Damn "The Man"

Windows Media Player is as most people know from Microsoft aka "The Man". If you have Windows you have Windows Media Player, it does work well enough but you don't have to eat the green eggs and ham "The Man" shoves down your gullet. If you don't want to use it you do have a choice. You can take the Pepsi challenge, fight the establishment you don't have to be at the mercy of "The Man". Who will aid you in your fight? Enter the other white meat "Media Player Classic", freeware no strings attached GNU (General Public license). Media Player Classic will work with a host of file types from .avi to .mkv to .wmv. I found Media Player classic when I was looking for something to play .mkv files, a video format that isn't very common, and was pleasantly surprised that it could play many others. It has tons of options to customize your media experience. It even works with my 5.1 Surround setup.

http://sourceforge.net/project......

Trippy Visuals

I found a pretty cool visualization that works on multiple media players and there is a free version. G-Force works on different media players like Winamp, and Windows Media player to name a few. Also you don't have to have a high end graphics card for it to look cool my old pc from 2000 with a 800mhz processor runs it and it looks awesome. Yet with the pc I built last year with high end graphics card and 1GB of Ram AMD 2800 processor it looks really impressive. In the free version its just a visualization for your media player but in the upgrade you get more options like screensaver and tool bar with many options.

http://www.soundspectrum.com/

PSP Hacks

Well I'm waiting for my birthday or for my rich uncle to get out of the poor house before I get my PSP. But in the meantime I'm studying up on all the cool tweaks and things I will be able to do with my PSP once I finally get one. Engadget had a roundup of some of the hacks.
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000720038308/

Homebrew Solar Scooter

This is interesting, its a moped with alot of solar cells. It will get half charged in 9 hours. This is pretty cool for an individual but those are some big'ol solar cells.
http://www.treehugger.com/

The Other Gutenberg

Nope not Steve!!! Project Gutenberg, it alludes to the Gutenberg Press (look it up), Project Gutenberg is a collection of E-Books , available to the masses of the web you can re-read the classics or just read the ones you've always meant to. No excuses it's Free E-Books
http://www.gutenberg.org/

You Won't Go Blind

The Rasterbator is a cool program I stumbled upon. Rasterization is the process of converting a vertex representation to a pixel representation, or in other words converting polygons likes squares and angled shapes into pixels like making a larger picture out of individual dots. With this program you can take images and blow them up massively to create murals or large poster size images and the scale is by the pages down and across or tile size they have a lot of cool examples on the website.
http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/

Universal Wallpaper

Some of the most beautiful sites are found in nature or the universe. Here are some snapshots of the universe from the Hubble Telescope that make some pretty cool wallpaper.

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/wallpaper/

Its Not A Robot

Remember that scene from "Aliens" where Ripley uses the mechanical exoskeleton to rage battle with the evil Alien Queen? Well this guy in Alaska never forgot it and other inspirations either like Transformers and others. Carlos Owens Jr. is building a mech or mechanical robot suit that someone can control from the inside and if it works as good as it looks he just might have something really cool.
More details and Picture:
http://www.juneauempire.com/

Chimeras Not Just For Mythology Anymore

Human-animal hybrids are in the works, in Greek mythology a Chimera was a monster with features combined from others animals. Well it seems the scientists have been mixing the recipes in the easy-bake oven. How about rabbit eggs with a pinch of human, or pigs with human blood in their veins and a pinch of paprika. It looks like they are past the point of "Can we do this?", and are to the point of "Should we do this? and how far should we go?".
read more
http://news.nationalgeographic.com

Canadians Concoct Super Solar Material

Researchers at the University of Toronto have come up with a new solar material that works by using the infrared spectrum to gather energy. It reportedly works at up to 6 times more efficiency of traditional solar cells and is said to be able to harness 30 percent of the sun's energy as opposed to the less efficient current plastic solar cells. Reports indicate the material also can be woven into or painted onto fabrics or surfaces. The material is planned to be used to power or charge various mobile devices like pda's, cell phones, and various other devices.
read more from the North:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews

Troops Gaming Abroad

I have family currently serving in the military and aunts and uncles that served in Desert Storm, and even my father was in the Army for twenty years, now retired. It kind of warms the gamer's heart to know that the troops can kick back after a day's work and get some game time in. In my father's time it was just radio, periodicals, TV, and of course getting into trouble the kind of things that make the real good war stories. Now in addition to these diversions its cool to know the troops can kick back and relax by racing sports cars, playing sports, saving the universe all from the comfort of sitting in front of a TV and being with a group of friends. I'm sure troops will still have off duty hijinks that make for good war stories about getting in and out of trouble. Who knows friends and family members might rest a little easier knowing that the troops have one more thing to keep them busy in their down time, that makes them feel a little closer to home. Check out the article
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6780587