Thursday, January 28, 2010

DJ Steve Porter

The DJ behind the great Slap Chop remix (which has been turned into a real commercial) has also made some other nice tracks. I especially like the Henry Rollins vs Techno Viking remix.
And "Youtube Music Is"
You can check out the rest of his tracks here.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Monday, January 25, 2010

Old car vs new car

Afstudeer Ontwerp

Voor mijn afstuderen heb ik een filmpje gemaakt van mijn ontwerp voor een duurzaam en kosten efficiënt kantoor gebouw. Dacht misschien is het wel eens leuk om het up te loaden en om mijn E-Penis te bootsen.

Friday, January 22, 2010

TED: Growing new organs

Anthony Atala's state-of-the-art lab grows human organs -- from muscles to blood vessels to bladders, and more. At TEDMED, he shows footage of his bio-engineers working with some of its sci-fi gizmos, including an oven-like bioreactor (preheat to 98.6 F) and a machine that "prints" human tissue.
Institute website Next stop: Immortality :)

Slime Mold Time Lapse

"Slime mold (or slime mould, see spelling differences) is a broad term describing fungus-like organisms that use spores to reproduce."

"They begin life as amoeba-like cells. These unicellular amoebae are commonly haploid and multiply if they encounter their favorite food, bacteria. These amoebae can mate if they encounter the correct mating type and form zygotes which then grow into plasmodia. These contain many nuclei without cell membranes between them, which can grow to be meters in size. One variety is often seen as a slimy yellow network in and on rotting logs. The amoebae and the plasmodia engulf microorganisms. The plasmodium grows into an interconnected network of protoplasmic strands.[7] 

The streaming protoplasm within a plasmodial strand can reach speeds of up to 1.35 mm per second which is the fastest rate recorded for any micro-organism.[8] Migration of the plasmodium is accomplished when more protoplasm streams to advancing areas and protoplasm is withdrawn from rear areas. When the food supply wanes, the plasmodium will migrate to the surface of its substrate and transform into rigid fruiting bodies. The fruiting bodies or sporangia are what we commonly see, they superficially look like fungi or molds but are not related to the true fungi. These sporangia will then release spores which hatch into amoebae to begin the life cycle again."

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The extreme Water Bear

wiki: Tardigrades (commonly known as water bears) are microscopic, water-dwelling, segmented animals with eight legs. The biggest adults may reach a body length of 1.5 mm, the smallest below 0.1 mm. Tardigrades are polyextremophiles and are able to survive in extreme environments that would kill almost any other animal. Some can survive temperatures of -273°C, close to absolute zero, temperatures as high as 151 °C (303 °F), 1,000 times more radiation than other animals such as humans, almost a decade without water, and even the vacuum of space. In September 2007, tardigrades were taken into low Earth orbit on the FOTON-M3 mission and for 10 days were exposed to the vacuum of space. After they were returned to Earth, it was discovered that many of them survived and laid eggs that hatched normally, making these the only animals shown to be able to survive the vacuum of space.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Really cool Verbatim promotion

The Japanese site of Verbatim has created this game to promote their data storage. You can make a selection of various USB sticks and cards. The program then randomly creates creatures out of the parts, of which you can choose one and semi-automatically fight with it. It's really well made. Here are two of my creations:

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Remaking Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up"

A Ukrainian Dj has made cover of Smack My Bitch Up without any sample of original track. It gives an interesting look into how electronic music can be made nowadays. This kind of software wasn't yet available when Prodigy made it though.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Paper Airplane Guinness World Record

There have been many attempts time aloft. Ken Blackburn held this Guinness world récord for 13 years (1983–1996) and had regained the récord on over the years to break the barriers of throwing a paper plane for the longest October 8, 1998 by keeping his paper plane aloft for 27.6 seconds (indoors). Takuo Toda set a new récord for longest paper airplane flight at a competition in Hiroshima Prefecture in April of 2009. His record flight topped Blackburn's by 0.3 seconds, now the world récord is 27.9 seconds. He folded his plane, measuring approximately 10cm in length, from a single sheet of paper. Here's how to fold it.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Crazy skillz snowboarding compilation

Quite long, but worth it. There's even a part 2.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Haiti Satellite Images

"You can download the KML here and open it in Google Earth, or look at it via the browser plug-in below. You can also open the file in Google Maps. As you'll see, the imagery shows a powerful glimpse into the destruction in Haiti."

The majority of the buildings seems to be ok. This part is hit hard:

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Another active avalanche on Mars

Another active avalanche on Mars caught by HiRISE. See this post for the first Mars avalanche.

Google's new approach to China

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Base Jumping from the Burj Dubai/Khalifa

It had to happen.
The Burj Dubai is now called the Burj Khalifa because Abu Dhabi's Sheik Khalifa bailed out Dubai last month.

Friday, January 08, 2010

Eyeball Tattoo

WTF, These guys developed their own way to tattoo the white of their eyes.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Stop motion Parkour

Nice idea for a stop motion.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Whaler vs Anti-Whaling Boat

"The high-tech stealth boat Ady Gil was cut in half and sunk by a Japanese security vessel in Antarctic waters today, dramatically upping the stakes in the annual struggle between whalers and protesters.
Sea Shepherd group leader Paul Watson told Fairfax Media the $1.5 million Ady Gil was sinking, but its six-man crew had been rescued and was uninjured."





The Ady Gil, made of carbon fibre foam sandwich with kevlar armour.

2009 Fail Compilation

Music sucks and some fails could use slow motion replays, but a nice compilation nonetheless.

Monday, January 04, 2010

Ricky Gervais on Sesame Street

Elmo also interviews Ricky

Simo Häyhä

Simo Häyhä (December 17, 1905 – April 1, 2002), nicknamed "White Death" by the Red Army, was a Finnish sharpshooter. Using a standard iron-sighted, bolt action rifle in the Winter War, he has the highest recorded number of confirmed kills in any major war. In temperatures between −20 and −40 degrees Celsius (−4 and −40 degrees Fahrenheit), dressed completely in white camouflage, Häyhä was credited with 505 confirmed kills of Soviet soldiers,[2][4] and 542 if including the unconfirmed deaths.[4] The unofficial Finnish frontline figure from the battlefield of Kollaa places the number of Häyhä's sniper kills over 800.[5] A daily account of the kills at Kollaa was conducted for the Finnish snipers. Besides his sniper kills, Häyhä was also credited with over two hundred kills with a Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun, thus bringing his credited kills to at least 705.[4] Remarkably, all of Häyhä's kills were accomplished in fewer than 100 days. Häyhä used a Finnish variant, M/28, of the Soviet Mosin-Nagant rifle (known as "Pystykorva" rifle, meaning "spitz"), because it suited his small frame (5 ft 3 in/1.60 m). He preferred to use iron sights rather than telescopic sights to present a smaller target (the sniper must raise his head higher when using a telescopic sight), to prevent visibility risks (a telescopic sight's glass can fog up easily), and aid concealment (sunlight glare in telescopic sight lenses can reveal a sniper's position). Another tactic used by Häyhä was to compact the snow in front of him so that the shot wouldn't disturb the snow, thus revealing his position. He also kept snow in his mouth so that when breathing he wouldn't reveal his position.

Sunday, January 03, 2010

Why does aluminum have a shiny and a matte side?

In some states of mind the question is more interesting then the answer:
Wiki says:
"Aluminium foil has a shiny side and a matte side. The shiny side is produced when the aluminium is rolled during the final pass. It is nearly impossible to produce rollers with a gap fine enough to cope with the foil gauge, therefore, for the final pass, two sheets are rolled at the same time, doubling the thickness of the gauge at entry to the rollers. When the sheets are later separated, the inside surface is dull, and the outside surface is shiny. This difference in the finish has led to the perception that favouring a side has an effect when cooking. While many believe that the shiny side's reflective properties keep heat out when wrapped on the exterior and keep heat in when facing exterior, the actual difference is imperceptible without instrumentation [7]. Thereflectivity of bright aluminium foil is 88% while dull embossed foil is about 80% [4]."
Here is a How It's Made for aluminum foil, they don't explain the two sides though:

Friday, January 01, 2010

Straight Up Chess

Nice and simple idea to have at the office or in the hallway. Everytime you walkbye you can make a move. The cheapest set costs 180$, but it isn't hard to make it youreself for less more i supose