Hilarious new Old Spice commercial

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I have long been a fan of the quirky, special effects laden Old Spice commercials. This new one is now my all-time favorite.

Home crowd disagrees with ref’s call but respects his decision

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Gotta love the Onion! INDIANAPOLIS—Following a controversial call Saturday, the home crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium told reporters that they disagree with the referee but respect his decision. “‘Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit’ is something you might mindlessly chant at a time … Continued

The man who buys headstones for blues musicians

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Steven Salter has made it his mission in life to find unmarked graves of blues musicians and mark them with a headstone. You can follow the headline link to read about Steven and the project, watch the video below, and make a donation through his web site.

Bizarre marijuana hoax in Colorado

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Last November, voters in Colorado passed Amendment 64, which approved limited growth, distribution and regulated sale of pot in the state.

On the first day the new amendment went into effect, January 2nd, the Daily Currant, a spoof newspaper, ran this story, claiming that 37 people died as a direct result of this law.

Phil Everly dies at 74

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If you are not familiar with the Everly brothers, you are certainly familiar with the bands and singers upon whom they’ve had a profound influence, bands like the Beatles and Beach Boys. Here’s a very young Phil and Don Everly singing Bye, Bye, Love.

The case for open robotics

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As technology evolves, it frequently faces a fork in the road, a choice between becoming open or closed. We’re used to this choice with software. We now have to make this choice for robotics.

The skinny on incandescent bulbs

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Incandescent light bulbs are on the way out. But not right this second. A US law, passed in 2007, has made it illegal to manufacture or import incandescent bulbs that do not meet the new efficiency standards.

Reddit’s tips for AppleTV owners

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Reddit user DeepWoods got a new AppleTV for Christmas and started a thread asking for cool tips. As always, Reddit replied. If you’ve got an AppleTV, follow the headline link and dig in.

Polydimethylsiloxane + sand = FUN

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This has been around for a while, but is new to me. So deliciously awesome! Polydimethylsiloxane (or PDMS) is used in lots of products, from chicken nuggets and fries, to caulk, to shampoo. This use is my favorite.

Adding items to the Finder sidebar

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Though this is likely old hat to many of you, I thought this was worth passing along for folks new to Mavericks or to the sidebar.

Before Mavericks, to add a file to the Finder sidebar, you simply dragged it over and released it. Easy to remember, easy to perform. The down side was accidentally adding items to the sidebar. Not a big problem, but it’s happened to me.

With Mavericks, Apple changed the way this works. If you drag a file to the sidebar, you can drop it into a folder stored in the sidebar, but releasing the file won’t add it to the sidebar itself.

AnandTech review of the new Mac Pro

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This is the review I’ve been waiting for. When I am in the market for a new camera, I always make my way to dpreview.com. Anand Lal Shimpi brings the same level of geeky goodness to his reviews.

Mac Pro teardown from iFixit

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The new Mac Pro is built to be taken apart. This well-executed teardown from iFixit shows off the engineering excellence behind the Mac Pro design.

The teardown starts by removing the cover. Slide the lock-switch, pull off the cover. So easy. Truly a thing of beauty.

Sydney Harbour Bridge New Year’s Eve fireworks

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Ever since I was a kid, I was always fascinated with people celebrating New Years while I was still patiently waiting my turn. Here’s video from Sydney, Australia, counting down to 2014. New Year’s Eve in Sydney is definitely on my bucket list. Enjoy!

Zappos reorganizing with flatter “holarchy”

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Always interesting to see successful companies experiment with new methods of organization. As companies grow in size, the lines of communication grow more complex. The hierarchical tree structure is the most commonly adopted solution, but it brings in a host of problems of its own.

iOS 7 now installed on 78% of active Apple devices

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Last Friday, we posted a link to a graphic that detailed the process HTC goes through to vet new versions of Android. The multi-company hoops that need leaping, as well as the incredible number of devices that need to be tested, are both barriers to adoption of new Android revs and contributors to fragmentation.

Apple has announced their latest adoption rates for iOS 7. 78% is a huge number.

Krugman on Bitcoin

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Interesting take on the economics behind Bitcoin. At the heart is a quote from this article:

Underpinning the value of gold is that if all else fails you can use it to make pretty things. Underpinning the value of the dollar is a combination of (a) the fact that you can use them to pay your taxes to the U.S. government, and (b) that the Federal Reserve is a potential dollar sink and has promised to buy them back and extinguish them if their real value starts to sink at (much) more than 2%/year (yes, I know).

CERN announces first Lego scavenger hunt

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This is so awesome!

Hidden among the racks of servers and disks in the CERN Computing Centre, you’ll find Hawaiian dancers, space aliens, gorillas… all LEGO® figurines! These characters were placed about the Centre for the arrival of Google’s Street View team for the world to discover.