Monthly Archives: January 2010

I’d Live Here, But Alas, I’m Too Large [Art]

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Natural wood tables, a comfy-looking lounger and a big screen iMac. What a great home office...if only it used less periwinkle and it were in any way real. That's right, the whole thing is fake—miniature, in fact.

The room is from a dollhouse by designer Elaine Shaw. Her 3-foot, 3-story home model is called Clearview, and it serves as a reinterpretation of what we traditionally call a dollhouse—either wooden constructs of Victorian era abodes or now-canceled-but-4ever-awesome television shows on Fox.

With balconies, sliding glass doors, plenty of contemporary art and even digital accoutrements like Xboxes, I'm not sure I'm going to dust off my doll collection just yet, but I might use such facilities to give He-Man some R&R. [Metro via BornRich]



Science Tattoo Emporium: How To Get In | The Loom

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The Science Tattoo Emporium continues to thrive, long after I first wondered aloud in August 2007 whether scientists had any cool tattoos of their research hidden under their lab coats. I continue to get photos at a regular rate, and as I post new ones, they continue to get noticed anew by places like Digg and Boing Boing.

Initially, I was so stunned by the influx of photos that I posted just about anything that came my way. But as the emporium has grown, I’ve become choosier about which ones I post. So if you are considering sending in your own scientific ink, please read these guidelines:

1. I’m most interested in tatoos that tell a story. The most interesting stories are the ones about how people became scientists. I love this one, for example.

2. When you send in pictures, please include a paragraph in which you tell me who you are and explain the significance of the tattoo. I prefer people to tell the story of their tattoo in their own words.

3. If you’ve been so inspired by the emporium that you’ve dashed out and gotten a tattoo of your own, do NOT immediately take a picture and send it to me. I don’t enjoy staring at raw, bruised flesh. Neither do readers of the Loom. Let yourself heal before grabbing the camera.

4. Make sure the photograph is well lit and at high resolution.

Ooo-RAN-us | Bad Astronomy

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My pal Amanda Bauer — aka Astropixie — has been posting a great series of short videos called Sixty Symbols, where scientists discuss the meanings of a given symbol in science, and the story behind them. In the latest, she tackles the pronunciation of the planet name Uranus — the name is Greek, so I think the title of this post is correct — but the video she made has lots of info on the planet, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it.

Related post (and to pre-empt any Futurama jokes):
Yes, yes, rings around Uranus, haha


BarMax iPhone App Might Actually Be a Bargain at $1000 [App Store]

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Remember the $1000 "I Am Rich" iPhone application? Well, here is another $1000 app that actually does something. If you are an aspiring lawyer, it might actually be a bargain.

How could a $1000 iPhone app be a bargain you ask? Well, BarMax CA was designed by Harvard lawyers, and it's designed to help law students pass the bar exam—so you know the information comes from a credible source . Plus, BarBri, a company that is well known in the industry for offering in-class test prep combined with a free iPhone app, typically charges between $3000 and $4000 for enrollment (they have also been involved in multiple class action lawsuits regarding monopolistic business practices).

The app is huge at 1GB—offering audio lectures, practice tests, flash cards and more—in short, everything you would need from a 2-month course. Obviously, the current offering is meant for the California bar, but there are plans to roll out versions for New York and five other popular states by the end of the year. There will also be a $500 version that features only multiple choice preparation. [iTunes and Barmax via TechCrunch]



Now Available [Now Available]

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Take a look at some gadgets we've only teased you with that are now shipping. A rugged and red Casio, an Olympus hybrid, an LG phone (with a butt), and an iPhone camera-mount shaped like a Batarang.

The Olympus E-P2 is basically a re-hash of the E-P1 with a few improvements. Most importantly it has a Continuous Autofocus (C-AF) Tracking System that follows subjects through the frame, addressing one of the E-P1's shortcomings. There's still no flash and—depending on your taste in camera colors—is painted black. $1100 may be a bit steep for this guy, but if you're into the whole retro looking Olympus scene then this should satisfy nicely. Get it here.

CASIO Exilim EX-G1, the quintessential outdoorsy-action camera. It can withstand an impact from seven feet, operate underwater at 10 feet for a whole hour, and has a posse of shooting modes for fast action. It shoots decent enough video—though not HD—at 30 frames per second, certainly not a bad deal at $300. If you plan on hitting the slopes this season or snorkeling in the tropics be sure to consider this bright red specimen—its color should also make it easy to find in whatever satchel you chuck it in. Though if that's not your thing it is also available in black. See it at Amazon.

The OWLE iPhone 3GS Video Mount certainly does look interesting. Seemingly designed with Xbox controllers and Batarangs as inspiration it's clearly a unique take on iPhone mounts. Whether you want smoother video for high-octane events or a video camera that allows you to pistol-whip somebody into submission, this could be the ticket. Available here.

The LG Expo is the little smartphone with a fat ass. That's because it has an optional pico projector you can click on the back to display images of your cat wearing pants at distances of up to 8 feet. In addition to the 1GHz processor shoved inside, this guy's running Windows Mobile 6.5 on a 3.2-inch touchscreen and has a 5MP camera. It's $200 on contract and an additional $180 for the pico. See it at AT&T here.



ScienceOnline: As the Minnesotans Say, “Uff da!” | The Loom

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I’m just back from ScienceOnline 2010, a conference unlike anything I’ve been to before. I usually go to conferences where my role is the journalistic fly on the wall, gathering story leads from presentations and hallway chats. Sometimes I go to meetings of fellow science writers, where it’s mostly hard-core job talk (with sporadic wailing and gnashing of teeth). ScienceOnline was a strange merging, where scientists talk about how to blog from a research vessel in the middle of the Pacific and journalists talked about how to teach Hollywood producers about quantum physics.

It is futile for me to distill all the stuff I learned into a blog post. There’s just too much, from the inspiring to the mundane. For example, for good podcasting sound quality, why not sit in a closet with a towel draped over your head? I’m also spending much of today surfing around to new web sites I heard about. Allow me to give a shout-out to fellow Discover-ite Darlene Cavalier’s newly launched Science For Citizens. It’s like Amazon.com for all sorts of possibilities for doing cool citizen science (such as studying fireflies).

Fortunately, later this week you can watch just about all the sessions on this YouTube channel. In the meantime, some audience members have already started uploading their own recordings. Embedded below is my seven-minute spiel. I was part of a panel on “rebooting science journalism.” Moments before I stood up to dispense my wisdom, I decided that nothing summed up the situation today with science journalism better than duck sex. And, as I discovered, ScienceOnline is just the sort of place where the audience gets it.

[More on Uff da here]

Quality Issues – Consumer Power Tools

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Elsewhere, there is a Post regarding Lowe's or whatever but my concern is all about the generally poor quality of products that we use everyday. Specifically, this one is about HomeLite yard tools and Cordless Power tools in general. Late last year I replaced both HomeLite yard guys (a trimmer and b

Beware! Prolonged Internet Use May Cause Psychotic Episodes | Discoblog

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net-addictThere might just be some truth to the notion that excessive indulgence in the “interweb” makes people a tad–just a wee bit–cuckoo.

Research being conducted by the Clalit Health Maintenance Organization, Israel’s largest HMO, points to a possible connection between unrestricted Internet use and the occurrence of psychotic episodes.

According to the Israeli paper Haaretz, researchers presented three cases of individuals who experienced psychotic episodes in the wake of intensive, prolonged Web surfing that included the development of a close online relationship with another person. All the three subjects were women between the ages of 30 and 50 with no significant psychiatric history. Two of them had no previous history of mental problems, although one had been treated for anxiety in the past.

Each of the three ladies had experienced an unsatisfactory intimate relationship in the past, and developed a dependent relationship with a man over the Internet without ever meeting him face-to-face.

As Haaretz explains:

The subjects’ psychoses included a total disconnection from reality, and in the case of one of the women also involved tactile hallucinations; she imagined that she could feel the man with whom she was having a “virtual relationship” touching her.

Creepy. But here comes the scary part: The researchers said all three required psychiatric care in the past year after undergoing uncontrollable psychotic episodes accompanied by delusions and hallucinations. One of the women was referred to emergency psychiatric care, while two checked into clinics. All three needed anti-psychotic drugs to stop the episodes.

Happily, all three women recovered and are reportedly fine now.

Researcher Uzi Nitzan said that while a casual relationship cannot be established between internet use and psychotic episodes, the women in the study told researchers that their conditions intensified as they got increasingly involved with their cyber-amours.

Internet-related psychosis hasn’t yet appeared very much in scientific literature, but there have been some instances of internet delusions in individuals with a history of mental disorders.

Haaretz quotes Nitzan as saying:

“There are descriptions of patients who have developed delusions inspired by computer software or hardware, such as one man who believes that someone is trying to poison his fingers through his computer keyboard or to implant certain thoughts in his mind.”

OK, logging off now.

Related Content:
80beats: China Bans Electroshock Therapy For “Internet Addiction”
80beats: Have You Consumed Your 34-Gigabytes of Information Today
80beats: Cheescake is like Heroin to Rats on a Junk Food Diet

Image: Flickr/Mandiberg


Be Gizmodo’s New York Intern [Interns]

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I'm going to need someone to prop up my Apple Tablet while I drink coffee, so we need some more interns in New York City. But this time, we're lookin' for a few different kinds of interns.

Four different kinds, to be precise:

Writing Intern: Your main task will be writing posts, but with a secondary focus on all the other intern duties as outlined here.

Promotion Intern: Great for people who like to talk to other people. You'll be promoting our stories on Digg, Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. You should know how to angle stories a certain way, and be familiar with social networks as well as other major sites. When I say familiar, I mean you should read them and know what kind of stories they're apt to post.

Research Intern: You should be good at pulling together multiple forms of information from multiple sources for our editors. This includes online and offline sources and even calling up people to arrange (and possibly conduct) interviews. Mostly, you should have a good grasp of technology and be able to locate and dissect information fast.

Copyediting Intern: English. You should know it. And you should be able to recognize when we screw up. You'll be going through our posts as a copyeditor, fixing typos and correcting our grammar. If you're already doing this in your spare time (for free), you'll love this position.

All of these internship positions will still have the primary task of finding stories for us—so think of this as your secondary superpower—as outlined here. Look that over (click the link and read it first!) and see if you're qualified.

If you think you're suited for one of those four positions (choose one only, please), send an email to jobs@gizmodo.com with the subject "NY Writing Intern" or "NY Promotion Intern" or "NY Research Intern" or "NY Copyediting Intern"—whichever one fits you the best. No attachments. No. Attachments.

Remember, it's full time, you need your own laptop, and you need to be able to get to Manhattan daily.

Good luck!



Fishbate Finally Brings Violent Fish Masturbation to the iPhone [IPhone Apps]

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Pay no mind to the vague, nonsensical App Store description for Fishbate: This app is about masturbating fish to completion. Or, possibly, to death.

How do I know this? How can I say with such certainty that the app's description, which claims that "shaking the slippery fish" is a "great ice-breaker", is really just full-on fish masturbation simulator? (Aside from the fact that it's called "Fishbate?") Cue the developer's glorious PR pitch, which landed in my inbox this morning:

Hello John,

I was wondering if you were interested in downloading my first app on the app store.
It's called "fishbate", and the goal is to masturbate a floppy fish. There are squishy sounds to coincide with the visuals.

I have tried this app. I can confirm these things: When you shake your phone, you are treated to a horrific, wet slurping sound, and as you approach the 50-shake "climax", the frequency of vibration increases. Once you meet the goal, the fish spews pale white liquid from its head (resident fish dick enthusiast Joel Johnson assures me this is called "milt") and dies, according to the ensuing notification windows. I can also confirm that, while you may laugh during the process, you'll feel pretty bad the second it's all over.

So, Apple, just to be clear: It's not OK to release an image browser app that can potentially be used to view porn, among other images, but it is OK to release an app in which you pleasure a fish until it ejaculates. Yeah? Got it. Fishbate is free until February.

UPDATE: Breaking news from the developer!

We are currently working on version 2 which includes Bluetooth multiplayer competition.

Come on. [Fishbate]



Lexicon Charges $3500 For a Repackaged $500 Oppo Blu-ray Player [Broken]

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This is a very, very bad thing Lexicon did. And thanks to the super sleuths at Audioholics, they got very, very caught.

The Lexicon BD-30 is a $3500 (!!!), THX-Certified Blu-ray player. Unfortunately, aside from some slight re-branding, it's also a $500 Oppo BDP-83, chassis and all. From the review:

"When we received the player the first thing we did was open it up to get a look at the inside. Imagine my surprise when I found that not only did the Lexicon share the same boards and transport as the Oppo - it was in fact AN OPPO BDP-83 PLAYER, CHASSIS AND ALL, SHOVED INSIDE AN ALUMINUM LEXICON WRAPPER. As far as we could determine, Lexicon didn't change a single thing in terms of the hardware. Heck, they didn't even lift the boards out of the chassis, opting instead to cut out the bottom of their own chassis to accommodate the venting locations, and putting a darker blue filter over the Oppo's VFD display to give it a slightly deeper hue."

The entire thing is so galling that it's actually kind of hilarious... unless you're someone who just found out you paid a 700% premium on a Blu-ray player. Then again, why on earth were you shelling out that kind of money in the first place? [Audioholics via Consumerist]



Slow Cranking Flathead

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While crsnking to start my 6 volt truck ( flat head six) with batter fully charged and truck always in heated garage on my third short crank to start the engine I heard a arc or short occur and lost everything, no lights, horn, absoutely nothing, check battery it good, still fully charged. I believe

Apple January 27th "Come See Our Latest Creation" Event Confirmed [Apple]

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As expected, Apple is holding a "special event" on Jan. 27 to "come see our latest creation," with invitations being sent out JUST SECONDS AGO. 10am PST, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco.

Let's take a closer look at the invite, which is, again, to "come see our latest creation." Using the word "creation" is telling in both its vagueness and its specificity: It says it's something new. Apple likes playing with words, too—remember the "something's in the air" tagline for the event they introduced the MacBook Air, their latest truly new product?

At the same time, it's interestingly far less weighty than the tagline for the Macworld where Apple introduced the iPhone, which indicated that it would be the beginning of something huge: "The first 30 years were just the beginning." It's a light and fluffy blurb, not the one you might expect for something that some people think could be the beginning of a brand new kind kind of personal computing, previously only depicted in movies.

It's also splattered with paint. Maybe they're being playful. Maybe there's a (finger)painting application. Maybe we're reading too much into a jpeg. Either way, we'll be there, live.



New Verizon FiOS Bundles Offer More HD and 35Mbps Speeds [Verizon]

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Now we know why Verizon decided to double our FiOS cancellation fees. They have unveiled new bundle options that deliver up to 35Mbps upstream and downstream and 90 or more HD channels.

New Bundles Packed With Speed and HD

New double-, triple- and quad-play bundles are available with a 24-month service agreement that guarantees the customer's rate will not change for two years. FiOS bundles are also available in month-to-month plans that do not require a minimum term agreement. To explore Verizon's many bundle options and order service, visit http://www.verizon.com/bundles or call Verizon at 1-888-GET-FIOS.

New triple-play bundle options with a service agreement are:

•Ultimate: FiOS TV Ultimate HD includes 90 or more HD channels; premium content from EPIX, Showtime, TMC, Flix and the NFL RedZone; FiOS Internet service with an ultra-fast, symmetrical connection speed of up to 35/35 Mbps; and FiOS voice service – all available for $139.99 a month. In the New York City area this bundle also includes HBO/Cinemax and other premium channels, for a total of 125 or more HD channels, and is available for $149.99 a month.

•Extreme: FiOS TV Extreme HD includes 65 or more HD channels; FiOS Internet service with an ultra-fast, symmetrical connection speed of up to 25/25 Mbps; and FiOS voice service – available for $124.99 a month. In the New York City area this bundle also includes Showtime, TMC and Flix, for a total of 80 or more HD channels, and is available for $119.99 a month.

•Prime: FiOS TV Prime HD includes 40 or more HD channels; FiOS Internet service with a connection speed of up to 15/5 Mbps; and FiOS voice service – available for $109.99 a month. In the New York City area this bundle includes all of the TV content offered with FiOS TV Extreme HD, for a total of more than 65 HD channels.

The Ultimate and Extreme triple-play bundles – as well as the Prime triple-play bundle in the New York City market area – include free access to thousands of Wi-Fi hot spots across the U.S. Customers also have access to Verizon's leading FiOS TV video-on-demand service, with more than 18,000 monthly titles – including 2,800 in HD – and FiOS TV's advanced interactive media guide, with access to social-networking, news and entertainment widgets and more.

Verizon is also offering a limited time promotion that gives you 12-months of Prime, Extreme and Ultimate for $90, $115 and $130 respectively ($90, $100 and $130 in the NYC area). Of course, with cancellations fees that high, you had better think long and hard about it. [PR Newswire]