Mark Frauenfelder: 
ihumpedyourhummer.com has videos of people humping other people’s Hummers. Link (Thanks, rosemary!)
Videos of people humping hummers
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TrackbackDavid Pescovitz: The quality of premium badminton shuttlecocks have suffered from a feather shortage resulting from bird flu. Apparently, the best of these birdies are imported from China where a single goose might provide only two feathers. From the Los Angeles Times:
“I believe the problem is potentially considerable,” said Torsten Berg, the official bird flu spokesman for the International Badminton Federation.
The shortage has been particularly felt in Southern California, home to some of the country’s best players, coaches and clubs.
Prices on premium shuttlecocks, which cost up to $25 for a tube of a dozen, have risen 25% in the last few months.
Manufacturers are competing for the limited feathers, and players are scrambling to buy the best birdies in bulk, further restricting supply.
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Reuters - An American collector has bought Paul McCartney’s first acoustic guitar for 330,000 pounds ($614,000) at auction.
McCartney’s first guitar sold for $614,000 (Reuters)
Comments rss TrackbackCory Doctorow: 
I don’t know anything for sure about this image of a Hello Kitty-themed Darth Vader outfit (it’s been suggested that it came from the San Diego Comic Con), though, honestly, what is there to say that the photo doesn’t say for itself? JPEG Link (Thanks, Patrick!)
Update: Count Dookie sez, “That Sanrio Darth Vader is a quick Photoshop I did for a thread on The Dented Helmet, a Boba Fett prop-making site.”
Hello Kitty Darth Vader costume
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Got some cool bottlecaps laying around? Make ‘em into bottlecap magnets.
All you need is a hot glue gun, magnets (any craft store has them), and funky bottlecaps. Don’t need magnets? You can also make your bottlecaps into thumb tacks - a great way to spruce up that boring old bulletin board.
Weekend Project: Bottlecap magnets
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Digital photography tutorial site Photojojo has a great howto on fixing the exposure in a photo that has too-dark or too-light sections, like pictures taken by a bright doorway or window.
This howto is good; even Photoshop idiots like me can see how easy it is with a great, narrated video showing the steps in action. After watching it and trying out the technique myself (with much success!) I feel like much less of a Photoshop dummy.
Comments rss TrackbackOur recent blog editor poll revealed just how many editors there are out there.
Though the majority of people use an online editor, the most voted desktop editors were the Performancing for Firefox editor, followed by w.bloggar and Ecto. Also, many commenters said that they used BlogJet.
Not all of these editors are free, not all are cross-platform and not all are WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get).
The Performancing extension scored as the highest desktop blog editor on our poll. Performancing is a free Firefox extension which allows you to draft and publish posts. It has support for del.icio.us, Technorati, pingbacks/trackbacks and FTP. Performancing is convenient due to the fact that it runs inside Firefox.
w.bloggar is a freeware desktop blog editor for Windows. w.bloggar isn’t a WYSIWYG editor, meaning you have to write the HTML (or use the buttons to do it for you), instead of writing a post in a way you would write a Word document. Interestingly, w.bloggar lets you either choose to preview through a Mozilla-based preivew, or an Internet Explorer based one. w.bloggar supports trackbacks, pingbacks, FTP and most blogging platforms. Also, it colour codes the HTML.
Ecto is a shareware desktop blog editor, costing $17.95, for Windows and Mac. It, like w.bloggar, is WYSIWYG. The features of the editor vary based upon the operating system. One useful feature both have is the thumbnailing of images, this saves a lot of work messing around creating them manually.
BlogJet is another piece of shareware, for Windows, costing $39.95. BlogJet is WYSIWYG, and integrates with flickr, web browsers, and various media players. Also, BlogJet allows you to add audio attachments to posts and transmission over OpenSSL.
There are other blog editors: Qumana, Zoundry and Flock’s built-in blog editor are examples. Also, the next version of Microsoft Word allows posting to blogs.
Desktop blog editor comparison
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If you’ve got a CD or DVD that feels slimy or sticky, try this tip from technology blogger Amit Agarwal:
If the DVD surface feels sticky or greasy, mix some baby shampoo in lukewarm water and use cotton or soft cloth to gently rub the CD surface with this solution. Make sure the CD is completely dry (no water drops) before putting it back in the jewel case.
This actually really works; you can also use plain old liquid dish soap if you have nothing else on hand.
Clean sticky CD’s with baby shampoo
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Hot sleepless nights could be a thing of the past with the Chillow. Either slip the soft pad into your pillow or rest your head on it directly to achieve maximum comfort. The core of the chillow is combined with water to provide years..
Chillow - cool pillows for hot nights
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Reuters - A fishing town has banned the sport of conger cuddling after an animal activist complained.
Net closes on conger cuddling (Reuters)
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