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Way back before the modern age (like the 1980s), cheap handheld games were all the rage. Many of these were poor knock-offs of popular arcade games such as Ms. Pacman and Galaga. Others were completely original, such as the bizarre Naughty Squirrel game in the picture above.
Check out John Sadowski’s site for a list of other strange handheld games.
A collection of beautiful photos of Earth taken from space.
By now, we all know what happens if you put mentos in diet coke, but what happens if you put one in a glass of Carlsberg beer?
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via advertising for peanuts
This nifty little keyring gadget called the Mandylion Password Manager lets you store up to 50 logins, safe combos, and passwords.
There’s a lot of password managers out there, but this one was vetted by the US military and – get this – includes a self-destruct feature (so your enemies would just have to torture it out of you rather than hacking the gadget!)
Dad Can Do has a neat tutorial on how to make your very own magic wand, just like in the Harry Potter books! Link – via Craft
Fogonazos blog has a short feature on David A. Johnston, the volcanologist who was first to report the Mount St. Helens volcano eruption in 1980 before being swept away by the blast:
Johnston was manning an observation post about 10 km (6 miles) from the volcano Mount St. Helens on the morning of May 18, 1980. He was the first to report the eruption, transmitting the famous message "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" before being swept away by the lateral blast created by the collapse of the mountain’s north face. His body was never recovered.
Link (with an awesome video clip of the eruption) – Thanks aberron!
This courtesy "Thank You" light for your car debuted in 1934. Some 70 years later, here’s the modern version!: Link
Now here’s a set of matryoshka dolls for us geeks: The wooden sets include the bit, byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, and terabyte figures.
The Smoking Gun has another collection of mug shots featuring t-shirts with slogans (previous post). If you can’t see the example on the left, it says, “Trust me. I do this all the time.†I believe the photographers sometimes arrange the shots to include the t-shirt phrase! Link -via Fark
A "water-soluble form of chitin" — the stuff you have to peel off your shrimp, which is the same stuff that goes crunch when you step on a cockroach — is already being used by the army and is set to be tested in space:
The US Army equips its troops in Iraq with chitosan-laden bandages both Chitosan is a water-soluble form of chitin, an abundant long-chain Some researchers believe natural chitin helps protect arthropods from bacterial infection, important because they lack a conventional immune system. The soluble chitosan carries a positive charge that attracts the negatively charged membranes of bacteria, stopping them from multiplying and in some cases killing them. The charge also initiates clotting of red blood cells.
to speed blood clotting in fresh wounds, and to stop bacterial
infections. NASA does not expect astronauts to fight battles in space,
but has to plan for accidents, and worries that slow healing or
infection of wounds could imperil long-duration missions to Mars or
other distant targets. . . .
natural biopolymer that is a key component of the semi-transparent
exoskeletons of arthropods from insects to lobsters, and in the cell
walls of fungi.
The shrimp photo comes from Fine Cooking
Update: The secret is revealed!
Professor Robert Krampf demonstrates how to make a flame shoot out of an orange peel, move water with static electricty, or blow smoke rings out of a bottle. These are simple experiments most people could do at home, and will impress your children while teaching them scientific concepts. You can sign up to receive the Experiment of the Week via email, or look through the list of most popular experiments. Link -via Dump Trumpet
North Denver News reported that Thomas Martel, 28, had his thumbs surgically altered so he could better use his iPhone. A new surgical technique called “whittling” involves making a small incision into both thumbs and shaving down the bones, followed by careful muscular alteration and modification of the fingernails.
Mr Martel reportedly said, “Sure, the procedure was expensive, but when I think of all the time I save by being able to use modern handhelds so much faster, I really think the surgery will pay for itself in ten to fifteen years. And what it’s saving me in frustration – that’s priceless.”
InformationWeek claims the story is false – the doctor who developed the procedure is not listed in the Denver phone directory and writer of the story hasn’t returned any of their calls.
Original link | Information Week article – via Spluch
