Yummy Wakame

Foldable bike concept with a minimal aesthetic and mechanical design. Look – no finniky gears, no annoying chain system. This bike is powered by hydraulics, with a consistent delivery and no wear and tear on the gears and brakes.

As seen on electro^plankton

In 1939 a tall, shy Zulu migrant worker named Solomon Linda stepped up to the microphone and produced Mbube, a song that echoed around the world, becoming Pete Seeger’s Wimoweh and the international classic The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Linda was paid a total of 10 shillings for the song, while it went on to make US$15-million for others. The musician died in 1962 with less than R100 in his bank account. His widow couldn’t afford a headstone for his grave.

Last Friday, Linda’s legacy finally received some justice…

From the Inbox:

www.oldbaileyonline.org

“I came accross this little nugget – the Old Bailey, London’s most famous and prestigious court has put its archive from 1674 to 1874 online. It’s facinating to see the punishments metered out for ‘crimes’ – two conesting adult men were sentanced to death for the act of sodomy, people were ‘transported’ (sent to the colonies) for years for stealling a pair of breeches. I hope you find this site as interesting as I did.” ~ Liz

Thanks Liz! This is a great find.

So if you loved Tattoo Man you should check out Sci-Fi Channel’s other unique and creative ads.

There’s a whole page of ads available for low, medium and high bandwidth connections.

I’m addicted to knowing what the weather is like outside every hour of the day so I can prepare for stepping outdoors and maintain the perfect body temperature. My obsession with the weather reached its climax when I lived in the UK where the weather is the number 1 conversational topic, especially during frequently awkward social encounters. I love simultaneously knowing what the weather is like in Cape Town, Johannesburgh and Brighton too. That way I can imagine what I would be doing if I was still living there. Right now in Pittsburgh where I live it’s snowing outside and I wouldn’t even stick a toe out the door, but in Cape Town I can see myself having sundowners and pizza on Camps Bay beach.

Yesterday I installed a fantastic extension to my Firefox browser which displays the weather for 3 days in my status bar. It’s called Forecastfox and it’s highly customisable. Clicking the icons for more details takes me to AccuWeather.com’s forecast for Pittsburgh in ridiculous but completely understandable detail.

My absolute favourite AccuWeather feature is their RealFeel Temperature.
“The patented, exclusive AccuWeather RealFeel Temperature is an index that describes what the temperature really feels like. It’s a unique composite of everything that affects how warm or cold a person feels, and measures the effects of temperature, wind, humidity, sunshine intensity, cloudiness, precipitation and elevation on the human body.”

Yesterday was supposed to be a warm sunny day for Winter, and it was, except for the fierce arctic wind blowing my hair around like a Troll Doll and nearly causing my body temperature to fall below freezing. Now if I’d checked the RealFeel temperature before going outside I would have been dressed for the occasion. I won’t make that mistake again.

Try it out for your region, wherever you live in the world.

Wow, Yummy was nominated for the SA bloggies and didn’t even know it was going on until Matt told me.

Yummy Wakame is up for Best overseas-based South African blog and Best design of a South African blog. Thanks to whoever took the time to nominate me. Voting started on the 22nd and ends at midnight on the 3rd of March. Voting is limited to once per day. I doubt Yummy will win as in all these years it never wins these blog awards and the competition is fierce, but it made me smile that it even got nominations. xxx

Project Euh

Check out this beautiful ad…

The question is, what is a mananama?
do do duh do do! Silly Muppets. :)

The year I was born. These days they seem to airbrush nipples out.

electro^plankton: “Sweden is joining the short but growing list of countries with plans to be completely oil independent.

Iceland is almost already totally oil independent but wants to take it a step further by promising all of its energy will come from solar and geothermal power and its transportation system powered by hydrogen. Brazil plans to completely switch to bio power made from sugar cane within 5 years.

In Sweden’s case, the country of over 9 million wants to switch to renewable energy sources by 2020. It may sound like an easy order for a small country but that’s just 15 years away. The amount of planning and investment necessary is staggering.

Analysts say Sweden is in a better position to make a switch so quickly because the country was hit hard during the oil crisis in the 70’s. Almost all of the country’s electricity now comes from hydro, nuclear, and geothermal power. Fossil fuels are only imported for transportation. Sweden’s plan is to invest heavily in fuel cell and recyclable energy to cover its need in lieu of expanding its nuclear operations. I applaud them for that. more…

Nathan: “Now let’s think about what we learnt from watching Nanny McPhee. What do you say when you want something?”
Tristan: “Please?”
Nathan: “That’s right. What do you say when someone gives you something?”
Tristan: “Thank you.”
Nathan: “And what do you say when you realise your head’s about to explode?”
Tristan: “Someone please help me!”

Unbelievable!

You never need to get out of bed again!

Engadget: If you’re not quite up to springing for an Airport Express or a Squeezebox to wirelessly send your tunes across the house, Nathan True has a guide for how to build your music player on the cheap complete with display and large rubber band.

He’s based the system around a Netgear WGT634U router running OpenWrt Linux, which gave him a USB 2.0 port to add an audio adapter, and plenty of wired and wireless connectivity to get his music from his PC. There are a few hardware hacks involved, but he gets most of the system running from a few shell scripts and, well, one expertly place rubber band.

mobiBLU DAH-1500i goes 2GB!
Measuring a mere 24 x 24 x 24mm (0.94 x 0.94 x 0.94-inch) and weighing just 18 grams (0.63 ounces), the mobiBLU DAH-1500i is the world’s smallest mp3 player. Now that it’s being bumped up to 2GB, it’s probably the flash-storage player with the best capacity/size ratio. Other than just being small, the mobiBLU has several neat features such as blue OLED display, FM radio, USB 2.0, voice recorder, SRS WOW Surround Sound, and USB rechargeable lithium-ion battery.

The mobiBLU DAH-1500i is available for pre-order now for $159.99 at Amazon in black, blue, and silver!

» more info at mobiblu.com

Thanks bob!

The new Lego Factory service “lets you create your very own Lego set. Lego Factory starts with a downloadable 3-D modeling program that lets you design your virtual toy using as many bricks as you want (then) order the kit for your creation, complete with assembly instruction booklet.” – Wired Magazine

Hey mom, forget a college education, I want a life-size Lego casserole! er…I mean..house!

Happy Birthday Olivia!

Thanks go out to you and Nathan for such a great weekend! I hope your birthday goes as great as mine did.

Play it. Learn to love it.

What do you suffer from?

Wired: When a group of people dine out together, someone always lacks cash. They forgot to go to the ATM, but they’ll pay you back ASAP. Right. Funny, though, how people rarely forget their cell phones. Philip Yuen put these two observations together and came up with TextPayMe to let people send money using text messaging.

TextPayMe works much like PayPal – users create an online account and link it to a credit card or bank account. They can use SMS to send up to $500 a month. So handy! I just signed up. They give you $5 just for signing up and you stand a chance to win an XBOX 360!

We can’t wait to see you later!
:@D

Careful to unwrap slowly… (2MB WMV)

The Magenn Power Air Rotor System (MARS) is an innovative lighter-than-air tethered device that rotates about a horizontal axis in response to wind, efficiently generating clean renewable electrical energy at a lower cost than all competing systems.

The magenn flying wind turbine is held up by helium generating 4Kw, enough to power your needs. It costs around $10,000, but it could pay for itself in about 6 years depending on how you use it. It’s anchored by a tether that can extend up to 1,000 feet above ground. Generally, 400 feet is enough to catch the minimum 3 meters/sec wind speed needed to sustain a nice supply of electricity. No towers or heavy foundations are necessary and sizes range from small “backpack” models to large megawatt generating devices.