It's about time we got an 8-bit Doctor Who-theme role-playing game. It's from College Humor, so it probably makes about as much sense to fans as it does to those of us who've never seen the show. -via The Daily What Geek
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The Drexel University Music & Entertainment Technology Laboratory (MET-lab) took a quartet of HUBO robots and made them into The Beatles. From the YouTube page:
The Drexel College of Engineering has seven of these robots, which cost between $300,000 and $400,000 each. Link -via Geekosystem
The HUBOs are operating autonomously (not human-controlled). Their movements are directed by student-developed software to perform the gestures necessary to produce the appropriate notes and beats as dictated by a musical score. Every sound in the video was performed by the robots.
The Drexel College of Engineering has seven of these robots, which cost between $300,000 and $400,000 each. Link -via Geekosystem
It's once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Can you guess what the pictured item is? Or can you make up something interesting?
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
For more clues, check out the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!
Update: the unidentified object is now identified as a billiards pocket (found on eBay). The first correct answer came from Berhard, who wins a t-shirt! Of many funny answers, the funniest was from Lord_Dissident, who said,
It is actually the iron mask that was used to hide the face of the man in the iron mask. The front was opened only at feeding time, food was placed into the bowl, and it was slammed shut again. That is why he never ate soup again after he got out of that mask.
That certainly deserves a t-shirt! Find out the purposes of all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog.
This triggerfish may be the undersea equivalent of a butterface, but it charmed photographer and Pitcairn Islands Expedition leader Enric Sala. If you look closely, you'll see a much smaller fish removing parasites from the triggerfish's face, below the eye. Read more about this nature encounter at National Geographic News. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!
(Image credit: Enric Sala)
It's been years since we checked in on the Ryugyong Hotel, the monolithic concrete building in Pyongyang, North Korea, that was never completed. After work was abandoned in 1992, officials even denied its existence! But in 2008, the 105-floor structure got a second chance from the Orascom Group of Egypt. A new glass facade gives a less foreboding and more modern look. See more pictures and read about the history of the Ryugyong Hotel at Urban Ghosts. Link
(Image credits: Wikpedia users Timon (left) and Pocketchef (right))
Movie producers and designers tend to use outdated ideas because it's just easier to do things they way they've always been done -even if they make no sense in the modern world. For example, my daughters first saw nuns wearing habits in a restaurant when they were 8 and 9 years old and asked me about it. See, they had been going to a parochial school for years already! They knew plenty of nuns, but they hadn't seen enough movies.
But that's just one of the seven outdated assumptions you see in movies. Read the rest at Cracked. Link
Nuns, for their part, mostly stopped wearing habits in the '60s, totally missing out on the whole nunsploitation genre. In fact, the number of habit-wearing nuns in the U.S. went from 180,000 in 1964 to a third of that in 2009, and today, the vast majority of religious women dress like ... women. This means that there are probably more nun costumes in America right now than there are actual nun habits, begging the question: Who is dressing up as whom?
But that's just one of the seven outdated assumptions you see in movies. Read the rest at Cracked. Link
A tasty, helpful, and colorful chart featuring pie charts of pie ingredients. This would look nice on a kitchen wall! This print is produced with vegetable-based inks by Pop Chart Lab. At the site, you can mouseover over the chart to see the listed ingredients. Link -via Laughing Squid
You can fool your family and co-workers into thinking you have serious artistic talent by doodling bunnies between now and Easter Sunday. How? Just follow the instructions in the latest tutorial from cartoonist Mark Anderson at Andertoons. Link
Before you put a sticker on your car, consider the worst thing that could possibly happen -an auto accident. And then consider that if you make the news, people will read your bumper sticker. It happened in Manhattan.
The unnamed driver was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Link -via Arbroath
A driver who crashed and flipped on the FDR Drive yesterday might want to consider retiring his bumper sticker, which reads: “Why am I the only one on the planet who knows how to drive?”
It was seen on the rear bumper of this Nissan Altima. which lost a high-speed battle with a guardrail in a northbound lane at East 71st Street at 9 a.m.
No other cars were involved.
The unnamed driver was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Link -via Arbroath
Comedian Nathan Barnatt donned the identity of his geek character Keith Apicary to try out for a dance role in a Kimberly Cole music video. Let's see what happens. Oh yes, you might recognize Barnatt as "Mr. hungry Eyes" from the M&Ms TV ad. Oh, and he passed the audition. -via reddit
Most groups purchasing lottery tickets know that you must share and record all the numbers for a group purchase and store the ticket(s) in a mutually accepted place. But the $640 million Mega Millions drawing last weekend enticed a lot of new players to participate. And Mirlande Wilson of Baltimore, Maryland, has a fight on her hands over who owns the winning ticket.
Further complicating the case is a security recording at the convenience store where the ticket was purchased, which may show that the winning ticket was purchased by a man. Link
Wilson, a single mother of seven children, admits that she did contribute to the McDonald’s “office” pool, but swears that she purchased the winning ticket separately with her own cash. “We had a group plan, but I went and played by myself. [The ‘winning’ ticket] wasn’t on the group plan,” Wilson told the New York Post, insisting she alone bought one of the three tickets that will split the record $656 million payout.
Her co-workers disagree. Suleiman Osman Husein, a shift manager and one of 15 members in the pool told the Post, “We each paid $5. She took everybody’s money!” Further corroborating Husein’s version was a man identified by the Post only as Allen, who was also part of the pool. He said Wilson bought tickets for the group at the 7-Eleven in Milford Mill, which is where the winning ticket was sold.
Further complicating the case is a security recording at the convenience store where the ticket was purchased, which may show that the winning ticket was purchased by a man. Link
Jeff Desom stitched together footage from the courtyard in the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window to show us everything that was going on in the building, in chronological order. Whether you're a fan of the movie or not, you have to admit this panorama took a lot of work! See larger pictures and find out how he did it at the project site. Link -via Metafilter
Ashton Kutcher has reportedly been cast as the star of a planned independent film biography of Steve Jobs. The reaction from Apple fans has been mixed. You have to admit there is a strong resemblance, and an actors' personality doesn't have to match their role if they are good at what they do. What do you think? Link
This song does what it says in the title, and will make you laugh. It was meant as a study aid, but it didn't help me memorize the elements at all. How about you? Oh yeah, in case it went a little fast for you, the lyrics at the YouTube page ...or on any periodic table of elements. -via Metafilter
Grilled Cheese Ice Cream won't be on the permanent menu at Tom Wahl's restaurant in Rochester, New York, but you can make your own from the instructions in the story. The concoction was an April Fool's Day special. The eatery serves up a different strange ice cream flavor every year for the holiday.
I'd give it a pass. Link -via Fark
"It's grilled cheese that we actually grill on the grill, toast it up, cut it up, and put it in vanilla ice cream," said assistant manager, Jill Folk.
And it's dished out...
"To anybody that will take it," Folk joked.
It's a tradition many look forward to.
"The locals really enjoy it. They've been calling all week to see what kind we're having this year. Generates a lot of fun," said Folk.
It may require an open mind and a bit of bravery but those behind the counter say many enjoy the thrill of trying something a bit different.
Assistant manager, Ken Walsh said, "You have to see the expression on the face. That's what you actually look for and you kind of have fun with it, laugh with the customers."
"I'd give it a ten," a young customer expressed.
I'd give it a pass. Link -via Fark
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