The Great Geek Manual

South Korea’s LG Philips LCD said Sunday it had developed the world’s first A4-sized colour electronic-paper — a paper-thin and bendable viewing panel.

The e-paper — which measures 14.1 inches (35.9 centimetres) across its diagonal and is just 300 micrometres (0.3 millimetres) thin — can display up to 4,096 colours, the world’s second largest liquid crystal display maker said in a statement.

It is designed to be energy-efficient, only using power when the image changes on the display, it said.
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No, they’re not Storm Troopers in training. They’re Hybrid Assistive Leg (HAL) exoskeletons, manufactured by a firm called Cyberdyne. And if that name sounds strangely familiar to you, you’re not alone. The Cyberdyne Systems Corporation is the fictional company that manufactures the Terminator, the killer cyborg portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator trilogy.

The HAL-5 exoskeletons can multiply the user’s strength by a factor of ten, for up to five hours. It was developed at the University of Tsukuba, but it will soon be available to rent in Japan and other countries for US$1,300 to US$3,900 a month.

Source: Cyberdyne Inc.
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Yes ladies and gentlemen, Samsung has released a concept PC based on Orko’s hat, or more likely, given that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows is slated for release this summer, The Sorting Hat. There are no specs or details as of yet, but it sure is fun to look at the pictures and wonder what the hell Samsung is thinking.

Source: Akihabara News

This may very well be the single coolest Do-It-Yourself project that I have ever heard or read about in my life. It’s an arcade machine emulator built into a replica of Dr. Who’s TARDIS.

M.A.M.E., by the way, is an acronym for “Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator.” A MAME is a piece of software that runs on a PC, allowing you to run thousands of old arcade games. The MAME, unlike a thousand other emulators out there, closely mirrors the original hardware used to run the games in order to give you an experience as realistic as possible.

Simon Jansen, the creator of this fantastic piece of Geek brilliance, walks through the project step-by-step at his website: http://asciimation.co.nz/tardis/index.html

Nearly two years ago, I helped my father upgrade the “computer system” he uses in his office. I put the phrase “computer system” in quotes because the system consisted of one computer using an old DOS OS, three decade old computers running Windows 95, and one computer running Windows 98. All of these computers had five and a quarter floppy drives. Re-orienting him to the world of Windows XP was “tons of fun”. Nevermind why that phrase is in quotes. The reason he had let his computers lapse into such obscenely ridiculous obsolescence is that he simply didn’t have the time required to transfer hundreds upon hundreds of business files from one computer to another, one floppy at a time.

The problem is a common one. Transferring files, even the age of portable flash drives and Ethernet networking, is a real pain in the ass. I’ve come across a great gadget that takes the hassle out of data transfers – The Tornado.
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OMG! Stop tinkering with your new Vista installation, tell you fellow guildies that you won’t be making the weekend raid, and give your girlfriend a rain check for Valentines! Alright, alright, I’m just kidding about that last part. Tell your Mom to start bring your hot pockets downstairs to your desk. Lego has released the Ultimate Collector’s Millennium Falcon!
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Know someone with a blog who won’t shut up about it? This is the t-shirt for you.

Personally, I don’t see what’s so funny about it. Everyone cares about my blog… but I guess that still leaves about eighty million blogs to snub. What really cracks me up is that this t-shirt is filed on the site under the “Highbrow” category. I don’t even think I want to see what they file under lowbrow.

I have little doubt that my brother will soon have one of these for himself. You can get yours at One Horse Shy for twenty-five dollars.