Gravity Express Train

The answer is: 42!

Ok, this is really trippy. A 17th century thought experiment from Sir Isaac Newton and British scientist Robert Hooke:

High speed bullet train from New York to Tokyo.
Travel time: 42 minutes (if you don't melt first)

Imagine you could tunnel through the earth from one point to another, straight through the center of the earth. In theory, if you rode a train into the hole at one end, it would free-fall at incredible speed until it passed the center point, at which time gravity would pull in reverse and gradually slow the train to a stop right at the destination point - not accounting for friction, of course. Crazy.

But here's the really intriguing part: no matter how long the tunnel is, or where the tunnel goes, whether it's right though the center, or just cutting a chord through part of the earth, the trip time will always be exactly the same - 42 minutes, 12 seconds. How come?

See here: http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=696#more-696

Sound like b.s.? See here as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_train

The Deep

What the hell are these things?













The Photographer



Amazing pics from an amazing book.

http://www.thedeepbook.org/

High Speed Drive Through Paris in a Ferrari

C'était un Rendez-vous (1976)
directed by Claude Lelouch

Insane, Illegal, ...and Awesome.

The legend is that the car is a Ferrari 275 GTB driven by Formula 1 driver Jacques Laffite through downtown Paris at 200km/h at 5:30am.

No street closures, no permission - just the car, the road, and a whole series of meaningless red lights.






In reality, it's partly true. partly movie magic. But damn cool.

Watch it here:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=5967384923877111213&q=rendezvous

These are Sort of Beautiful.

It seems a shame to piss on them.










and all yours for $7500. each.
http://www.clarkmade.com/urinals.html

Road Bikes from the Future

Apparently Dr. Suess is designing road bikes now. These are really wild.





More here:
http://www.baraskit.se/random/archive/15/bicycles.html

How to Ruin a Ferrari

Enough said.

Lily Tomlin Goes Off

Lily Tomling goes on a huge rant on the set of I (heart Huckabees). Apparently she doesn't agree with David O. Russell's direction. Wicked.


This one's even better. David O. Russell has an absolute apoplexy.


Camera Rule #1: Keep rolling until the director says "Cut!".
Nice job.

Rude Dog

I just can't believe this thing:


What's it for? See here:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/hotdoll-the-sex-doll-for-dogs-253334.php

It doesn't necessarily have to be for your dog...

Fotowoosh - Make a 2-D Photo 3-D

Fotowoosh has some demo vids of their 2-D to 3-D photo transformation software. It appears to map the photo to a 3D model as a skin using the Cortona VRML plug-in.


They say it's in Beta, but actually it's in Alpha because there's nowhere to log in and nothing to download.

I don't know what to use it for exactly, but it looks cool.

http://www.freewebs.com/fotowoosh/index.html

Ibizia Disco Mashup Samples Jane Fonda Workout

This is hilarious. Some Euro DJ dude mashed up some hip (albeit repetitive) beats with Jane's motivational workout samples.

"Stand with your feet together, buttocks tight... 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and back!"

Foreshadowing from '68. Jane as Barbarella.

Here is the complete audio track in all it's Ibizia dance-club groovyness:
http://www.benedict.com/Audio/Sinclair/Sinclair.aspx

Almost as good as travel

Roam the globe via Flickr with a Google Maps interface.
Click on a country and it pulls up pics, some of which are quite good.



http://www.earthalbum.com/

Graph your web presence

Here's a tool that graphs relationships between websites. Exciting? Kinda.

Want to see how connected your website is? Type in your company name and watch it mine Google for search results and draw a map of all your interconnections. Then try it with your competitors to see how you compare. Interesting.


http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html

Also works with Amazon search results. Graph your favourite movie star. Test your Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon theory. He should show up on every graph.

Cave

Man, I love this thing.

Too bad it's 8000 Euros. (click here if you don't believe me)

http://www.sakurah.net/collections/cave2.htm

Gap Minder

This thing animates evolution of countries over time. Very interesting.




http://tools.google.com/gapminder/

One gets the sense that Google is somehow in control.

Map of outer space

Cool.
Super-cool if you know what you're looking at.


http://www.sky-map.org/

Cool google earth pics

It had to happen. Somewhere on earth, someone is sunbathing nude as the satellite passes overhead.

(Pic not shown. This is family entertainment. Click link below for an anti-climactic purvey thrill.)

http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-11-08-n32.html

Incredible comet picture

Incredible pic of fireworks on one side, lightning on the other, and a comet in the middle.




For the full resolution pic and further exciting details, click here:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070205.html