If there’s one thing that can make a video of destruction even cooler, it’s amusingly drawn faces on the things being destroyed. In this video, it’s cooling towers at various power plants being taken down and said cooling towers seem pretty surprised. This is actually an ad by a group called Ecotricity, and you might not agree with their willingness to throw nuclear power under the bus alongside most established pollution culprits like coal and other fossil fuels, but however you look at it, one of the towers has a mustache! Isn’t it hilarious?! You bet it is.

(via reddit)

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You’ve probably never heard of Ray Sipe, but nevertheless he is one of the most prolific YouTubers out there, with a massive 1,098 videos on his channel at the time of this writing, all uploaded over the span of a 9 months. Sipe’s a songwriter with a unique chanting style that really drives a point home — dozens of times — and through his work, he seems to be attempting to cover literally every possible subject, from “Turtle Gymnastics” to the death of Amy Winehouse. The tunes are quite seriously beyond belief, and I’ve collected a nice sampling to give you a taste. Consider it Zombie Caterpillars: The Best of Ray Sipe. Trust me, you need to see these.

1. Lion king. We’ll start out with one of Sipe’s simpler pieces. “Lion king” is primarily concerned with driving home a singular point, but I won’t spoil what it is for you.

2. Mr. Lobster. Unlike “Lion King,” in “Mr. Lobster,” Sipe introduces the question of whether or not it is ethical to eat animals, going so far as to apologize to Mr. Lobster and lamenting the misfortune of being so tasty.

3. STD’s are not ABC’s. One of Sipe’s main goals, it seems, is to be informative. Here he warns of the dangers of STDs. They are bad, apparently. It’s also worth noting that the increased distance from the camera here allows you to admire his shirt.

4. Adolf Hitler. Don’t get Sipe wrong; he does not approve of Hitler. He does however, like to cover the news. In this case, he covers the story of a young boy in New Jersey named after Adolf Hitler.

5. amy winehouse funeral. Here, we see Sipe’s touching tribute to the late Amy Winehouse who is, sadly, gone forever and ever.

6. Nyan Cat Pooing Rainbows. In addition to breaking news, it seems that Sipe keeps on Internet culture as well. Here is his contribution to the Nyan Cat crazy. Related: Whatever cat he has gained access to here has the patience of a saint.

7. Angry Birds Will PECK  Your Eyes Out! Considering his awareness of the Nyan Cat, it’s not surprising that Sipe is familar with Angry Birds. I’m not sure where he picked up the misconception that they will peck your eyes out, however. Maybe he’s talking about actual angry birds.

8. iPhone [Eyephone]. Here we see Sipe’s creative side really shine as he makes use of a brilliant piece of wordplay. It’s the perfect companion to the classic “Angry Birds Will PECK Your Eyes Out!”

9. The Human Centipede. Like any good artist, Sipe takes inspiration from others in other fields of art. Here, he shows off a piece, nay a musical, inspired by the cinematic masterpiece The Human Centipede.

10. Vegetarian Santa Clauses with Kandi Jewelry. Sipe is no stranger to experimentation and I must say, I find his absurdist and surrealist work to be the most interesting. “Vegetarian Santa Clauses with Kandi Jewelry” is no exception.

11. Chicken Watermelon ice cream and rock ‘n roll. Remember ladies and gentlemen, there’s nothing like tailgating, nothing like tailgating.

12. Turtle Gymnastics. Lastly, in this song, Sipe imagines a glorious world in which turtles do gymnastics to stay in shape and have fun. How I long to live in such a world.

Bonus: Happy Valentines Day. Sipe’s latest work. Send this to your sweetheart if you need a surefire gift.

(h/t Buzzfeed, Image via Cyborg Pirates)

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Taken by researchers from the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, this is supposedly the first-ever picture of a shark eating another shark. The shark doing the eating may not look exactly like a shark, but it is, don’t worry; it’s a tasselled wobbegong shark, which happens to look like that. It’s a type of carpet shark, which if you know your Discovery Channel, would know that they hang out on the bottom of the ocean and pretend to be the ground until dinner swims by. Normally, they eat smaller things, but they have the ability to dislocate their jaw and eat larger things, which is the brown-banded bamboo shark getting gobbled up above.

Remains of sharks have been found inside carpet sharks before, so we previously knew sharks ate other sharks, but hey, now you can see it for yourself. Bonus photo below:

(New Scientist via io9)

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(title pic via reddit)

Yesterday, Skyrim’s official mod tools released to the masses, and along with a high resolution texture pack, came a somewhat out of left field Portal 2 mod, wherein the Space Core plummeted to Skyrim’s fertile ground. Today, through console commands, YouTube user Memorable found a hint that either a Portal-related quest now resides in Skyrim so long as one has the Space Core mod, or a Portal-related quest is incoming in a future update.

In the above video, Memorable goes through where to obtain the Space Core, as well as the things it does and doesn’t do. However, when he pulls down the console and enters “help portal,” it lists portal-related things in the game, one of which is named “portal2quest.” Pretty self-explanatory. There isn’t word of anyone actually finding some kind of Portal 2-related quest in the game as of yet, and even if it does not exist in this mod, this mod is entitled Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1, volume 1 meaning there might be other volumes with which to introduce quests.

(via Joystiq)

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Sure, you have a general idea of how gravity works, how things orbit other things and the like, but it can be hard to really parse those kinds of things because they generally happen on such an enormous scale. That’s why experiments in micro-gravity can be so enlightening, and moreover, cool to watch. Check out this video of a water droplet orbiting a knitting needle, the first of many as part of a series being developed by NASA and the American Physical Society who aim to bring more cool videos from the International Space Station — and astronomical knowledge in general — down to Earth.

(via reddit)

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The first two prototypes, the Ecobot-I and II were capable of eating their own fuel by two different means. Ecobot-I had an E. Coli engine that ran on refined sugar and Ecobot-II had sludge microbe engine that ran on stuff like dead flies and prawn shells. The problem with these two models, however, was that they could eat food but not eject waste. Basically they just kept cramming in new batteries until there was no room, or in a more biological and disgusting metaphor, until they were full of crap, literally.

The Ecobot-III, however, has managed to succeed in the laboratory by being able to collect its own food and water and poop in a litter tray. As such, it has potential for being a long-lived self-sustaining robot, unlike its disposable predecessors. Naturally this could be useful technology. The bot is being funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation –which has previous experience funding feces-related projects– and NASA, which is very keen on a robot that could function on human feces, specifically those of an astronaut.

Granted, this is no Fallout-style human-brain-as-a-CPU technology, but clearly adding some biological aspects to robots could serve to make them more efficient and more self-sufficient. Maybe someday we’ll have a whole bunch of robots running around, cleaning up our waste not because we’ve enslaved them to do it, but because they need to eat the stuff. Hopefully we’ll have programmed them to comment on its impeccable quality while they’re at it as well, you know, for the lulz.

(Scientific American via Environmental News Information, Image credit Bristol Robotics Laboratory, UK)

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If you weren’t a fan of Google’s privacy policy modifications, you might also be interested to hear about Screenwise. If you sign up for Screenwise, Google will track your browsing data non-anonymously. Why would you ever want let it do that? Cash money. Well, Amazon gift cards, which are basically cash money. If you sign up for Screenwise and install a Chrome browser extension designed for tracking, Google will give you a $5 Amazon gift card for joining up, with an additional $5 every three months you stick with it.

Now Google’s got a lot of your data already, why do they need this too? Well the thing worth noting here is that it is non-anonymous. The data Google collects while you do your web-business is stored somewhere, but it isn’t attached to you as a person; it’s numbered, not named. If you sign up for Screenwise, you’ll be giving them information directly associated with you, which is why the feel the need to offer you some cyberbux in exchange.

A few other things worth noting. First off, Amazon isn’t involved in this at all, they just happen to be a useful form of online currency at this point. Second, Google is working with Knowledge Networks on this, the latter group being the one that it appears will do the data collection and whatnot. When you give your email to Google, they’ll pass it on to Knowledge Networks and delete their copy, presumably meaning there’s no way that signing up with this will attach any of your anonymous data of previous use to your new non-anonymous profile. It also means that Knowledge Networks Terms and Conditions will be important to read if you opt-in. Lastly, while Google will pay you $5 to start and $5 a month thereafter, the rewards top out at $25, for now. They’re considering what they’d want to do to thank users who felt like hanging on longer.

There hasn’t been any official announcement from Google yet, but the sign-up page exists if this sounds great to you and you want to get involved. If you don’t have anything to hide, free money is always free money, and you don’t have anything to hide, do you? Besides your privacy as a matter of principle, but what’s that really worth anyways? About $25 dollars in Amazon bucks, if Google had to guess, apparently.

(via Geek.com)

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In some 760 million year old rock in Namibia, geologists have found tiny fossils, each about the size of a grain of sand. These fossils of Otavia antiqua, a prehistoric sponge, have now taken the title of oldest known animal, snatching it away from some other sponges who were a scant 650 million years young. But these are not just really old sponges, no. They may actually be the first multicellular animals ever and the de facto ancestor of dinosaurs, humans, and basically everything in between.

It wasn’t like researchers found only one or two of these fossils either, the 760 million year old stone was littered with hundreds of them, suggesting they were prosperous little guys. ”In fact, when we look at thin sections of the rocks, certain samples would likely yield thousands of specimens. Thus, it is possible that the organisms were very abundant,” said Anthony Prave, a geologist at the University of St. Andrews and leader of a study on the organism.

The researchers think that –in true sponge form– Otavia antiqua subsisted on a diet of algae and bacteria which it sucked into its body through its pores, digesting them in a central body cavitiy like some sort of tiny, ancient Sarlacc pit. The set up seemed to serve it well, as the fossil record indicates that it survived two major freeze-overs where the Earth was practically covered with ice. In short, the animal kingdom as we know it may all be traced back to a sponge, but rest assured, it was one hardcore sponge.

(via National Geographic, Image credit Anthony Prave)

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The history of beer is almost as old as human history, and it would be quite true to say that our love affair with the stuff has only grown with modern brewing practices. Given beer’s pervasive place in human history, it’s not surprising that the geeky pastimes of drinkers would eventually rub off on the beers themselves. The result is a veritable cornucopia of nerdy beers, from Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and a few others that fit in quite nicely with your nerdy lifestyle. Like Pizza Beer — it’s more efficient than eating both separately! So sit back, crack open a cold one, and enjoy this astounding and some times mouthwatering collection.

[View all on one page]

Romulan Ale (1 of 14)

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The world's bluest beer.

Beer Advocate / Image Source

]]> http://www.geekosystem.com/14-geek-beers/feed/ 1 http://www.geekosystem.com/no-umd-passport-in-u-s/ http://www.geekosystem.com/no-umd-passport-in-u-s/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:10:34 +0000 James Plafke http://www.geekosystem.com/?p=88550

Unfortunately, Sony has announced that it will not bring its UMD Passport program to the U.S., which means that U.S. PS Vita owners will not be able to bring their UMD PSP games to the upcoming handheld. The UMD Passport program allows owners to register their UMD PSP games via an application obtained from the PlayStation Store, which in turn allows them to purchase and download the digital version of the game for a reduced price.

Unfortunately, Sony has announced that it will not bring its UMD Passport program to the U.S., which means that U.S. PS Vita owners will not be able to bring their UMD PSP games to the upcoming handheld. The UMD Passport program allows owners to register their UMD PSP games via an application obtained from the PlayStation Store, which in turn allows them to purchase and download the digital version of the game for a reduced price.

No, the UMD Passport program doesn’t actually provide free downloads of games you already own, and yes, Sony actually requires you to pay some discounted price for a game you’ve previously purchased, but until now, Sony has spoiled a lot of its fans with backwards compatibility, and it’ll be a little weird not really conveniently having it available. Sure, one can go ahead and pay full price for digital downloads of games they already own, but that’s even more obnoxious than paying some discounted price via the UMD Passport program.

Even though the later PlayStation 3 units removed backwards compatibility, Sony has always been the driving force behind the functionality, with the PlayStation 2 being backwards compatible with original PlayStation games, and the early unit PlayStation 3s being backwards compatible with PlayStation 2 and PlayStation games — a feature many of us has paid $130 to Sony to refurbish our launch PS3s rather than simply go to the store and pick up a new slim model, complete with larger storage capacity and quieter fan. While we shouldn’t really expect backwards compatibility, as the majority of video game consoles haven’t had it, it’s kind of amazing that we expect it, and unfortunate that we won’t be able to pay a discounted price, which ends up anywhere from $5 to $31, in order to keep our old PSP favorites thriving in a new generation.

Currently, there is no word as to why Sony has made this decision. The PS Vita releases early in a special bundle on February 15, and the regular release is on February 22.

(via Gamasutra)

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Sure, plenty of you out there got the iPhone because it’s the hippest little device around, but I’m sure there are plenty of you devotees who have been with Apple way longer, maybe even from the start. If you’re one of the latter, there’s a righteous line of retro-Mac computer iPhone cases from Schreer Delights that you can pick up if you want flaunt that you loved Apple before it was cool.

The cases come in three flavors: Original iPod for the young’uns, iMac for those of you who still remember the days when desktop was king, and Macintosh for the real hardliners who have been on board for decades. The cases go for about $50 a piece, so pick one up if you need a shot of nostalgia or like to pretend you live in some sort of weird alternate timeline.

(Core77 via Technabob)

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NBC has streamed their Sunday NFL games online before, citing that up to 300,000 people have tuned in previously. Interestingly, the 2.1 million people that tuned into the Super Bowl XLVI live stream watched a total of 4.59 million live streams, most likely because many people had to reboot the stream more than once. A total of 78.6 million total minutes were streamed.

The provided data took into account the legal streams on NBCSports.com and NFL.com, but like mentioned above, didn’t take into account all of the illegal sources that were surely streaming away. Along with the legal streaming record, Super Bowl XLVI broke a much bigger record Sunday when its television viewing record was set at 111.3 million viewers, up 300,000 from last year.

The Internet stream wasn’t simply the same feed as the television offering, but was more a complement to the television offering, providing a chat box and different viewing angles, so many of the eyeballs watching the stream were also watching the main feed on television.

(via The New York Times)

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Even though this footage is from the inferior Disney — the land one — it is from 1957 and looks amazing. It’s as if we hopped in a TARDIS, meant to go somewhere entirely different, then ended up in 1957 California. Today I learned footage from 1957 Disneyland is simultaneously pretty and eerie.

(via Viral Viral Videos)

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If you’re from this century, you know all too well what it’s like to be walking down the street — texting — and then trip on a curb, or accidentally kick a puppy, or fall down an open manhole. Okay, maybe you aren’t that familar with the actual events, but I’ll bet you’ve feared them before, but not quite enough to put away your phone. Well, the “Transparent Screen“ app for Android has your back and, catering to your lazy fear, will let you look through your device to see all obstacles in your way.

Obviously, Transparent Screen isn’t altering the makeup of your device, but rather is utilizing the camera in order create the illusion of transparency; as such, it’ll eat away at your battery. There are, however, a number of customization features you can use to minimize the damage, and to customize other things. Naturally, you can scale the level of transparency to whatever you require, but you can also change the frequency with which the camera updates depending on whether you’re glancing down now and then or really staring daggers at the bad boy.

It’s a neat idea, but it really seems to straddle that fine, fine line between awesome and stupid. On the one hand, can’t you just not look at your device while you’re walking? You know, in order to avoid potentially grievous personal injury to yourself and others? On the other hand even though you could look away, you probably aren’t likely to, s0 if you’re going to walk and text, might as well do it “safely.” Also, it’s worth noting that Transparent Screen won’t help you see the car that’s barreling at you from the side, which is just as much a danger whether your staring at your phone or your feet.

Rambling aside, if you want to try out the app, it’s available on the Android Market for exactly zero dollars, so there’s no harm in trying it out. That being said, it doesn’t necessarily give you an excuse to be an idiot, as handy as that would be. That app is still in development.

(via Lifehacker)

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You might not want to believe me, but as it turns out, beef jerky underwear is a thing that some people want. Moreover, beef jerky underwear is a thing that some people might be willing to pay for. It’s not unheard of.  Instructable user Carleyy –apparently a member of the first group but not the second — has come up with a way for you to easily make your own pair of Brief Jerky, and as a bonus, they are entirely edible. Yeah. You know you want a pair.

The brief-making process has 3 distinct steps. The first is seasoning some ground beef and creating your own sheets of soon-to-be pants jerky. The process is pretty simple and allows you to get creative with seasoning although I’d be careful with the hot sauce. Next, you carve up your meat sheets into distinct sections using a briefs template, adjusting some for sizing. Lastly — and this is the genius part — hook it all together with Slim Jim string, at which point you’ll have a pair of delicious undergarments your slim Jim is will be stoked to step into.

If you’re serious about the project, you can find literally everything you need to know over at the Instructables page for the product. Valentine’s day isn’t far off and meat is pretty much the manliest alternative to chocolate there is, right? I have to wonder whether or not Ron Swanson would be into these. I mean, like, as a concept. You know what? I’ll let you wonder that, while I go look at pictures of kittens.

(via Obvious Winner)

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(title pic via reddit)

Only the second title to be featured on Steam Workshop, the creation area of Valve’s community, Bethesda has finally brought us Skyrim’s official modding tools, the Creation Kit. Along with giving players the ability to legitimately mod Skyrim, the kit comes with a high-resolution texture pack for the game, and oddly enough, teamed up with Valve to release a Portal 2 mod for Skyrim, the Space Sphere mod. That’s right, everyone’s favorite insane personality sphere can now follow players around the world of Skyrim. The creation kit is free, and around only 40 megabytes in size, so go grab it, and start modding your Dragonborn heart out, and visit the Creation Kit wiki for all your modding needs.

(Steam via Joystiq)

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The minute vasculature that feeds a chicken embryo normally remains hidden within its yolky confines. However, biologist Anna Franz from the University of Oxford was able to reveal their complex structure by injecting a minute quantity of ink into a 72-hour old chicken embryo. This not only revealed the pathways that carry nourishment to the growing chick, but also the pumping action of its tiny heart. The sight was so spectacular that it netted Franz the 2011 Nikon Small World in Motion award, though my first thought was if the chicken survived the experience. See the amazing video, after the break.

(via New Scientist)

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Late last year, Google’s Chrome browser finally overtook Firefox in global usage. Now, Chrome is making new strides in its quest for dominance and coming to Android. For the moment, it’s still in beta and relatedly only available for Ice Cream Sandwich users, but even so, it looks pretty sweet. Along with speed increases and better UI, mobile Chrome intends to make good use of its desktop sibling.

One of the biggest things to be excited about for mobile Chrome – or to be afraid of, depending on who you are — is the cross-platform capability. In its video introducing the beta, Google highlights your ability to go straight from the desktop to the phone, preserving your tabs, your bookmarks, presumably your search history, and much, much more. Although this would probably come in handy, you may not exactly want all your desktop activity being shot right over to your phone. That said, I have to imagine there’s a way to limit what’s shared, or prevent sharing all together.

I’m running the custom Republic Wireless rom on an Optimus, so it’s nothing I’ll get to play with yet, but I’m hopeful that it’ll make its way to me eventually. My desktop Chrome usage is far from efficient or organized, but if I know it’ll be beamed to my phone, maybe I’ll clean up my tabs more often or something.

(via Engadget)

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It seems like zombies have been trending forever, but guns with chainsaws mounted to them being pitched as zombie killing devices have picked up in popularity recently. That being the case, the guys over at Guns & Gardens wanted to get in on the fun too, but with a twist; their gun — the OMG AR-15 Unicorn – is marketed towards the little ladies in your life. Or anyone who digs rainbows, unicorns, and butterflies, really.

In addition to being sticker-iffic and pony-tastic, the OMG AR-15 Unicorn is also cheap, less than $100, excluding the price of the AR-15 but presumably including the price of the stickers. For maximum cheapness, the chainsaw is just mounted upside down, with its blades reversed to compensate. Its battery source hasn’t been moved or anything for price considerations, but it’ll get the job done.  The pros and cons? I think Guns & Gardens handles that best themselves:

CONS:

• Front-Heavy
• Ni-Cad battery (not Li-On)
• It gets splattered with gore
• Everyone wants to borrow it

PROS:

• Costs less then $100 (AR15 not included)
• Excellent ergonomics
• Will cut through zombies, doorjams, debris, firewood, etc…
• It’s a FREAKIN’ CHAIN SAW on an AR15. OMG!!!

(via Boing Boing)

• This version has less snazz, but is slightly more functional, and expensive
• This version is made out of LEGOs and shoots rubber bands
• A lower-tech zombie killing option

As it stands, the current Guinness World Record for continuous television watching is 86 hours, 6 minutes, and 41 seconds, and was set all the way back in 2010. However, it might not last much longer as an over four-day-long marathon of The Simpsons is being planned to commemorate the 500th episode of the series. Does this sound like a plot line from The Simpsons disconcertingly come to life, or is it just me?

The event will begin tomorrow at 5:30 PM at Hollywood & Highland in Los Angeles, CA. It will end on Sunday at 8:00 AM, which is odd, because if they just pushed it back a week and ended on the 19th they could have dovetailed into the 500th episode beautifully. You can sign up for the insanity here.

Thankfully, there’s more than just a world record at stake here. The winner of the marathon — presumably, the last man or woman standing — will walk away $10,500 richer and with a boat-load of Simpson’s merchandise. So if you ever wanted an animation cell from America’s favorite yellow family, then this could be your chance. That, is of course, if you think you can endure the crushing length of it all.

Anyone want to try the Ludovico technique?

(via BuzzFeed)

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There is a  Star Wars-branded thing called ”Galactic Dance Off” and it’s coming to a Kinect near you, that is, if you can’t manage to run away fast enough. Before you get too excited upset excited, this isn’t a standalone property. No, it’s a mode available in the upcoming Kinect Star Wars, a detail that seems to speak volumes about the game’s actual content. But it gets even better.

According to Microsoft, the Galactic Dance Off mode is “loaded with Star Wars-themed pop tunes.” Sign me up. Although, I’ll admit this a little vague. Are we talking in-universe pop tunes like the “Cantina theme”  or pop tunes that have been retooled to be Star Wars-themed, like Weird Al’s “The Saga Begins?” I can’t even decide which would be better.

And what’s the purpose of this whole mode, anyways? Padding? No. Of course not. Definitely not. This mode is so that “those still honing their Jedi skills can take a break to battle Darth Vader on the dance floor or bust a move ‘Solo style.’” Seriously folks, I cannot wait to Leia my Hans on this; it Lukes like it’s going to be fantastic. You certainly won’t have to Force me into it, Anakin just picture all the fun I’ll have, saying things like “Yoda beat’s sick; work that crossVader!” I wait with bated breath. And like a lightsaber or something I guess.

(via VG247, Image via Figments Media)

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If you’re tired of your plain black mousepad that has a little splotch of coffee on it that never cleans off, even when you scratch at it with a penny, and want something new, fancy, and that makes you feel like a computer sultan, you can get a MouseRug, which is a fancy carpet to replace your boring mousepad. There are  load of different designs, from Persian to Oriental to African, and they all sell on the product page for $19.95. Check out a few choice MouseRugs below.

Check out more over at MouseRugs.

(MouseRug via Technabob)

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When you think of Third World problems, you general think of lack of food, lack of shelter, lack of clean water supplies, and things like that. While these are some of the more prominent issues, there are also many, many more you probably wouldn’t think of, like lack of access to corrective lenses, for example. Over one billion people in Third World countries are getting by with eyesight that is anywhere from “pretty bad” to “totally abysmal” because they lack access to optometrists, diagnostic equipment, and lenses. There may be a solution on the horizon however: $2 smartphone-operated diagnostic scopes in conjunction with liquid-lens glasses that can make themselves.

Eye examinations aren’t quite as simple as they appear to be. While you can come to some conclusions by using the good old fashioned letters-on-a-chart method — conclusions like “Man, you probably need glasses” — figuring out exactly what needs to be prescribed takes a little more fineness and generally requires large, expensive machines that are virtually impossible to move around. A new solution by EyeNetra, however, uses a smartphone to do the computational legwork and uses a simple $2 scope to track the eye movements. It’s an incredible step towards accessibility.

But that only solves one problem, right? You still need someone to make the lenses. That’s where the liquid-lens glasses come in. You may remember the custom-made, exact-fit earbud doodad that came out of CES; this operates on the same basic principle. Adspecs, as they’re called, are currently in testing as a joint effort between the silicone company Dow Corning and the Centre for Vision in the Developing World. The idea is that the frames are fit with pumps that dispense silicon oil into empty plastic lenses until the appropriate shape — courtesy EyeNetra, perhaps — is achieved. After that, you just disconnect the empty pumps and bam: Normal looking and durable eyeglasses.

Of course, this isn’t a perfect solution. Ophthalmologists will point out that this method doesn’t allow patients to actually try different lenses. Moreover, the glasses are a one-and-done deal, meaning that if they’re wrong for some reason, or the patient’s prescription changes, you need a whole new pair. Also, the $2 scopes can’t detect things like glaucoma.

That being said, this is still a huge advance in eye care; even an outdated prescription beats being effectively blind from irregularities that a simple pair of glasses could fix. Along with technologies like 3D printing, advances like this could ultimately make specialized equipment trivial for anyone to access, which could make the world a much better place.

(via Yahoo! News)

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For years now, we’ve seen athletes with prosthetic running blades break all sorts of boundaries that were previously insurmountable. And now Nike is crossing the final barrier by making a shoe that it can sell to people who have no feet. Snarking aside, the Nike Sole is the missing link for running blade users, providing better grip and a more natural stride length.

Designed to work with the Össur Flex-Run blade, the Sole was a collaborative effort between Nike and triathlete Sarah Reinertsen. Like a normal running shoe, the Sole has an outsole and a midsole, and grips the carbon fiber blade with a material called Aeroply. Nike’s engineers even devised a clever system to secure the Sole to the blade, using an anchor and a rubber strip.

While it’s easy to dismiss this as either a cynical cash-in or an attempt to grab some good publicity, the Sole shows that a level of social acceptance and technological advancement where formerly insurmountable challenges now have consumer-grade solutions. I think we’re getting closer to the future, folks.

(via Gizmodo)

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Tim Schafer’s Psychonauts is one of the best video games ever made. It’s that simple. It has its flaws, sure, but everything has flaws, and the ones in Psychonauts are so minute that they’re extremely easy to overlook. Similar to how good television gets canceled in season one or two, no one bought Psychonauts when it first released. After dropping in price over the years and releasing on other platforms (like Steam), Psychonauts started making money. Mastermind Tim Schafer never let the initial abysmal sales get to him (which would make sense, considering the critical acclaim the game continues to receive, even to this day) and revealed to Digital Spy the other day that he pitched a sequel to the game to publishers “several times,” but no one would bite. ”I’d love to do that game,” he said, “but I’d have to convince someone to just give me a few million dollars, that’s all.” In a perfect storm of beloved gaming icons, Notch got wind of Schafer’s statement, and tweeted that he’d fund the making of Psychonauts 2. Wat.

One may initially assume that Notch was being hopeful, but he then followed up the initial tweet with one where he confirmed that he’s serious about making everyone’s Psychonauts 2 dreams come true. If anyone has a bunch of money lying around to fund things, it is certainly Markus Persson, creator of indie phenomenon Minecraft and center of one of the most exciting gaming success stories in recent memory.

Interestingly, Notch’s company, Mojang, has already dipped its hand into the publishing world, as it published third party gameCobalt, so they do have some publisher chops. It sure would be great for both Mojang, fans, and Double Fine (Tim Schafer’s studio) if Mojang took on a sequel to one of the most beloved (and best!) video games ever made as one of their fledgling publishing projects.

Tim Schafer has always wanted to do Psychonauts 2, the statement he made to Digital Spy wasn’t the first time he has said he wanted to make the sequel — the first game even sets up that Raz and company aren’t finished having adventures. So far, the only thing that has transpired in this story is Notch tweeting that he’d fund the game. This isn’t any kind of contract, and Tim Schafer hasn’t publicly responded to Notch as of yet, but one can only assume the news will catch his eye soon enough if it hasn’t already.

Steve Dengler, Double Fine financier, responded to Notch with a tweet by saying that he’s in, then tweeted at Notch and Tim Schafer saying that they should move this conversation offline, to something more appropriate than Twitter. It certainly looks as though Notch and Double Fine are looking to make our video game dreams come true.

We’ll update whenever there is anything to update, especially considering this is pretty much the best news.

(via Digital Spy, Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

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Everything about this video of a Russian power plant exploding off in the distance and lighting the sky a range of colors seems too perfect. The car that caught the video happened to have a dashboard mounted camera, and the driver seems to be listening to John Lennon’s “Imagine,” playing just softly enough to make this video not unlike a teaser to some nuclear holocaust movie. Extremely unsettling.

(via Viral Viral Videos)

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A Chicago man found himself trapped in an elevator between the 21st and 22nd floors of the massive 49 floor condo development near Millenium Park. Fortunately, he was quickly rescued by a firefighter and ushered into the building’s second elevator. Unfortunately, once inside, both rescuer and rescuee found that they were trapped once again. Clearly, neither of them was going to see the end of the Super Bowl.

As is, apparently, the procedure in these circumstances, a firefighter went up in an adjoining elevator to rescue the trapped man. This might get a bit confusing, so we’ll just say that the elevator with the trapped man in it is “Elevator A” and the one carrying the firefighter is “Elevator B.” Once Elevator B was in position, the firefighter climbed up through a hatch in the ceiling. From there he was able to get over to Elevator A and transfer the man to Elevator B.

And then Elevator B failed, leaving both men stuck. Worse yet, the building apparently only had two elevators, meaning that there was no obvious way to stage a second rescue. The desperation was evident, as the firefighters considered breaking through a brick wall and rappelling down to Elevator B from above.

Thankfully, an Otis Elevator engineer managed to reset the errant people-carrying boxes and was able to operate them manually. Which might be too bad, since I doubt firefighters get the chance to break through too many brick walls when lives are not immediately on the line. Regardless, this is yet another reminder that we should all probably just take the stairs.

(Chicago Tribune via Gizmodo, photo of elevator shaft art via Grufnik)

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(title pic via reddit)