antoine's events

Hawk

2010-03-15T00:16:53+00:00

Hawk

A dodgy looking lab

2010-03-15T00:15:43+00:00

A dodgy looking lab

Night driving

2010-03-15T00:12:39+00:00

Night driving

Haul vloggers: young women videoblogging clothes and makeup they buy

2010-03-14T23:26:38+00:00

Shared by rouadec
ok, I don't need TV no more with that

Susannah Breslin writes, "Apparently, there's an entire phenomenon of young women videotaping themselves talking to the internet as they show off the latest cache of goods they scored at the mall. Do not underestimate the haul vloggers. They are fascinating." More on this by Susannah at True/Slant, and one such specimen is above. What-so-ever.

ok, I don't need TV no more with that

How-To: Save a wet cell phone

2010-03-14T03:00:00+00:00

The folks over at Geek Squad produced this helpful infographic describing a rescue method that might help save your phone if you accidentally dunk it in water.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Wireless | Digg this!

The effects of gold-medal hockey on Edmonton, Canada water usage

2010-03-11T15:50:27+00:00

I feel a great disturbance in the public utility, as if millions of bladders cried out, and were suddenly silenced.

Pats Papers: What If Everybody in Canada Flushed at Once?

(Thanks, Christina!)

18 Funny ChatRoulette Screenshots

2010-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chatroulette.com, Internet's new sensation, has some seriously weird users. Meet some of the most unexpected webcam images, that are only a click away from you.

Custom Made FGF Frames

2010-03-10T13:50:36+00:00

Basecoat

For those interested, FGF is able to get you a custom made frame built to your specific taste.

Drilled fork or not, campagnolo dropouts, double crowned fork, … Track, pursuit, sloped or not … anything is possible, just let us know your correct frame sizes and we’ll give you an estimate on price and production time! These are handbuilt, sprayed to your desire and traditionally ovenbaked! Just like Mama Miracoli makes ‘em, except that she has a moustachio where we go:)

Campa Dropouts

More Campa

Double Crowned Fork + Brake Hole

Brakes?

Meet Jake Adelstein, a Jewish reporter who thinks like a Japanese gangster

2010-03-09T16:56:49+00:00

Jake Adelstein is the author of Tokyo Vice, a new book that chronicles the author's crazy adventures as a crime reporter for Japan's largest newspaper. During his 12 years at Yomiuri Shimbun, Adelstein made deadly enemies — and some lifelong friends — in the yakuza, the organized crime underworld that quietly controls a large part of Japan's political economy. The book (which I reviewed in January) chronicles his journey from naive young foreigner to one of the ballsiest reporters on the yakuza beat. Along the way, he discovered that one of the mob bosses, a guy named Goto Tadamasa, had made a deal with the FBI to go to the US and get a liver transplant at UCLA — an embarrassing scandal that Goto didn't want anyone to know about. When Goto found out that Adelstein was investigating, he figured he should just kill him. "It was really terrifying," he says. "I couldn't even walk outside without my lovable ex-yakuza bodyguard next to me."

Fortunately for Adelstein, he found himself still breathing when Goto lost power in October of 2008. Today, he walks the streets of Tokyo with a titanium core umbrella ("a baseball bat would probably make people uneasy") and that keeps him safe... at least for now.

Over the next two months, we'll be collaborating with Jake Adelstein to bring you a series of Boing Boing exclusive yakuza stories. We'll kick it off with a two-part Q&A that gives us an inside look at his life and brings us up-to-date on yakuza influence on present-day Japan. After that, we'll go behind-the-scenes with Adelstein and his yakuza buddies to watch how they do ordinary things like play video games, use the computer, and chop off body parts.

For part one of the Q&A series, I sat down with Adelstein over bacon waffles and coffee one morning in San Francisco to get some personal stories of Adelstein's connections with the yakuza. Read on to learn about how a Jewish-American from Missouri beat up a mobster with a golf club; the indelible link between gangsters and Buddhist priests; and how Adelstein came to incorporate the highest yakuza values into his daily life.

How did you know that Goto Tadamasa wanted to kill you?

On the day he got kicked out of the Yamaguchi-gumi*, one of the last things he said as he was getting into his car was: "That fucking American Jew reporter. I'd like to kill him." When I heard that, I thought, well it's nice to be recognized for your hard work.

Goto has been connected to 17 unsolved murders. His people are responsible for the attack on film director Itami Jyuzo in 1992. Itami made a movie parodying the yakuza. It showed them as what most of them are, as a bunch of obnoxious sneaky lying thugs, and they didn't really like that. They didn't kill him at first — they just grabbed him as he left his house and slashed open his face in the parking lot. A few years later, he allegedly committed suicide. But what I heard from people who would know is that they dragged him to a rooftop, stuck a gun in his face, and said you can jump or we'll blow your face off.

So nobody out there wants to put a gun to your head and make you jump?

Well, I'm sure Goto would like to do it. The question is, what's the cost benefit of doing it? Right now [with the publication of Tokyo Vice] I'm such a public nuisance that whacking me would only bring more heat and might bring political pressure on Japan to close down the yakuza buildings and put them out of business. When you consider the risk of doing that, the analysis is, well, easier to let him live and be a pest rather than make a martyr out of some annoying Jewish-American.

Are you scared of the yakuza?

Of course I'm scared of them. Even the guys I'm close to I'm scared of. They're like wild animals. These are guys who make a living through violence, and they're very very tough. They just have incredible endurance and tolerance for pain. They're like the Energizer bunny; you can beat them and hit them with a hammer and they'd still come at you like the Terminator. I'm saying this from personal experience.

You mean you've actually fought with one?

In April 2008, I was trying to figure out how Goto knew that I was writing a book about his liver transplant. There was a yakuza real estate broker; he was a good source, and I had paid him. I remembered having a conversation with him a few months back, and he was asking how my book was coming along — I suspected he might have been sounding me out for information. So I went to his office and said, "Listen, did you sell me out on Goto? Did you tell him I'm writing a book"? And he said, "Yeah of course. He pays much more than you do. Why wouldn't I? It's not like we're friends. It's nothing personal." He didn't even try to deny it. So I said to him, "Remember a couple years ago when Sugiura got hit? I'm gonna tell my friends in the Sumiyoshi-kai that you gave away his location. They may not believe me, but they might come ask you some questions, and when they do I don't think they'll be very nice to you. Nothing personal." And as I turned my back to leave, he jumped on me. He started hitting me really hard and kicking me. So I ran to the corner of his room and got a golf club, and kept hitting his knee until his knee broke. I was just running around in circles aiming at his knee. Even after his knee broke, he was still crawling at me. I was like, god! Why don't you just give up?

What does it say about you? Don't you have to be a bit crazy to throw snarky comments at yakuza and break their knees with golf clubs?

It would say that I have a bad temper. I was angry! I didn't make the first attack, though. That was totally in self-defense. What would you do if someone whom you thought was a friend was like, I planted heroin in your car and called the cops?

I would probably be like, I'm in the wrong business. On the wrong beat. I'd probably get out.

It was too late, you know? I was committed. Committed to the left lane. I was taking my driving test a few years ago and my instructor said, go to the right lane. And I told him, I can't. I'm committed to the left lane.

But isn't there a point in a reporter's life where they realize, if I go any further than this, I'm going to be putting myself and the people close to me at great risk, and you either decide to go ahead or you don't? How did you make that decision?

By the time I got to that point, I didn't have a choice. When the FBI and the National Police Agency were putting me under police protection in March 2008, one guy at the NPA whom I had known from my days of covering the police beat said to me, "Let me explain to you how this works. You're probably thinking, alright, I'll just go home. I wouldn't advise that. You've pissed off a guy who has very good connections in the United States. If you go home to your family he'll send someone to where you live and kill you; and if your family's around they will all be killed as collateral damage. If you ask, he'll just say, hey, it was just some crazy foreigner. Never meant for the family to be wiped too. So if you love your family, you're not going home until you resolved this."

His advice to me was, "You're a writer. Time to write. He's angry with you now because you have information, but once it's out he'll have problems bigger than you to worry about."

Do you worry about your family?

I have a guarantee from someone up high in the Yamaguchi-gumi that they won't touch my family. Their word is pretty solid. It's a gentleman's agreement that they'll only kill me, which makes me feel better.

Really?

Sure, because there's less to worry about.

What do you do to keep yourself centered?

I meditate. I'm going to get my Buddhist priest certification this year — that's what I originally went to Japan for. I've been offered a meeting with Goto when I get that certification. He's also a Buddhist priest now. Another boss promised that once they can be sure we're not going to punch each other's lights out, we should meet. "He's a changed man," he said. I'm like, yeah, tell me another one.

Is it a trend for ex-yakuza to become Buddhist priests?

It's not uncommon. There are two reason for doing this. Once you set yourself up as a religious organization, you don't get taxed on your income. It's a great way to launder money. The other reason is that people love the bad guy becomes a good guy story. As soon as he left the Yamaguchi-gumi, there was an order out to hit him; but as soon as he becomes a Buddhist priest you can't kill him. Here's this guy trying to lead a good life and you killed him. You guys are evil. He's good. Goto leaked the Buddhist priest story all over the place. The priest robe is his bullet-proof vest.

Is it your bullet-proof vest too?

No, it's just something to do. I've got a lot of yakuza friends and cop friends and reporter friends. They all die early. It would be nice to be able to do their funerals for them.

Is there anything about the yakuza that you admire?

Unlike in America, where someone's word is as light as a feather, some of the yakuza guys have demonstrated incredible loyalty. If they promise something — if they give their word — they honor it, even if that promise is no longer convenient or even detrimental to keep. Bushi ni nigon wa nai. ("A warrior does not have a double tongue.") Once you've said it, then you'll do it. A promise is a promise. It's so rare to meet anybody in this world who has any sense of honor, who puts actual importance in keeping their word. That's one of the nicer things about them.

I was a very typical American when I started on this beat. I'd say I'd be somewhere and I wouldn't, I was late for appointments... To me those are typical American traits — sloppy, forgetful, doesn't honor their word, and doesn't remember the favors that have been done to them. Over time, I've learned that if you say to one of these people, yeah I'll call you, then you better call them. Every time you say you'll do something, you do it, and you build credibility with these people. I'm willing to accept their codes of behavior and live by them.

There's a lot of wisdom in the things that they've taught me. What's bad about that is that I'm probably a very hard person to be with. I'm a very hard person to date and to have as a friend because my expectations are high. As a result, I don't have that many close friends. I don't know if I'll ever date anyone again. Most of my closest friends are either cops or criminals.

You've also said in the past that it's not safe for someone to be too close to you.

I wonder if I should hand people a list that says: "Hi, here are the risks of being close with me" — like a warning on a cigarette pack — "I have a dangerous job and I anger people and it might put you at risk if you're perceived as someone very close to me."

I'm horribly overly paternal. I'm not a misogynist or a chauvinist, but I keep seeing women victimized. So with my friends who are female, I am overgenerous and overprotective to the point of being annoying. And there's guilt involved there. I probably care too much because I'm compensating for a time when I didn't care enough.

I believe investigative journalists serve a function in society by correcting wrongs that the government or police won't address. It keeps society healthy. I believe in my cause, and am willing to risk personal injury to do that. I'd be setting a bad example for my children if I said, "When the bad guys yell in your face and threaten you, you run away." I like my job. I think I do some good in the world.

Has this affected your health at all?

You can toss around terms like PTSD, but that's not what it is. There's still a legitimate risk, however small, so I have to be careful. Sometimes I see someone who's walking behind me for too long or someone who just has that look and my fight or flight turns on. I think the psychological term is hypervigilance. When I walk into a restaurant I scope out the place. I almost always sit facing the door. I sleep in two to three hour shifts.

I'm in lousy shape after smoking and drinking too much and being under constant stress. The other day, I had a migraine or a mini-stroke. It was ten in the morning, and I was Tweeting on my computer something funny that a yakuza boss had said recently when I noticed I couldn't see out of my left eye. I had a splitting headache and felt really nauseous. I tried dialing emergency but no words would come out of my mouth. So I walked to the clinic down the street, and they ran some tests. I had to cancel my flight to the US and book a new ticket.

One of the things I love most about Japan is the public health care system. When I feel bad, I can go to the doctor without going bankrupt or worrying that my insurance company's going to drop me.

If you had the choice, would you get out of this lifestyle?

Yes, I would love to get out but I can't. I am trapped. How do I earn my living? I write. What's my next book about? It's about yakuza. Until I finish that book, I'm locked in.

*The Yamaguchi-gumi is the largest yakuza group in Japan. The other two major ones are the Sumiyoshi-kai and Inagawa-kai.

Solar eclipse

2010-03-09T16:52:55+00:00

Feel free to stare directly at this great footage of last summer's solar eclipse, taken in Varanasi, India, as part of the BBC's Wonders of the Solar System series.

I've seen photos and video of solar eclipses before, but it's always just a little breathtaking to watch the moon slip in front of the sun. As physicist Brian Cox says in the video, it's quite the reminder of the fact that we're floating in space.

Beautiful collision of two colored smoke rings

2010-03-09T03:52:25+00:00

A red smoke ring and a blue smoke ring collide, with spectacular results. (Via Forgetomori)

Oppressive light

2010-03-08T23:30:55+00:00

Heavy

2010-03-08T23:30:34+00:00

The coffee experiment

2010-03-08T23:30:15+00:00

I don't even drink the stuff

Some fancy blur

2010-03-08T23:29:51+00:00

rouadec: It's cold again, the rodents are back at gnawing the plaster right over my bed again, sleeping in the couch tonight :)

2010-03-08T23:18:36+00:00

None

new frame in town

2010-03-07T18:21:14+00:00

Exif_JPEG_PICTURE

new frame in town

2010-03-07T18:21:07+00:00

Exif_JPEG_PICTURE

new frame in town

2010-03-07T18:21:01+00:00

Exif_JPEG_PICTURE

Il y a quelque chose de pourri au royaume de Flandre

2010-03-04T09:31:36+00:00

La Flandre vient de s’opposer à ce qu’une maison située à Oostduinkerke, une commune flamande de la côte « belge », soit vendue à un couple de francophones de Bruxelles. Pour poser son veto, la « commission d’évaluation provinciale » de Flandre occidentale invoque le fait que ces acheteurs n’ont pas de « liens suffisants avec la commune ». S’ils avaient été Flamands, on peut sérieusement douter qu’un tel motif eût été invoqué.

Ladite « commission d’évaluation » s’appuie sur un décret adopté en septembre 2009 par le gouvernement de la région flamande (dirigée par le CD&V, le parti démocrate-chrétien nationaliste d’Herman Van Rompuy, le président du Conseil européen) afin de lutter contre la hausse du prix de l’immobilier dans certaines parties de la Flandre. Il s’applique dans 69 communes et prévoit que les autorités locales peuvent s’opposer à toute vente (maison, appartement, terrain à bâtir) à des personnes qui n’ont pas été domiciliées durant six ans, de manière ininterrompue, dans la commune ou dans une commune limitrophe, ou qui ne travaillent pas au moins à mi-temps dans la commune, ou qui n’ont pas avec la commune « un lien professionnel, familial, social ou économique important ou de longue durée ».

On ne s’étonnera pas que les communes visées par le décret flamand soient essentiellement situées dans la grande périphérie bruxelloise et sur la côte. Lors de l’adoption de ce décret, la Flandre n’a pas fait mystère qu’il s’agissait de lutter contre l’installation de non-néerlandophones susceptibles de menacer l’intégrité linguistique de la Flandre. Invoquer la pression sur les prix a paru plus acceptable que de réserver l’achat de maisons aux seuls Néerlandophones, mais le résultat est le même.

Certes, le gouvernement flamand a fait valoir que des Flamands pouvaient se voir opposer un tel refus. Mais ce n’est que de l’habillage afin de rendre le décret plus acceptable. En effet, qui aurait intérêt (au sens juridique du terme) à introduire un recours contre une non-opposition de la Commission provinciale à la vente d’une maison ou d’un terrain à un Flamand ne répondant à aucun des critères du décret ? Ce n’est d’ailleurs pas un hasard si l’un des premiers cas connus d’application de ce décret touche une famille francophone.

Il est clair que ce décret, qui fait l’objet de plusieurs recours devant la Cour constitutionnelle belge, est discriminatoire et porte atteinte à toute une série de libertés fondamentales, non seulement belges, mais européennes : liberté d’aller et de venir, liberté d’installation, liberté du commerce, non-discrimination, etc.

J’attends donc avec beaucoup de fébrilité la tribune que ne va pas manquer de publier l’ancien premier ministre belge, Guy Verhofstadt, actuellement patron du groupe libéral et démocrate au Parlement, pour dénoncer le régime d’apartheid (c’est d’ailleurs un mot néerlandais) qui se met discrètement en place en Flandre. N’est-ce pas lui qui a dénoncé, avec des arguments que j’approuve totalement, le débat sur l’identité nationale française dans une tribune publiée par Le Monde du 12 février et intitulée : « Il y a quelque chose de pourri en République française ». Je l’autorise même à reprendre le titre de mon papier… Et j’espère que Van Rompuy, désormais gardien du temple européen, va lui aussi y aller de sa dénonciation.

PS: Je précise pour certains Belges d'une mauvaise foi sidérante que je sais que Verhofstadt est membre des libéraux flamands et non du CD&V, mais il n'a jamais, à ma connaissance, dénoncé fermement les dérives communautaires de sa région et de son propre parti comme la quasi totalité des politiiciens flamands. D'autre part, je sais aussi que le CD&V n'est plus en cartel avec la NV-A (indépendantiste), mais je sais aussi que la NV-A est au gouvernement flamand.

Rabbit vs. Hunter: new Rémi Gaillard video (NSFW)

2010-03-03T14:33:28+00:00

French video prankster Rémi Gaillard is at it again, with this NSFW video that will delight furries, tickle vegans, and confuse many a macho-man. RABBIT VS HUNTER (REMI GAILLARD)

rouadec: the hole they digged for themselves or airline booking hell explained, http://bit.ly/1bFbob pdf

2010-03-03T14:12:44+00:00

None

rouadec: virtual transsiberian http://www.google.ru/intl/ru/landing/transsib/en.html

2010-03-03T12:33:16+00:00

None

rouadec: there is a feel of summer in the air, let's go crunch some code before it arrives

2010-03-03T10:19:04+00:00

None

Virgin America Drops Flash From Web Site

2010-03-02T22:28:59+00:00

The Register:

Start-up airline Virgin America has decided HTML is “good enough” for animating online content on its brand-new website, which went live Monday, dumping Flash. […] Virgin picked HTML to give users of iPhones and other mobiles the option in the future of checking in through their phone.

★

Cactus sticks man

2010-03-02T19:17:26+00:00

According to Bits and Pieces, this gentleman was playing golf and fell onto a cactus plant. The paramedics spent three hours removing the cactus pieces from his body before they could take him to the hospital. Gape at the full image here.

In the comments, Osprey101 linked to this video of a man who got stuck with one Teddybear Cholla Cactus ball. Ouch.

GeoPlanet Explorer

2010-03-02T11:13:39+00:00

Running Processes

2010-03-02T11:13:14+00:00

The Royal We

2010-03-01T15:18:01+00:00

Dear Log,

Well, if a corporation has greater and greater privileges of being of being a person, it makes very interesting sense that a person can have greater and greater privileges of being a corporation.

«People who have lost their employer-provided health insurance because of a layoff, early retirement or other reasons are turning to a little-known strategy to get coverage: forming a small business, or using an existing one, to buy a group policy.
The strategy is used by groups as small as one person, and is particularly useful for people with chronic health problems -- so-called pre-existing conditions -- that insurers refuse to cover or that result in steep premiums. Group health plans, under federal law, are required [!!!] to cover such conditions, as long as the individual doesn't go uncovered for more than 63 days.»
—"Hard-to-Insure Find Novel Way to Get Coverage: Group Health Plans Available to as Few as One Employee; How to Prove You're Legit"

I wonder if a group of zero people could get a group health plan. And bonus: definitely no pre-existing conditions! A group of zero people just needs to get one of their members to pick up the phone and talk to an insurance broker.

Someone should get out the word to all these zero-people groups. But I'm not even sure how many of those there are around! I wonder if the US Census Bureau keeps track.

Power line 1, tree branch 0

2010-03-01T14:00:00+00:00

Video courtesy YouTuber BozkurtTekinTahsin.

In case you didn't believe Louie the Lightening Bug when he said "ya gotta stay away from power lines," consider the fate of this gentle tree branch, who apparently never got to watch Saturday morning PSAs, or at least wasn't paying attention if it did. It screams, literally, for about 14 seconds before bursting into flames like a vampire in a tanning booth.

[via Neatorama]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!

fake mustache

2010-03-01T09:07:00+00:00

Birdemic: Shock and Terror

2010-02-27T00:32:30+00:00

I'll be attending a screening of the much-tweeted horrorschlock instaclassic Birdemic tomorrow night in LA, hosted by Tim & Eric ("Season Cinco" of their show debuts Sunday night, and also promises to be great).

Directed by James Nguyen, Birdemic is sort of The Birds meets The Room. Richard Metzger has a comprehensive post about Birdemic over at the LA Times "Brand X" blog. LA folks: The Saturday night Cinefamily screening of Birdemic is sold out, but they've added a second one for March 5. And LOL and behold: Birdemic's on Twitter.

1h22… That’s about how late the Thalys was last...

2010-02-25T07:42:31+00:00

1h22… That’s about how late the Thalys was last night.

Time lapse video of 'tin pest' metallic phase change

2010-02-24T14:00:00+00:00

What's going on in this cool time-lapse video from Italian YouTuber wwwperiodictableru isn't a chemical reaction in a formal sense. It's not oxidation or some other type of traditional corrosion. Turns out metallic or "white" tin spontaneously changes its so-called beta crystal structure at temperatures below 13 C to the crumbly alpha structure of "grey" tin. It's the same stuff before and after--just different allotropes of the same element. The transformation, known as "tin pest" (Wikipedia), catalyzes itself--once it starts it just gets faster and faster.

There is a popular, if scientifically dubious, story that blames part of the failure of Napoleon's infamous Russian campaign on the fact that the buttons on his soldiers' coats were made of white tin, which was fine in Europe, but decayed into useless gray tin in the brutal cold of the Russian winter, and thereby prevented them from properly buttoning their coats. Implausible for lots of reasons, it turns out, but still a good yarn.

[Thanks, William Beaty!]

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The pot and how to use it

2010-02-24T01:10:00+00:00

The pot and how to use it:

Long and wonderful piece from Roger Ebert on how to cook just about anything using a rice cooker.

This piece is particularly poignant considering that Ebert can no longer eat after his lower jaw was surgically removed several years ago. If you haven’t yet read Chris Jones’ Ebert profile in Esquire, it’s worth your time.

Yeah…. Go february :)

2010-02-23T16:34:13+00:00

Yeah…. Go february :)

FFFFOUND! | We heart it / Visual bookmark for everyone

2010-02-23T16:06:04+00:00

Shared by laapin
intruder in the mix

intruder in the mix

Aspiral Clocks shows time, hypnotizes patient people

2010-02-22T21:00:00+00:00

Here's a neat way to tell time. Rather than using hands or digits, the Aspiral Clock consists of a slowly-rotating spiral track with a ball inside, and the time is indicated by the position of the ball. Neat!

This would also make a pretty kicking pet feeder- load up each 'ring' of the spiral with an appropriate amount of food, and watch it slowly fall out into their feeding dish.

[thanks, Stuart!]

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Ramen geek reviews over 4,000 instant noodles

2010-02-22T19:54:18+00:00

i-ramen.net is an amazingly meticulous web site that chronicles one man's daily consumption of different kinds of instant noodles since 1997. It appears from the way they're numbered that he is now on his 4,308th bowl. For each new type of instant noodle, he creates a thorough chart that includes a full ingredients list; comments on texture, flavor, quantity, and price; and a starred rating.

The first question that popped into my head while browsing his site was: I wonder how his health is! And the second: How many flavors of instant ramen can there possibly be? Looking back at his archives, though, I see that at the end of 1998, just over a year after starting this instant noodle journey, he had reached 227 flavors of ramen. His more recent reviews include flavors from Korea, Thailand, India, and beyond. Given his international reach and commitment to ramen, I suppose 4,000+ may be entirely possible. (I didn't read every single review, so I can't say for sure whether there are duplicates.)

The site is in Japanese, but he also makes YouTube videos of his more recent exploits, which you can see here.

(Thanks, Vijay Karunamurthy!)

Diana Eng teaches antennas

2010-02-22T19:44:45+00:00

Over at Make, Diana Eng is our favorite combination fashion designer / Ham radio geek. In this video, she explains how directional antennas operate.

Using a low power amateur radio transmitter and a simple light bulb receiver circuit, we see how radio waves and electromagnetic induction transmit energy and signals wirelessly through the air. We also see how dipole and Yagi antennas radiate their energy in different patterns. Read on to build your own dipole receiving antenna!

Seeing radio waves with a light bulb

ElasticSearch - Search Engine Time Machine

2010-02-22T16:17:00+00:00

cluster availability issues

London councils issue themselves parking tickets, fight them in court

2010-02-22T09:39:47+00:00

Parking wardens working for London's local authorities routinely issue tickets against authority-owned vehicles. When this happens, the authority takes itself to court to argue that it shouldn't have to pay fines to itself. Sometimes, they ask the courts to award themselves legal costs from their own pockets. This according to Barrie Segal, who published a book in 2007 on London's insane parking enforcement called The Parking Ticket Awards: Crazy Councils, Meter Madness and Traffic Warden Hell.

It's crazy, but not as crazy as it sounds: drivers for the authority have to pay their own tickets (so naturally they'll fight them), and it's actually kind of admirable for wardens to enforce parking rules against government employees as vigorously as they do the general public.

In 2007, Islington Council issued a parking ticket to one of its own vehicles. The department receiving the ticket disputed the validity of the Penalty Charge Notice and appealed against the fine. The council declined the appeal so the department took the case to the Parking Adjudicator. At this stage, the council submitted no evidence so the ticket was cancelled. The department that appealed the ticket then applied to have their costs reimbursed. The bewildered Adjudicator did not award costs, saying: "The legal status of the two parties in this appeal amounted to one and the same."
Mr Segal says: "You couldn't make this up. This illustrates everything that is wrong with unaccountable parking enforcement in the UK. The craziest thing is that to ask for costs, Islington council must believe that it acted wholly unreasonably or vexatiously against itself.
"If they ever make a sequel to the film Dumb and Dumber I would suggest that the producers look no further than Islington Parking Department for the starring roles."

London councils sue themselves for parking offences (via Neatorama)

Previously:

URL redirection service makes innocent URLs look sinister

2010-02-19T16:40:36+00:00

ShadyURL: "Don't just shorten your URL, make it suspicious and frightening."

The shady URL for ShadyURL is http://5z8.info/--INITIATE-CREDIT-CARD-XFER--_r8a4a_dogfights (Via Neatorama)

More on signwriting

2010-02-18T07:30:00+00:00

In response to my "Lost Knowledge" column on sign painting (aka signwriting), one of our readers, peterman921, himself a signwriter from Southern, Oregon, sent us links to some YouTube videos of the craft. The one above is by Alicia Jennings, aka monkeysign123 on YouTube, a big rig 'striper and signwriter from the Great Northwest. This video of her painting on glass, viewed from the opposite side, so perfectly captures my childhood experience of seeing a signwriter at work while getting my hair cut, as recounted in my piece.

Monkeysign123's YouTube Channel

More:

Lost Knowledge: Sign painting

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Makedo: universal connectors that turn everything into tinkertoys

2010-02-16T20:35:11+00:00

Makedo is a set of connectors (technically, a connector, a hinge and a construction tool) that allow you to piece together found objects of all description to make everything from art to functional items. Basically, it turns everything into a tinkertoy that you can attach to everything else -- How Katamari Damacy!

Wouldn't you love to make play objects, kid's costumes, furniture, decorations for the home and well, just about anything you can think of from the materials around you?
makedo makes it possible and impossibly fun.
makedo is a connector system that enables materials including cardboard, plastic and fabric to easily join together to form new objects or structures.
When you're done playing, simply pull it apart to reuse over and over again.

Makedo (via Wonderland)

Previously:

Video: Crazy Koala Fight

2010-02-15T21:36:37+00:00

They sound really weird. [via @NAC0826]

but have you seen my mom?

2010-02-14T19:59:14+00:00

Cool deployable structure in wood and tape

2010-02-10T14:00:00+00:00

Architecture student Ryan McCaffrey made this amazing expanding model from a bunch of pine parallelepipeds with white duct tape hinges. It's called "Jitterbug." [via Dude Craft]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Makers | Digg this!

Great, first owl bullets and now dolphins that fish. [via...

2010-02-06T18:36:04+00:00

Great, first owl bullets and now dolphins that fish. [via texburgher]

the myspace shot

2010-02-03T00:00:53+00:00

frozen lake

2010-02-03T00:00:47+00:00

frozen lake

2010-02-03T00:00:44+00:00

tracks

2010-02-03T00:00:40+00:00

(Untitled)

2010-02-03T00:00:34+00:00

new frame

2010-02-03T00:00:29+00:00

Locus Online: Magazine: February 2010: 2009 Recommended Reading List

2010-02-02T23:43:52+00:00

Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything?

2010-02-02T16:19:05+00:00

Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything...

Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.
The liquid glass spray (technically termed “SiO2 ultra-thin layering”) consists of almost pure silicon dioxide (silica, the normal compound in glass) extracted from quartz sand. Water or ethanol is added, depending on the type of surface to be coated. There are no additives, and the nano-scale glass coating bonds to the surface because of the quantum forces involved. According to the manufacturers, liquid glass has a long-lasting antibacterial effect because microbes landing on the surface cannot divide or replicate easily.

Liquid glass was invented in Turkey and the patent is held by Nanopool, a family-owned German company. Research on the product was carried out at the Saarbrücken Institute for New Materials. Nanopool is already in negotiations in the UK with a number of companies and with the National Health Service, with a view to its widespread adoption.

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Afrikaans rap-rave: Die Antwoord, "Zef Side [Beat Boy]"

2010-02-02T06:34:40+00:00

Video above: Die Antwoord, "Zef Side [Beat Boy]." The band's website is here, and they're on Facebook. Via Sophisticated Funk via Clayton Cubitt, who's pals with the shooter Natasja. Bonus link: "Look In The Mirror, You Can See It's You / You Got Two Nice Boobs And A Penis Too."

After the jump: Die Antwoord - ‘Enter The Ninja’ featuring a hype-man/DJ with Progeria.

jQuery source viewer

2010-02-01T10:47:48+00:00

Cité Administrative

2010-01-31T21:48:21+00:00

Je me suis ce week-end rendu sur un chantier bruxellois qui semble être à l’abandon: celui de la Cité Administrative de l’Etat. Jusqu’à peu il y avait quelques containeurs et un vigile qui surveillait mais le lieu semble déserté depuis quelques temps, j’en ignore la raison. J’en ai profité pour aller faire un tour sur le lieu, peu intéressant, mais qui offre quand-même quelques vues sympatiques sur la ville. Je n’ai exploré que la partie D et F. Il y a moyen d’également aller vers la partie G, H et I, surement via les sous-sols, mais je ne m’y suis pas (encore) aventuré.

En voici quelques photos. Le reste, c’est sur Flickr.