. Italian engineering isn't exactly legendarily robust, though.
- There's a very groovy peek inside the Toyota Hybrid factory in Japan on News.com.com.com.com. There are robots, cheery little tunes, just-in-time inventory management, and even management that listen to employee suggestions. It sounds like a very cool place to work.
- Slate has a cool article on how The Office is made differently in France, Germany and the USA, factoring in each country's own cultural peculiarities and office quirks.
- The Discworld books really don't do much for me, but the setting certainly makes a grand wedding cake.
- Google brought out Code Search recently, which allows everyone to search for things inside public source code. It wasn't long before someone had some fun with it, finding all kinds of interesting and amusing stuff.
- Psychonauts is finally available on Steam for US$20. Although not a financial smash, the game was critically acclaimed and on my list to be played at some stage. I couldn't get my hands on a meatspace copy in either Canada or Australia, so I'm glad I can make use of Steam to give it a whirl. They even made a cool little comic to celebrate.
- The Flash music box is rather nifty, with lots of interesting chromatic and harmonic configurations. I'm sure some of these were used on old episodes of Doctor Who.
- Sony have brought out a pretty cool followup to their Bravia bouncing ball ad - this time featuring exploding splashes of paint, and a glimpse of a strange and somewhat creepy clown.
- The mighty Amp found a short but thoroughly kickass YouTube video of Szamar Madar by Venetian Snares. Note that this is actually a fan-made clip, which makes it even more awesome.
- Canadian troops in Afghanistan are apparently locked in fierce battle with... marijuana plants. At least the Canadians know their enemy.
- UK drivers are trusting their car GPS units a little too much, with quite a few cars going into rivers and down rocky paths because the drivers' sat navs said full speed ahead.
- Bill Murray attended a student party in St Andrews, and even helped with the dishes.
- Brumbies rugby player Jone Tawake had his right ringer finger amputated after it was dislocated, and then badly infected. He hopes to play in the 2007 World Cup.