No, it’s not the Eye of Sauron — but almost. This was made by an Australian guy in his driveway by rotating a 7 foot aluminum tube around a Tesla coil. The photograph is a long exposure, around 22 sec. He writes, “My wooden counterweight is on fire here at the top of the coil. It’s quite safe to be in the car although my son was apprehensive. This was a hire car (as I don’t own one) and it still works. I did get extra insurance ‘in case.’” Click here for more photos, and more tesla coil madness Downunder!

Tired of the same old toast, boringly burned a uniform golden-brown? You need The Pirate Toaster, which emblazons a skull-and-crossbones design on each slice. If you don’t like pirates, The Breakfast Art Toaster offers the user a choice of toast designs, including a smiley face. Need something weirder? Try The Love Toaster, which burns “I LOVE YOU” on your toast. (Recommended for those who need daily affirmations from their breakfast.) Other interesting toasting technologies include:

• The Sunrise Toaster, a design concept which simulates sunlight while creating toast.
• The Radio Toaster, for when you need to catch NPR on the same device that burns your breakfast.
• The Toast One Concept Toaster, a design concept featuring a tilting mechanism to allow retrieval of toast without burning your fingers.

Links via Gizmodo.

By now you’re all probably sick of hearing about the Newseum opening this fall, right? Well, some of us information junkies can’t get enough. This take is most impressive, me thinks:

The folks at New Scientist are reporting that researchers at the University of Illinois have just made a very interesting breakthrough, which could, ironically, end future breakthroughs — of your clothing, that is. Using manufacturing techniques borrowed from the microchip industry, they deposited a patterned layer of light-sensitive material to create a mold of interlinking gaps. Then they filled these gaps with copper metal. Several repetitions of these steps created the finished links — and what they ended up with was a kind of tiny chain mail.

What’s the big deal? Potentially, it could be used as armor, but it sounds like the researchers are more interested in the possibility of embedding tiny microchips in the “armor’s” links, which could be used to heat clothes, or as sensors (for … we’re not sure what). Presumably, this “smart clothing” would change our lives; and all we’d have to do is change our clothes. Neat!

I attended college in Columbia, Missouri, where the local high school named their athletic teams the Hickman Kewpies. Someone told me the football team debuted during the era when kewpie dolls were all the rage, and a parent declared loudly that they were as cute as kewpies at their opening game. I don’t know how true the story is, but you have to admit the name is memorable.
There are a bazillion school systems in the US, and most of them have athletic teams. In amongst the Tigers, Bears, and other ferocious animals are some pretty interesting team names.

Some names will make you hungry. Who could resist the New Berlin Pretzels, the Frankfort Hot Dogs, the Moorehead Spuds, or the Chinook Sugar Beeters?

More fascinating team names, after the jump.

(more…)

With news of a Grey’s Anatomy spinoff starring Kate (Dr. Addison Montgomery) Walsh, we’re obligated to march out the best and worst of the second-generation series genre

• Everybody knows Cheers begat Frasier. Did you know Cheers also begat The Tortellis, a Dan Hedaya vehicle that co-starred Casey Kasem’s wife? It ran for four months in 1987.

• Certain shows had a knack for producing memorable offspring. Happy Days gave birth to Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy and – less memorably – Joanie Loves Chachi. All in the Family gave us The Jeffersons and Maude – which itself gave us Good Times.

• Three’s Company, on the other hand, was less successful. The Ropers and Three’s a Crowd were not good.

• Matlock begat Jake and the Fatman begat Diagnosis: Murder.

• The Golden Girls led to Empty Nest, which led to Nurses. The Golden Girls also led to The Golden Palace, a spin-off involving Blanche, Rose, Sophia, Don Cheadle and Cheech Marin. I swear I’m not making this up.

There are plenty more examples.

But rather than going on and on about Daria and Family Double Dare, let me pose a question. Are there any characters you wish had been spun off into their own series? Niles Crane? President Santos? Robin Colcord? D.J. Conner? Andy Keaton?

Here’s the puzzle I put up the other day (from this post) and here are the answers I promised. How’d you do?

We’ve been thinking eco lately, with blogs about how small changes in the way companies like Google and Wal-Mart run their businesses could save mondo megawatts every year. Now, it looks like a whole country is getting into the act: Australia has just announced a ban on incandescent light bulbs, to be completed phased out and replaced by more efficient fluorescent bulbs by 2010. That little change, according to their environmental minister, could cut the country’s greenhouse gas output by as much as 4 million tons annually.

They make a good point: regular light bulbs, designed in the 19th century by engineers like Thomas Edison and Joseph Swann, are stuck in the stone age compared to the rest of our technology. They waste massive amounts of energy radiating useless heat, and energy-efficient bulbs use somewhere on the order of 20% as much electricity. Another fun tidbit: also according to Australia’s top enviro guy, “If the whole world switches to these bulbs today, we would reduce our consumption of electricity by an amount equal to five times Australia’s annual consumption of electricity.” I’d love to know how switching to energy efficient bulbs compares with driving energy efficient cars in terms of greenhouse gas output — anyone have any leads?

One good post on Britney deserves another…And while we’re nearing the one week anniversary of the shearing, maybe it’s time to deconstruct a bit. These paintings are the work of Dwayne Moser, the LA-based painter and photographer whose work in “Hollywood and Its Discontents” isolates the scenes of salacious celebrity episodes. He photographs the locations sans celebs or transients and then has Warner Bros’ studio-lot painters transpose them onto acrylic backdrops.

(Site of George Michael Arrest, 04/07/98)

(Site of Winona Ryder Arrest, 12/14/01)

(Location where Anne Heche was found wandering and incoherent, 8/19/00)

The Chris Matthews Show has long been part of my Sunday routine. Using time-shifting technology, I watch the show Sunday evening while folding laundry. Quite a tradition. But even a regular viewer like me didn’t know everything about Mr. Matthews.

• He wrote Jimmy Carter’s infamous “malaise” speech, which ironically did not include the word “malaise.”

• He voted for George W. Bush in 2000.

• One nugget that came out of the Scooter Libby trial – Tim Russert hates him.