The Australians, not content to dive in the ocean deep with a mere shark cage, have taken to hopping in the water with 19.6ft long salt water crocodiles using nothing but 4cm of acrylic plastic to keep them safe. As the croc gnashes its teeth against the cage, you piss your pants, the wife takes some pics, and we once again reaffirm why dolphins are actually the dominant species on the planet.
The croc in question here, Choppa, was selected for this humiliating assignment because he lost two front teeth while fighting with some other 2,000lb. crocodiles at the Crocosaurus Cove amusement park.
“In the Northern Territory, the saltwater crocodile is an icon and is part of our life. They are always in the news, either in someone’s swimming pool or killing someone’s favorite horse,” said Michael “That’s not a knife, this is a knife” Scott, who opened the cage in July.
There have been no fatalities yet, although there are apparently some noticeable gashes in the plastic from the Choppa’s remaining teeth. [Daily Mail]
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Sadly, Canadian police believe that they have found the body of Brandon Crisp, a 15 year old that ran away from home in early October after his parents took away his Xbox 360 privileges. Apparently, he had become obsessed with Call of Duty 4 and action was taken after it began to affect his grades. The boy was found on the Oro Medonte Rail Trail outside of Barrie, Ontario with a tent and a meager supply of food. Police are awaiting the pathology report before confirming the boy’s identity. Ugh…I can’t even imagine what his parents must be feeling right now. [CP24 via Kotaku]
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Winter is almost upon us, and chilly feet can be a chronic issue. Thankfully humanity no longer has to suffer this unpleasantness with the introduction of CozyFeet microwavable boots. The modern-day equivalent of warming ones feet by the fire, these boots “contain a special blend of natural wheat grain and dried French lavender that, once heated, stay warm for up to two hours” after just two minutes of microwaving.
Wow, it makes all those electric heated-boots seem clunky and old fashioned because, hey, what’s more modern than a microwave? They make no mention, however, of how this affects the taste of your food; I’d like my frozen pizza with a waft of foot-odor thanks! CozyFeet cost about $24. [Gadget Shop via Shiny Shiny]
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A crazy Brazilian man named Freud is so afraid of being buried alive that he’s built himself a tomb nice enough to live in, complete with TV and food. You know, just in case. It also has built-in megaphones that would allow for him to call for help just in case his body raised from the dead in some sort of zombification ritual and he wanted to lure in some easy victims.
But it isn’t a conventional final resting place. Inside the crypt, there’s a TV, also a water pitcher and a fruit pantry. Fresh outdoor air flows in through four vents from the chapel roof. Within reach of the coffin are two makeshift megaphones — plastic cones attached to tubes running out through the wall.
One Saturday recently, Mr. de Melo lay in the coffin, shouting into the cones in a voice that echoed into the countryside. “Help me! Come quick! I’ve been buried alive!”
It was only an equipment check — not an actual emergency. Mr. de Melo, a resort operator and politician, built a burial vault he could survive in because he’s gripped by a rare condition called taphephobia, the fear of being buried alive. “I have awful, awful nightmares of trying to dig myself out from underground,” says Mr. de Melo, whose physician father named him, presciently, for the pioneer of dream analysis.
I’d say that in this day and age the chances of being buried alive are pretty slim, but hey, whatever helps you sleep at night. [WSJ via Neatorama]
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With just one day to go, the novelty Halloween pumpkins have been slowly building up: but I say none of them, none, have the scariness factor of this. It’s a geek head pumpkin, geekily precision-carved using a geekily cool open-source DIY CNC machine into a genuine geek pumpkin. OK, so the last part is a lie, but the rest is real: check out the video of the carving in action. It’s like a mini babyfood maker colliding with high-tech electronics.
The process basically involved converting a photograph into a grayscale image and thence to a depth-map g-code image, compatible with Lumenlab’s open-source CNC mill. One suitably flatish and carefully positioned pumpkin, 20 minutes of drilling action later, a little air-spraying to push out the milled pumpkin pulp and voila: geek-o-lanterns.
Much more likely to put the wind up visiting kids than naff old triangular eyes. [Lumenlab via Hackaday]
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What could be more useful than this concept of a food pyramid designed to keep your portions in check and to make you eat the right amount of veggies? If there is anything that I consistently do all day long besides working for Gizmodo, it’s probably putting anything edible within reach into my mouth. Whether I’m slowly making it my mission to make every Kit Kat on earth disappear, or having my stomach growl embarrassingly in front of my co-workers, I live for lunch where I get to chow down and thoroughly ravage my plate each day. Usually afterwards, I sink into a major food coma, which is exactly why this concept is perfect for me. After this article is published though, my boss will probably know why my productivity plummets in the afternoon. [Yanko via SwissMiss via CrunchGear ]
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I’m not surprised that in the middle of a deep recession, while people have basically stopped buying appliances, standalone freezers have an exceptional growth of 13 percent. One of my grandmas, who lives alone, has the most massive freezer I have ever seen in a home. It is bursting with food that will likely never be eaten, unless a zombie apocalypse strikes and the whole family boards itself up in her house, where we would have six months before we’d have to start eating each other.
I’ve been told that’s pretty typical of people who lived through The Great Depression or the War in Europe (she was on the wrong side in the latter). I think it’s kinda the same instinct, but like on a smaller scale. Or you know, there’s just a delicious renaissance in gourmet TV dinners. [Consumer Reports via Consumerist, Image: Getty]
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Well, this is asinine. Since the Android Market won’t support paid apps until next year, asshat developers are disguising links to paid apps as free ones. When you click on the “free” applications, it takes you to the devs’ site, where you get to pay a lovely fee for it. Mobihand’s Fast Food Calorie Calculator is one example of this scumsuckery. Look, it’s cool to charge for apps, as long as you’re upfront about it, not being sleazy and sludging up the store with dirty tricks. I know they’re not blocking apps from the store, but I hope MobiHand and others are tossed on their ass and banned for life. [Phandroid]
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Diets are tough, what with the eating and drinking of beer, and that being really, really, enjoyable and all. The IC3 Intelligent Cutlery System wants to help. How? Well, designer Alex Schulz says that as you chomp away at dinner, the IC3 does the traditional job as a fork, knife or spoon, and then goes the extra mile by silently judging and recording every bite you take.
Even more interesting is that each attachment does something different. The fork, for example, measures fat, protein and sugar content. The spoon? That weighs the food, while the knife takes your food’s temperature and ensures it’s safe for eating.
Then, after your meal, the IC3 synchs up with a PC or other information gathering device and produces a nutrition report, which you’ll probably follow religiously for a few weeks before falling off the wagon. [Yanko Design via DVICE]
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Filed under: Robots
[Via Hallyu Tech]
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