DO NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO if you want to maintain the mystery of the trick shown in the previous post. The video below does not specifically address the previous trick, but it does demystify a quite similar trick. Pretty cool, but definitely disappointing to those of us who want to believe in magic. 
– Dave
This one is just unbelievable. I usually assign the label “sleight of hand” to table magic tricks, but this one is just so perfectly done I really have zero clue as to the secret behind the trick. Watch the entire video, be sure to zoom in to full screen and highest resolution your screen can handle. Well worth it…
– Dave
Take that, Smart Car. This baby is so small, you can pick up one end and wheel it like a handtruck. Lovely…
– Dave
The technology to turn a digital spec into an actual piece of molded plastic has been around for a number of years now. But, as is the way of all technology, the price of that technology continues to plummet. Believe it or not, the printer shown here is available from a company called Desktop Factory for only $5000, about the price of the earliest laser printers.
This printer will take an AutoCAD-like spec and produce a simple, contiguous plastic piece, such as this one:
I want one!!!! First thing I’d do is make some Lego compatible pieces. Imagine the fun you could have with this and a Lego Mindstorms robotics kit…
– Dave
Google scanned every single issue of SPIN Magazine, from 1985’s inaugural issue with Madonna on the cover, to the most recent. Here’s a link. Enjoy…
– Dave
From Channel 9, this is the first of 3 videos introducing Microsoft’s upcoming “iPhone Killer”. Very interesting, well worth the watching, especially for iPhone developers…
– Dave
From the agile mind of animation artist Cyriak comes…Teddy Bear. And Pigeons! Found this on today’s BoingBoing. Really brings to mind the lovely animations done by Monty Pythoner Terry Gilliam. I think he would approve!
– Dave
Familiar with Neil Patrick Harris? He played Doogie Howser, was in the Harold and Khumar movies, then went on to star in How I Met Your Mother. Well, as it turns out, he was in another TV series that ran for 22 episodes, one you’ve likely never seen or heard of. The series was called Stark Raving Mad.
Two cool things about the clip that follows. First, it shows off Neil Patrick Harris’s comedy chops. He truly is gifted. And it also shows off Harris’s costar in the series, an actor who came from his own ensemble series and who went on to huge success after Stark Raving Mad. Of course, I’m talking about…well…why don’t you just watch and see for yourself. Enjoy!
– Dave
Big thanks to Daniel for turning me on to 15-year-old Jacqueline Mannering. She can definitely play. Enjoy…
– Dave
HP recently posted the video below on their Voodoo Blog. To me, the video shows several things.
First and foremost, the video highlights the ubiquity of Flash on the web. As far as I know, Apple still has no plans to support Flash on iPad. I’ve always heard that this was due to bugginess in Flash, as well as Flash’s cost in battery life. On the Mac, battery life is less of an issue, and the Flash code is isolated from the main browser code. If Flash crashes, the browser notifies you of the crash and then restarts Flash. Apparently, either this is not possible in the iPhone OS browser, or the battery cost of Flash is just too great. The video points out that tablets like HP’s Slate are based on Windows 7 and get Flash support by default as part of the overall Windows 7 experience.
The video also highlights the basic differences between Apple and Windows 7 vendors like HP and Dell in their approach to the tablet market. As they did with smart phones, Microsoft’s partners are working with a scaled down version of the desktop operating system. A process or application you run on your desktop has at least a chance of working on the tablet. Certainly, the browser experience will be nearly identical. Apple’s core approach is different, as different as the toolboxes offered by Mac OS X and iPhone OS. The SDKs for both are quite similar, but there are a vast sea of differences. Clearly, there’s no simple way to port an application from one platform to the other.
The video also shows off the HP device, gives it a real chance to shine. And, in my opinion, this is where Apple really comes out ahead. HP’s Slate is thick and chunky. The iPad is graceful, subtle, elegant. And thin.
All that said, I think this is going to be a very interesting new phase in the evolution of computing. Will Apple force Flash to change or, perhaps, open the door so a Flash competitor can enter the market? Or will the ubiquity of Flash eventually force Apple to allow Flash to play under iPhone OS. Interesting, interesting times!
– Dave
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