Weebl meets Weighted Companion Cube

Portal's Weighted Companion Cube is reaching a level of popular awareness that looks like it could rival that of Mario and Sonic. Cube and Portal references are popping up all over the place.

I first came across the Weebl on B3ta. If you haven't been browsing through the B3ta boards, now is the time to waste several hours laughing hysterically and compulsively clicking.

The latest Weebl flash animation features our friend the Weighted Companion Cube, and some portal gun antics that are predictable, silly, and had me laughing uncontrollably.

Head on over to http://www.weebls-stuff.com/wab/cube/ and enjoy the Weebl Flash goodness.

Portal's clearly a hit, and I hope Valve have the good sense to release longer versions, a level editor, and a multiplayer version - in short order.

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weebl, b3ta, weighted companion cube, valve, portal

Excellent TV ad for glasses

This is a real laugh-out-loud TV advert, highlighting the perils of not wearing your glasses. Fantastic stuff.

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tv, advert, glasses

Followup to the X-Wing

Well, they launched it, and it flew, and the wings moved to attack position.

And then it disintegrated :-(

But while it was flying it looked pretty spectacular:



Hats off to the team who built it for such an awesome job, and I hope they return to the design and improve it.

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x-wing, rocket, explosion

Rocket powered flying X-wing

A team of enthusiasts have build a rocket powered 21 foot X-wing. Really. Gizmodo have an interview with the team that have built this, along with pictures.

The X-wing has 4 solid fuel rockets, and the plan is to launch it, open the wings (they are motorised and controlled via a remote) and then deploy parachutes and recover the X-Wing once the burn is over.

Apart from this being a great achievement, purely from a construction point of view, the Star Wars fan within me is going mental over this.

The team who've built it have experience building other scaled rocket-powered craft, so there's every reason to hope that the X-wing will not only fly, but also make it back to ground successfully.

Who knows? Maybe some enterprising company will start producing these. How long can it be before we start seeing Star Wars craft competing in the Ansari X prize?

They plan the flight on the 10th October - here's looking forward to the X-Wing videos.

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Steel bikes making a comeback?

News from the Interbike 2007 show in the US is that an increasing number of manufacturers are coming out with steel framed bikes.

There's some coverage from Wired here.

To be honest, I can't see why. Steel is heavy, and brittle - it can't stand up to the punishment that a well built aluminium or carbon fibre frame.

My Cannondale F700 has covered over 40,000 tough, abusive miles in the 6 years I've owned it. The CAAD3 frame has put up with a lot of abuse, but apart from the usual scratches and marks it's absolutely fine.

Check out this excellent frame stress test: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/rinard/EFBe/frame_fatigue_test.htm Some very interesting reading there.

For mountain bikes, steel just doesn't give you the confidence and handling that aluminium does. I've yet to try a new Cannondale carbon fibre frame (my local shop recently stopped being a Cannondale dealer) but I'm eager to give them a go, even if I don't want to part with my trusty F700.

Any racing bike riders care to weigh in with comments on the viability of steel frames?

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cycling, aluminium, cannondale, steel, stress test

Will Apple suffer for it's iPhone arrogance?

I must admit, the whole iPhone thing amuses me. Apart from the touch screen, the iPhone is old tech - in Europe we've had phones with that level of functionality (and even more) for the last 3-4 years.

I suspect a huge amount of the hype over the iPhone's capabilities is driven by the appalling state of the US mobile network. It is an utter shambles, at a level that beggars belief.

All that aside (including Apple launching a device in Europe that isn't 3G - madness!) the news of iPhones being bricked by the latest update is astounding.

The thought of a vendor deliberately trashing your mobile device - and refusing to carry out warranty repairs if you've unlocked it - is astounding.

Apple's claims that unlocking your iPhone can cause damage to the machine, thus providing the reason for them refusing warranty service, is utterly ridiculous. Changing a software flag somehow causes battery failure, or the machine to stop reading memory cards?

This might fly on the desktop, but Apple need a swift kick in the nads so they can realise that this just won't work. Europeans have been merrily unlocked their phones for well over a decade - it's your device, it's perfectly legal, and it does nothing to harm the machine.

If somehow unlocking your iPhone caused service issues - then yes, there would be a point. But that would be one dealt with by the carrier, not the manufacturer. In the US, AT&T would be perfectly OK to push an update to the phone that re-locked it - if that fixed the problem, then job done. If not, send it in for a firmware flash.

Momentum is gathering in the US for a Class Action suit, and deservedly so. Apple are behaving in an unbelievably arrogant fashion. With a significant price drop coming so soon after the launch, and with the actual technology in the iPhone hardly earth shattering, Apple need to be working overtime to convince consumers that the iPhone is a better bet that a Nokia N95 or E90 over their 18 month contract.

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apple, iphone, class action, arrogance, nokia n95, nokia e90