Sheer magic

A magic card trick demonstrating the eerie power of the mind and the web. (Tip for playing - you only have to remember one card. There's a missing space in the instructions.)

Chuck it

Flushed with success from staging the world wife-carrying championships, Finland has now brought the nations of the world together to chuck mobile phones a very long way. The cunningly named "Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships" were won by a fellow who hurled a Nokia a distance of 89 metres.

Diddy

Tiny speakers for the iPod Nano.

Don't look down

Pictures of the Empire State Building under construction in 1931, from the New York Public Library. (Plenty more archive photos available via their search facility.)

Viva Las Sideburns

Mark Lawson's occasional hour-long interviews on BBC4 often throw up something diverting, and it was fun to see him in conversation with Englebert Humperdink last week. There was Hump's joyous answer to the question about his reputation as a womaniser - "Yes, there have been happenings in my life", but better still was a brief Elvis moment.

It turns out that Englebert and Elvis were friends - they were roughly the same age, met from time to time, and (according to the only one of them who's still alive) had great mutual respect for each other. Eng last saw him three months before his death, by which point we learnt that he was looking "a bit grey". And the rest.

Anyway, in the interview Lawson asked whether Englebert stole the sideburns look from Elvis. Without missing a beat, the immediate reply was "No, he stole them from me. He said 'Hell, if they look good on you, they gon' look good on me'."

And the phrase tripped off the Humperdink tongue in a perfect Elvis impression.

Save it

The Smoking Gun publishes 101 tips which it says were given in booklet form by North West Airlines to workers who were being laid off in North Dakota, Montana and Texas. As they were about to fall on hard times, the employer thought some advice on good ways to save money might come in handy.

Ipod jeans

So, if I've got this right, you buy yourself a pair of Levi's RedWire jeans, and they're ready to take your iPod. You pop it into one pocket, which is specially shaped and has a dock connector built into it. Once it's connected, control of the device passes to a separate diddy little unit, which you can clip on, or will fit perfectly into the other pocket. That's where your headphones plug in. The Stuff Mag story also has a link to the hard-to-believe iPod-ready Boxer Shorts.

Nothing but a string of mistakes

Here's a website dedicated to corrections from newspapers and websites around the world.

You have to scan through quite dilligently in order to find the best bits - like this one. It's from the Daily Record in Morris County, New Jersey. The quote is verbatim. I'm not sure whether the explanation was the raw info given by the journalist to the sub-editor when challenged (and therefore intended to be softened before printing), or whether the raw honesty was deliberate.

Josh Lehrer attends the Rochester Institute of Technology. The school was incorrectly identified in a story Friday about a Route 80 crash victim. EXPLANATION: Just stupidly typed in the wrong thing.

Boggy

Good to see that the World Bog Snorkelling Championship in Powys has been such a success again.

Caught on camera

The picture on the left shows Matthew Street in Liverpool. It's from a webcam, and Beatles afficianados may be interested in it as it shows the Cavern Club at the end of the street on the left.

One such person was casually looking at the webcam last week and happened to notice two men with a ladder, who seemed to be breaking into one of the buildings.

He rang Merseyside Police (their number's on the web), and the individuals were apprehended.

What makes this into a story which really shows the power of the net, is that he was watching online from Texas.

Kitlers

Cats that look like Hitler

The editors are blogging

Two newsy blogs:

• From the BBC, The Editors, with plenty of comment and information about the way the BBC is thinking about and covering the news, right now.
• A similar page from The Guardian, part of Comment Is Free

Macro & landscape photoblog

Open eyes. Keep clicking "Previous" to get some of the most striking shots.

Pluto is now a dwarf

You'll probably have seen the news that Pluto's been kicked out of the "planet" league, and our Solar System is now down to just eight big boys. But the question on everyone's lips is - why? Well, 2500 astronomers from the International Astronomical Union have agreed that, if you want to call yourself a planet, you've got to:

(a) be in orbit around the Sun,

(b) have sufficient mass for your self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that you assume a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape,

(c) clear the neighbourhood around your orbit.

That's sorted that out then.

Pluto pics are here, should you wish.

Your blackberry can ruin your life

It's all here, straight from the horse's mouth. (Well, strictly speaking, straight from the website of the university which conducted the research.)

Flip the hinge, plug, and play

Boring picture, great idea. It's an SD card for your digital camera. The clever thing is, when you want to get the pictures onto your PC, you just take out the card, flip a hinge, and it plugs straight into your USB port. No mucking around with adapters (fiddly and losable) or cables (draining battery life). The only drawbacks are it's expensive, and I'm not sure that it's available in the UK yet. Still, we can look.

You quite sure he's left the building?

You know that guy who works down the chip shop?

The one who swears he's Elvis?

I know that you reckon he's a liar (and you're not sure about me).

But if - just if - he happened to be telling the truth, he'd be worth three million dollars to you.

That's the reward for finding Elvis alive.

www.elviswanted.com

Huh?

Here's a dialect translator. The "Ali G" and the "Jolly well spoken" are my faves.

Mr X. Bring it on.

Just the one item today, but it's quality stuff.

First, the context. In the words of the wellwisher who pointed it out to me:

There's a Simpsons episode where Homer writes a blog site under the cover of 'MR X'. You're never supposed to know the identity of the site owner (Homer) whose face is obsured by a big X so that he can continue to spread his gossip without fear of detection. Only Homer's not very good with HTML, so split seconds before the X blanks out his face, users of the site are very clear about who's writing.

And the blog doesn't just exist in the episode. It exists right here, on the super info highway.

So let's hear it for Mr X's Web Page.

And in particular, the Homer-ness of this entry

Write then

Yet another new toy to play with from Google. Writely is (and I quote)

"The Web Word Processor. Share documents instantly and collaborate in realtime. Pick exactly who can access your documents. Edit your documents from anywhere - nothing to download, your browser is all you need. Easy to use. Clean, uncluttered screens with a familiar, desktop feel."

Brum

New research tells us the people telling jokes with a Birmingham dialect sound the funniest. (I think the Jethro dialect is funnier, but I'm clearly in the minority.)

Vroom

The newly-redesigned Car Magazine looks gorgeous, is brilliantly written, and also has a website to match. The hard-copy magazine version even has a new shape, and (as the phrase goes) is in all good newsagents now.

Fortune Cookies

Predict your own future by customising a fortune cookie. Here's one we made earlier.



Click here to make your own.

Esto es blog de John.

You can now enjoy a free translation of John's blog into Russian, Chinese, Spanish (featured) and 12 other languages at http://www.freetranslation.com. Or, to put it another way, Usted ahora puede gozar una traducción libre de blog de John en ruso, chino, español (representó) y 12 otros idiomas en http://www.freetranslation.com/.

American Bat Company

Ever wondered what would happen when a bat gets into a television newsroom? Apparently it's quite common in Michigan. Or at least it's happened twice, and the second time it happened someone had a camera handy (who'd have thought in a television station). Here.
.

Monkey business

In New Delhi, there's a monkey problem on the underground. They get into a train compartment, scowl at the passengers, make a few noises, and then get off. The Rhesus Monkey is a particular culprit. Not nice. Now, help is at hand thanks to a new official security monkey, a Langur, like the one on the left (but presumably bigger and more imposing). Its keeper is employed to patrol monkey-prone stations on a leash, scaring off the unwanted primates.

Weather style

Designed in Italy, no less - this weather monitor from Oregon Scientific.

Phone home page

From Google, now you can take your customised home page (which itself it pretty smart) and access a version of it on your mobile phone.

Climb into bed

That's what a floating bed looks like. It's designed by a Dutch architect, and costs over a million euro (plus bedding). It's kept up by a magnetic field. I know what you're thinking. Well, people with piercings can sleep on it safely, but are advised not to crawl between the bed and the floor, where the force field could give their rings an unpleasant yank.

Your web DNA

WEB2DNA "will take you website, analyze it, crunch it to little bits and spit it out as a graphic representation of a human DNA." I entered the address for John's Blog, and it seemed to be mainly blue with thin white lines. I have not a clue what that means. Nice picture, though.

Play

Toys galore at Firebox.

Mario v Lara Croft

Here's the shortlist for the Golden Joystick awards.

PC in a suitcase

Dell call it the "Mobile Entertainment Revolution". It's something between a laptop and a desktop - too heavy to lug to work on the train every day, but still portable. It's here.

Guess the dictator or sitcom character

Yep, that's the game. It's just plain silly. And it's here.

Lighten up

Now pay attention. This is complicated. You hook up a webcam to your PC. You use some jiggery-pokery from Bath University. It looks at your face and sees what sort of a mood you're in. It then generates digital art to match the way you're feeling. They call it "empathic painting". I'd love to be able to tell you how the bananas on the left fit in, but I'm not quite sure. If you prefer to figure it out for yourself, go here.

Hide it

I can't think why you would want to do this, but let's imagine - just for the sake of argument - that you wanted to surf the web at work, but make it look like you were actually working.
Ahh, you'll be wanting Work Friendly then. You enter the address of the website you want to see, and it shows you the page in a Microsoft Office format, so it looks like you're working on a Word document.

A Paris

On the pretext that it's changed its address, here's another plug for the Paris photoblog Un Jour A Paris, and a particularly gorgeous August shot here.

This England

Monty Python, the Mini, and a pint of beer - some of the icons of England, according to this news release. The ICONS website is here, and you can make nominations here - where currently the Avengers and the spire of Norwich Cathedral sit cheek-by-jowel waiting for your votes.

Nice cam

The latest, highly desirable, tape-free camcorder from JVC.

Around the world with a dollar

The "What can you buy for a buck" blog

2D becomes 3

Now this is stunningly clever. Microsoft are developing Photosynth - taking your digital photos and turning them into a 3D world.

Over the limit

In Pennsylvania, a man who was only the passenger in a car is fighting a drink-driving charge. The police say that the passenger was nearly three times over the limit when he leant over and helped to steer the wheel. The driver was using both hands to eat a sandwich.

Think

Logic puzzles to keep you busy

Shhh

Just can't stand people who misbehave in the cinema? A system being tested in America could be the answer. In the same way as you can press a button for a flight attendant on a plane, you press a button to summon an usher. Hopefully the button's nice and discrete, otherwise the miscreant might just sort you out as they're evicted.

DAB on the go

That's a DAB and MP3 player combined, reviewed here by Stuff Magazine, and made by the strangely-named Oono.

Web history

15 Years Of The Web - a timeline from BBC online

Zap

The ultimate programmable remote control. It does macros and everything. From Logitech.

Save the pets

In one of its closing acts before the summer recess, America's Senate has passed a bill requiring state authorities to include pets in their emergency planning. Thousands of people wouldn't leave New Orleans during the hurricane because they didn't want to abandon their pets.

The future's bright, it's red and white

Enjoy Southampton's march back to glory at their website. Other football teams are (apparently) available, here. I know it was only a two-all draw on Sunday, but you watch. We'll be back.

iPhone

Could be real, could be fake, could be (just possibly) Apple's new mobile phone. Speculation and rumour here.

Baking

How hot was it in New Hampshire last week? Hot enough to bake cookies on the dashboard.

Don't lose your place

Google maps now lets you save locations.

Nice keystroke

Am I the only person in the world not to know about Ctrl/Enter in Internet Explorer? Launch Explorer, type a single world (orisinal, for instance), and press Ctrl/Enter. Explorer will add www at the front, and .com at the end.

And if you actually do try it with orisinal, you'll find some cute games.

Willow & Stumpy

With most of the cricket season behind us, I've become quite a fan of Willow & Stumpy from Sky Sports.

Have a doze

It's entirely normal to fall asleep after Sunday lunch, say scientists at Manchester University. It's all to do with the cells that are supposed to remind you to keep awake. They get dopey under the influence of glucose. Great excuse.

Clive James on the web

Now, you may enjoy this not at all, but I do. www.clivejames.com - if only for the opening page, and there's much more besides.

Separately, some quotes from an interview with the man, shown by BBC4 this week. I don't know if these were prepared in advance, but I suspect not. He just has the gift of speaking this way:

"In retrospect, the story turned out differently. But there was no retrospect at the time."

"It's taken as axiomatic amongst the commentariat that Australia must become a republic. I don't like historic inevitablility. I come from a century when historic inevitability was the big enemy of civilisation."

"Live long enough and you get respectable"

"A free society is simply bound to be full of things you don't like. That's what freedom is."

It's a boy, ugly

Beautiful people tend to have girls.

Cartoon fish mouse

The eyes light up. It's here. Oh, was that all in Japanese? Try here.

Print and go

The Guardian has launched G24, a series of PDF's which are updated throughout the day. Print and take to lunch.

Plasma is forever

Three out of four American women would rather have a Plasma TV than a diamond necklace. And there's more...

Zune (You chased the day away)

That'll be Microsoft's answer to the iPod then.

Twist

I wouldn't even think of trying this myself, but here's how you can make a handy wallet out of playing cards.

City landscapes photoblog

Larscapes

Dogs rock

Dog Radio Thailand is indeed a radio station for dogs.

Wiki-d

This week's New Yorker has a long feature on Wikipedia, in which it highlights the following entries, to prove just how random and diverse Wikipedia can be:

• Sudoku
• Prostitution in China
• The unnerving sensation that an imposter is sitting in for a close relative
• The Boston molasses disaster
• The house of Bill Gates
• The forty-five minute Anglo-Zanzibar War
• Islam in Iceland
• Historical cats
• Curing hiccups