Do you have some extra harddrives that are too small to be used, but you just hate to throw them away?
I have a few that have sizes measured in single digits…
Of course, you can always turn them into a grinder and sander 
You need some hardware skills, some sandpaper and glue, but its not too hard.
Check out the video from hacknmod
Mind you, this isn’t a product yet, but I think its both absolutely awesome and insane.
There is a concept alarm clock that, upon reaching the time when you must be roused out of a warm bed, threatens to accesse your cell phone and dials a random number in your phone list. Give it enough time and it WILL, with a pre-recorded message. Now, this is when it could possibly become very very bad for someone who doesn’t get out of bed.
Imagine its 7 am, and your alarm clock calls your boss or dad with a message of,
Hey sexy, it’s me. Listen, I had to call because I had another dream about you last night. I can’t get you out of my mind.
I dont know, that would get me out of bed pretty fast. There are far too many hilarious/very very baaaaaad situations depending on who gets called….and what the incriminating message is
Check out their site (although I really wish they could make such a machine haha)
Its the nice GUI to SMART disk reporting, temperature, and stats on your harddrive. It’ll even say if your harddrive is in good condition (Blue) or bad….very baaad.
Its free and for windows. Its a nice little reference when you’ve had a computer for a few years, and have lots of files you need. It’ll tell you just how many errors your hdd has had, how long its run, etc.
Check it out: Crystal Disk Info
Here is a very nice piece of software. When you get tired of being oh so good to your computer and feel like playing with some dangerous download, or am letting someone use the computer for a while and you know their going to screw the computer up, Windows Steady State is here. What I find very odd…is that its released free by Microsoft, without any fanfare.
But heh, it works and its free. It makes a cache file which includes all the system changes, when you revert, it simply clears the cache.
Check it out: Microsoft Windows SteadState
Here is a very interesting company, Flatwire. They make and sell cables that are extremely flat/thin and can easily be hidden by paint.
They make data cables, video/audio and even electrical cables. What I find very nice about this is that its so thin it makes installation very easy, without the need of ripping through walls or ceilings.
The only problem i find with this, is the price. Its rather expensive for a simple ethernet, but heh, very cool.
Check it out: Flatwire
NAS (NASA Advanced Supercomputing) are developing the Hyperwall-2, a 23 by 10 foot liquid display wall, 128 screens, 128 GPUs, 1024 cores, 74 teraflop processing power, and half a petabyte of storage.
Impressing, though, to be completely honest…i don’t fully comprehend the true use of such a gigantic display…as long as the supercomputer crunches it, it should be easily seen on normal screens, its not like the zoom function doesn’t exist.
But heh, if NASA wants to make a giant screen with ridiculous backend, I won’t say no…heck, let me at it 
Thanks NASA for all the fun
Kind of out of the range of this blog, but then again, nothing is out of range! *plans a post on the complex math behind string theory*
but, anyways…apparently, a lot of fans can turn both counterclockwise and clockwise. And furthermore…theres a difference between the two settings
Since its summer, Simple Dollar recommends that you use counterclockwise in the summer. The way to verify that it IS right, other than staring at the fan of course, is to stand underneath it and feel if a breeze appears immediately after you turn it on. This makes the most sense during the summer of course. In the winter however, you spin it clockwise. The angle of the fins pushes air upwards, which will allow the cold air to circulate with the warmer air up by the ceiling. Of course, weigh the cost savings of having the fan turned on vs the heating benefit.
Cheers, and thanks to The Simple Dollar
“Google Germany spokesperson Stefan Keuchel told The Local via email on
Monday that the change from www.gmail.com is a result of a trademark
lawsuit with German businessman Daniel Giersch, who owns the German
trademark for an email service called “G-mail…und die Post geht richtig ab” for his paid email service.
According to Keuchel, Google’s action stems from a German court
decision in July 2007, which ruled that Google could no longer use
“Gmail” for its email services based on Giersch’s trademark.”
(from http://www.thelocal.de/12667/20080623/)
Okay, I’m no German speaker, but Google Translation yeilded “and the Post is right from” when I entered “und die Post geht richtig ab, ” so I’m guessing that the german mail service is basically “G-Mail – the mails always right,” or some other positive phrase about the good quality of the companies mail service. I don’t have the exact translation, but I get the point. Its still a catchy advertising slogan, no matter what language its in. I’d actually be really interested to know how long Mr. Giersch has held the German trademark for “G-Mail.” For once, I’m actally tempted to argue that he’s got it, and that Google should simply continue calling their service “Google Mail.” Much as I like a good deal of what Google does, just because their bigger doesn’t mean they automatically get international trademarks because they want them.
“Phil Bridge, 21, of Sheffield Hallam
University, said the bike was strong enough for a rider weighing up to 12
stones and would not go soft in the rain, although it has a life expectancy
of only about six months.”
One one hand, I want to really applaud this design for being very affordable, and I could easily see this as a means of transportation for people who don’t have the resources to afford standard metal bikes, but need a means of getting around other then walking. I’m thinking along the lines of One Laptop per Child, or the person-powered water pump we blogged about a few months ago. I mean, whats better then a bike thats made of cardboard, could be easily shipped and stored, or carried on a bus, boat, by hand through non-bikeable conditions? And its cardboard. Who’d really want to steal it? Its not like you could sell it for scrap.
On the other hand, I’m ready to say that this is just another embodiment of our use-for-a-while-and-throw-away society. I mean, who buys a bike they know will last them only 6 months? Granted, it IS only cardboard, so it will decompose in landfills, and the metal parts are supposed to be recyclable.
What I think would be a really interesting design would be to make metal parts as well as cardboard parts – this way, people in poor countries could buy the cardboard bike to get around, and buy the rest of the bike in metal form piece by piece – you could litterall buy it wheel by wheel, then get a real metal frame, a real seat, real handlebars, and then you’ve worked your way up to a real bike. It couldn’t be that hard to break the design down into four or five individual parts that places could stock in metal.
Read the rest of the article here
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4221806.ece
