THE SOUND SYSTEM WITH ATTITUDE (Aimee)

Cast your eyes on the SoundTank created by the genius that is Nik Nowak.  This beast of a system is made from a army tanks, couple of speakers and drum machines and is no doubt the envy of any hip hop artist’s state of the art stereo system.
The Berlin based artist shows you his creation in action in these video clips including one showing the system on the move. Amazing.
http://www.niknowak.de/images/panzer.htm

DISNEY ANNOUNCES AVATAR THEME PARK. NERDS WEEP IN RAGE (Adrian)

Out of all of the big blockbuster movies to be released in the past decade, the most over-hyped and underwhelming has to be James Cameron’s Avatar. It’s the movie that launched Hollywood’s current fetish for 3D screenings and, despite looking very pretty, its “modern soldier goes native” narrative is a time-old story that was done much better in older films such as Dances With Wolves and even Ferngully: The Last Rainforest.
But considering it made a disgustingly huge amount of money at the box office, it was only a matter of time before an official Avatar theme park was created. And Disney has now taken the bait, with plans underway to create such a park at its Disney World resort in Florida.
If I were being overly cynical, I could suggest that the company is merely planning to revamp its Pocahontas ride by adding a few 7-foot tall furries to the plastic rainforest surroundings. But surely not, right? It’ll probably be far better thought out than that…
http://io9.com/5842292/james-cameron-is-building-an-avatar-theme-park-at-disney-world

THAT IS A LOT OF TRANSISTORS (Scott)

In modern parlance a ‘tranny’ tends to be a cross-dresser or someone who has changed gender.
Back when I were a lad (in t’seventies) a tranny was a wee portable radio, with an extendable aerial, which one carried round to listen to football match commentary or to hear the later popular beat combo at the top of the pop charts.
The term ‘tranny’ was short for ‘transistor radio’, a reference to the marvellous technology which allowed those portable radios to work.
Now transistors are a ‘fundamental building block of modern electronic devices’ (that from Wikipedia) – and are appearing in everything from fridges to running shoes.
Indeed, many of these devices are connected to the web, giving rise to much talk about ‘The internet of Things’, where virtually every inanimate object we use or interact with would be connected.
Seems that is coming closer, according to this study which suggest there will be 1200 quintillion (yes, quintillion) transistors in use by 2010.
In case you’re wondering a quintillion has 18 zeroes in the US and 30 zeroes in the rest of the world. Even if this is the American quintillion, it is a lot of transistors!
http://gizmodo.com/5839920/lego-star-destroyer-is-8+foot-of-turgid-brick

HOW THE LITTLE PEOPLE LIVE (Scott)

Occasionally I travel on public transport to see how the little people live.
I could save myself the degradation by simply using these rather spiffy paper figures to create an entire world of normal folk going about their humdrum little  lives. What fun.
http://boingboing.net/2011/09/13/tiny-paper-people-and-scenery.html

SWEDISH CAT RESCUERS GET MY VOTE (Pamela)

When asked in Religious Education what i thought the value of life was, i replied, “are we talking about human life or animal life, because if i was God i would chose the animals ahead of humans every time”.  Needless to say i was tossed out the class to think about what i said, however i never went back on it. These Swedish rescue workers are people after my own heart.  They worked for two days solid, sacrificing their own safety and free time to save a six week old kitten from suffocating to death after it got trapped under a supermarket in a narrow pipe. Sweden, when do i move in.  ‘Moan the cats!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/pets/8777975/Two-day-rescue-operation-to-save-kitten-in-Sweden.html