the creeping oobleck

Oobleck is Non-Newtonian (corn starch and water). As this video demonstrates, it does not behave like a typical liquid, and spontaneously changes into bizarre shapes in a “solid” state when stress is applied. If you have a large subwoofer and baking pan at home, you can do the same experiment.

visiting home for the weekend

Back in April I knew that my sister was planning on getting married sometime in July, but I didn’t know which weekend it would be. It just so happened that it was on the same weekend as Comicon this year, which was bittersweet but good in the end. I was working overtime to [...]

talking dogs

Did you know that some dogs can learn to talk? We have a neighbor with a couple of dogs, and I heard one whining yesterday. It started to make noises sort of like these creatures in the video. It sure surprised me. I thought maybe the dog had captured someone and [...]

flobots mayday: in between the lines

When I’m looking for some real hip hop, I’ve always got to dig deep. Thankfully there are bands out there with a natural metronome of pacing, lyrical rhythm, and style, all wrapped up in a bun of philosophy and content.

Flobots, I feel, satisfies this checklist. Their album, Fight With Tools is a mix [...]

iband: playing music on portable devices

Here’s a trio of people playing music on an iphone, ipod, and nintendo ds.

mars surface shaped by rivers, streams, waterfalls

Astonishing new photos by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Probe reveal a detailed and carven landscape, much like the canyons, valleys, and waterways of our own planet. It makes me wonder what those empty spaces were like when they were filled with water….

A view of Echus Chasma, one of the largest water [...]

i am 8 bit: chrono trigger + steamboat willie

In this picture here you can see the character Frog from the game Chrono Trigger on the left, and Steamboat Willie on the right. Why is there a plus sign between the two?

akira toriyama and disney

…because those are the two styles I am combining to re-create the characters for the painting I’m working [...]

spiderman calling batman

Hahahaha. I found this my friend Alex’s blog. This is so weird and quirky. I could imagine a whole series of animated shorts done in this style. I hope to see more of these in the future.

using toucan beaks to design cars and airplanes

It seems a wonder that toucans don’t fall on their faces, so enormous are the beaks of these South American birds. One large species, the toco toucan, has an orange-yellow bill six to nine inches long, about a third of the bird’s length. But the toucan’s beak is ingeniously designed to be both strong and [...]

spinning skyscraper planned in dubai

This type of design, if successful, will revolutionize the interplay between large-scale architecture and theĀ  environment. Not only will the skyscraper be capable of morphing into different shapes and patterns, but will also take advantage of the wind to help power itself as a self-sufficient system.

Leave it to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates state [...]

what is this bizarre primate? it’s the aye-aye

Aye-ayes can be found only on the island of Madagascar. These rare animals may not look like primates at first glance, but they are related to chimpanzees, apes, and humans.

Aye-ayes are dark brown or black and are distinguished by a bushy tail that is larger than their body. They also feature big eyes, slender fingers, [...]

i am 8 bit: chrono trigger character sketches

It was a difficult choice, trying to figure out what characters to paint for the I am 8 Bit show. Someone asked me, “Why don’t you paint the Chrono Trigger characters?” That was a great idea. With the upcoming release on the Nintendo DS, and the fact it is one of my favorite games [...]

researcher plays the aztec whistles of death

Scientists were fascinated by the ghostly find: a human skeleton buried in an Aztec temple with a clay, skull-shaped whistle in each bony hand.

But no one blew into the noisemakers for nearly 15 years. When someone finally did, the shrill, windy screech made the spine tingle.

If death had a sound, this was it.

Roberto Velazquez believes [...]

tatsunoko vs. capcom

All the versus fighting series by Capcom are my favorites, and they’ve just released the first trailer for the new game, tatsunoko vs. capcom. It looks like the developers are taking advantage of the “2.5-D” platform being used in Street Fighter 4, with ridiculous and over-the-top super attacks that have made themselves a staple [...]

the unexplained tunguska explosion 100 years ago

It produced a blast hundreds of times stronger than the atomic bomb, was seen hundreds of miles away and narrowly missed obliterating an entire city — but 100 years to the week after the mysterious explosion in Siberia, no one is any closer to understanding what caused it.

Despite countless investigations, the so-called Tunguska Event remains [...]