Recommended by YouTube

I opened my YouTube account today and I was recommended a few videos on the initial page. The first one was an LCD TV comparison test in Hungarian. I was surprised by the recommendation. Not the Hungarian language as it is in my profile, but the topic: I never wrote or mentioned TVs on any of my blogs as I remember. Interesting, good algorithms. Anyway, it turned out to be a very good review because they put in some plus: the humor and something else. Just look at the preview picture down there and you’ll get the idea! My favorites are these comments:

“I have no idea what she said but I watched the entire video :)”

“Could you make english subtitle please? the video is very good.”

“Good TV, but the girl is much more interesting :)”

Good initiative 220volt.hu! :)
Sorry for those who doesn’t understand Hungarian.

Windproof umbrella – indeed!

My girlfriend has just bought an umbrella on which tag they claim that it is windproof. It reminds me of a real windproof umbrella, I read a year ago or so. Check out the video! :))

Through design.spotcoolstuff.com

------------------------------------

Mary Poppins would not have gotten far with a Senz umbrella. Her umbrella, like yours probably, catches wind gusts and pulls whatever arm is holding onto the umbrella up and away. And if the wind gust is strong enough it will turn the normal umbrella inside out.

A Senz umbrella is different. It is designed to play with the wind.

While a typical umbrella is like a parachute the Senz is like an airplane wing. The Senz angles airflow around the umbrella, making the Senz usable in gales up to 70 mph (100 km/h). The Senz also shields your eyes from the rain and comes with an opening mechanism integrated in the handle. All of which has earned the Senz umbrella numerous accolades including a Red Dot Design Award, a selection for TIME Magazine’s invention of the year and, of course, Spot Cool Stuff’s endorsement.

Check out the video below that shows the Senz in a wind tunnel, held by people skydiving and used by a passenger on a speeding motorcycle.

The WTC tourist is Hungarian

I learnt recently that ‘Waldo, the Tourist of Death’ or as we called him ‘The Guy Who Was Everywhere’ is actually Hungarian, his name is Péter Guzli! :)

He first appeared on the Internet as he was posing on observation deck of the WTC tower just before the airplane hit the building. Many people believed that it was real and the camera was found in the debris.

After the incident Guzli edited a Boing into his own 4 year old photo and sent it to 15 of his friends. In 24 hour it got to the furthest point of the Internet. 3 days later it was on the front page of the online edition of the Stern and other major sites examined too if the picture was real.

Later it became an Internet phenomenon and Waldo appeared on many pictures of historical tragedies, events and movie posters/snapshots. The touristofdeath.com has collected 1300+ variations already.

  

The related Wikipedia article is here. Another article on a major Hungarian website is here (in Hungarian).

The photos from index.hu, Wikipedia and touristofdeath.com

------------

UPDATE  08.01.2012

Peter Guzli recently apologized for creating the picture ten years ago: "It was a private matter - I assumed my friends would recognize me and call me to see if I was alright, but they didn't, they posted it on to other friends and suddenly it was all over the world.

The article in English: http://web.orange.co.uk/article/news/Hungarian_apologises_for_911_hoax
and in Hungarian: http://hvg.hu/itthon/20110912_tourist_guy_bocsanatkeres

Google Earth: Madrid in 3D

I opened Google Earth this morning and browsed for something in Madrid. I instantly recognized that something changed, everything was amazingly detailed and realistic. Here is our square next to the Opera:

I made a quick search for it and found the answer on the Google Earth Blog from 29 January, see below.

Congratulations Google Earth, this is really wonderful and spectacular! We can go sightseeing every time from now on, even when it is raining! :) 
----------------------------------------

Madrid is now in 3D

Madrid, Spain is now in 3D, it's quite impressive. According to Google, Madrid has the largest concentration of 3D models anywhere on the planet! If you see if for yourself, you'll see that it's true.

Through a combination of SketchUp and Building Maker submissions, Madrid has an amazing depth of coverage. Fly there yourself, or check out the video below for a quick tour.

No word on whether they've added additional cities or buildings, but I assume that various other user-submitted content was added to other areas of the world. If you see any of yours that just landed in Google Earth, leave a comment and let us know.

Just add talent: iPhone app makes you a rock star

Utter a few melodic syllables into your iPhone, and eight tracks later, you have a real-sounding rock and roll song. That's the promise of Voice Band, a $3 iPhone app that bridges the gap between the pathetic pantomime of Guitar Hero/Rock Band and actually playing a real instrument.

In the video above, the guy makes it seem easy, but you might notice that he does have a modicum of musical talent. We like that, because no matter what the instrument, talent is still necessary to make music.

The neat thing here: Pure talent shines through — no pesky practicing, preparation or dues-paying required.

-- from DVICE

What would it look like if Earth had rings?

Animator Ray Prol came up with a great idea: What if the earth had rings like Saturn's? Suppose those rings were aligned with the equator. They'd be visible from east to west, all over the world. He then shows us exactly what the sky would look like from various locations on the planet. The result? What a wonderful world this would be!

-- from DVICE

The best unboxing video ever

Ninjas unbox the Nexus One phone

Today was a quiet, dull news day, until I found this little screen of goodness. Stop-motion animator Patrick Boivin has come up with the best unboxing video I think I've ever seen — and he's showing us Google's Nexus One, courtesy of a trio of ninjas.

Using katana swords and nunchuks (but none of those scary star thingies), the Red, the White and the Black rip open the packaging and then have some fun with the phone and all its accoutrements, such as the USB cable and charger. Now all they need to do is get medieval on Google's phone supportpeople.

-- from DVICE

This Geek Clock can only be read by rocket scientists

Well, time to turn in my geek card. I can't make heads or tails of this Geek Clock, which has a crazy equation for every hour of the day. Lucky for us (you're with me on this, right?), the product listing says each clock comes with a cheat sheet.
A Geek Clock can be yours for only $25. Bonus points if you decipher any of the glyphs above (working them out, I mean — obviously all the answers are right there).
UncommonGoods, via GeekSugar

-- from DVICE
Cheat Sheet (included with each clock):
1 - Legendre's constant is a mathematical constant occurring in a formula conjectured by Adrien-Marie Legendre to capture the asymptotic behavior of the prime-counting function. Its value is now known to be exactly 1.
2 - A joke in the math world: An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first one orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third, a quarter of a beer. The bartender says, "You're all idiots," and pours two beers.
3 - A unicode character XML "numeric character reference."
4 - Modular arithmetic, also known as clock arithmetic, is a system of arithmetic for integers, where numbers "wrap around" after they reach a certain value. The modular multiplicative inverse of 2 (mod 7) is the integer /a/ such that 2*/a/ is congruent to 1 modulo 7.
5 - The Golden Mean...reworked a little.
6 - Three factorial (3*2*1=6)
7 - A repeating decimal that is proven to be exactly equal to 7 with Cauchy's Convergence Test.
8 - Graphical representation of binary code.
9 - An example of a base-4 number, which uses the digits 0, 1, 2 and 3 to represent any real number.
10 - A Binomial Coefficient, also known as the choose function. 5 choose 2 is equal to 5! divided by (2!*(5-2)!)
11 A hexadecimal, or base-16, number.
12 - a radical

'Miracle on the Hudson' jet for sale

Get yourself a piece of history with that US Airways Airbus A320-214 that Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger ditched in the Hudson a year ago. The remains of Flight 1549 are up for auction at Chartis Aviation Salvage. Once you've reattached the wings and cleaned it up a bit, it looks like it's in pretty good shape, albeit with "severe water damage throughout airframe," and "impact damage to the underside of aircraft."

You'd have trouble flying this crate (especially since they've stripped out the avionics and removed the engines), but it sure would make a spectacular museum piece, another airplane hotel, clubhouse, or writer's lair. We're thinking US Airways should just give this to Sully, setting it up in his backyard as a trophy of his extreme pilotude. Or maybe a zoo would buy it, filling it with Canada geese for a unique aviary exhibit.

Chartis, via CrunchGear

-- Story from and more pictures at DVICE

How to Replace a Lost Cellphone Charger (For Free)

From an AskReddit member: "Go to a hotel and say you think you lost it there. It's the #1 most left behind item at hotels, so most places have a big bin filled with every phone charger imaginable. [Reddit]

UPDATE:

I just received this note from a reader on the subject:

"I work for the second largest conference hotel in my city. You have no idea the size box we have of chargers left behind. 90 percent are idiot blackberry chargers. This works 100% of the time, we never verify that anyone stays here we just let them go shopping for there charger. Hell we even will give people a charger if they call down to the front desk and say they forgot theirs!"

Nice!

(from Gizmodo)

Bizarro

The Daily What