Usually, car crashes are bad for one's health - but as you can see in this peculiar case, the crash itself was a lifesaver for a Pennsylvania trucker:

Richard M. Paylor, 55, Fairless Hills, Bucks County, told city police he was driving the rig west about 9 when he started to choke on a piece of apple and blacked out, investigators said. The next thing he knew, his truck had smashed through the concrete barrier near Lancaster Avenue, he told police.

"This accident saved his life," police Lt. Madison Winchester said. "Witnesses said that he was slumped over the wheel before the truck crashed. It appears that the apple chunk was dislodged when he hit the concrete barrier and his body hit the steering wheel."

Jason A. Kahl of Reading Eagle has the full story: Link

A computer security expert has recently reported finding keyloggers on two new Samsung laptop computers.

Mohamed Hassan wrote in Mich Kabay’s Security Strategies newsletter that as soon as he received his Samsung R525 laptop, he ran a full system scan and found a commercial keylogger called StarLogger. StarLogger claims it records every keystroke made on the computer, even on password-protected boxes, starting up whenever the computer starts up. The software emails results at intervals to a specified email address and will even include screen captures.

Hassan ended up buying a second Samsung laptop, a model R540, and found the same keylogger installed on that one "The fact that on both models the same files were found in the same location supported the suspicion that the hardware manufacturer, Samsung, must know about this software on its brand-new laptops," he writes.

According to CrunchGear, a supervisor at Samsung admitted that the keylogger was installed by the manufacturer: "He confirmed that yes, Samsung did knowingly put this software on the laptop to, as he put it, “monitor the performance of the machine and to find out how it is being used.”

They advise that if you have a Samsung laptop, you should look in C:\Windows for a \SL directory.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/samsung-installs-keylogger-its-laptops.

Update:  An anonymous commenter at the NetworkWorld link above said "what this Network Security Expert found was a legitimate language file installed by Window's live...the software installed
was in fact Vipre, not the commerical keylogger called StarLogger. The confusion arose because Microsoft's Live Application multi-language support folder, "SL" folder, was mistaken for StarLogger."  A commenter at Crunchgear offered a link to a ZDNet post offering the same rebuttal.

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What has gone wrong? The fish are right there, but protected by some invisible forcefield!

via Ace of Spades HQ | Previously: How to Drive a Cat Crazy

Shapeways user Ceramicwombat made this awesome 3D printed dice available in different metallic finishes.

This makes me think: you know what would be cool? A d10 made out of barbed wire.

Link via Boing Boing

As a hobby, Willie Elder restores classic cars and trucks. So it wasn't too difficult to come up with all of the parts from a 1939 Dodge pickup truck (and other vehicles) necessary to make a functional grill:

The generous grilling area is encased in stainless steel resembling an engine block. It's tricked out with valve covers, exhaust manifolds, spark plugs and a water pump. The pump is from his son's '65 Mustang, the plugs from Elder's '49 Studebaker and the manifolds from his '70 Bronco.

Some of the accessories are purely functional. The grease-drippings pan below the propane-fueled grill area — which can simultaneously cook 24 burgers, 2 pounds of chicken and a dozen hot dogs — is an oil pan from his son's '77 Corvette. And the air cleaner on the grill's lid, serving as a smoke vent, is a modified stock part for a Ford Escort.

Article and Pictures via Born Rich | Photo: Willie Elder

If you liked this post, check out Alex's huge grill mods megapost.

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Put your finger on the screen. No, really, do it. Just touch the Skittle on the screen. What's the worst that could happen?

This is a good ad, but Skittles would be hard pressed to surpass the comedic brilliance of this one.

via reddit

The Enigma machine was a series of encoding devices used by Nazi Germany and broken by Polish and British military intelligence before and during World War II. Ross submitted this photo to Geeky Tattoos of his tattoo, taking the form a wiring diagram for one of the Enigma machines.

Link

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The MozART Group is a classically-trained string quartet, but its members certainly don't limit themselves to traditional performances. This video presents a sampling of their eccentric acts. The bluegrass "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" at 4:30 is especially good.

via Theo Spark | Official Website

This work of work of art, according to Neatoramanaut chriskayTO, can be found in a subway station in Toronto. Examined from the correct angle, it looks like a staircase.

Link via Geekosystem

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Yes, the machete-flinging crossbow was cool (though it does need a flaming chainsaw bayonet, IMHO). This is possibly even better: a machete shot toward its target with what appears to be a model rocket.

via Michael Hawkins in Say Uncle's comments

Lunch Bugs Sandwich Bags - $5.95

Are you tired of your coworkers stealing your lunch? You need the Lunch Bugs Sandwich Bags from the NeatoShop.  If the fly bag doesn't stop them in their tracks the cockroach bag sure will!

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fabulous Kitchen Stuff!

Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab/Carnegie Institution of Washington

NASA's MESSENGER Spacecraft snapped the very first picture of Mercury from orbit, showing a desolate landscape peppered with impact craters:

"This image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the solar system's innermost planet," Messenger mission scientists explained in a statement.

The new Mercury photo shows a region around the south pole of Mercury. A 53-mile (85-kilometer) wide crater called Debussy clearly stands out in the upper right of the image, with bright rays emanating from its center.

A smaller crater called Matabei, which is 15 miles (24 km) wide and is known for its "unusual dark rays," is also visible in the image to the west of the Debussy crater, mission managers explained.

Link

Instead of throwing out those ubiquitous phone books (who uses 'em anymore?), try turning them into art. That's what Taiwanese-born artist Chen Long-bin did with unused phone books, newspapers, magazines and discarded books.

Toxel has the gallery: Link

To help us visualize the world's need for water, Matthew Laws and Hal Watts (with photography by Luke Bennett) illustrated the projected use of urban water in various countries by 2030 with kitchen sponges:

Combining their engineer's precision with creativity honed at the London Royal College of Art, Matt and Hal first designed a world map entirely out of cheap kitchen sponges. They then poured water onto each country in amounts proportional to that its expected urban water consumption in 2030. Elegantly literal, the sponges grow in height according to how thirsty the country will be, generating a stark topography of future needs for urban domestic water.

Core77 has the making-of video clip: Link

What's more important to you, warmth or competence?

Social psychologist Amy Cuddy of Harvard Business School and colleagues did the study and found some interesting things:

This research concludes that by far the strongest influences that we have on one another result from a person's perceived warmth and competence. These two dimensions help us understand how we think about and act toward others.

Some conclusions are that:

• When assessing someone else, warmth plays a more important role than competence.
• When assessing ourselves, we believe that competence (the capability of someone to carry out intentions) is more important.
• Without knowing, we often assume that there is a "trade off" between warmth and competence in a person. These two dimensions help us understand how we think about and act toward others. We admire warm/competent people, envy (and sometimes scapegoat) those who are cold and competent, pity those who are perceived as warm and incompetent, and have contempt for the cold and incompetent.

Link - via Barking Up The Wrong Tree

Of course, it all should depend on *what* the person is doing for you. I'd take a cold-hearted yet competent surgeon over a warm but bumbling doctor any day, but the study isn't about knowing competence - it's about perceiving competence. The last point is particularly intriguing - do you assume that warm people are naturally incompetent and that competent people are cold and mechanical?