Pat's Cool Stories

This is a great joke on the part of the Mozilla foundation. Take that, evil IE! Who doth not render as thou ought.

See it here - http://www.ie7.com/

A circular pool with wave generators. Sounds interesting already, doesn't it? Well, even more interesting is that through a series of controlled wave pulses, a professor at Osaka University has been able to write on the surface of the water. Check out the article for a picture of an "S" and a better description.

Read all about it

Want an extra drive on your Windows computer? If you have a Gmail account, you can. Download and install this extension, then log in, and poof! Instant storage. Best part is you can access your files through the regular email interface. Very cool stuff, indeed.

Download and install here

Here's a map of the stars that you can click around on just like inside a planetarium. Enjoy!

See some stars

This remote for any dock connector iPod allows you to control it from up to 150 feet away. Big deal, you say? Wait, it gets better. It includes a little LCD display that lets you see what's playing, change the volume, etc. Very cool, though at $140 a little pricey. What can you expect from Hammacher Schlemmer, though?

Check it out

Apparently, the Russians have possibly created a battery that runs on both solar and stellar power. That's right. Through some new high-tech compound, this battery can harness the power of stars. If this is true, I hope it leads to a Star Trek-esque future.

Read it here

A little-known cell company known as Vectrotel is releasing a phone that features unbreakable encryption. Very cool and James Bond-esque. I would buy one, except I don't have any free capital or secrets that require this level of protection. I'm thinking "Da Vinci Code" here...

Click to read the story

Apparently, shopkeepers in England have been installing a device known as a Mosquito in front of shops to discourage teenagers from hanging out there. The noise the device emits can only be heard by those under 20ish. Teenagers have recorded the sound though and are using it as their ringtone so that teachers don't know when they're receiving a text message during class.

Read it here

The site is called information, but it might as well be called hypnotizing because that's what it is. It starts with the image of a man. You then click on a region, and it zooms in and shows things in a little more detail. You click again, and you begin to see that the image is made up of a collage of other images, arranged to form the original picture. Keep on click; the possibilities are nearly endless. Just go and see it, as this description does not do it justice.

Visit and click away...

This is a very cool use of the Google Maps API. Click on anywhere in the country and via what I believe to be AJAX, a forecast for that latitude and longitude appears. Love the point and click simplicity.

Visit WeatherMole and try it out

According to this report, scientists have found a mouse that will not get cancer, no matter how hard they have tried to give it to it. When the blood from that mouse was injected into other mice with cancer, the cancers in the mice were completely wiped out. Is this one of the holy grails of modern science? We'll wait and see.

Read the story here

This family has been banned from an "All you can eat" chinese buffet restaurant for wasting food. How redneck can ya get?

Read more here

What if there was a little piece of software lurking on your computer that allowed somebody else who you don't even know to use it for unsavory purposes? Maybe even steal your credit card information? This is a botnet, a new internet security risk. Read the article below to find out more about what they are, how they operate, and what to do to see if you're at risk.

Read the full article here

Here are some maps of the United States that show the distribution of the various religions and faiths. The statistics and regions of influence are very interesting to look at. Take a look today.

Check out the maps here

Apparently, the iPod has become so popular and ubiquitous that people are making cheap knockoffs and trying to pass them off as the real thing. The only thing even moderately convincing about the fake ones is the packaging, as any hard-core Apple fanatic could tell you immediately what is wrong with any of the counterfeit models. Check out the article for more details and pictures.

Read the article and see the pictures here

This is a funny video about the war between the browsers. Watch and see.

Watch the video on YouTube here

Have you ever been sitting there typing and realized that your hands are really cold? Wouldn't it be great if there was a USB device to keep them warm for you? Now there is! Among the list of others, a disco ball, aquarium, and toothbrush. Let's get serial!

Check out the list here

This is a cool and useless thing: a USB drive that expands or contracts depending on how much data you have on it. Now it's almost like you can see the bits.

Click here for more

I had forgotten that/never knew that this thing existed! It's apparently and Apple-designed CD player. This is a must see (and must have, if you're lucky) for any Mac fan. I'm sure you can find these suckers for a mint on eBay or from collectors. Check out that parallel port... rowr...

Check it out

Sometimes plain text just doesn't cut it. If you're thinking to yourself, "Hey, I'm a Mac user, so my Mail signature should be as unique and creative as I am!" then you're in luck. Read this article to find out how to create your own custom CSS signature.

Click here to learn how to make your own...

This is why you've gotta think on your feet, guys. According to this article based on a survey of speed dating, women tend to make a judgement in the first 30 seconds of contact as to whether we're good boyfriend/husband material or not. According to the article, the number one thing that impresses them to talk about is travel; the least: movies. And don't try any hackneyed pickup lines either. Boy, I'm in trouble...

Read the bad news here...

Ever wish you could record a browsing session and then send it to someone else? Well now you can! This is a very cool, useful implementaion of AJAX; there are some rendering problems, though. Oh well. Nothing's perfect. But this is still pretty nifty.

Click to visit Tapefailure.com

It only took them 1,970 years, but scientists at Carnegie Mellon have created a robot that walks on water. It's a cool idea, but... it's been done before. :)

Read it here

Contrary to popular belief, the internet is not infinite. It has a set number of sites, organized through domain names, and while the possiblities seem nearly endless for practical use, the numbers are in fact finite. Read the article for the number of active domain names.

Read it here

Okay, this is neat: someboy made a mostly working copy of a Mac SE out of Flash. It's even got After Dark on it! How cool is that? Boot it up for a taste of nostalgia. Ahhhh System 7.1 ...

Take a look here