Wired:

The Nexus is particularly important to Google because it is the company’s flagship smartphone…Google, and every other tech company, desperately wants to keep these sorts of details secret for competitive reasons until they’re ready to announce them.But, on the night of Sept. 20, Google wasn’t fighting the internet. It was up against a bartender, and Brian Katz, global investigations and intelligence manager at Google (according to his LinkedIn profile — “Google does not discuss the actions of its security team,” a representative says) was headed to the 500 Club.

Sounds ridiculously familiar. Google can’t help but copy Apple, can they?

Don’t lie – half of you are trying to figure out ways to scare your kids with this trick.

Advertising Age:

You may never be able to try lembas — a fictional bread that Frodo subsisted on through part of his journey to Mordor in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy — but Denny’s thinks it might have the next best thing. The company is about to roll out a Middle-Earth-inspired menu as part of a tie-in with “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.”Menu items include 11 breakfast, lunch and dinner items such as “Hobbit Hole Breakfast,” “Frodo’s Pot Roast Skillet,” “Gandalf’s Gobble Melt” and the “Build Your Own Hobbit Slam,” which includes limited-time items such as “Shire Sausage.”

I don’t eat at Denny’s now. I sure won’t be going in for this.

Having lived in the South for a period of time, I can tell you that this video is not the least bit surprising or unusual.

Yahoo! Homes:

In what world does a two-bedroom apartment cost $50 million?Why, Midtown Manhattan, of course.Naturally, this apartment at 50 Central Park South is no ordinary two-bedroom apartment. For one thing, it’s bigger than you might imagine for a two-bedroom. But it’s also smaller than you might imagine for $50 million, at 4,500 square feet. Even by Manhattan luxury standards, we’d say that’s worthy of a double-take, or at least a surprised blink: $11,000 per square foot.Apartment 33 occupies a full floor at the Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park, one of just a dozen residences at the Central Park Ritz.

Hard to imagine an “apartment” being worth that kind of money but then again, like the old saying goes, “The rich are different from you and I.”

Wineanorak:

It all starts in the forest. Cork oaks are harvested every nine years, once they reach maturity. It doesn’t harm the tree, and the cork bark regrows. Most cork forests are in Portugal and Spain.

Cork is one of those things you never think about but, when it comes up and you read a story like this, you discover it’s actually kind of fascinating. For example, it never occurred to me that cork was actually tree bark.

The Seattle Times:

Seattle can’t limit distribution of yellow-pages phone books with an opt-out registry, and it can’t charge a fee to publishers who want to leave commercial directories on your porch, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday.The court ruled the city’s law is unconstitutional, saying yellow pages are protected, like other publications, by the First Amendment.

Even though more than 79,000 people wanted to opt out, Seattle, like a lot of places, can’t seem to stop the flood of various yellow pages-type directories that show up on our doors. I don’t know of anyone who likes them or anyone who uses them enough to justify not being allowed to opt out of having them tossed on our doorsteps.

Huffington Post:

A BBC film crew was detained after it breached the back gate of the top secret military facility known as Area 51 while filming a new documentary about UFO conspiracy theories.During the incident in the Nevada desert, a camouflage-dressed guard carrying an M-16 told a member of the British team, “We could make you disappear and your body will never be found,” according to a crew member.“Eight guards wearing combat fatigues immediately came out with their assault rifles and they grabbed us, forced us to the ground and we were all made to lie facedown in a row on the tarmac with a gun at our back.”

You intentionally ignored signage and walked onto a top secret US government base? I’d say you’re pretty luck to A) not be in jail or 2) not be in a shallow grave out in Area 51.

Los Angeles Times:

The space shuttle Endeavour made its final journey last weekend, traveling 12-miles from Los Angeles International Airport, through Inglewood, to the California Science Center in Exposition Park.

This is a very cool time lapse video of the trip. Some of the views of the neighborhoods it passed through are fascinating. Thanks to Tom Negrino for the link.

Esquire:

Red Bull Stratos was, by all criteria, a PR triumph. Fifty television channels covered the jump live, seven-million people watched it stream online, and @redbullstratos has 235,000 followers and counting. But beyond the dazzle, beyond the slickness and the spectacle, is Felix’s achievement really that important?

I won’t ruin the writer’s conclusion for you but what do you think? Was it “just” a corporate sponsored PR stunt? A “leap” forward to science? Something else?

io9: New York Comic-Con is officially over, but the glorious cosplay images live on forever! We saw a whole heap of crazy innovative costumes this year such as Lady Blue Beetle, a gang of Neverending Story cosplayers, a few Korras, … Continued

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WIRED:

For most of the demo, we were running between 5 and 10 watts of power into the LS Concerts — all that’s required to drive the speakers this light and fast. Even at that level, they were loud. Like, really loud. We were pushing roughly 120 decibels out of the LS Concerts, and the sound was absolutely glorious.Tim reluctantly turned it down a few notches when a candle came tumbling off the fireplace mantle.

Holy crap. I’d never pay that kind of money for “just” a set of speakers but I’d really like to hear what they sound like in that kind of environment.

CNET:

To encourage repeat viewings of his latest flick, writer-director Rian Johnson released an audio commentary track that you can listen to on your iPod.The director of the sci-fi action movie “Looper” wants you to bring an iPod into the theater to listen to details of how each scene was filmed.In a Tumblr post, Johnson, who also directed the AMC TV show “Breaking Bad,” provides a downloadable MP3 file to be played during the movie.

This is a really interesting idea and I wonder if it will catch on. I’m a huge fan of commentary tracks on DVDs.

Huffington Post:

There are large phone bills and then there are insane phone bills. Solenne San Jose, a woman from Pessac, in the Bordeaux region of France, received an utterly insane one.After she terminated a contract with the phone company Bouygues Telecom early, San Jose was told that she would have to pay a cancellation fee. The bill she received was for a mind-blowing €11,721,000,000,000,000, the Herald Sun reported. That’s around $15 quadrillion.

The best line in the story is, “San Jose had a hard time convincing the phone company that was the case.” WHY!? How hard should it be for even a mindless bureaucrat to acknowledge that the bill might just be incorrect?

ThinkGeek:

A Candwich Canned Sandwich is one tasty DIY treat, just waiting for you to crack it open. When you pop the top of your Candwich Canned Sandwich, you’ll hear an audible hiss of magic, and out will spill the contents to make one yummy sandwich. And best of all, each Candwich Canned Sandwich has a 1 year shelf life…

I almost threw up just reading about this.

The Guardian:

Scientists from Newcastle University have drawn up a table of the least pleasant sounds we may encounter as part of everyday life.They tested reactions to 74 different noises both in outward response and more closely via small changes in the brain.The results are published in the latest issue of the Journal of Neuroscience and show, among other things, that acoustically anything in the frequency range of around 2,000 to 5,000 Hz was found to be unpleasant.

I’m not going to tell you what they are – you’ll have to click through to see for yourself. Then, you will be forced to listen to them out of curiosity. Then you will find yourself in pain – just like I was.

New York Times:

Zipping around on a motorcycle can be fun, but being in a downpour or an accident on one is not. Driving a car is safer and more comfortable, but traffic and parking can be annoying. What if you got rid of the bad parts of both?You might end up with something like the C-1, an electric motorcycle that looks as if it came out of the movie “Tron.”

As a rider myself, I have a hard time calling this thing a motorcycle but as a “single person urban transport vehicle”, it’s kind of interesting. Make sure you watch the video from the company to see how the fascinating gyroscopes work to keep the “rubber side down”. It will be interesting to see if this ever becomes a real shipping product.

Wired:

Watch as Oracle Team USA CEO Russell Coutts, a four-time America’s Cup winner, flips an AC45 in a practice race last summer. The AC45, named for its length, is 70 feet tall, 22.6 feet wide and weighs 3,086 pounds. Now consider that the boats racing in next year’s Cup finals are twice as big and have a top speed north of 30 knots.

The big cats are back on the Bay.

I’m not a fan of Larry Ellison but I think he deserves props for livening up the America’s Cup Series. As much as I loved the “old boats”, these new ones are like F1 race cars – hi-tech and dangerous. I’ve seen some of the racing on TV and the new “yachts” are amazing and the new rules are designed to make the racing a real live TV sporting event. I wish Ellison luck.

Vice:

Maritimers communicate with one another like young twins that invent gibberish language. For starters, Maritimers speak at a speed that can only be compared to an episode of Gilmore Girls cast with leprechauns on crank.Here are a few tips if you ever want to try and converse with someone from Tatamagouche.

I had tears in my eyes reading this. I love my home province but there’s no doubt – we talk funny sometimes.

If you’ve hung around The Loop’s Publisher long enough for him to have sucked back a few Heineken, you’ll have been lucky enough to hear some of these. And I’ll admit to talking way too fast at times, too.

Hat tip to the @beardsdaughter for the link!

The Weather Channel:

During the upcoming 2012-13 winter season The Weather Channel will name noteworthy winter storms. Our goal is to better communicate the threat and the timing of the significant impacts that accompany these events. The fact is, a storm with a name is easier to follow, which will mean fewer surprises and more preparation.

Winter is coming.

Hurricanes have been given individual names for years and those fancy pants Europeans have been naming winter storms since the 1950’s. The list of names is interesting too – I can’t wait for that storm with the K name so we can all look skyward and scream, “KHHAAAANNNN!!!”

TechHive:

The new Kindle Paperwhite is a dramatic update inside and out, one with fully redesigned software and an appealing integrated light that makes the Kindle more usable in any environment.

While I prefer the iPad, Amazon is doing a great job with the Kindle line. The reviews for the Kindle Paperwhite have all been quite complimentary. I’ve recommended various Kindles to any number of people who don’t need the full feature set or functionality of the iPad.

BuzzFeed:

Home decor for the inner nerd in all of us.

Come on, admit it. You’d like at least half of these in your own nerd pad, wouldn’t you? I love #2 but #6 would make me break the door down.

OhGizmo!:

Admittedly, the thing is pretty awesome, if only because it’s so ridiculous looking. But it’s also sort of smart. It’s a pillow with an opening for your hands, and for your mouth and nose. Your eyes are covered and your head is cushioned whether you decide to plop your noggin down on your desk or sleep in the airplane.

I’ve always wanted a foolproof “Dork Detector” and, if you’re using/wearing this, there’s no doubt – you are an absolute dork!