Skineart pick

More from Lagolo at Skineart.

MarsPhoenix Twitter epitaph winner

I came, I saw, I dug.

"Our top prize winner, Graham Vosloo of South Africa, is also going to get an official Polo shirt and we have to say that he is a deserving recipient.

"The old maxim, 'Quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur' (anything said in Latin sounds profound) certainly applies!" Vosloo wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com. "I'm super chuffed about this because I've been following the Phoenix Twitter since the landing — I even got up at 3 a.m. my local time to experience it."

We're pretty sure that chuffed translates to "psyched" or "pumped" or the like, but if it's actually some sort of South African curse word, we apologize profusely in advance."

Heh heh :D

More details on the best entries here.

Follow @MarsPhoenix and check out her guest blog stint at Gizmodo.

Nice one on Barry's Leo McGarry

"Barack Obama once joked at a charity dinner that when Rahm Emanuel severed his middle finger, it almost rendered him mute.

Rahm Emanuel: Chief of Staff

Change.gov

"a website launched by the Obama team's Presidential Transition Project which documents the transition into power and solicits ideas from the public."

Nice!

Courtesy of BoingBoing.

The 44th

embiggen

An unfortunate number among the superstitious in Cantonese culture (possibly also in mainland Chinese culture).

Secret Service, please keep him alive.

Hat tip to Houston.

The Onion 2001 - freakish prescience

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Finally Over'

Whoa!

Courtesy of @RyanBlock

Thank you, America. We knew you could.

"She was a stranger, and she kissed me. Just for being an American.

It happened on the bus on my way to work Wednesday morning, a few hours after compatriots clamoring for change swept Barack Obama to his historic victory. I was on the phone, and the 20-something Austrian woman seated in front of me overheard me speaking English.

Without a word, she turned, pecked me on the cheek and stepped off at the next stop.

Nothing was said, but the message was clear: Today, we are all Americans."

Complete article here.

Courtesy of Dan Washburn.

See also, The World's View.

Great images of Obama

More here.

Courtesy of @xenijardan

Hope Lives!

Congratulations, U.S.A! Congratulations, world!

GO BARRY!

More picks at my feeds

More picks here.

Top NASA Photos of All Time: Star Trek cast and the real Enterprise

Smithsonian's Air & Space Magazine posted their picks for the 50 most memorable images from NASA's half-century history.

Shuttle Enterprise with cast of Star Trek, 1976 NASA’s prototype space shuttle was to have been named Constitution, but fans of the Star Trek TV show mounted a write-in campaign that led to it being named Enterprise. Here the show’s cast (minus William Shatner) poses with the test craft.

Courtesy of BoingBoing.

See more beautiful and amazing photos at top NASA pics of all time.

Dean Kamen Q&A: American culture needs a geek overhaul

"What do you think is the most important science and technology issue to be addressed by the next president? What's the biggest issue he should take on?

Is it energy? Genomics? Is it bird flu? Is it the polar caps—are they really melting? Is it terrorism? You pick the crisis du jour: The answer to all these issues is going to be an educated, competent global society. This country ought to lead the world, for lots of reasons. And we ought to help the rest of the world get educated, because if they are educated, their impact on the environment is actually way less. If they are educated, they'll have better ideas than killing each other or killing you and me.

The next president should recognize the power of technology. Technology is how we create wealth, how we cure diseases, how we'll build an environment that's sustainable and also gives people the capacity to pull more out of this world and still leave it better than when they found it. You know, people always talk about rights in this country—I wish we had a bill of responsibilities. So I think the president has to stop thinking of the crisis du jour and say, "In this race between education and catastrophe, we need education to win." The next president better make sure that all kids are part of the solution, not part of the problem. And with 50 percent of the kids in the 20 largest school districts in the country not graduating high school, they're part of the problem. This is unsustainable. It has to change.

Courtesy of BoingBoing.

More here: Robots Can Save America from Britney Spears.

More inventor goodness from Kamen on the way

Dean Kamen is working on building a Stirling Engine - efficient electrical energy from heat.

"Now he and his engineers have built and tested a range of Stirling engines suitable for mass production that can be run on anything from jet fuel to cow dung. The one in the boot of the small blue car is designed to extend its range and constantly recharge its batteries to make a new kind of hybrid vehicle: one fit for the roads of the 21st century. A Stirling-electric hybrid, Kamen tells me, can travel farther and more efficiently than conventional electric cars; it generates enough power to run energy-hungry devices such as heaters and defrosters that are essential for drivers who, unlike those he calls the 'tofu heads' of California, must cope with a cold climate; and even using petrol, the engine runs far cleaner than petrol-electric hybrids such as Toyota's Prius.

However, Kamen confesses, his new creation isn't quite finished yet: 'The Stirling engine's not hooked up. Which really pisses me off.'

But it could work?

'It will work,' he says. 'Trust me.'

*fingers crossed*

Courtesy of BoingBoing.

More here.

Hate's last stand

"Let's not get carried away.

Let's not go so far as to suggest we're about to enter into some sort of fluffy utopian tofu puppy happyland where nipples fly free and consciousness expands and the fetid rivers of racism and homophobia that course through the American heartland like acidic sewage somehow magically vanish, somehow become dramatically curtailed, should the twin forces of progress known as President Obama and a vanquished California Proposition 8 somehow come to pass."

Read more from Mark Morford here.

Time Top 50 Inventions 2008

1. The Retail DNA Test
2. The Tesla Roadster
3. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
4. Hulu.com
5. The Large Hadron Collider
6. The Global Seed Vault
7. The Chevy Volt
8. Bullets That Shoot Bullets
9. The Orbital Internet
10. The World's Fastest Computer
11. Green Crude
12. Housing Funds
13. The Memristor
14. The Bionic Hand
15. The Direct-to-Web Supervilian Musical
16. The Dynamic Tower
17. The Mobile, Dexterous, Social Robot
18. The New Mars Rover
19. Montreal's Public Bike System
20. The Everything Game
21. The Synthetic Organism
22. The Shadowless Skyscraper
23. The Branded Candidate
24. Bionic Contacts
25. Thin-Film Solar Panels
26. The Speedo LZR Racer
27. Bubble Photography
28. The Invisibility Cloak
29. The 46th Mersenne Prime
30. The Internet of Things
31. Einstein's Fridge
32. Facebook for Spies
33. Biochemical Energy Harvester
34. Made-in-Transit Packaging
35. Airborne Wind Power
36. The New Ping-Pong Serve
37. Smog-Eating Cement
38. The Baseball Instant Replay
39. Enhanced Fingerprints
40. The Seven New Deadly Sins
41. The Peraves MonoTracer
42. Disenvoweling
43. High-Tech Running Shoes
44. Sunscreen for Plants
45. The Short Refinance
46. Aptera Electric Car
47. Google's Floating Data Center
48. The Time Eater Clock
49. Sound-Enhanced Food
50. A Camera for the Blind

List courtesy of Gizmodo.

View details of the inventions at TIME.

World of Warcraft oldie but a goodie

Still laffin 2 years later :D

Yes, I am easily amused.

Renewable energy for all global energy needs by 2090

"A new report from the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) and Greenpeace International concludes that renewable energy could provide all global energy needs by 2090. “Energy [R]evolution: A Sustainable World Energy Outlook” provides a blueprint how."

*fingers crossed*

Download the report here.

Courtesy of 21st Century Power.

Chuckler: Overheard in New York

Drunk guy to cop with nightstick: Ya' know what, you all should get like lightsabers and shit.
Cop: That would be fun.
Drunk guy: Yeah, I'd never fuck with you guys again.

--Yankee Stadium

Plenty more chuckles here.

Courtesy of Nicki.

Quick pick Barc pics

It is taking a rather long time to sort through all the Barcelona photos and to add the nerdy notes that I like to add. Picked out a few of the faves so far.

Back from the first world

Back in Shanghistan now after an excellent stint in Barcelona. What a beautiful and wonderful city! Blue blue sky, clean air, friendly and civilised people, amazing food, clean streets and all kinds of first-world goodness.

One good thing about living in Shanghistan is that it makes you appreciate the little things. One of the more memorable moments in Barcelona occurred when I approached an escalator with a rather large bunch of people. To my amazement, the crowd shifted itself quietly and efficiently, without any shoving or jostling, into stationary people on the right and lo-n-behold an open lane on the left for people to walk up!!!! I mean WOW! This NEVER happens in Shanghistan without having to manhandle stationary people out of the way. Also, sheer delight at encountering clean public toilets! WOW! No stink? And no piss all over the floor and crap all over the seat? Am I in some parallel universe? Oh wait, no, I'm just not in Shanghistan.

There were many more 'I love the first world' moments but I won't carry on about them lest I get a knock on the door.

I'm currently sorting through around a bajillion photos. Once I manage to cull a few of those, I'll upload them. Meanwhile, here's some food porn to ogle: boquerones en vinagre - best food discovery in Barcelona.