Amateur digital photographer R. Todd King has posted a set of startlingly gorgeous photos of the snow and ice festival in Harbin, China.

"The temperature in Harbin reaches forty below zero, both farenheit and centigrade, and stays below freezing nearly half the year.  The city is actually further north than notoriously cold Vladivostok, Russia, just 300 miles away. So what does one do here every winter?  Hold an outdoor festival, of course! Rather than suffer the cold, the residents of Harbin celebrate it, with an annual festival of snow and ice sculptures and competitions. The festival officially runs from January 5 through February 15, but often opens a week early and runs into March, since it's usually still cold enough. This is the amazing sculpture made of snow greeting visitors to the snow festival in 2003." Link (Thanks, Michael-Anne!) [via Boing Boing]

It’s tempting to write off the WiFi part of this as a gimmick, but this new lamp from Violet actually does actually connect to the Internet over WiFi, and a bit like the Ambient Orb, can be set to change colors in response to online information like whether the stock market is up or down, the weather, if you have a new email waiting for you, etc. [via Engadget]

Mark Frauenfelder tells us… 

"Off the westernmost coast of Japan, is an island called "Gunkanjima" that is hardly known even to the Japanese. Long ago, the island was nothing more than a small reef. Then in 1810, the chance discovery of coal drastically changed the fate of this reef. As reclamation began, people came to live here, and through coal mining the reef started to expand continuously. Before long, the reef had grown into an artificial island of one kilometer (three quarters of a mile) in perimeter, with a population of 5300. Eventually, the mines faced an end, and in 1974 the world's once most densely populated island become totally deserted. The island, after all its inhabitants departed leaving behind their belongings, became an empty shell of a city where all its people disappeared overnight, as if by some mysterious act of God.”" Link (Thanks, Philip!)  [via Boing Boing]

 

NYTimes: "Men who acknowledge having had homosexual sex within the previous five years will not be allowed to make anonymous sperm donations under new rules that the Food and Drug Administration is expected to announce today."

[via Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

Cory Doctorow (of Boing Boing) writes: 

I went and saw Troy, Brad Pitt's new men-in-skirts movie last night, at the big Odeon in Leicester Square, paying £10.50 for the privilege. Not that I begrudge it: apparently, acquiring the rights to the Iliad was very expensive, and they have to charge a small fortune to viewers if they hope to recoup.

I don't even begrudge them the 30 minutes' worth of commercials they subjected their captive audience to. Well, I did. But I didn't let it get to me.

What did get to me was this warning, shown before nearly every film in the UK:

"You are not permitted to use any camera or recording equipment in this cinema. This will be treated as an attempt to breach copyright. Any person doing so can be ejected and such articles may be confiscated by the police. We ask the audience to be vigilant against any such activity and report any matters arousing suspicion to cinema staff. Thank you."

Every time I see this, my blood boils. I just paid a fortune to see this movie, I've been subjected to 500 percent concession stand markup and half an hour of commercials and now you're going to give me a little lecture about how badly I'll get beaten up if I turn out to be a pirate, and ask me to snitch on my fellow moviegoers?

It's adding insult to injury, if you ask me. It's unforgivably rude.

So here's what I've started doing: whenever this warning is screened, I take a very obvious flash photo of it. I've done it twice now, and both times, I got a round of applause. You can do it too. If we all do it, if we all laugh and boo when this warning comes on, maybe the movie companies will get the picture. [via Boing Boing]

[Now Playing: Junior Jack - Thrill Me (12 Inch) - DMC Complete Dance Anthems Vol (06:14)]

 

Manuel Schmettau says:

"An artwork (video) by my friend Amy Jenkins, featuring her daughter breastfeeding and falling asleep, has been called "distasteful" and removed from an exhibition at Salvatore Ferragamo's 5th Avenue store. (Ferragamo originally invited Amy to create the piece for their store's art gallery on the second floor.)

When asked to "create an artwork using inspiration from objects in their store," Amy was promised complete artistic freedom. Hesitant at first, she explored the store and fell in love with a little pair of red shoes, which turned out to be called the "Audrey" shoes (they were originally designed for Audrey Hepburn.) As her daughter is also named Audrey, she felt it was fate to accept the invitation. It was not a commercial commission, and she financed the production of the video herself.

Amy would love to show this piece elsewhere, unfortunately it was made specially for their 42" widescreen monitor (a costly item that she doesn't own!) Her hope is that "The Audrey Samsara" will soon be shown at a more open-minded venue."

The New York Daily News ran an item about the controversy. Link

[via Boing Boing]

 

This may be the world's most minimalist flashlight: two high-intensity LEDs that snap over the end of a 9V battery! At $25, it seems a little steep, but the idea is very cool. Link (via Cool Tools)

Sony's Vaio UGN-U70

 

And a third surprise out of Sony today: a wireless tablet PC that’s not actually a Tablet PC (since it runs on the regular flavor of Windows rather than Windows XP Tablet PC Edition) and is just 2.6cm thick. The Vaio UGN-U70, which has a 1GHz processor, a 20GB hard drive, and built-in 802.11g WiFi, isn’t meant to be anybody’s main PC (its screen is rather small), but is pitched as a mobile multimedia machine for accessing watching videos, listening to music, reading ebooks, and looking at digital photos. We’re not sure about that Sony iPod, and there are plenty of other 17-inch laptops out there, but someone at Sony must have realized that this is exactly what we’ve been looking for. Now all they have to do is hurry up and release it outside of Japan.

[via Engadget]

[Now Playing: Da Hool - Meet Her At The Love Parade (F - DMC Complete Dance Anthems Vol (03:13)]

Adam Curry says: 

I didn't realize that Microsoft has a $5 million fund for bounties issued upon 'capture' of virus writers

[via Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

[Now Playing: Moodswings - Throw Off The Shackles - Moodfood [1992] (06:21)]

 

The Social Security Agency has released its list of top baby names for 2003. "Emily" continues to enjoy its eight-year stretch as the most popular girl name.

2003			1903
BOYS	GIRLS		BOYS	GIRLS
Jacob Michael Joshua Matthew Andrew Joseph Ethan Daniel Christopher Anthony	Emily Emma Madison Hannah Olivia Abigail Alexis Ashley Elizabeth Samantha		John William James George Joseph Charles Robert Frank Walter Henry	Mary Margaret Hel Anna Ruth Marie Elizabeth Florence Dorothy Lillian

Link (via Fark)

[Now Playing: Michael Gettel - Prelude: First Snow - Narada2 (02:51)]

 

We’ve been hearing about the wows of directional sound — those audio laser-like beam so focused that only the person caught in its narrow path can hear the sound — for a bit too long now. It was supposedly going to revolutionize everything from riot control to billboard advertising to museum displays, but no single contender has yet to claim and perfect the technology. But there’s been a growing sound feud between two inventors battling to reach the summit first and thus conquer the awaiting vast millions of dollars market share. Both Elwood “Woody” Norris, of American Technology Corporation (ATC) and F. Jospeh Pompei at Holosonic Research Labs have created parallel directional sound devices which harness the same principles and work in the same way — both systems use a signal processor, an amplifier and a platelike device that shoots out a beam of ultra sonic sound. 65-year-old Norris has a lifetime of audio patents and has gotten Sony to start selling his device in Europe, while Pompei has a shmancy MIT education and developed a prototype for Daimler Chrysler (though the prototype was sacked before manufacturing because the sound bounced back and forth across the seats). Since joining forces seems out of the question, each inventor is striving to outperform the other, making the devices smaller, better and more affordable than the $1,000 to $2,000 they are now.

[via Engadget]

[Now Playing: José Luis Encinas - Night In The South - Narada2 (05:01)]

 …in case you’re wanting to get started with RSS – here’s a good place to get your first feeds….

Reuters has launched a bunch of RSS feeds for its wire service. Link

[via Boing Boing]

 

This physics HOWTO explains a technique for verifying the speed of light using a microwave oven and a bunch of marshmallows.

[P]ut the dish of marshmallows in the microwave and cook on low heat. Microwaves do not cook evenly and the marshmallows will begin to melt at the hottest spots in the microwave. (I leaned this from our Food Science teacher Anita Cornwall.) Heat the marshmallows until they begin to melt in four or five different spots. Remove the dish from the microwave and observe the melted spots. Take the ruler and measure the distance between the melted spots. You will find that one distance repeats over and over. This distance will correspond to half the wavelength of the microwave, about 6 cm. Now turn the oven around and look for a small sign that gives you the frequency of the microwave. Most commercial microwaves operate at 2450 MHz.

All you do now is multiply the frequency by the wavelength. The product is the speed of light.

Link (via Making Light))

 

I'm not sure whether this "VW Bus Ball" sculpture is made out of an actual VW Bus, but who cares. It is wicked-cool. Link

 

"Moments In Love" is a wonderful aural history of chillout and ambient music, hosted by Chris Coco. The hour-long BBC Radio 2 documentary covers a tremendous amount of material, from Erik Satie to Brian Eno to Air.

"Chillout is a state of mind. It's making space in your head to enjoy the setting and the sounds. It's a long drink on a long sunny day. It's a moment taken to appreciate the beauty of the simplest things. And it's even better with a decent soundtrack."

The link on the "Moments In Love" page to the archived program is incorrect, but here's the correct one. Link (Thanks, Morris!) [via Boing Boing]