You'll find this guy on his couch, sporting an ironic t-shirt with a delivery-food stain of some kind. He "commuted" minutes earlier by rolling out of bed and over to his laptop in his shoebox-sized Brooklyn (Williamsburg) apartment littered with empty Redbull cans. He came to Gizmodo 9 months ago after deciding that "traditional media" wasn't edgy enough (read: required pants and didn't like it when he powered down walls of TVs). He only puts on pants in order to put electronics down them, and he gets very upset if you mess with his Star Wars legos. He genuinely believes that the hot PR girl is into him and not just trying to get a post. He overuses the word "fail."

OK, so I might commute from my bed to my desk, sure. And yeah, I order a lot of delivery. But I live in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, not Williamsburg! And PR girls love me because I'm charming! Go ahead, ask any of them! Also, I don't wear glasses. Fail, Best Buy. Major fail.

Update: It looks like he pulled the post for some reason. Here's a screencap so you know I didn't make this all up:

Update 2: Looks like his post is back up with a new ass-covering intro. We knew you were a good sport, Barry. [Barry Judge]

People love cheating death by standing right under some Tesla Coils going crazy, protecting themselves in Faraday Cages.

They also like playing music through Tesla Coils, especially super nerdy music like the Zelda theme song.

And people even use his toys to protect their computers, although that ones isn't all to practical. You can see that one in action above.

So for all that you've done for us, we thank you Mr. Tesla. Here's to another couple of centuries of shocking fun.

Send your best entries to me at contests@gizmodo.com with Retro Gadgets in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs, PNGs or GIFs, and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. Send your work to me by next Tuesday morning, and I'll pick three top winners and show off the rest of the best in our Gallery of Champions. Get to it!

Gerardine Botte, an Ohio University professor, sees the liquid as a solution thanks to the particular composition of its major component, urea. Its make-up, a 2-to-1 ratio of hydrogen and nitrogen, is convenient because hydrogen can be extracted from nitrogen using much less electricity than that needed to, say, pull apart hydrogen and oxygen. (It's a matter of 0.037 Volts versus 1.23 Volts, if you really need to know.)

They're still working on the logistics of it, but I look forward to the day when I'll be using a toilet that powers the phone I'm using while sitting on it with my own emissions. The future is at hand! [Discovery via PopSci]

This is the second design of these sticks, redesigned after fans complained that the first ones weren't faithful enough to the Dreamcast original. And if any company needs to listen to the whines of fanboys, it's a high-end Japanese peripheral company that makes $300 controllers designed for $15 games. [Insert Credit via Kotaku]

Here's the email people who placed "pre-orders" received:

Hello.

We love that you liked the i.Saw enough to pre-order.

Truth is, you already own a chainsaw. Your keyboard.

Help save more trees by cutting down on unnecessary printing. Download PaperCut, a free application that plays the sound of a chainsaw each time you press Ctrl-P.

Available for Mac and PC.

Thanks for the support. Help spread the buzz, if you will :)

PaperCut Team
(formerly known as i.Saw Team)

This is my kind of prank: it was clever, harmless and didn't disrupt anyone trying to do their jobs or harass anyone. Instead, it gave us a fun diversion with the goal of having us pause and thing about an issue with real merit. Good on you, PaperCut. Those douches at PETA could learn a thing or two from you. [PaperCut]

A little known fact about me is that I worked at Best Buy for a couple of years in high school before getting fired for badly, badly abusing the employee discount system. But while there I learned a lot about the types of people that work in such an establishment, and I've noticed the same people in other Best Buys that I've been to since. So here are my list of the seven types of people you'll find there, from a former employee's perspective.

Next time you go to Best Buy, be on the lookout. I promise you'll see at least a couple of these characters.

Illustrations by the illustrious Dan Meth, the artist behind such gems as the Pop Culture Charts and the animated Phone Sex Fetishes.

Want to ditch this gallery format and see everything on one page? Click here.

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Car Audio Thug
You'll find this guy in the car audio department. He's got a big plug earring in each ear, some form of facial hair out of a late-90's R&B video and tattoos on his forearms. He tears into the parking lot every day, tires squealing, bass blasting, in a late-model Civic that he's dumped thousands of dollars into. You suspect that if he didn't have a job selling car stereos, he'd be stealing them.

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Marginally Cute Customer Service Girl
This girl works at the customer service desk or as a cashier. She's maybe 17 years old and is kind of cute, but only when compared to the chubby piles of sadness she's surrounded with. Because of this, she's constantly hit on/sexually harassed by the guys who stock CDs and DVDs. She manages to take this in stride somehow and is almost infuriatingly perky and chipper. The chances of her having hooked up with the car audio thug are very high.

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Grizzled Old Home Theater/Computer Sales Lifer
This guy has seen some shit. He's a refugee from Lechmere or Tweeter or some other now-defunct retail outlet. He knows the most about the products he sells, which is why all the part-time high school employees send customers with actual questions his way. He's got an air of resigned acceptance about his life, and while he's all-business with customers, he's got no filter with fellow employees. He tells inappropriate jokes and talks vulgarly about the managers behind their back. He has a strictly regimented cigarette break every 2.5 hours that he never, ever misses.

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Pervy Geek Squad Guy
This guy searches every computer that's in for service for porn, collecting everything he finds on an external HDD that he keeps in the back. He talks in graphic terms about what he'd do to women who he sees enter the store, but when he talks to them he's totally professional. You suspect that he pleasures himself behind the plastic curtains, but you don't want to confirm this. He's got a level 80 World of Warcraft character. Somehow, he and the grizzled old sales guy are buddies and eat lunch together.

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Sad Department Manager
This guy went to college then, after graduation, moved back home with his parents to save money. He ended up getting a job at Best Buy while he "figured stuff out." It's 10 years later and he still lives in the town he went to high school in, is balding, gained 15 pounds and is the manager of the digital cameras department. He's perfectly adequate at his job, but talking to him for more than 5 minutes just makes you so damned sad.

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Slick Careerist Manager
This guy wants to go right to the top. He runs team meetings, irons his blue polos, and gets a hard-on when talking about accessory sales and service-plan attach rates. He's climbing the ladder with everything he's got, and he spews corporate nonsense with the passion of a true believer. You've never seen him have an actual human interaction with someone, and you wonder if he even has any furniture in his apartment. He may be a robot.

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Terrifying Loss-Prevention Guy
This guy is either an ex-con, an ex-cop or a vet. He is jacked yet forced to wear a yellow polo shirt, which creates a false sense of levity when dealing with him. He may seem friendly on the outside, but if you cross him he will snap your neck. He legitimately thinks that it's unfair that Best Buy security guys aren't allowed to carry sidearms. He has so much rage bottled up inside him that you know to just say hello and smile and otherwise steer clear.

The 125,000-square-foot facility was one of the crown jewels of the world of particle physics back then, but at this point its sadly outdated and has outlived its usefulness. But back in the '50s, it earned a Nobel Prize for Emilio Segré and Owen Chamberlain, who discovered the antiproton within a year of the Bevatron's completion.

Just think: how long will it take for us to decide that the Large Hadron Collider is an outdated piece of junk? And what will we be replacing it with? [Wired Science]

this eye-catching digital signage system consists of a 0.3-millimeter-thick high-luminance rear-projection film (Vikuiti Rear Projection Film developed by 3M) applied to a 3-millimeter-thick glass substrate cut into the shape of a woman. A rear projector beams video onto the film, whose microbead-arrayed surface produces a crisp, brilliant image viewable from any angle, even in brightly lit environments.

That's all well and good, but can she pretend to not be skeeved out by chubby, sweaty dudes who want their pictures taken with her? That's the sign of a real booth babe. [Robot Watch via Pink Tentacle]

Lifehacker's Adam Pash didn't have much luck getting the Windows-only program to work, but if you can, it looks to be pretty great. Sure, they want you to pay for the pro version to rip HD video, but you're setting yourself up for anger if you do that, as the chances are good that Hulu will try to block this thing in the not-too-distant future. So just get the free version and enjoy it while it lasts. [Hulu Video Downloader via Lifehacker]

Neill Blomkamp originally made the Halo shorts with Peter Jackson as proof of concept for the Halo movie that he was supposed to direct. As it was to be his first film, the studios got nervous, and now that film looks unlikely to be made. So instead he made a movie based on his own ideas rather than Bungie's.

So not only is Neill Blomkamp at the helm, but he's again got Peter Jackson's WETA doing the special effects for him. As for the story, it's about a world where aliens have landed and settled on Earth. They want to leave, but we humans brilliantly make them second-class citizens and put them in ghettos while we try to figure their advanced technology out. Things don't go well.

The movie is based on a non-Halo-related short film that Blomkamp made that you can see here. District 9 comes out on August 14th, and I will be seeing it that night.

The entire exterior is covered with curved fins that generate wind energy while also making it look like a huge cloud. At least it would be, if it was selected as the winning entry in the contest to design the performing arts center. Which is wasn't. But still, it's a pretty stunning design. [Plus Mood via Inhabitat]

Nice work, jackass! You were probably doing something totally boring and didn't look at your watch right as that second passed. The rest of us, who were paying close attention, sort of half smiled and though "oh, neat" to ourselves before going back to work.

If you're desperate for that same feeling, there's always 04:05:06 07/08/09 later this afternoon.

The HDR-CX520V comes with 64GB of internal flash memory, while the HDR-CX500V comes with 32GB. The big feature Sony is touting is Face Touch, which lets you select a face on the touchscreen viewfinder and have the camera automatically focus on that person no matter where they are in the frame. It also has advance image stabilization tech on board. Also, GPS features let you geotag your videos, so you can figure out exactly where you were when you got video of the chupacabra. Also special to the cams is their low light boost, which uses a backlight CMOS sensor for double the light sensitivity.

They're both dropping in September for $1,100 and $1,300.

SONY UNVEILS NEW FLASH MEMORY CAMCORDERS

with ADvanced optics, new TECHNOLOGY

SAN DIEGO, July 7, 2009 – Sony today announced its new HDR-CX520V and HDR-CX500V Handycam® camcorders, which capture full1920x1080 high-definition video and up to 12-megapixel photos on a 64GB or 32GB internal flash memory, respectively, offering up to 25 hours of HD video (LP mode).

"These models combine the best in digital imaging technology, strengthening Sony's industry leadership and meeting demand for both quality camcorders and HD video," said Kelly Davis, director of the camcorder business for Sony Electronics. "Expanding our lineup to include Handycam camcorders with large capacity embedded flash memory allows us to offer consumers flexible recording solutions concentrated in a very portable, compact body."

Advanced Features and Performance

For optimal playback, the HDR-CX520V and HDR-CX500V camcorders feature 60p output, which automatically converts content to 60 progressive frames per second when connected to a compatible high-definition television.

Another notable feature, Optical SteadyShot™ with Active Mode (which allows a moveable lens element to shift with greater range of motion during camera shake) now offers 3-Way Shake Canceling. This feature reduces hand shake in three directions – vertical and horizontal shake corrected by optical image stabilization and the third, by way of electronic image stabilization, facilitates correction for lateral-roll shake. By employing a wider camera shake correction angle and improved compensation algorithms, blur caused by rolling wrist movements is reduced so users can shoot smoother movie footage on the move.

Prime Functionality

Sony's powerful BIONZ™ imaging processor is adding a Face Touch function. With Face Touch, users can select a person to be prioritized by the camcorder simply by touching a detected face on the screen. The camcorders prioritize and optimize focus, skin color, and brightness for the selected individual, even if they leave the scene, for the entire recording session. This new feature is a function of Face Detection, which also incorporates Smile Shutter™ technology to capture candid smiling photos while simultaneously recording video. When Face Touch is activated, the Smile Shutter feature only activates automatically in response to the smiles of the selected person.

These models also have a back-illuminated "Exmor R" CMOS sensor to provide stunning low light performance with approximately twice the sensitivity compared to Sony's existing front-illuminated CMOS sensor at F2.0. The sophisticated G lens fuses advanced optics and low dispersion aspheric glass elements for accurate color reproduction and sharp, detailed images. A six-blade aperture produces circular "bokeh" defocus effects for creative shooting possibilities.

To effortlessly track your destinations on a map, the camcorder's built-in GPS antenna and NAVTEQ® digital maps geo-tag your videos and photos. Geo-tagged content is marked by a virtual push pin at each shot location and can be played back on the camcorder map index display on the three-inch (measured diagonally) wide touch panel LCD.

Introducing new technology to down-convert from AVCHD™ to MPEG2, Sony eliminates the need for a PC and allows for simple DVD creation with the optional DVDirect Express (VRD-P1) DVD writer.

When the camcorders are connected to the DVDirect Express (sold separately for around $150) via a USB cable, they will instantly burn HD video footage onto a DVD. The camcorder can even down-convert content and burn DVDs in standard-definition picture quality, providing familyographers a way to "future proof" their memories. The down conversion feature allows owners of standard-definition players to capture video in the highest quality and have the option of playing in standard-definition now or saving HD content for when they upgrade to a Blu-ray disk player at a later time.

Other powerful features include a built-in zoom microphone with Dolby® Digital 5.1-channel surround sound and an instant power-on feature when the LCD is opened that lets you capture the moment without delay. The camcorders' advanced user interface features a new operation bar, which allows scroll searching for all menu items, and a customizable shortcut menu. Improving upon the Highlight Playback feature that personalizes video footage by generating a video slideshow with theme transitions and background music, Sony introduces Highlight Scenario, which saves up to eight highlight scenes for viewing again later. These models also include Picture Motion Browser software to easily view, edit, organize and upload images to many major video and photo sharing Web sites. Mac users can transfer AVCHD recorded data and edit video clips in HD image quality using iMovie software.

In addition to built-in flash memory, the models can record content to optional Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo™ HX media (currently sold separately in capacities up to 16GB, a 32GB card will be available in September). Using Sony's PRO-HG Duo HX format, consumers can transfer nearly two hours of full high-definition video to a PC in approximately 13 minutes (using supplied adapter).

Price and Availability

The HDR-CX500V and HDR-CX520V will be available in September for about $1,100 and $1,300 respectively. They will be available at Sony Style® retail stores, online through www.sonystyle.com and at authorized dealers nationwide.

This "Shaking Hip USB" device places an underwear-clad ass on a pedastal on your desk. An ass that looks suspiciously masculine, might I add. It then, presumably, shakes. All this for a mere $26 plus shipping! [GeekStuff4U via Akihabara News]

Just imagine trying to write on a table that's vibrating with sound. Or how tense you'll get every time someone rests a drink on it, coaster or no coaster. Or how futile it'll be to try to fit this into the decor in your home. There's a reason speakers and tables are separate pieces of furniture. Don't rock the boat. [LuxuryIssues via BornRich]

The Autonomobile, or ATNMBL, is a giant vehicle with panoramic windows that throws speed out the window. Instead, it focuses on the journey, driving to your destination automatically while you sit on the wrap-around sofa passenger seat and take in the view or interact with the entertainment system. It's powered by solar panels on the roof and has no way of the user controlling it.

It's a mere concept for now, obviously, but an interesting one. I can't imagine our car-crazy culture going for such a big change in how we get around, but this seems just right for urban environments where traffic prevents us from moving at any type of real speed anyways. [Dezeen via Fast Company]

Constructed using a pair of Ikea Billy bookcases, a piece of fiberboard and some hinges. Sure, it would be easier to just clean the office rather than hide it away. And yes, you'll be worrying about knocking stuff off of your bookshelf every time you open and close the door. And light leaks from around it when the light is on in the office. But guys, it's a secret passage! A secret passage is always worth it. [Flickr via Lifehacker]

Jen Hui Lia's Self-Portrait Machine takes your picture and then guides your hands into drawing your own portrait. You slip your wrists and index fingers into the straps, hold a pen and the machine does the rest.

It's sort of gimmicky now, sure, but imagine the next generation of this thing: instead of a picture as the source, it uses your brainwaves to put down whatever you're picturing in your head on paper. Who needs talent? [We Make Money Not Art]

While yesterday had Verizon reps telling us that the Tour would only be available to new customers or Verizon customers at the end of their contracts, the site has since been updated:

Existing customers will be able to upgrade or purchase the BlackBerry Tour on this site very soon. Please check back with us tomorrow.

There we go, that makes a lot more sense. [Verizon via Boy Genius Report]

I'm going to go with the latter. I mean, look at it! The disc cover opens so you can put in your iPhone! It comes with a super-detailed controller charm! It's absolutely fucking adorable. And for $20 (plus $7 for the controller), I really don't know how I'm going to show the restraint to not buy one right this minute.

[Etsy via iPhone Savior]

It is very similar to the first C64 laptop I built, with the key difference being it uses the newer 1541-III Ultimate SD-card based storage solution / disk emulator. USB and Ethernet ports for this device are open and available on the front of the unit.

Want it? You'll need to wait until the auction goes live. All proceeds will benefit the American Cancer Society, so really, it'd be a good deed to buy it. Right? [Ben Heck via CrunchGear]

Silver members will get a 3-month, ad-supported trial. Gold members get full access to the service, but they'll also be stuck watching ads. To fully escape advertisements, you'll need to subscribe, which will also bring some extra features that have yet to be detailed. And there's no word on how much it'll cost, but seeing as a regular Last.fm membership is $3 a month, it probably won't be very much.

As to whether or not you'll be able to play Last.fm station streams in-game, well, they still haven't clarified that for whatever reason. Or when exactly this will all happen. Eventually, one's got to assume, they'll give us all of the details. [Kotaku via Joystiq]

The crew at DeepSeaNews.com sent the video over to Dr. Timothy S. Wood, an expert on freshwater bryozoa and an officer with the International Bryozoology Association (what fun parties they must have, eh?), and he had this to say about it:

Thanks for the video – I had not see it before. No, these are not bryozoans! They are clumps of annelid worms, almost certainly tubificids (Naididae, probably genus Tubifex). Normally these occur in soil and sediment, especially at the bottom and edges of polluted streams. In the photo they have apparently entered a pipeline somehow, and in the absence of soil they are coiling around each other. The contractions you see are the result of a single worm contracting and then stimulating all the others to do the same almost simultaneously, so it looks like a single big muscle contracting. Interesting video.

Here's a more clear video of these Tubiflex worms in the wild. Not quite as horrifying, but still pretty gross.
The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser. [Deep Sea News; Thanks, Stevenson]

First Place — Nick Dwyer
Second Place —T. Baxter
Third Place — Dave Corrasa

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Yes, the Ped Mouse does just what it claims to do: lets you control your cursor while scraping away at your heel. Practical? No? Gross? Yes. But hey, if the goal was just to prove they could do it while also making something completely ludicrous, mission accomplished. [Stupid Inventions via Craziest Gadgets]

The setup, which is Snyder standing in front of a couple of screens, allows him to freeze the movie as it plays, show the scene being shot next to the final version and compare scenes to panels from the comic book. It's the closest we've seen to actually having the director with you in your living room walking you through the movie. Great stuff.

The Watchmen BD hits on July 21st, and you can preorder it on Amazon for $23. [Slashfilm]

The LOLrioKart consists of a big stack of NiCd aircraft batteries and a 15hp brushless motor rigged up to an old shopping cart with upgraded wheels. As you can see by the video, it travels at a pretty good clip, up to 45MPH. And you've got to assume that in Cambridge, seeing a motorized shopping cart with a nerd inside tooling around on the street isn't all that shocking.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.[MITERS via Equals Zero via The Awesomer]

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[CollegeHumor]