Awesome Playable/Recordable Google Guitar Logo Today

A Google Doodle is an artistic version of the Google logo usually posted to commemorate a holiday or an important event.  It started on August 30, 1998 with the Burning Man Festival as a way for Google's founders to notify user's of their absence in case the servers went down.

Over the years it has become a regular occurrance and a team of designers has been busy designing over 300 designs for google.com in the US and over 700 internationally.

Some of the designs have been very unique, like the playable Pacman game to celebrate the anniversary of Pacman.  But today's is the best I've seen.  Today's Google Doodle commemorates Les Paul's birthday.  It's a playable guitar that lets you record for 30 seconds and leaves you a unique link so you can keep your recording.  Though, for some reason everything you play on it sounds like crappy indie hipster music. (see True Story...) 

Here's mine: http://goo.gl/doodle/17Uz  ...move over Death Cab for Cutie.

90,000 Hour Home Video

TED, which stands for Technology - Entertainment - Design, is an elitist conference which brings together some of the most intelligent people on the planet to talk about cutting edge technology, fascinating scientific advancements and inspirational ideas.  It's own motto "Ideas Worth Spreading" may as well read "I'm Better Than You." But some of their speakers presentations are downright captivating.

This "TED Talk" demonstrates the most amazing data analyses I have ever seen.  MIT researcher, Deb Roy, wired his house for video and audio recording in every room then recorded 90,000 hours of his life, then analysed all of it:  from his son learning to say "water" to cooking with his wife to every conversation they had about every television show they watched.  It sounds boring, but not the way this guy presents it.  The video is about 20 minutes long but stick with it you will be hooked after 5 minutes.  Two paws way up.

You can watch more TED Talks here.  Not all of the Talks are great and most of the website is made up of low angle photographs of smart people moving their hands while they're talking, but it's worth a look.

Thank you Boing Boing.

Space Is A Cesspool



An amateur astronamer from Germany captured the shuttle Discovery dumping wastewater into space.  The final frontier has become the floor of a McDonalds bathroom stall.

Thank you Neatorama.

Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis

The Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) is a world-wide tsunami warning system. It is comprised of surface buoys that are anchored to BPR (Bottom Pressure Recording) devices.  These DART stations have been installed at locations around the world with a history of tsunami activity. 

These stations, run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), are of particular interest right now due to the recent 8.9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan.

Presently there are 39 stations:





Pressure, temperature and estimated sea surface height readings are collected every 15 seconds.  On the map at this link you can click on each station and get live accurate readings. 

I hope no other countries have to experience what Japan is going through right now.

Aaaahhhh! Aaaaaahhhh! AAAAaaaaahhhh! AAAAAAaaaaahhhh!!!!!


From a post on Geekosystem entitled: "Robot Modeled After A Human Looks Just Like A Human, is Creepy."  The 'is creepy' part should have replaced everything after 'robot.'