http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/343941833/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/23/texas-memory-breaks-records-budgets-with-blisteringly-fast-rams/

Filed under: Storage

Texas Memory has been around longer than most of you readers have been alive (or so we're told by our resident omniscient overlord), but it's been quite awhile since it was talked about freely in the same breath as WD, Fujitsu, Samsung, et al. Now, however, the company is making the rounds once more thanks to its "record setting" RamSan-440, which provides between 256GB and 512GB of RAM-based SSD storage, 600,000 IOPS, 4,500MB/sec random sustained external throughput and latency under 15-microseconds. The entire rig arrives in a 90-pound 4U rack-mount enclosure and claims to be "the first SSD to use RAIDed NAND flash memory modules for data backup." Chances are, you were already bracing to hear a pretty ludicrous figure when it comes to pricing, but $150,000 for the 256GB edition and $275,000 for the 512GB iteration? Please -- we'll take a Lightning GT, thanks.

[Via DailyTech]

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/343943472/band-features-two-ke.html

In the late 1990s, Jeff Simmermon formed a band with two chickens as members. This is his story.

The keyboard players in my band were spacier than Sun Ra, more abstract than John Coltrane and brought more sheer, squalid anarchy to the stage than GG Allin and the Sex Pistols combined. When they weren’t playing music they were either feeding, fighting, or shitting on the floor – and they managed to do a lot of that onstage, too. But they didn’t just act like barnyard animals, they were barnyard animals: the keyboard players in my band were two chickens named Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline.

I played percussion on a modified vintage typewriter miked up loud enough to sound like the thunder of an angry God. At that volume, the space bar and shift keys rumbled like a kick drum, and the letter keys snapped like a tight snare. My friend Tim, the band’s other human being played the guitar and bass semi-simultaneously, wearing the guitar up by his collarbone and the bass slung low at his hips – he’d loop the bass notes through a pedal and play rhythm guitar against himself while I thumped and cracked the typewriter. Once we hit a stride of sorts, we’d pull a blanket off the top of the cage where Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline sat with two little Casio Keyboards.

We’d glue chicken feed to the keys we wanted them to hit the most, the ones in tune with Tim. But really, whatever the chickens played was up to them – we just tried to follow along as best we could. We told ourselves that we were influenced by classic country, John Cage, dub reggae and Gonzo the Great. But really, we just tried to create listenable backing rhythms while two birds with brains the size of your pinkie nail took center stage.

Brainless Barnyard Keyboards: The Short Saga of Royal Quiet Deluxe, Chicken Band.
(If you just want to hear what the music sounds like, listen to "Royal Quiet Deluxe" here.)

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/343943473/iphone-forensics-boo.html

iPhone Forensics: Recovering Evidence, Personal Data & Corporate Assets is a new book from O'Reilly Media that "gives IT professionals, security personnel, and law enforcement the knowledge needed to conduct forensic analysis of an iPhone."

Looks useful if you plan to sell your old iPhone.

This book shows the reader how to recover sensitive information from the device and perform disaster recovery, and walks the reader through various scenarios for recovering different types of information. With this guide, the reader will be able to effectively recover live, lost, or deleted email, photos, voicemail, Google Maps searches, typing cache, and other sensitive data retained by the iPhone. The reader will learn advanced techniques including data recovery, properly preserving and preparing evidence, and technical techniques such as bypassing basic passcode security or recovering data even after a full restore (by say, a disgruntled employee). Finally, the reader will learn how to properly wipe an iPhone clean of all data for resale or reissue - something Apple's own restore process fails to do.

(Disclosure: I'm editor-in-chief of MAKE, which is published by O'Reilly.)

iPhone Forensics: Rough Cuts Version

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/343943474/garden-yeti.html

Last night, the Imaginary Foundation presented me with this beautiful gift, "Bigfoot, the Garden Yeti Sculpture." Available from Design Toscano, it stands almost two and a half feet tall and is made from hand-painted resin. My 2.5 year-old-son was slightly scared of the creature at first, but then he cautiously walked up, examined him closely, and finally patted him on the head and said "Nice Bigfoot! Bigfoot is nice!"
Bigfoot statue (Thanks, Nick Philip!)

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/343925711/keith-barrys-brain-m.html

I enjoyed this video of Keith Barry performing feats of "brain magic" at TED.

First, Keith Barry shows us how our brains can fool our bodies -- in a trick that works via podcast too. Then he involves the audience in some jaw-dropping (and even a bit dangerous) feats of brain magic.

Link (Thanks, Wellington!)

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/343905759/art-of-jeffrey-t-lar.html

Here's a nice appreciation for the work of Minnesota artist Jeffrey T. Larson. His work reminds me of my favorite painter, John Singer Sargent.

My favorites of Larson’s paintings, though, are his landscapes (bearing in mind that most of his figurative paintings are also landscapes in effect). These force me to resort to those overused terms “fresh” and “immediate” because nothing else sums them up quite as succinctly.

His landscapes evoke the dappled sunlight on an intimate creek or the cool haze of a winter sky with beautifully efficient brush strokes and a subtle handling of color variation. He’s chosen a position on the spectrum of tight to loose rendering that I find particularly appealing.

Something I found of special interest in Larson’s work is they way he constructs the image with the direction and shape of his brushstrokes. He isn’t just dabbing color in, filling in shapes with slapdash blots of paint, he’s drawing with his brushstrokes, defining the shapes of objects in same way lines and textures applied in a drawing can follow and define the form. (This is a characteristic I particularly associate with painters like Sargent or Cecilia Beaux.)

Art of Jeffryy T. Larson (Lines and Colors)

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/07/robotic_marinelife_of_shi.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

Seen @ Santa Monica's Glow arts event - EX-SE-08 by artist Shih Chieh Huang combines video, lights, fans and plastics to create the undulating life-like robotic sculpture seen above. - Shih Chieh Huang [via NOTCOT]

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http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/07/electric_pick_synth.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

Here's an interesting device that makes use of an oft neglected part of the guitar playing interface, the pick -

1- The pick itself is a passive circuit that has apercussive attack at the output. This signalcan be routed to any pedal or effect forinteresting results. This signal can alsotrigger MIDI notes through devices with CV input

2- The Synth is a light sensitive oscillator circuit thatis controlled by the pick with a photo-cell and contactto the guitar. It has a switchable range capableof "low creaks" sweeping to "high screams".It runs on a 9volt battery and has abuilt in speaker.

The unit is seated near the tail of the guitarbehind the bridge. The guitar contact hookupwire is connected to the bridge.The pick's natural plucking produces the attackat the pick output. The synth voice is "cut" when astring is struck and the photo-cell varies thepitch at the synth output.

Utilizing the 'clicks' for rhythm seems interesting on its own. [via Synthtopia]

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For example, lotusdragon may find an Amazon tidbit at the Bean West.

n00b question time!

I've been kind of grappling with the idea of whether or not I'm asexual or whether I just have other issues for the past oh... 4 or 5 YEARS probably, ever since I left high school for college and found my dating situation even more empty than that of high school (that being one severe crush that almost became a relationship but it never happened due to a variety of mostly stupid circumstances). Thing is, I only really had two REAL serious crushes ever in high school and no relationships, and I still haven't had a relationship and I'm into my fifth year of college now (yay changing majors).

While I know for sure my sex drive is definitely LOW, I can't help but wonder if my continuing issues with relationships stems from genuine lack of interest or fear of intimacy and expectations. And then those fear and anxieties compound on themselves because I know that if I did get into a relationship ever I wouldn't know wtf I was doing and the other person might get frustrated with me for being unwilling to really throw myself into it.

So. That was long and convoluted. I guess my main, simple question is: How do you know you're genuinely not interested in sex/relationships and aren't just hung up on fear/anxiety about it? Because I'm not sure what my deal is. =\

http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/343919194/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/23/sony-reader-pre-order-now-live-in-the-uk-shipping-in-september/

Filed under: Displays

We Americans have had the opportunity to pick up Sony's Reader for what seems like eons, but you poor bookworms holed up in the UK have been neglected unjustly. No more, as Sony has just opened up the phone lines for folks eager to claim their spot in line the queue. No need in rehashing the specifications you already know -- it's still the same ole PRS-505, just way more expensive in US dollars.

[Via MobileRead, thanks Alex]

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http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/343898301/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/23/really-really-tweak-your-ride-the-unidrive-has-arrived/

Filed under: Transportation

Not content with simply creating bizarre, high-end sports cars, Spanish automaker IFR Automotive has unveiled a steering wheel-embedded computer that can electronically alter the way in which a car performs. Dubbed the Unidrive, the touchscreen-driven device (which appears to have been in development for some time) will provide instant access to tweaking the valve timing, rev limit, ride height, ABS, and a variety of other car-nerd trivialities that only a true grease-monkey could really understand. The in-car end of the system will interact directly with chassis and engine functions, even allowing for unique states that can be tuned to individual driver's tastes. Currently the technology is poised to be employed in the company's forthcoming £75,000 (about $150,000) Aspid car -- no word on if this will make it into your next Escort. [Warning: read link is a PDF, and in Spanish]

[Via The Register]

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So, you know those soft toothbrushes?

And the gentle use of diluted hydrogen peroxide (minimum dilution for standard store-boughten = 1/2 water, to avoid irritation) as a mouth rinse?

And that most bacteria in the mouth live toward the back of the tongue And Beyond!?

And those kitchen brushes for cleaning inside tall narrow glasses and the like?

And how people can learn to insert swords or other phallic objects into their throats?

That's right! The throat brush! A soft, gentle brush that you dip in diluted H₂O₂, and then twirl, twirl, twirl toward hygienic freedom in your mouth-throat-breath complex!

The deluxe model has a circulating liquid SquirterSucker® center that delivers the precisely-warmed peroxide and an after-brushing water rinse, carrying away foam, bacterial corpses, and excess liquid, to be disposed of properly in a NIMH-approved biohazard incinerator. I'll make millions!

Void where prohibited by maw.

http://twitter.com/thirtysix/statuses/866488485

thirtysix: Wish me luck getting actual significant quantity and quality of sleep tonight. Would like to have a day where I feel at all functional.

http://twitter.com/thirtysix/statuses/866457135

thirtysix: I've now seen the Watchmen trailer ...OMG it looks like they might actually be doing this film right! ...now I just have to wait a year ...

http://twitter.com/thirtysix/statuses/866453585

thirtysix: Just watched last week's Gadget Show, I think we've got to the point where technology is really starting to resemble sci-fi film props...

I feel like crap today. All these early mornings at work and late nights out have finally caught up with me and I am feeling quite fluey.

Not much else to post other than just to say, hooray! The graduation ceremonies are finally out of the way!

Oh, and I seem to be incapable of avoiding former Big Brother contestants from series 7. Today I saw Sezer outside a pub in Moorgate. He was wearing a suit and drinking with other suited guys so I guess he's now working in business or banking.

My editor just sent me a link to a review of CROOKED LITTLE VEIN at Ain’t It Cool News, coinciding with the paperback release.  AICN would be pretty much the last place I’d expect to get reviewed.  I haven’t read it yet, but, still, very nice of them to take the time, I thought…

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

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(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)