The Only Tool You'll Ever Need

Call of Duty IV Trailer

Click here for HD version.

Apparently they've gone for a modern combat setting.

US Campaign '08: Analyses of voters & Iraq

A poll about the US elections in 2008 and the Iraq funding compromise. Who will become president next year? Full poll is in the main link.

Confusing Google

I ripped pimp's Baghdad blogger video and uploaded it to Google Video so I could post it on a video blog I frequent. The video was put online after a while, only to be rejected a couple of minutes later. I received this email (in Dutch):

Hallo, Uw video "BaghdagBlogger.avi" is geweigerd omdat deze niet voldoet aan ons programmabeleid. De ingezonden video's worden van tevoren gecontroleerd om ervoor te zorgen dat ze voldoen aan onze richtlijnen. Wanneer video's niet hieraan voldoen, worden ze afgekeurd.

To which my reply was: "What are you talking about, what is this strange language that you are using?" To which their reply was:

Hi ****, Thanks for your email. The previous email was in Dutch. We apologize for the confusion this may have caused. Your video "BaghdagBlogger.avi" was rejected because it didn't comply with our Program Policies.

the funny thing is, the video is still online.

Jet Man!

Finally, and this since last Autumn, his dream became reality mainly because of 4 model-engines which were built under his wings. With these, he can fly at over 200km/hr and conquer mountain summits. During the flight, Yves's body becomes the likes of a bird and, other than a gas handle, Yves does not ride his wings but truly flies them, using various light body movements that he has learned to handle with perfection. These body movements are equal to those that birds use to fly...

And like Batman, when he flies alongside airplanes they can only look and admire him when he activates the acceleration button which makes him disappear at an incredible speed through the blue skies.

What a rush that must be...

Baghdad Blogger

I'm sure you are all aware of the situation in Iraq. Maybe you haven't heard of the Baghdad Blogger, Salam Pax. He has made 4 short films about life in Baghdad. About life he says: "Our lives today are as valuable as empty bullet casings". Those 4 films have been broadcasted in 2 programs by CNN, World's Untold Stories. Salam on his first and second program. And this is CNN's description: We see disturbing pictures from Iraq on a daily basis. Reporters reporting. Politicians talking. But what about the ordinary Iraqis who struggle to earn a living, keep the family unit intact and simply survive from one day to the next? "Baghdad Blogger" Salam Pax takes an insightful and sometimes irreverent look at the daily travails in two reports: "How to Stay Alive in Iraq" and "How to Have Fun in Baghdad." Although women make up 60 percent of the population in Iraq, they remain marginalized. Since the war, many feel their position has deteriorated. "Millions are being pushed back into their houses. We are seeing measures that were not there before," states one resident. In "The Battle for Women's Rights," Baghdad Blogger Salam Pax looks at the extraordinary challenges -- and risks -- that many women in Iraq face. Also in this edition of "World's Untold Stories," Pax shows us how to "Make it Rich" in a country with an economy in tatters.

Astronomers Find First Habitable Earth-like Planet

Astronomers have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, an exoplanet with a radius only 50% larger than the Earth and capable of having liquid water. Using the ESO 3.6-m telescope, a team of Swiss, French and Portuguese scientists discovered a super-Earth about 5 times the mass of the Earth that orbits a red dwarf, already known to harbour a Neptune-mass planet. The astronomers have also strong evidence for the presence of a third planet with a mass about 8 Earth masses.

This exoplanet - as astronomers call planets around a star other than the Sun -- is the smallest ever found up to now [1] and it completes a full orbit in 13 days. It is 14 times closer to its star than the Earth is from the Sun. However, given that its host star, the red dwarf Gliese 581 [2], is smaller and colder than the Sun -- and thus less luminous -- the planet nevertheless lies in the habitable zone, the region around a star where water could be liquid!

"We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid," explains Stéphane Udry, from the Geneva Observatory (Switzerland) and lead-author of the paper reporting the result. "Moreover, its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth's radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky -- like our Earth -- or covered with oceans," he adds.

Full Article...

Hopefully they will hurry up with Darwin, New Worlds Imager and Terrestrial Planet Finder, so we might be able to really see the planet and even determine if life is there. But we will probably have to wait to either 2014 or 2020 for the first of the missions to launch.

How Lord of the rings should've ended

Lotr doesn't need to take 8 hours, all it requires is some out-of-the-box thinking.

why won't god heal amputees?

His counterarguments aren't all that, but it makes sense to me.

Annom, what have you been up to?

Annom, you sexy devil!

Top 5 most dangerous roads of the world

A Top 5 of the most dangerous roads in the world.

However, why doesn't it mention Croatia?

Supercooling

wiki: Supercooling is the process of chilling a liquid below its freezing point, without it becoming solid. A liquid below its freezing point will crystallize in the presence of a seed crystal or nucleus around which a crystal structure can form. However, lacking any such nucleus, the liquid phase can be maintained all the way down to the temperature at which crystal homogeneous nucleation occurs. The homogeneous nucleation can occur above the glass transition where the system is an amorphous—that is, non-crystalline—solid. Water has a freezing point of 273.15 K (0 °C or 32 °F) but can be supercooled at standard pressure down to its crystal homogeneous nucleation at almost 231 K (−42 °C).

I would have thought the water would already freeze in the container when agitated, but apparently you can pour supercooled water.

The Morals Behind Nursery Rhymes

You might know Ricky Gervais as the creator and actor in The Office and Extras, but he also does stand-up comedy. Here's a nice clip.

btw, this isn't funny if you don't know Humpty Dumpty:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Tom Waits recites "Children's Story" from Orphans

Pimp's post made me remember an animation with a recitation by Tom Waits I saw a while ago.

That will cheer them up :)

Tom Waits - Come On Up to the House

Directed by Anders Lövgren.

A very impressive way of visualizing music, if you ask me.

RatherDeadThanACustomer@Tiscali.co.uk

A friend of mine who lives in London signed up for Tiscali's unlimited 2mbit broadband service in September and experienced first-hand what the reviews could have told him earlier; he'd rather be dead than a customer at Tiscali. Like many ISP's, customers are bound by contract to a Fair Use Policy. However, this specific agreement doesn't limit users' to a monthly quotum, it's a system that works with peak hours. Not such a bad idea, one might say. Well, it is. In practise, this means that users are limited to light usage such as basic browsing and e-mail services. Online gaming sites (or online gaming for that matter) are nearly impossible and download rates often come to a complete halt. Why does Tiscali 'ask' this from their users? So all consumers can experience a high quality of service all the time. To give you a little more insight into the situation, here's the correspondence between my friend and a Tiscali representative.

"I am contacting you regarding the broadband service on my telephone line (Phone Number Removed). On the 14th of February I received an email stating that my connection would be managed by Tiscali under the terms of the FUP. Around two days later I telephoned Tiscali technical support to enquire exactly (in terms of MB) how much I had broken the fair usage policy by. However they could not begin to tell me because their computer system did not say that I was on the FUP. I was informed if my usage was light, 5 to 7 days later my connection would no longer be managed by Tiscali. Today (27th of February) I telephoned technical support again and this time they did agree that my connection was being managed under the FUP and they informed me I had to contact you. My connection is still being managed by Tiscali between the hours of 6pm to 11pm (the "peak hours"). Outside this time service is fine. Since I first received the warnings about heavy usage I have endeavoured to ensure that all downloads of large files were out with peak hours. I would like to know why my connection is still being managed by Tiscali since I do not believe it is possible to have exceeded your peak "download limit" (whatever that is - not defined exactly in the FUP) with the connection I receive during peak hours - even browsing web pages is a laborious experience. Thank you for your assistance, (Name Removed)

Quite some time later, the Tiscali representative responds:

"Dear Tiscali Customer, Thank you for your query. Apologies for the delay in replying to your email. After carefully considering your case we have decided to give you another chance. This is your last chance so please ensure you do not abuse the service during peak hours because the large amount of traffic you are using is affecting the service of other customers. Your package is unlimited as are all consumer packages we provide. We shall not ask you to keep your total usage under a specific limit for the month, we are asking you to be considerate to other users during peak hours (from 6pm to 11pm Monday to Sunday) so all customers experience a high quality of service all the time. You can upload and download as much as you wish outside the peak periods. Any transferring of large files, peer to peer file sharing we ask is done outside of peak hours. If you do not adhere to the following guidelines you will be restricted:

• Do not file share or peer-to-peer software during peak times
• Do not download large files during peak times

Use the service during these hours for normal Internet use only, e.g. browsing, emailing etc. All file sharing, peer-to-peer activity or transferring of large files is to be done outside of the peak periods. We believe it is unfair that the vast majority of our customers' broadband services are affected by a very small number of very heavy users. If you wish to leave Tiscali and move to another service provider you may do so regardless of whether you are in contract or not. Please reply to this email and request a MAC Code. This will allow you to seamlessly migrate to another service provider with out obligation. To enable us to ensure you receive any further communications on a regular basis could you please let us know your most used contact email address to update out records. This can be completed by responding to this email. Kind Regards Tiscali Support"

Do you believe this kind of shit? They're basically telling him to fuck off and die.

What have we learned from porn

Sorry Cybr, the "embed" function didn't work...

What I Learned From Porn - Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

Russian Rail Missile System

I couldn't find more information about this missile system, but it looks real to me... Very cool russian "art" :)!

Top 10 Bird Moments in Sport

Microdisplay

This isn't a very new technology, but for those who haven't seen it yet:
"The reflective LCD display provides an 800x600 resolution in a half-inch screen that uses only 45 milliwatts of energy, as much as ten times less than transmissive displays."

Sex Offender T-shirts

Maybe we could do something like this for our holiday prank in Croatia. I call: "I'm with sex offender"

Marijuana May Fight Lung Tumors

Cannabis may be bad for the lungs, but the active ingredient in marijuana may help combat lung cancer, new research suggests.

In lab and mouse studies, the compound, known as THC, cut lung tumor growth in half and helped prevent the cancer from spreading, says Anju Preet, PhD, a Harvard University researcher in Boston who tested the chemical.

While a lot more work needs to be done, the results suggest THC has therapeutic potential, she tells WebMD.

Moreover, other early research suggests the cannabis compound could help fight brain, prostate, and skin cancers as well, Preet says.

Full article...

The Biggest Font in the World

These letters are 0.92km high!

Source We also made an empirical estimate of spatial resolution for lower contrast vegetation boundaries. By clearing forest so that a pattern would be visible to landing aircraft, a landowner outside Austin, Texas (see also aerial photo in Lisheron 2000), created a target that is also useful for evaluating spatial resolution of astronaut photographs. The forest was selectively cleared in order to spell the landowner's name 'LUECKE' with the remaining trees (figure 10). According to local surveyors who planned the clearing, the plan was to create letters that were 3100 ´ 1700 ft (944.9 ´ 518.2 m).

A commenter at googlesightseeing.com calculated that the font size is 1.468.800 :) Google Earth *.kml link

New Laser Record

The American Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has broken the world power-record for lasers. The pulsating laser has an average power of 67 kW. They hope to develop a 100 kW prototype this year.
"In our 25kW configuration and our 2.5 sq cm spot size on a one-inch thick steel target, we blow a hole through it in seven seconds."

Stages in the penetration of an aluminium target by the Solid State Heat Capacity Laser (SSHCL). The time between frames is 167 milliseconds. (Image: Bob Yamamoto/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

A Story of True Love

Hello dear, I found this diskette that you were so frantically looking for yesterday...

(I don't know why, but the comments disappeared when I edited this post)

Progress in Darfur?

In case you haven't been reading the news there seems to be some progress in Darfur.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Sudan agreed Monday to let 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers deploy in Darfur with attack helicopters, opening the door to the first significant U.N. force to help beleaguered African Union soldiers who have been unable to halt the region's four-year war. After five months of stalling, the government in Khartoum called for a speedy deployment and hinted it could approve an even larger U.N. force that has been demanded by the U.N. Security Council, the United States and others. But experts were cautious about chances for creating that 20,000-strong force, noting Sudan's leaders have reversed course previously after announcing vague agreements for action in Darfur. Full article...

Lets hope the U.N. can move in their full force soon.

Reefer Madness

Also watch the educational movie Reefer Madness so you can get all your facts straight. Watch out for the killer drug!!

Cybr's Poser Porn

In reference to the post Paint Pr0n, I was asked to post the rest of the series. Many a year ago (2002) I was playing around with Poser, and like any virile man I quickly tried out some sexy scenes. See the gallery here. All the models are from the internets, I only composed the shots and posed the girls. These labels might increase the number of visitors to our blog :) Here you can find my more serious computer aided design images.

the ultimate showdown

The 1 we saw was a parody, I like the parody better.

Picture based health warnings

Apparently the EU wants to impose the use of graphics depicting possible effects of smoking on cigarette packets. They have provided 42 images which can be seen here.
This site also has picture based warnings from all over the world, it's quite a gallery.

Two of my favorites:

For the sake of fairness I think they should paint pictures like this on cars

Where will it end?

Painting the Mona Lisa with MS Paint

Beat that Annom! :P

Paint Pr0n

This is my first paint pr0n creation! It's a real Annom!
Show me yours now plz!

cybr:
Look at me, I'm cheating! I used Poser for this

wiki:
A little more softcore than Annom's creation, but Christen Unie still wouldn't be happy with it:
My Pixelpron:
fully made in paint
and to add some extra fun:
search the 5 differences!

cybr:
me again, here is my new submission

ok I cheated again, I used a photo as a template, but I DID do it in MS paint

Strange animal behaviour

In recent days I've seen a number of articles relating to animals with some strange behaviors.

Like a swan who feeds the Koi fishes in a Chinese zoo.
Here is a video of a baby duck feeding the fish. Maybe it's not that rare for birds to feed fish, but I wouldn't know why.

Then there is the article about a cat in England who rides the same bus three times a week and exits at the next stop.


And finally Octi the octopus who opens bottles, which has been documented before, but he is also very friendly and squirts water jets into the faces of his keepers.

HDD capacity history and prediction

I searched for the max hard-disk drive capacity in different years and made a graph of the results. One datapoint every year from 2000. I used a polynomial to extrapolate the data. I didn't use technical information in the prediction, it is purely mathematical. It's a rough guesstimate, but interesting nonetheless.

Google teams up with Holocaust museum to bring attention to the genocide in Sudan

Previously there used to be some information in Google Earth on the destruction and genocide in Darfur, but now the coverage has greatly expanded.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has joined with Google in an unprecedented online mapping initiative. Crisis in Darfur enables more than 200 million Google Earth users worldwide to visualize and better understand the genocide currently unfolding in Darfur, Sudan. The Museum has assembled content—photographs, data, and eyewitness testimony—from a number of sources that are brought together for the first time in Google Earth.

Download *.kmz file here.

The Kaye effect

"Dutch researchers believe they have cracked the physics behind a mysterious bouncing behaviour of liquids, first seen more than 40 years ago. British engineer Arthur Kaye first noticed this weird phenomenon in 1963, while experimenting with a mixture of obscure organic liquids. When he poured his viscous mixture on to a surface, the down-going stream would suddenly throw up a jet that merged with the incoming stream." read more...

The B-Society

A recent article in Denmark has brought a lot of exposure to the so called B-Society movement. The B-Society is a movement that strives to liberate people from the normal early morning start. They argue that we don't live in an agricultural society anymore so we don't have to get up when the day breaks. They want to give people the choice to wake up later and go to bed later simply because a lot of people don't do well in the morning. Science has recently found out that some people are more prone to being night-owl for purely biological reasons. There are advantages to having a B-society next to an A-Society (early morning society), like less traffic congestion because people go to work at different times and more productive employees because they work at peak efficiency. It will also demand some rigorous changes in society though, because schools and work must adjust to people arriving at different times. I really support this movement and hope a similar initiative comes to the Netherlands. We night-owls shouldn't be at the mercy of the early birds. I would really like a working day from 10 to 7. Read more on their website. I do think they should have chosen a better name than B-Society because now it sounds second rate.

The USA Singles Map

Why?

Electrocuted Snake

"The photos below are from the Exxon/Mobile compound in Angola. You will notice from the insulators in the first photo this is an electrified fence."

The Cool Guy Files

I just found another exciting guide:
A Guide to Coolness!
Since most men are having trouble becoming the cool guy, this guide will definitely get you started!

It covers most of the different cool guys, some advice on cool cars & drinks, and some cool sayings that might come in handy!

It reveals a lot of secret's only known to cool guys...using this guide you'll finally know how to become that cool open shirt guy...

Malaysian Criminal Syndicate Places Bounty on Sniffer Dog's Heads.

The MPAA's international branch, the MPA has reported to be using canines in its ongoing war against physical piracy. These two four-legged henchmen, introduced by the MPAA in September 2006, reportedly sniffed out a multi-million dollar operation leading to the arrest of six people and the interception of aproximately one million street-ready pirated CD's and DVD's. Slyck News writes the following (snippet):

"The cold war on piracy seems to be getting just a tad warmer. In general, the copyright wars have generally maintained the status quo of verbal exchanges, civil actions, plant raids, criminal arrests and the occasional conviction. These generally were peaceful affairs, however the physical piracy war was brought up a notch as Malaysia's New Strait Times has reported that criminal syndicates have put a bounty on pirate sniffer dogs Lucky and Flo."

The physical martket for pirated goods is huge, especially in Asia and South-America. Supply is almost exclusively handled by cartel-like criminal organisations and wreaks havoc on the MPA's associates' revenue. I think we all agree that criminal exploitation like this should be fought and fought hard. I wonder how long it'll take until someone puts these K9's out of business!

A Guide to Grading Exams

Since most of you are / were busy with your exams, here is some insight in the grading.
When you've read this guide, you'll finally know why your grade sucks or rules!

WARNING: this material may be shocking for some of you!

What better way to celebrate Good Friday..

than to be nailed to a cross or watch the event as a tourist.

The devotees' palms and feet were attached to wooden crosses with 4-inch nails soaked in alcohol to prevent infection after a nearly mile-long walk to the mound, each carrying a wooden cross on their backs.

Watch a video clip here

520MW Gas Turbine

One Gas Turbine(Jet Engine, but used to produce electricity instead of thrust).
Net Plant Output: 520MW
Net Plant Efficiency: 60%
Electric Power for 500,000 households.

Nuclear Power Plant Borssele: 500MW

Video of this GE H 520MW turbine(not running).

Related:
Water and Chicken Turbine Test(YouTube)

Blade Out Turbine Test(YouTube)

We need more efficient cars

Enter the Six-stroke Engine which its inventor, Bruce Crower, claims can get up to 40% better fuel efficiency.
Wiki can explain it better than I can.

The engine cold starts on the conventional four stroke Otto cycle, coasting through the fifth and sixth strokes for a short period. After the combustion chamber temperature reaches approximately 400 degrees Fahrenheit ( 200 C ), a mechanical operation phases in the fifth and sixth cycles. Just prior to the fifth-cycle, water is injected directly into the heated combustion chamber via the converted diesel engines fuel injector pump, creating steam and another power stroke. The phase change from liquid to steam removes the excess heat of the combustion stroke forcing the piston down (a second power stroke). As a substantial portion of engine heat now leaves the cylinder in the form of steam, no cooling system radiator is required. Energy that is dissipated in conventional arrangements by the radiation cooling system has been converted into additional power strokes.

Read more on the pros and cons on wiki.
Also an article about the invention in Autoweek

Now if they also add a continuously variable transmission they might get an extra 20% efficiency.

More work needs to be done on these kinds of technologies.

architecture 3: Rem Koolhaas

It took me some while but here is my 3th architect: Rem Koolhaas.
a fast introduction:

RK born November 17, 1994 in Rotterdam, he was of a son of scriptwriter and started with a study scriptwriting, he finish script writing and after writing some years of writing scripts( with Jan de Bont and others from the 1,2,3 dutch film organization). he decided to do an architecture study, and of course he passed (nerd, at least i got sex, etc).

when finished universe he started an office in 1975, it started as an paper office, lot of studies but nothing that has bin build. He writhed a lot of books in that time that gave him a famous name, but still it took till 1980 before his first building was built: the kunsthal in Rotterdam. after that the ball started to roll.

FUCK THE CONTEXT
is on of the famous quotes from Koolhaas.
my teacher explained it as: you only can created anything unique if you forget the context.
I don't believe in that, i think its possible to created a building thats unique and that get relations with the context. And that its a big plus to created an building thats in harmony with the context, and still creating an unique situation.

Anyway i believe that Koolhaas isn't fucking the context, and that my teacher misunderstood ed it. this is my theory: in his architecture you don't see a relation to the context, but you see what the context is missing like "inverse commensurate"(omgekeerd evenredig). this way the building is completing the context.

anyway enough bullshit here are some pics:

uithof utrecht 1997: the university of utrecht. in this part of utrecht there where a lot of big, austere, and constructive buildings. this building is smaller, got more organic forms and is more freely (you can even skateboard inside)then the rest of the buildings. Now days there are a lot more "happy'er" buildings in the uithof











Casada musica, 2001 porto portugal, in this old city, with a lot of old and stodgy architecture, this music theater really fucks the context anally. like a big space ship is landed to attack the dull people of porto to infect them with some culture.

San Francisco International Airport at night

I really think this is an amazing pictures, make sure to full-screen it, it makes a nice wallpaper!
Let me know if you don't want me to post these kind of photos, I don't want to clog the blog...
wiki: some pictures of the master plan of beijng airport:

This pics i got from the site and don't got that good quality :( anyway hope you guys like it

Solar irridiation data utulity

A new data utillity from the EU Joint Research Centre. Always wanted to know the solar irridiation of a certain location in Europe? Your prayers have been heard.
Not only useful for solar energy, but also great when your planning a holiday!

It also gives you the tempertuare of any location, and the optimal degree of inclination.
When using this utility you'll finally know how to get that nice tan!

When Coffee Meets Milk (Amazing Photography)