Monday, May 28, 2012

Most awesome marriage proposal EVAR?

The love-struck guy in this video wanted to propose to his girlfriend - which is fair enough. But how to propose in a way she'll remember? How about getting more than SIXTY friends and family members to lip-sync to Bruno Mars' I Think I Wanna Marry You?





Oh, and there's a nice little play on words: Mars' lyrics include "Or is it this dancing juice?" - watch out for what shows up at those moments in the song...


I know one thing: If you're going to put on a production this big, you'd better be damn sure she's gonna say "yes"...


Originally posted at The CHIVE.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Guinness' novel way to present a QR code

Guinness' advertising bods came up with an interesting way of getting their product talked about: pint glasses specially printed with a QR code...

When the glass is empty, the code's unreadable:


... and even if you fill it with (for example) beer, the code still can't be read:


But if you were to fill it with a dark fluid - Hey! What about filling it with GUINNESS? - then all becomes clear:


Then, provided you're still able to hold your smartphone up to the thing without bobbing and weaving all over the place, having the phone scan the QR code apparently results in status updates on Twitter, 4square, and Facebook - as well as downloading coupons, inviting your friends to join you, and even downloading exclusive Guinness content.

Of course, if you're having a sly one (or three) during your lunch hour, the last thing you'd want is for your drink to snitch on you...

Picture source: The Dieline
Where we found out about it: Boing Boing

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

3D printed chocolate brain... yummy!

Inition, a 3D-printing company based in the Shoreditch district of London, England, recently decided to have a little play with the MRI scan of a colleague's brain: They used the resulting data to create a chocolate replica!

Mmmmm.... brains.
What's more, they even went to the trouble of providing a how-to on the process, over at Instructables, together with a Creative Commons-released copy of the MRI scan in question, which is rather nice of them.

The Zombie Apocalypse probably just became more delicious.

(Side note: I was going to use "Brains are quite rich in cholesterol" as a headline, quoting Laura Shigihara's lyrics from the game Plants vs. Zombies, but it turns out that even milk chocolate doesn't actually have that much "bad" cholesterol, so that made a mess out of that idea.)

Thanks to Boing Boing for pointing out this awesomeness!

Sunday, May 13, 2012

A functioning Portal turret gun!

A student at Penn State University decided, for the finals of his Advanced Mechatronics class, to build a fully-functioning turret gun from Portal - though this one only fires NERF bullets (not sure whether to be unhappy or relieved about that). He does say, in the video below, that he's still to create the proper shell for it, which is why it looks a little odd.


There's only one logical step up from this: GLaDOS. Just make sure to use NERF Neurotoxin, okay?

Thanks to Geeks Are Sexy for bringing this one to our attention!

Friday, May 11, 2012

Glass gem corn - too beautiful to eat?

Today I learned that there was such a thing as glass gem corn:


When I first saw the article on the subject, over at Boing Boing, I first thought that it was actual glass... I wouldn't want to eat the thing, it looks so damn beautiful!

A small amount of the seeds became available for sale, via the Seeds Trust, last August.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Doctor Who on floppy drives

Delia Derbyshire, the woman who made the iconic arrangement of Ron Grainger's theme tune to Doctor Who, would have been 75 this week. Her arrangement was the first work to be made with entirely electronic means, so it's perhaps appropriate that this tribute is also entirely electronic... albeit on floppy drives...




The Flavorwire article about Delia - one of many online articles which featured the above video - also linked to a short video showing Delia's creative process. Watch that clip, embedded below, and tell me she wasn't a badass at what she did:




Delia Derbyshire, we salute you!

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

TARDIS for sale or rent...

It's inevitable, when you have a talent contest, especially something like Britain's Got Talent, that there are going to be... unusual acts. For example, why haven't they buzzed off that snarky so-and-so who sits at the end of the panel each week?


Well, this is definitely unusual: Martyn Crofts appeared on BGT with a saucepan on his head, and - without any electronic wizardry - proceeded to parody "King of the Road" as a Dalek.




And, sure enough, that nasty man on the right-hand end of the desk still needs buzzing off...


Thanks to BoingBoing for sourcing that little nugget!

Post-apocalyptic bowling for charity!

There are many skills that you need in order to survive the Zombie Apocalypse: a strategic mindset; being handy with a shotgun; ten-pin bowling... Wut? Well, I guess it makes sense: You could knock down a few zombies and slow them down for a bit - plus those bowling balls are pretty damn heavy!


Anyway, in the latest round of The Nerdist's Celebrity All-Star Bowling, Chris Hardwick and his team of avid nerds take on the survivors of The Walking Dead's zombie horde: Lauren Cohan (Maggie), Scott Wilson (Hershel), Steven Yeun (Glenn), and Robert Kirkman (series creator and Executive Producer). The Nerdist team, in its various incarnations (the line-up changes weekly, except for Mr Hardwick), is undefeated - but will The Walking Dead's team put a stop to that?


Without wanting to give out any spoilers, I can tell you that the trash-talking, which is pretty rife in each show once the alcohol starts flowing, reaches new heights (or lows) in this particular episode...






If you like what you see, check out the other CASB videos at The Nerdist's YouTube channel... And next week, Geek & Sundry takes on The Nerdist! Oh no, talk about divided loyalties!

Friday, May 4, 2012

One simply must catch them all, what?

Our lovely friend Siobhan has quite the talent for drawing, and she's done an impressively dapper Pikachu:




That said, one is inclined to wonder just what happens to Pikachu when he's had too many glasses of bubbly, what?

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Build Your Own Large Hadron Collider!


Why should those boffins over at CERN have all the fun in searching for the Higgs-Boson particle? Here are some IKEA-style instructions for making your own Large Hadron Collider!


As Maggie Koerth-Baker explains over at BoingBoing, this is (of course) a joke, and was plastered on one of the walls at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Oh, well... back to the drawing board...