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the gods hate gadgets
sweet christ i'm blind
Russian Ravers Blinded By Best (and Last) Laser Show They'll Ever See
Another reason I'm glad I was never a rave kiddie whenever it was trendy in the US: Trippy lasers beamed into your eyes will blind you. A gaggle of Russian ravers at the July 5 Aquamarine Open Air Festival discovered this after tents erected to deflect heavy rains partially refracted lasers intended for skyward illumination into their eyes, resulting in nastiness: "Retinal burns, scarring is visible on them. Loss of vision in individual cases is as high as 80 percent, and regaining it is already impossible." Ouch. Strangely, this makes me want to watch Go. [Reuters via Geekologie]
casemod
Geiger Counter PC Casemod Looks Good In Places That Can Kill You
This Russian Geiger Counter casemod (technically an Ion Detector) won't let you know if you're standing waist deep in nuclear radiation, but flick the power switch and the meter jumps to life, letting you know the relatively weak CPU housed inside is working properly. As for the specs inside the box, there's a 300 MHz CPU, 256MB of RAM and a 4GB Compact Flash card for storage. That's more Pong than Half-Life, but it still looks sharp. Just be sure not to mistake it for your real Geiger counter when you're packing for that vacation trip to Chernobyl. [Modding.ru via Technabob]
enemas
Regular Russian City Immortalizes Enema With $42,000 Statue Held Aloft By Angels
The enema is a gadget you probably don't think about too often, but for many people it's a invaluable tool that's made many an uncomfortable situation flow more smoothly. For the Russians, it's obviously something more, because one city there erected an 800-pound, $42,000 statue to honor the device for its many years of unsung service to the backside of mankind. "There is no kitsch or obscenity, it is a successful work of art," said Alexander Kharchenko, a resident of the regularity-loving Zheleznovodsk. "An enema is almost a symbol of our region." That's great, Mr. Kharchenko, but which "region," exactly, are we talking about here? More »
james bond
The Real James Bond Comes to Blu-ray October 21
The best (read: Sean Connery) James Bond is finally coming to Blu-ray when six older Bond flicks are released later this year. Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Thunderball, For Your Eyes Only, Live and Let Die and Die Another Day are hitting Blu-ray on October 21, the same time as the new Daniel Craig movie Quantum of Solace. There are a couple Brosnan and Moore flicks in there too, if you like that sort of thing. No pricing info yet. Expect to pay hundreds of dollars for the entire Bond series on Blu-ray, which you'll have to re-buy again in about 15 years when the next, better format/encoding standard is out.
censorship
Take a look at the above picture. Notice anything strange? Those legs and that hand next to the guy with the microphone belong to a critic of Vladamir Putin named Mikhail G. Delyagin. The rest of him? It's been digitally erased from the entire broadcast, a result of his being placed on a "stop list" of critics of the Russian government and Prime Minister Putin.
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Russian State TV Digitally (and Messily) Erases Government Critics from the Airwaves
Take a look at the above picture. Notice anything strange? Those legs and that hand next to the guy with the microphone belong to a critic of Vladamir Putin named Mikhail G. Delyagin. The rest of him? It's been digitally erased from the entire broadcast, a result of his being placed on a "stop list" of critics of the Russian government and Prime Minister Putin.
More »
military
Russia's Zubr Hovercraft May Finally Justify Use Of "Xtreme"
This admittedly isn't the newest military tech on the block, but The History Channel in us just couldn't help writing it up. Russia makes the world's largest military hovercraft dubbed the "Zubr." It displaces 621 tons and can haul twice the payload of similar boats from the US Navy (somewhere around 150 tons).More »
uav
Georgian UAV Films its Own Demise in Russian MiG Attack
Apparently the latest twist in an ongoing tussle over separatist Abkhazia, this video shows an "unarmed, umanned aerial vehicle" belonging to the Georgian Interior Ministry performing "basic reconnaissance over Georgian territory," according to the Georgians. Whether or not you believe the details in that statement, it's pretty hard to argue with what happens at around 30 seconds into the clip. A Russian MiG29 fighter aircraft shows up, looses off an air to air missile and blows the UAV out of the sky ... on camera. Though we imagine the political fallout is going to be messy, the sight of the missile streaking toward the lens is both chilling and awe-inspiring. [Danger Room]
wtf
A Gasoline-Powered PC? What the Crap?
According to English Russia, this special PC is used to work on fuel "connected directly to the car's gas tank." Hmmm. Apparently "it analyzes the state of the fuel and diagnoses the overall condition of the car, while consuming some gas fluid." Possibly even without detonating and killing everyone nearby. There are more pics in the gallery, shedding more light on the thing, but there's no monitor, keyboard or mouse, and you never really see the drives in action either. Even the backside looks something fishy, and there's no obvious combustion engine either. What's your expert opinion? And what are the chances that this whole brilliant scheme will at some point combust all to hell? [English Russia]
heavy machinery
Russian Billionaire Buys World's Largest Drill, Swears He Won't Drill To America
The following is not the plot to an upcoming Bond film: Russian bootstrap billionaire and Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich announced that his construction company, Infrastruktura, would spend $160 million on the world's largest drill. The drill, five meters wider than the current champ, built by the same German concern, Herrenknecht, would be used to improve the grounds around the Black Sea resort of Sochi, site of 2014 Olympics and favorite hangout of both Stalin and Putin. The company says it will not be used to drill a subterranean roadway from Far Eastern Russia to Alaska. Not yet, at least. More »
rockets
Shepherd Sues Russian Space Agency For Dropped Rocket Debris
Boris Urmatov, a Russian shepherd, is claiming $42,000 (that's one million roubles) from Roskosmos for dropping a 10-foot-long chunk of rocket in his yard. Apparently it just missed his outdoor toilet— we're hoping he wasn't in there at the time. The poor chap's village in the Altai region lies beneath the flight path of rockets launched from the Cosmodrome at Baikonur, so he may actually have a case. The space agency seems relaxed about it all: according to a spokesman "They fly, they fall, they fly, they fall. It's how they work." More »
tanks
It happens from time to time, a man driving a tank lets his vim and vigor get the best of him. In this case, which took place in Russia where both tanks and vodka are plentiful, an allegedly drunk tank driver smashed into a cinderblock house while on a vodka-and-snack run.
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"A Drunk Tank Driver Destroyed My House!"
It happens from time to time, a man driving a tank lets his vim and vigor get the best of him. In this case, which took place in Russia where both tanks and vodka are plentiful, an allegedly drunk tank driver smashed into a cinderblock house while on a vodka-and-snack run.
More »
10:00 AM on Sat Mar 8 2008
By Wilson Rothman
17,678 views,
34 comments
Latest by n/a: It's not Russia, This accident was is Poland. And he was not drunken but the road was "slippy" ;) And Poland is that small country near Russia which ends communism in Europe ;) more »
spamalot
Spambots Can Now Fool Yahoo CAPTCHA Tests: Yes, Worry
You know those anti-spam tests that make you enter funny characters to prove you're a human? Well, non-humans can finally fake their way into systems using the "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" too—even Yahoo's pretty secure system, according to new reports. More »
architecture
Christmas may be over, but if designer Sir Norman Foster has his way, everyone in Moscow will be staring at a 1500-ft-tall, 27 million square foot, $4 billion dollar Christmas tree every day of the year. The structure, dubbed "Crystal Island," is being described as a "city within a building" and will feature 900 apartments, 3000 hotel rooms, an international school for 500 students, cinemas, a theater, a sports complex and more.
More »
World's Biggest Building Coming To Moscow: Looks Like It Will Be Christmas Year-Round
Christmas may be over, but if designer Sir Norman Foster has his way, everyone in Moscow will be staring at a 1500-ft-tall, 27 million square foot, $4 billion dollar Christmas tree every day of the year. The structure, dubbed "Crystal Island," is being described as a "city within a building" and will feature 900 apartments, 3000 hotel rooms, an international school for 500 students, cinemas, a theater, a sports complex and more.
More »
gps
Russia Launches Final Global Positioning Satellites, None of Them of Love
Russians have finally completed GLONASS, which means "Vodka without hangovers" or "global navigation satellite system." This military project began in the mid-'70s as a response to the US-based GPS to languish in the post-Soviet economic crisis until the always nice and charming ex-KGB Vladimir Putin decided to push it big time. They launched the last three satellites yesterday, and the network will be fully operational in 2009. The Russians will use GLONASS alongside the GPS network, just in case our friends in the Pentagon decide to shut some areas out, like they did in Iraq. Next in Gizmodo: How to build nuclear shelters from Campbell's Tomato Soup cans. [Reuters - Image from English Russia]
flying
Helicopter for One Can Be Folded Up, Carried By One Person
This wee helicopter is the Ka-56 "Wasp," a flying vehicle for one that can be folded down and carried by just one person. Designed and created in Soviet Russia in 1971, it doesn't seem to have really gotten beyond the prototype stage. I'm assuming that's because it's horribly dangerous, but it could be for any number of reasons. Guesses, dear commenters? Oh, and the first person to make a "In Soviet Russia, helicopter flies you!" joke gets banned as a Christmas present to me.[English Russia]
le yuk
The Million-Euro Cellphone is A Smorgasbord of Diamonds, Croc and Execrable Taste
This is 1.43 million bucks-worth of telephone. It is hideous. Made by Swiss company Goldvish, the Le Million (what a name, just reeks of (cl)ass, doncha think?) comes in a choice of red, yellow or white gold. Tastefully studded with diamonds and what looks like crocodile skin (although surely croc is far too prosaic for such a phone, perhaps skin from something found in a freezer in Roswell might be more keeping with the exclusiveness of this—this thing) it's not available for just any old pleb, you know. More »
7:14 AM on Fri Dec 21 2007
By AddyDugdale
3,148 views,
7 comments
Latest by Aaron Martin-Colby: @dimo414: Because the people who buy them don't care. It's jewelry. My question is, they could at least use good design principles. This phone is an abomination on all fronts. Good design? Fine, you're rich and nuts, buy it. But more »
bots in disguise
