Stupid Human Teaching Dog New Trick. Fails Miserably.

Wow. Just wow. I have always been under the impression that dogs should not drive. I believe that this is conclusive evidence to support this claim.

Chinese state media says a Chinese woman’s attempt to teach her dog how to drive proved a costly error, as her car crashed into an oncoming vehicle.

Xinhua news agency reports no one - including the dog - was injured, but both vehicles were slightly damaged.

Xinhua says the accident happened recently in the city of Hohhot, capital of north China’s Inner Mongolia region.

The woman, surnamed Li, had noticed how fond the dog was of crouching on the wheel, and thought it should have a go at steering the car.

She herself operated the accelerator and the brake.

[Via Dvorak Uncensored]

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Dearest readers, may I direct your attention to the right sidebar to the section titled Headlines. These are the headlines of various news items which struck my fancy during my perusal of the vast Interweb. Since I am perpetually encased in technology and information, this list is in a constant state of change.

I know that, of late, I have not had as much time to dedicate to posts for this repository of web-nooks and and techno-crannies, but Fear Not! for the stream of information that I tend provide is neverending and something new can always be found in the Headlines.

You can also subscribe to it via RSS, here.

So if you find yourself in need of something to read, and I am not living up to my end of our contract, there is always something to read there.

Enjoy!

Bye, Bye Pluto

So it appears our solar system only really ever had eight planets. Just think of how much money is going to be necessary to update all the 3rd grade science textbooks.

Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is — and isn’t — a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.

[Via Dvorak Uncensored]

I am SO better than this guy

TechTV == UndoTV

My, my, it certainly has been a while since I actually wrote anything in here. Personally, I blame it on YouTube and its insanely easy way of posting random movies.

Or, it could just be that I'm currently engaged in a battle of wits on my western front while my eastern front is already in shambles. (Exactly one [1] of you will understand what I'm talking about).



This post is about some very happy news. It's exhilirating really. It seems that my often lamented geek television station TechTV will be making a return - sort of.

For those who do not recall the television station of tech, it was a niche TV station with tons of shows dedicated to gadgets, computers, games, etc. It ran for about 6-7 years before Comcast purchased it, merged it with their horrible 24/7 Game Channel G4, and dismantled it of all personality and creativity over the course of six months. This deformed, uninspired and lame wad of suck is still not catching viewers to this day. I dare you to watch it for more than half an hour. Joystiq monitored one man's attempt at watching it for 24 hours. I believe he made it 21 hours, but after the first 5 he started to have hallucinations, and may have even swallowed his own tongue.

You can still find remnents of this once great network on YouTube, and in Canada.

So, the happy news...

TechTV verterans and internet media moguls, Chris Pirillo and Leo Laporte are setting out to create a place, called UndoTV, where TechTV alumni can go and post their work. Although they are involved in different projects, this site will act as a portal of sorts to all of their work.

Says Pirillo on the project:

Leo and I have discussed a few core values this impending structure must support, the most revolutionary of which is content producers owning 100% of their contributions. We want to enable former TechTV talent to upload new and existing content, and we want to bring new talent into the fold as well. Sales will also be an important part of this process, so we’d also like to help match sponsorship with these personalities."

He also goes on to provide the reasoning behind the name UndoTV.

This is all very exciting. TechTV was a very large part of my daily viewing habbits for the majority of my teens. Now in my twenties, the media produced by the various personalities (podcasts, vidcasts, etc) are also very important to me. Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, Kevin Rose, etc, have long since been heroes of mine, and I am looking forward to seeing them do this all again. On their own terms.

Oh, also of note, Leo's TWiT.tv media network gets about 5x more listeners/viewers then G4's highest rated shows. How's bout dem apples.

Hello. I'm a Wii!

Nintendo Wii: Very very fun

Johnny can see through walls

So a coworker pointed me to this link. Apparently the Swiss are really up on contemporary design, but this is a bit horrifying.

Essentially, the toilet is a see through mirror. From the outside it looks like a mirror box, but from the inside you can see, uh, everything and everyone walking by.

Gives a whole new meaning to cock shy.

In reading the comments on the page, one commenter pointed out its amazing capacity for people to live out sex-in-public fantasies. I certainly don't know about all that, I can't even imagine taking a pee in there.

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday World Wide Web!

15 years ago yesterday, Tim Berners-Lee publicly released his WWW project onto the Internet.

Can anyone out there remember a time without the internet? How did work get done? How did people talk to one another? How did you buy groceries!?

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Batman Begins sequel Title and Casting confirmed

Last evening, Warner Bros. (relatively quietly) announced the sequel to Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed Batman Begins . It will be titled The Dark Knight, and, fresh off of his Academy Award nomination, Heath Ledger will be playing long time Bat-Nemesis, the Joker.

More on this later...

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