So if you go to Sweden, remember to take the trash down the stairs. Trust me here, there are other—and much better and enjoyable—things to die for in this country.

I had to watch his dementedly baroque video—which is featured at The Standard Hotel, New York—a few times to get all the details. In the process, I got scared but aroused at the same time. Strangely enough, now I want pizza.

Pizza topped with tomato, cheese, little people, marshmallows, flames, and naked angels. [Motionographer via Dark Roasted Blend]

Nokaidoh, on his way to do his rounds at Christus St. Joseph Hospital in Houston, Texas, struggled in vain to free himself as the elevator moved upwards. Stuck between the vice-like doors of the elevator, he was decapitated when the elevator moved to the floor above.

This was the end of Hitoshi's troubles, but just the beginning for the woman who was already in the elevator when it stopped at the second floor. She helplessly witnessed the entire thing and was trapped for 20 minutes with the head before she could be rescued. She had to undergo psychological counseling for months after the incident.

20 minutes. Think about that. Makes walking up a flight of stairs not seem so bad, doesn't it?

This is just more proof that machines have been attacking us for quite some time now.

Machines Behaving Deadly: A week exploring the sometimes difficult relationship between man and technology.

I'm not afraid of heights, but taking an escalator over thin air in an earthquake-plagued nation certainly caught my attention; it made the "floating" observatory feel safe in comparison.

Most people catch on pretty quickly. Just a month after the Hearst Tower opened, some Hearst executives said they were forgetting to push buttons in old-fashioned elevators. "My problem has become that I keep forgetting to press buttons in the elevator in my apartment building, so as I tap tap tap on my BlackBerry, I realize minutes later that the elevator hasn't moved," says Atoosa Rubenstein, the departing editor in chief of Hearst's Seventeen magazine.

Besides being confusing to old people, the elevators cut wait time from 60 to 90 seconds down to 20 to 25 seconds in a busy hotel. – Jason Chen

Buttonless elevators have their ups and downs [NWFdailyNews via Boing Boing]

Just don't push that button at an inopportune time. The video mentions the safety of the system, but to us it looks like an accident waiting to happen. Even so, it could be a secure way to secretly store an extraordinarily valuable vehicle. – Charlie White

PhantomPark Underground Parking Can Turn Your Garage Into The Batcave [Jalopnik]

The artists sell the illusion really well, too, where there's even a sign warning you there's "work in progress." After a few people walk in, though, you'll be able to see the footprints, and the illusion might not be so convincing. But I'd still like to be the first one to step inside. Full-sized pics after the jump. – Charlie White

Elevator Floor Illusion [Hemmy.net, via Digg]

There are startups and then there are startups. Web 2.0 is all fine and dandy and I love AJAX as much as the next person but let's face it, as amazing as Flickr, del.icio.us and MeasureMap are, they and the rest of the new web apps combined and taken to the tenth power aren't even half as sexy as the Space Elevator. The what? Business 2.0's Georgia Flight explains:

Earth is constantly spinning. So if you attach a counterweight to it with a cable, and put it far enough away—62,000 miles—the cable will be held taut by the force of the planet's rotation, just as if you spun around while holding a ball on a string. And if you've got a taut cable, you've got the makings of an elevator.

As strange as that sounds—push the "Up" button, climb in, and soar off into weightless bliss—don't be surprised if it happens. The space elevator is where the PC was in the 1960s: The theory is solid, the materials exist, and people in garages are starting to tinker with the next step. Two Seattle startups are competing to build the elevator. Both believe they can do it within 15 years at a cost of $10 billion. NASA and China's space agency are eager to help make it happen.

And no wonder: A working elevator would reduce the cost of launching anything into space by roughly 98 percent.

98 percent! Biggest discount EVER? So of course the US wants it, China wants it and so does Japan. If and when it does become reality, the country that gets a Space Elevator first will likely have a stranglehold on space commerce for a long time.

The 62,000-Mile Elevator Ride [Business 2.0]
The Space Elevator Reference Blog
Space Elevator [Wikipedia]
"How Space Elevators Will Work" [Howstuffworks]