A nice bottle of USB

Boing Boing:

“When
California’s Peltier Station Winery created a Port-like fortified wine,
they hit a problem: they’re not in Oporto, Portugal, or anywhere near
it. So they couldn’t very well call it Port.

The solution was, in the age of the ascendant geek, obvious. So welcome a nice bottle of USB to your wine cellar.”

Portfolio [6 West Design via Music Radar, the Dieline]

Wars and social unrest lead to more zombie movies?

Boing Boing:

“Annalee Newitz from the science fiction blog io9 says,

We did a study (with related analytical chart!) of how many zombie movies got released every year since 1910, created a line graph of them, and correlated spikes in zombie movie production with social unrest. It was actually quite eerie, because wars and social upheavals always seem to be followed by a giant leap in numbers of zombie movies in theaters. Coincidence? You be the judge!”

War and Social Upheaval Causes Spikes in Zombie Movies (io9)

WoW Exceeds 11m Players

Holy crap, when will the juggernaut stop?

Scifi Wire:

“Blizzard Entertainment announced that the subscribership for World of Warcraft has exceeded 11 million players worldwide.”

Vampire Hunters Kit: Take Dracula Down a Notch

Nerd Approved:

“Next time a vampire shows up to suck your blood, be prepared with this Roman Catholic approved Vampire Hunters
Kit. You’ll sleep easier knowing that you have some holy water and some
unblessed Eucharist wafers nearby in case you need to take that bastard
down in the middle of the night. However, you novice vampire hunters
may find yourselves S.O.L. if you can’t read the Romanian killing
instructions.”

Product Page ($85)

Link Between Physical and Emotional Warmth: Hot Cup of Coffee Makes Perfect Stranger More Attractive

Neatorama:

“Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder discovered the
secret of making yourself more attractive to other people: give them a
hot cup of coffee!

Looking to improve your romantic odds? Get your date a steaming cup of coffee.

That’s the implication of a new study by researchers who wanted
to see if there was any connection between physical and emotional heat.
To their surprise, they found that people who held a cup of hot coffee
for 10 to 25 seconds warmed to a perfect stranger. Holding a cup of
iced coffee had the opposite effect.

If you want to make a good impression, advised study author
Lawrence E. Williams, a University of Colorado at Boulder assistant
professor of marketing, a fresh cup of coffee “may bias the situation
in your favor.”

LINK

Microsoft details pre-beta release of Windows 7

Engadget:

“We knew good and well Microsoft was gearing up to drop a pre-beta release of Windows 7
in developers’ laps at its Professional Developers Conference, but now
we’re being treated to a host of details from Redmond itself. For
starters, it’s showing off (for the first time, mind you) its new Web
applications for Office. As you’d expect, said apps are “lightweight
versions of Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that
are used from within standard web browsers.” According to Ray Ozzie,
chief software architect at Microsoft, it’s aiming to bring “the best
of the web to Windows, and the best of Windows to the web.” ‘Course,
we’re also told about improved navigation, a new taskbar (preview
shown), support for multi-touch gestures, Device Stage
and enhanced AV integration — all things that have our interest
decidedly piqued. Hit the read link for the full spill direct from the
horse’s mouth.”

The VCR is dead

Boing Boing:

“After years of dogged resolve, JVC will stop producing standalone
VCRs. And there you have it: the last spider crawling out of the eye
socket of the skeletal and long-buried video cassette format. Oh, sure,
we’ll still see video cassettes: there’ll always be the niche gadget or
two that crams a VHS slot into a Blu-Ray player either for kicks or to
separate itself from the competition, just like we still see the
occasional 8-Track player crammed into a CD deck. But if you are
seriously intending on breaking out that box of old Something Weird compilation and watching them again, now’s the time to do it before the VCR goes the way of Cowboy Bebop.”

JVC stops manufacturing VCRs [Trading Markets]

Game Boy iPhone Theme

/gamer:

“Face it, Apple created another easy to use interface when they first introduced the iPhone last year. But to some people, who still want to live in the past, thought it might look to futuristic. Apparently, Rob Sheridan was one of those people because he created this freaking cool theme for the iPhone. As you can tell from the picture above, he hacked his phone and made it look like a original Game Boy — green screen and all. Not only that, he managed to include the excessively large pixels the Game Boy featured back in ‘89.

Rob even gives the users to choose to have the buttons that were
found on the old handheld but now obviously takes advantage of the
touch screen. If you don’t want them, then download just the screen.

Click here to learn how to get your very own iPhone Game Boy theme.”

Source: gonintendo

Liquid Bookmarks in hemoglobin, milk, mercury

Boing Boing:

“Liquid Bookmarks: short of nicking an artery and spurting a
copper-scented gout upon the page, the best way to mark your place
during an annual Halloween re-reading of The Books of Blood. A set of three (milk, hemoglobin, mercury) cost $29.”

Liquid Bookmarks [Design Boom]

Manage Files On Any Machine With MuCommander

Lifehacker:

“Windows/Mac/Linux:
If you’re not a fan of your system’s tools for managing files on your
computer, check out MuCommander. The free, open source download will
run on nearly any operating system, including Windows, Mac OS X and
your favorite flavor of Linux, and in 21 different languages. Drag and
drop between two panes visually, or hack away in the command shell. It
also supports most network file transfer protocols, such as FTP, and
will even let you browse the contents of archives like ZIP and disk
images like ISO without having to uncompress or mount them,
respectively. Pictured is an image file viewed directly from an SFTP
server — handy! MuCommander is a free download for all platforms.”

MuCommander [via Download Squad]