Boo!

It's that time of year, where kids dress up and beg for candy. I'm too old for that now (I get to buy my candy in the store), so now it's the time of year to make cool scary stuff. Make magazine has a fantastic Halloween Special Issue out, with instructions for all sorts of cool do-it-yourself projects. Everything from easy devil horns, to servo-controlled zombies. It's also available in book stores (with a different cover).

I also saw this neat trick online... making a magic mirror to hand out candy. Basically you frame a monitor attached to a Mac or PC running this voice activated program, that creates a floating ghoulish mask that matches your voice. There are other versions, but they're not free.

Terrible Lizard / Teriffic Staple Remover

Artist Jac Zagoory makes a whole series of silvery office supplies, including a "Write no Evil" pen holder, a pen with a built-in notepad, and an Atlas card holder.

My favorites are his series of skull staple removers, especially the T-Rex.

Aaaaieeeee!

The Wilhelm Scream is one of those Hollywood inside jokes. Originally recorded in 1951's "Distant Drums" and reused in 1953's "The Charge at Feather River", it's a scream for when someone is hurt so much that they don't mind letting out a high-pitched yelp.

After a few more movie recurrences, it was noticed by sound designer Ben Burtt, who took it as his signature and snuck it into dozens of movies, including all of the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" films.

The next time you see a movie, listen carefully, and if you're lucky you might hear it.



Here's another video showing the scream in more recent movies.

Eco-friendly PC

I'm currently building a server at home, which is somewhat of a power-hog, especially compared to the Fit PC. Crammed into a tiny fanless case, it will run your standard OS and apps, while consuming less than 5 watts of power. Granted, it's somewhat underpowered, but it's adequate for basic tasks like e-mail, web browsing, and document editing.

With it's small size and ability to leave it on 24/7 without costing much, it has a lot of potential.