The greatest job on two planets

An out-of-this-world IT job: Mars rover driver
Guiding the rovers from millions of miles away takes skill, patience
...
...
The rover Spirit has a right front wheel that no longer can rotate on its axle and has to be driven around gingerly as it drags its broken wheel, Maxwell said.

"It's like driving a broken grocery cart by remote control from 100 million miles away," he said. "So it has its challenges."

Read the article about the Mars rover drivers at ComputerWorld.

Honda Asimo - The running midget robot

Honda Asimo, the running midget robot..

Google on the moon - Video

I just love the X prize competitions. Swedish IDG had an article about it today.

Amphibious Snake Robot

Techeblog wrote about this robot called ACM R5. It is an amphibious robot which moves like a snake. Take a look at YouTube, there are several videoclips of this amazing robot.

See the video of the people behind the Simpsons voices

See the people behind the voices of the Simpsons characters on Inside The Actors Studio. In Sweden, DN reports that John Thelin is working with the swedish subtitles for the newly released Simpsons movie.

kameraflage - See what can not be seen

"kameraflageTM is possible because digital cameras see a broader spectrum of light (colors) than human eyes. By rendering content in these invisible colors we are able to create displays that are invisible to the naked eye, yet can be seen when imaged with a digital camera."

http://kameraflage.com/

How cool isn't this?

One hundred numbers

Stackable obelisk chairs

"The Obelisk Chairs is four powdered coated aluminum frame chairs with white cushions and a table which can stack into one piece made out of woven polyethylene."

http://geekologie.com/2007/04/...

My wonderful friend, Andy of Skåne, sent me another link. I am not sure what he does during the days but I guess it would be a smart idea to give him access to this blog so he can write for himself. This time, he supplied me these stackable chairs. Priceless.

Perfect bagel holder

"Some hungry nerd somewhere really needed to take his bagel with him to a meeting, and thus, the CD Bagel holder was born."

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/...

A friend sent me this link. It's the perfect bagel holder for hungry geeks.

Beer tossing robot

"Look, good things happening at Duke ... or at least the genesis of an inevitable beer commercial. It's a robot that tosses you your beer -- and you have a remote to control the whole thing. More reason to never, ever leave your couch."

http://deadspin.com/sports/clips/...

This one is just beautiful. I need that machine now.

Four-legged robotic runner

"A nimble, four-legged robot is so surefooted it can recover its balance even after being given a hefty kick. The machine, which moves like a cross between a goat and a pantomime horse, is being developed as a robotic pack mule for the US military. "

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=5349770802105160028

This four-legged scary piece of equipment comes from Boston Dynamics. It looks freaky, jumping around on its four legs without a thought of stepping aside.

Worse than failure

"Congratulations, reader, you're now an IT 'expert'!

IT is a field that is full of "experts." An "expert" is any old IT guy (or gal (ok, fine, guy)) that meets the minimum requirement for being called an "expert" — he refers to himself as one."

http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/Failing_the_Turing_Test.aspx

One of my daily visits always goes to Worse Than Failure, formerly knows as the Daily WTF, which serves us with beatiful stories from the world of IT every day. If you work within the business, you most likely know about the page already, and if you don't you'd better get to know it. This article is about SCIGen which generates random Computer Science research papers and a guy who actually found them useful.

I've got the little Fokker in sight

"Control tower to a 747: 'United 329 heavy, your traffic is a Fokker, one o'clock, three miles, Eastbound.'
United 239: 'Approach, I've always wanted to say this.... I've got the little Fokker in sight.'"

http://www.businessballs.com/airtrafficcontrollersfunnyquotes.htm

Another lovely link from my friend AIXpi. I just love those airtraffic controllers and pilots conversations. Don't miss the funny insurance claims at the bottom of the page.

Thumb to nose and wiggling fingers

"A person may not walk around on Sundays with an ice cream cone in his/her pocket."

"Citizens may not greet each other by "putting one's thumb to the nose and wiggling the fingers"."

http://www.dumblaws.com/

There you have two laws I promise I didn't break when I went to New York.

Video edited drummer

"Drums can be fun"

http://modestmen.com/2007/03/trummor-kan-vara-kul.html

I just have to link to my other blog 'A last chance for modest men' where me and my friend Andy writes toghether. He posted this awesome video with a guy who plays the drums. Actually.. he can't play so he video-edited himself a bit. Just check it out.. I've seen it a dozen times today.

Give me one of those mad cow ties

"Since its “outbreak” in 1997, Infectious Awareables has been creating unique, science-based products designed to promote awareness of important public health issues. Beginning with the award winning H.I.D.E. & S.E.E.K! Disease Prevention video, our collection has grown to include 100% silk neckties and scarves, boxers, classic note cards and a host of other topical and timely products. Sure to spark healthy conversation and interest, IA products are a rapid “chain of transmission” at work!"

http://www.iawareables.com/home.htm

I found this in my friend (and former colleague) AIXpi's blog. Who could possibly resist a Mad Cow tie?

Any drive is a USB drive

"The NewerTech USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter implements a bridge between one USB port and one ATA, Serial ATA, or ATAPI based mass storage device port. The USB 2.0 to IDE Drive Adapter turns any ATA or SATA drive into a convenient external drive. Easily transfer files from computer or notebook, back up files, or store large file archives on hard drives."

http://newertech.com/products/usb2_adapt.php

I read about this one at idg.se some time ago but I almost forgot about it. I found the link in an old e-mail draft in my gmail though and figured it would be a good thing to share here. It is an easy-to-use adapter for almost any hard drive you have laying around in your shelves. Just plug it in, connect it to your USB port and there you go. Sounds smooooth..

Worlds oldest blogger

"...At this age, I must say that I do delight in people's amazement when I tell them how old I am. But under all this is the knowledge that I am the oldest male on either side of my family, maternal or paternal, and I know I must go fairly soon. I just don't like the idea. "

http://dontoearth.blogspot.com/

He might be the Worlds oldest blogger?

Get in shape with minimal effort

"Simply believing you are exercising can help you become thinner, researchers say. Those who do physically demanding jobs and are aware of the potential health benefits of their work lose more weight and have lower blood pressure than those who do the same jobs but do not realise the positive side-effects.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/...

Yes! I knew it! I just have to think about training to get in shape. I stay here in front of the computer and simply just think about all the calories I am burning. It's almost like those TV Shop commercials with super-fit people selling magic training equipment. This method costs less though.

Online image editing

"With Picnik you can quickly edit all your online photos from one place. It's the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos.
It's fast, easy, and fun."

http://www.picnik.com/

This is a nice online application! It allows you to crop, rotate, fix colors and do other stuff with your own uploaded images online. I am missing a couple of features though, like free-hand painting, adding text to your image and ordinary stuff like that. I bet it will come in a later version. I am not sure it is "fun" (as they say) though. I can think of at least dozen of other things which is funnier.

Daniel Tammet learned a new language in a week

"Morley Safer met another savant, Daniel Tammet, who is called "Brain Man" in Britain. But unlike most savants, he has no obvious mental disability, and most important to scientists, he can describe his own thought process. He may very well be a scientific Rosetta stone, a key to understanding the brain."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/26/60minutes/main2401846.shtml

The incredible "Brain man" learned Icelandic in a week. I have problems remembering what I did yesterday. See the CBS 60 Minutes video interview with him on their site.

A staggering depressive calendar

"This year ThinkGeek teamed up with the geniuses at Despair, Inc. to bring you a custom 2007 calendar. Each calendar is a work of staggering depression and includes twelve Demotivators (see below for specifics). Each calendar is also chock filled with a plethora of depressing dates. We've meticulously combed through the annals of important techie dates and presents them to you in this one-of-a-kind 2007 calendar from Despair, Inc. and ThinkGeek. This 2007 Calendar is simply the perfect gift for the person who has everything, but still isnt happy about it!"

http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/posters/8aec/

I love looking through the stuff at ThinkGeek. Found this calendar which would look good on any wall in a bitter-by-choice home.

Jack van Hoof on Event Driven Architecture

"The promise of SOA is better integration, cleaner data and a higher level agility. But the promise of SOA also is decoupling. The decoupling promise is in contradiction with the way most people are promoting SOA: synchronous services calls. The problem with this current SOA-hype is that we are tightly coupling our systems in stead of decoupling."

http://soa-eda.blogspot.com/2006/10/worldwide-pitfall-of-soa.html#links

Jack van Hoof blogs about Event Driven Architecture and Service Oriented Architecture. His posts are very interesting and I recommend each and every one of them.

Search by singing

"Oh wow, this is fun: you sing or hum a part of a song, and music search engine Midomi finds the title and artist for you! I tried Yesterday, I Just Called To Say I Love You, and a couple of other popular songs and they were all found (some more exotic songs didn't yield any hits; luckily for Midomi, I bet most searchers will blame their own singing talents instead of the search engine's algorithms)."

http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2007-01-27-n49.html

Song search engine! Have not tried it yet but I like the idea. I would like to see a photo comparsion engine too. Send in a photo and let the search engine tell you what it is on the picture. I think I've heard about such a thing before but I cannot remember where..

Mark Richards discussing ESB

"Mark Richards tells us what an ESB is, its role, what capabilities it provides, and the various ways an ESB can be implemented. He takes a close look at the JBI specification (JSR-208) and explains what impact it will have with the ESB world. This will teach you how to determine your own specific requirements for an ESB and then match these requirements to the product space."

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Enterprise-Service-Bus

There are a million descriptions of what an ESB is. This is another one. It can even be a hardware solution according to Mark. It is a very good video presentation. It is a bit over an hour so make sure you have plenty of time

Is Google becomming a giant proxy for the Internet

"I spoke recently with an old friend who is a bandwidth broker. He buys and sells bandwidth on fiber-optic networks around the world. And he told me something that I found not completely surprising, but I certainly hadn't known: Google controls more network fiber than any other organization."

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070119_001510.html

Are Google going evil? Are they aiming to become a giant proxy server for the Internet?

Nice looking link preview

"Snap Preview Anywhere provides high quality link previews for site owners to add an informative and sticky experience for their users. And it's free! Ready to get started?"

http://www.snap.com/about/spa1B.php

I really like this one, it is completely useless but it is quite good looking. I've never understood the need to see a preview of a page before you actually go there but everytime a see a feature like that I need to check it out. I think it is the geek inside me who need to see cool things you could do with a web page.. I am thinking about implementing it in our liquor price comparsion site.

Patented way of exercising a cat

"A method for inducing cats to exercise consists of directing a beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus onto the floor or wall or other opaque surface in the vicinity of the cat, then moving the laser so as to cause the bright pattern of light to move in an irregular way fascinating to cats, and to any other animal with a chase instinct."

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=5,443,036.PN.&OS=PN/5,443,036&RS=PN/5,443,036

This might be the worst patent ever. Ever.

A Google approach

"MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- To understand the corporate culture at Google Inc., take a look at the toilets. Every bathroom stall on the company campus holds a Japanese high-tech commode with a heated seat. If a flush is not enough, a wireless button on the door activates a bidet and drying."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102001461.html

I like the Google approach to encourage employee ideas and creativity. I think most companies could benefit from creating a corporate culture where employees are inspired to think out of the standard frames. That's where I am aiming with my business. Our company should aim to be the best employer there is. We need to create an inspirering environment where people not just do what they do, but actually love to do it.

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