This January, the Sci Fi Channel will be auctioning off thousands (thousands!) set pieces, props, and costumes from Battlestar Galactica. A two-day live auction will be held in Pasadena on January 17 and 18, and on January 20 about 200 items will be put on eBay. After that, as each episode airs more items from those episodes will show up on eBay.
Besides the life size Viper MkII (should be flyable with only minor repairs), other props for sale include the President Roslin’s desk, a Raptor flight manual, Colonel Tigh’s liquor bottle and eye patch, the Blackbird, Starbuck’s flight suit, and Six’s red dress. A purely academic sample picture of said dress, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
You made history last night, and today you have your first African American president. Congratulations! You should be proud of yourselves. God knows the rest of the world is, nowhere more than up here in Canada, your frostbitten neighbor.
Kinda like last Friday, there’s no really gadgetry going on here, but these guys are just SO CUTE and alien-y I had to post about them. They’re nudibranchs, a type of sea slug, and they’re some of the most flagrantly colorful animals on the planet. The colors are partially to help them blend in on coral reefs, and partially to communicate that they’re poisonous. National geographic has a mind bending gallery by David Doubilet that you can check out here, and I’ve posted some of my favorite pics after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve put together a little gallery of some of the more visually appealing (i.e. LEDs, huge flames, etc.) stuff from Maker Faire last weekend… It’s in no particular order, and most of it exists just because someone wanted it to, and not because it fulfills any purpose. But it’s unquestionably cool, so have a look at some of the pics, after the jump.
Bonsai trees are generally a sign of peace and tranquility. Some people spend countless hours taking care of them and making sure they are perfect. So what would happen if a miniature care spun out of control and wrecked into your precious tree? It wouldn’t be very zen, that’s for sure.
If you think it’s amusing to see something as terrible as a car crash butted up against a tranquil Bonsai tree, then you’ll likely get a kick out of CrashBonsai, which is essentially a tiny car that’s been detailed to look exactly like it’s been drove straight into a tree. You can purchase one of these handmade designs from the creator for between $75 and $125.
Fish are getting more and more connected these days. They’re making phone calls, keeping pets, even driving themselves around. So why not give them a bunch of USB 2.0 ports so they can expand their peripherals? And while you’re at it, why not throw in some mood lighting?
Fine, so it’s not a real fish. But if you’ve got a hankerin’ for actual USB fish, you can plug four USB fishtanks into this hub, how ’bout that?
That’s right… Forget the lines, hooks, bait, nets, all that crap. Just call them, and when they show up, scoop them up into a big net and eat ‘em. Supposedly, it’s nothing more than classic Pavlovian conditioning: the researchers feed a group of fish in a tank right after playing a tone underwater. After repeating the 20 second tone 3 times a day for 2 weeks straight, “you have remote-control fish,” says Simon Miner, a research assistant on the project. “You hit that button [to play the sound], and they go into that [feeding] area, and they wait patiently.” The big question is whether or not the fish will remember. Preliminary results suggest that the fish will retain the the behavior for 5-10 days, but nobody is really sure what’ll happen when they try the same thing with 5,000 fish out in the ocean this spring. Even if they can only train half the fish to return until they’re large enough for market, it’ll still be more profitable than current fish farming methods. And, I’m sure, way tastier.
Raising a fish is hard work. Comfish understands that “most people feel that the precise care of tropical fish is time consuming, requires expertise and is expensive and thus most of us shy away from owning their own aquarium.” The solution? The Comfish aquarium, which is controlled almost entirely from your computer. A USB cable supplies power to the tank’s LED lights, the water heater, and the oxygen pump (bubbles!), and you can control all this stuff with a program that looks just like the fish tank itself. A little camera in the tank displays what’s going on inside the virtual fish tank on your computer, so you never even have to look at the real fish… Besides having to feed them and clean the tank and stuff, of course. It’s also a room humidifier and a night light, and will cost you about $50, in Korea.
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